Jewish Revival Inside Out

In the light of the radical focus on Central European Jewish identity with the Russian invasion of Ukraine in 2022, where a Jewish president was falsely accused of being at the helm of a Nazi state, a comprehensive study of how Jewish identity has been transformed in our global world was needed; the present volume with its reach from Israel to Germany to (indeed) Ukraine, more than fulfills the bill. This is an important addition to our understanding of the debates about the intersection of religious, ethic, and political images of the Jew in the modern world.

~Sander Gilman

A bold and global approach to today's complex Jewish experiences. Looking beyond the two demographic centers of Jewish life, it includes foci on Europe, where communal continuity was devastated, and Asian-inspired hybrid spiritualities emerging in North America or encountered by young Israelis traveling eastward. Recommended for those willing to rethink assumptions about the contemporary meaning of the adjective 'Jewish.'

~Harvey Goldberg, Emeritus Professor, Hebrew University of Jerusalem

The rhizome of ethoses and practices of Jewishness unraveled in Jewish Revival Inside Out transcends cultural and national boundaries to suggest an evergreen dynamic of thriving Jewish identities in a post-Holocaust era. The mélange of embodiments of Jewish affiliations and associations vibrantly depicted in the book testifies to the diasporic decentralization of all manner of Jewishly inspired living among various circles and communities. The authors of this volume, while addressing different manifestations of this move, daringly and originally argue that through reclaiming and remaking Jewishness, an excitingly budding cultural turn emerges. It heralds new ways of surviving a self-contradictory, yet hybridized world, compounding secularization, fundamentalism, globalization, and nationalism.

~Haim Hazan, Professor Emeritus of Social Anthropology, Tel Aviv University

What a feast this is, drawn from an eclectic and refreshingly global menu of contemporary cultural performances of Jewish revival. For those who take pleasure in accounts of Jewish innovations, both enduring and ephemeral, here are the inside stories, thoughtfully parsed, with an abundance of judicious, yet still juicy detail.

~Vanessa Ochs, Professor of Religious Studies, University of Virginia