For those engaged in the sectarian Dead Sea Scrolls movement, membership in the group would have granted them exceptional privileges, including direct and unmediated access to otherworldly realities. This understanding of the present as a type of liminal space is profoundly rooted in the group’s interpretations of time and space. By applying theories of liminality in conjunction with anthropological research on religious consciousness, this study seeks to demonstrate how sectarian identity, along with ritual and liturgical practices, may have cultivated an experience of present communion with divine entities that was both aspirational and designed to promote the human worshiper’s lasting integration into the heavenly realm.

This book explores how the intellectual and literary movements of Russia in the eighteenth and nineteenth centuries affected Jewish thought and Hebrew literature.

By engaging in a comparative analysis of a diverse range of writings from key Russian and Jewish intellectuals, the book uncovers how ideas about the necessity for a national revival spread from Russian to Jewish intellectual circles.

Jewish thinkers who adopted these concepts modified them to correspond with the realities and experiences of Jewish life in Central and Eastern Europe.

Similarly, the portrayals of an individual's search for the true and just God in Russian literature resonated in ideological Hebrew literature, where the protagonist endeavors to find a genuine path to achieve spiritual, social, and national prosperity for the Jewish community.

The incorporation of ideological influences is a widespread phenomenon that plays a significant role in advancement and cultural evolution, and it is acknowledged within Jewish culture as well.

Josephus' Antiquities depicts Moses as the Jewish lawgiver, altering the biblical story for a distinct audience. Nevertheless, who made up that audience, and how did they interpret the term lawgiver? This work utilizes Plutarch's Lives as a proxy for a conceptual audience, providing a historically grounded yet flexible framework of a lawgiver, which emphasizes certain influences that may have been overlooked in understanding Josephus' choices. This methodology reveals patterns of persuasion and resistance in Josephus' engaging and vibrant representation of Moses' legislative activities.

This monograph investigates Josephus’ representations of foreign invasions of Jerusalem as detailed in his Jewish Antiquities. The invasions covered include those by Shishak, Sennacherib, Nebuchadnezzar, Alexander the Great, Antiochus IV Epiphanes, and Pompey the Great. In analyzing these stories, the book views the Jewish Antiquities as an extended "prequel" or backstory to his earlier work, Jewish War, examining how these narratives foreshadow and create connections with his previous account of the war against Rome. Furthermore, the book looks at these narratives within the literary framework of the Jewish Antiquities as a whole and how Josephus’ perceived audience expectations might have influenced his portrayals of these events.

The dual legal codes established by R. Joseph Karo during the late sixteenth and early seventeenth centuries mark a crucial milestone in the development of Jewish Halakhah. No further legal advancements were introduced in the following generations. R. Karo maintained long-standing traditions of Jewish scholarship while simultaneously responding to the global transformations in the history of law and legality, especially in Europe and primarily within the Ottoman Empire. This signifies a thorough interpretation of Jewish Halakhah and the overall modernization of Jewish culture. In this study, Roni Weinstein situates R. Karo's legacy in the context of the concurrent history of the Ottoman Empire.

We interpret the world surrounding us through the constructed spaces we inhabit. These spaces are formed by human activities and, in turn, shape the way people live. This book delves into an analysis of archaeological and textual evidence from the inception of Hasmonean influence in Galilee to the outbreak of the First Jewish War against Rome, exploring how Judaism was socially articulated: in bodily, communal, and regional dimensions. Within each articulation, certain elements of Jewish identity are present, including ideas of purity, communal gatherings, and Galilee's ties with the Hasmoneans, Jerusalem, and the Temple during its last days.

Since the Dead Sea Scrolls were discovered in 1947, their material evidence and compelling content have fascinated both scholars and the general public. Regarded as one of the most significant archaeological finds of the 20th century, the unearthed materials have shed light on and rejuvenated extensive areas of biblical scholarship. However, research into the material findings concerning religious sacrifice has been somewhat overlooked. In this analysis, Jamal-Dominique Hopkins delves into the life and archaeology of Qumran, as well as the valued perspectives on sacrifice found in the non-biblical sectarian Dead Sea Scrolls. Hopkins investigates the historical and ideological evolution of the Jewish priestly movement associated with the scrolls, primarily from the viewpoint of its later offshoot, the Qumran community. This comprehensive study of sacrifice within the Dead Sea Scrolls provides a historical reconstruction of this key community and its captivating narrative. Hopkins uncovers the evolution of a community from its pre-Qumranic to Qumranic phases, which opted to spiritualize the Jerusalem temple and its sacrificial rites. As a result of their displacement to the Qumran desert, due to the absence of the physical temple in Jerusalem, this wandering priestly group perceived itself as a 'temple.' Instead of performing actual animal sacrifices, they offered the fruits of their lips through prayer and praise as an alternative form of sacrifice. By separating from the larger community, this Qumran group transformed into an eschatological community engaged in the practice of cultic spiritualization.

*Wild Visionary* reexamines the life and work of Maurice Sendak through the lens of his identity as a Jewish gay man. Maurice (Moishe) Bernard Sendak (1928–2012) was a passionate, romantic, and surprisingly humorous seeker of truth who made significant contributions to modern literature and culture. By elevating the standards of children's literature, Sendak depicted childhood with a blend of dark realism and vibrant imagination, influenced by his own sensitive 'inner child' and the queer and Yiddish sensibilities that defined his unique voice. Golan Y. Moskowitz intricately weaves together literary biography and cultural history, tracing Sendak's journey from his parents' Brooklyn home to various creative havens—from local movie theaters to Hell's Kitchen, Greenwich Village, Fire Island, and the Connecticut country house he shared with his partner of over fifty years, Eugene Glynn. Additionally, he delves into Sendak's deep connection to the concept of the endangered child, exploring its symbolic ties to significant historical events that shaped the artist's worldview, including the Great Depression, the Holocaust, and the AIDS crisis. Through a thorough examination of Sendak's picture books, interviews, and previously unexamined personal letters, *Wild Visionary* presents a nuanced portrait of one of the most cherished and captivating picture-book artists of our era.

In the early 1900s, as the aspiration for Jewish cultural nationalism in the Diaspora was gaining momentum among advocates for Yiddish, the prominent intellectuals of the time included the "Yiddish historians" who played a crucial role in uncovering the history of East-European Jews. Prior to the Holocaust, their goal was to research and present the foundational history of a vibrant community for an audience of educated lay leaders, utilizing Jewish sources of information whenever possible, to aid in the establishment and strengthening of a Yiddish-speaking nation. Following the Holocaust, their focus shifted to providing solace to the surviving remnants by sharing insights about their struggle to endure under German occupation. This book presents Yiddish writings from these historians in English for the first time, featuring translations by historian Mark L. Smith. Additionally, the book contains an enlightening Conversation with Series Editor Michael Berenbaum and a thought-provoking foreword by Samuel Kassow.

This book features a collection of eight annotated translations of responsa, along with the original Hebrew texts, concentrating on the Spanish-Portuguese communities that arose after the expulsion during the sixteenth to seventeenth centuries. This collection seeks to familiarize the reader with Jews who, after their expulsion, settled in the Ottoman Empire, in Palestine under Mamluk governance, in Amsterdam, and in Brazil. The expulsion of Jews from the Iberian Peninsula was a devastating period in Jewish history; nevertheless, the revitalization of the post-expulsion Spanish-Portuguese Jewish communities in new settings is a reflection of the human spirit and tenacity.