Jewish Contribution to Civilization
Jeremy Cohen and Richard I. Cohen
Abstract
The biblical idea of a distinct 'Jewish contribution to civilization' continues to engage Jews and non-Jews alike. This book seeks neither to document nor to discredit the notion, but rather to investigate the idea itself as it has been understood from the seventeenth century to the present. It explores the role that the concept has played in Jewish self-definition, how it has influenced the political, social, and cultural history of the Jews and of others, and whether discussion of the notion still has relevance in the world today. The book attempts to illustrate the centrality of the questio ... More
The biblical idea of a distinct 'Jewish contribution to civilization' continues to engage Jews and non-Jews alike. This book seeks neither to document nor to discredit the notion, but rather to investigate the idea itself as it has been understood from the seventeenth century to the present. It explores the role that the concept has played in Jewish self-definition, how it has influenced the political, social, and cultural history of the Jews and of others, and whether discussion of the notion still has relevance in the world today. The book attempts to illustrate the centrality of the question in modern Jewish culture in general, and its importance for modern Jewish studies in particular. Part I addresses the idea itself and considers its ramifications. Part II turns to the relationship between Judaism and other monotheistic cultures. Part III introduces various applications and consequences of the debate. The conclusion compares three overviews of Jewish culture and civilization published in America in the twentieth and twenty-first-centuries.
Keywords:
Jews,
Jewish self-definition,
modern Jewish culture,
Judaism,
monotheistic cultures,
Jewish culture
Bibliographic Information
Print publication date: 2007 |
Print ISBN-13: 9781904113522 |
Published to Liverpool Scholarship Online: February 2021 |
DOI:10.3828/liverpool/9781904113522.001.0001 |