Full Description
The ubiquity of friendship in human culture contributes to the fallacy that ideas about friendship have not changed and remained consistent throughout history. It is only when we begin to inquire into the nature and significance of the concept in specific contexts that we discover how complex it truly is. Covering the vast expanse of Jewish tradition, from ancient Israel to the twenty-first century, this collection of essays traces the history of the beliefs, rituals, and social practices surrounding friendship in Jewish life.
Employing diverse methodological approaches, this volume explores the particulars of the many varied forms that friendship has taken in the different regions where Jews have lived, including the ancient Near East, the Greco-Roman world, Europe, and the United Sates. The four sections—friendship between men, friendship between women, challenges to friendship, and friendships that cross boundaries, especially between Jews and Christians, or men and women—represent and exemplify universal themes and questions about human interrelationships. This pathbreaking and timely study will inspire further research and provide the groundwork for future explorations of the topic.
In addition to the editor, the contributors are Martha Ackelsberg, Michela Andreatta, Joseph Davis, Glenn Dynner, Eitan P. Fishbane, Susannah Heschel, Daniel Jütte, Eyal Levinson, Saul M. Olyan, George Savran, and Hava Tirosh-Samuelson.
Contents
Acknowledgements
Introduction: Studying Friendship in Jewish History, Religion, and Culture
Lawrence Fine
Part 1: Love, Intimacy, and Friendship Between Men
1. "Cherished in Life, for They Loved Each Other Exceedingly":
Friendship in Medieval Ashkenaz
Eyal Levinson
2. God in the Face of the Other: Mystical Friendship in the Zohar
Eitan P. Fishbane
3. Friendship and Gender: The Limits and Possibilities of Jewish Philosophy
Hava Tirosh-Samuelson
Part 2: Women and the Bonds of Friendship
4. "She and Her Friends": On Women's Friendship in Biblical Narrative
Saul M. Olyan
5. Friends and Friendship in the Memoir of Glückel of Hameln:
Learning from Experience
Joseph Davis
6. "Got Yourself Some Friends? Now Build a Movement!" Friendship in the Jewish Women's Movement in the United States
Martha Ackelsberg
Part 3: Friendship and its Challenges
7. Jacob and Esau: Twinship, Identity, and Failed Friendship
George Savran
8. Hebraica Amicitia: Leon Modena and the Cultural Practices of Early Modern Intra-Jewish Friendship
Michela Andreatta
9. Friendship and Betrayal: Hasidism and Secularism in Early
Twentieth-Century Poland
Glenn Dynner
Part 4: Crossing Boundaries: Friendship Between Women and Men, and Between Jews and Gentiles
10. Interfaith Encounters Between Jews and Christians in the Early Modern Period and Beyond: Toward a Framework
Daniel Jütte
11. Friendship, Jewish Female Philosophers, and Feminism
Hava Tirosh-Samuelson
12. A Friendship in the Prophetic Tradition: Abraham Joshua Heschel and Martin Luther King Jr.
Susannah Heschel
List of Contributors
Index
