Bibliography: Ideas & Beliefs
If you are seeking to build your
personal Jewish library, the following are the top books about Ideas &
Beliefs, as recommended by the editors of MyJewishLearning.com. Click on any
book's title to purchase it.
To go directly to a specific category, click below:
General
Contemporary
Jewish Religious Thought, edited by Alfred A. Cohen and Paul
Mendes-Flohr (Free Press, 1988).
Contemporary
Jewish Theology, edited by Elliot Dorff and Louis Newman (Oxford
University Press, 1998).
Fifty
Key Jewish Thinkers, by Dan Cohn-Sherbok (Routledge, 1997).
Jewish
Ethics, Philosophy and Mysticism, by Louis Jacobs (Behrman House,
1969).
Jewish
Thought Today, by Louis Jacobs (Behrman House, 1970).
Jewish
People, Jewish Thought, by Robert Seltzer (Prentice Hall, 1982).
The
Jewish Philosophy Reader, edited
by Daniel Frank, Oliver Leaman, Charles H. Manekin (Routledge, 2000).
Return to the top.
God
The
Way Into Encountering God in Judaism, by Neil Gillman (Jewish Lights,
2000).
Finding
God: Ten Jewish Responses, by Rifat Sonsino and Daniel B. Syme (Union
of American Hebrew Congregations, 1986).
Jewish
Ideas and Concepts, by Steven T. Katz (Schocken, 1979).
God:
A Biography, by Jack Miles (Vintage Books, 1996).
Return to the top.
Kabbalah & Mysticism
The
Way Into the Jewish Mystical Tradition, by Lawrence Kushner (Jewish
Lights, 2001).
Major
Trends in Jewish Mysticism, by Gershom Scholem (Schocken, 1995).
Kabbalah,
by Gershom Scholem (New American Library Trade, 1987).
Kabbalah:
New Perspectives, by Moshe Idel (Yale University Press, 1990).
Return to the top.
Bioethics
Matters
of Life and Death: A Jewish Approach to Modern Medical Ethics, by
Elliot Dorff (Jewish Publication Society, 1998).
Biomedical
Ethics and Jewish Law, by Fred Rosner (Ktav, 2001).
Medicine
and Jewish Law, by Fred Rosner (Jason Aronson, 1993).
Alternatives
in Jewish Bioethics, by Noam Zohar (State University of New York Press,
1997).
Health
and Medicine in the Jewish Tradition, by David Feldman
(Crossroad/Herder & Herder, 1986).
Return to the top.
Sex & Sexuality
Does
God Belong in the Bedroom?, by Michael Gold (Jewish Publication
Society, 1992).
Every
Person’s Guide to Jewish Sexuality, by Ronald Isaacs (Jason Aronson,
2000).
Love
& Sex: A Modern Jewish Perspective, by Robert Gordis (Farrar Straus & Giroux, 1978).
Jewish
Explorations of Sexuality, edited by Jonathan Magonet (Berghan Books,
1995).
This
Is My Beloved, This Is My Friend, by Elliot Dorff (The Rabbinical
Assembly, 1996).
Matters
of Life and Death: A Jewish Approach to Modern Medical Ethics, by
Elliot Dorff (Jewish Publication Society, 1998).
Return to the top.
Gender & Feminism
On
Being a Jewish Feminist, edited
by Susannah Heschel (Schocken Books, 1995).
Standing
Again at Sinai: Judaism from a Feminist Perspective, by Judith Plaskow
(Harper San Francisco, 1991).
Yentl's
Revenge: The Next Wave of Jewish Feminism, edited by Danya Ruttenberg
(Seal Pr Feminist Pub, 2001).
Return to the top.
Free Will
Freedom
and Moral Responsibility: General and Jewish Perspectives, edited by
Charles H. Manekin and Menachem M. Kellner (University Press of Maryland,
1997).
Return to the top.
Suffering & Evil
Evil
and Suffering in Jewish Philosophy, by Oliver Leaman (Cambridge
University Press, 1997).
Responses
to Suffering in Classical Rabbinic Literature, by David Kraemer (Oxford
University Press, 1995).
Why
Me God?: A Jewish Guide for Coping & Suffering,
by Lisa Aiken (Jason Aronson, 1998).
Return to the top.
Afterlife & Eschatology
The
Death of Death: Resurrection and Immortality in Jewish Thought, by Neil
Gillman (Jewish Lights, 1997).
Does
the Soul Survive?, by Elie Kaplan Spitz (Jewish Lights, 2000).
Essential
Papers on Messianic Movements and Personalities in Jewish History,
edited by Marc Saperstein (New York University Press, 1992).
Return to the top.
Jews
& Non-Jews
The
Image of the Non-Jew in Judaism: An Historical and Constructive Study of the
Noahide Laws, by David Novak (Edwin Mellen Press, 1983).
Does
the World Need the Jews?: Rethinking Chosenness and American Jewish Identity,
by Daniel Gordis (Scribner, 1997).
A
People Apart: Chosenness and Ritual in Jewish Philosophical Thought,
edited by Daniel Frank (State University of New York Press, 1993).
Return to the top.
War & Peace
The
Ethics of War and Peace, edited by Terry Nardin (Princeton University
Press, 1996).
Confronting
Omnicide: Jewish Reflections on Weapons Mass Destruction, edited by
Daniel Landes (Jason Aronson, 1991).
Love
Peace and Pursue Peace: A Jewish Response to War and Nuclear Annihilation,
by Bradley Shavit Artson (United Synagogue,
1988).
The Challenge of Shalom:
The Jewish Tradition of Peace and Justice, edited by Murray Polner and
Naomi Goodman (New Society Pub, 1994).
Theologies
of War and Peace Among Jews, Christians, and Muslims, by Albert B.
Randall (Edwin Mellen Press, 1998).
Pacifism
and the Jews, by Evelyn Wilcock (Hawthorn Press, 1994).
Return to the top.
Land of Israel
Land,
Center, and Diaspora: Jewish Constructs in Late Antiquity, by Isaiah M. Gafni (Sheffield
Academic Press, 1999).
The
Land of Israel: Jewish Perspectives, edited by Lawrence A. Hoffman (The University of Notre Dame Press, 1986).
Israelis
and the Jewish Tradition: An Ancient People Debating Its Future, by
David Hartman (Yale University Press, 2000).
The
Zionist Idea: A Historical Analysis and Reader, edited by Arthur
Hertzberg (Jewish Publication Society, 1997).
The
Jewish State, by Theodor Herzl (Dover Publications, 1989 edition).
The
Postzionism Debates: Knowledge and Power in Israeli Culture, by
Laurence J. Silberstein (Routledge,
1999).
Conflicting
Visions, by David Hartman (Schocken, 1990).
Return to the top.
Science
& Judaism
Judaism
and Science: A Historical Introduction (Greenwood
Guides to Science and Religion), by Noah J. Efron (Greenwood Press,
2006).
Jewish
Thought and Scientific Discovery in Early Modern Europe, by David B.
Ruderman and Moshe Idel (Wayne State University Press, 2001).
The
Challenge of Creation: Judaism's Encounter with Science, Cosmology, and
Evolution, by Natan Slifkin (Zoo Torah, 2006).
Genesis
and the Big Bang: The Discovery Of Harmony Between Modern Science And The Bible, by
Gerald Schroeder (Bantam, 2001).
Return to the top.
