One Hundred Great Jewish Books by Rabbi Lawrence A. Hoffman is now available!
One Hundred Great Jewish Books: Three Millennia of Jewish Conversation
Here’s more about the book from his blog:
One Hundred Great Jewish Books: Three Millennia of Jewish Conversation reflects an idea I have been playing with for about a decade now. What is Judaism, if not an identity that is portrayed through a rolling conversation across the centuries! The book is a running record of the conversation as portrayed through every variety of Jewish book: classical texts and medieval responsa, but also modern fiction, short stories, histories, biographies, and even comic books, encyclopedias, and cook books. I read over 200 books to make the selection, but here it is at last: my running guide to the Jewish conversational record.
[Update: There’s a very helpful review by Neal Gendler here.]
2 Responses
The Jews have, throughout history, been about the most literate of all societies.
I think that Christians tend to imagine that they know all about Jews because of their scriptures, and are surprised to learn that they no longer wear “bathrobes and Birkenstein sandles” and don’t actually have horns and foam at the mouth with murderous venom when you mention Jesus! Perhaps this book will serve to broaden the view.
I’m also looking forward to seeing “Sholem Alechim” this weekend… it is a flick about the cultural insight and impact of the author of “Fiddler on the Roof”.
[…] give a tip of the hat to Joel Hoffman for bringing this to our attention. Dr. Hoffman adds: “I may be biased, but it seems to […]