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Article: Major Turning Points in Jewish Intellectual History.(Book Review)
- Article from:
- Shofar
- Article date:
- January 1, 2006
- Author:
CopyrightCOPYRIGHT 2006 University of Nebraska Press. This material is published under license from the publisher through the Gale Group, Farmington Hills, Michigan. All inquiries regarding rights should be directed to the Gale Group. (Hide copyright information)
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Major Turning Points in Jewish Intellectual History, by David Aberbach. Basingstoke, England: Palgrave MacMillan, 2003. 220 pp. $69.00.
In the thematic introduction to his collection of essays, Aberbach lists four major transformations in Judaism: "[1] from idolatry to monotheism ... [2] from biblical to rabbinic Judaism ... [3] increasing absorption of secular learning under medieval Islamic rule ... [4] from being mainly a religious, working class, rural, impoverished, diaspora-based, Yiddish-speaking people, to a secular, middle class people with a reborn Jewish state in which Hebrew was revived spectacularly" (p. ix). The first two essays treat the ...