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Finding a Spiritual Home: How a New Generation of Jews Can
Transform the American Synagogue, by Rabbi Sidney Schwarz
A few words about Kaplan's writings, starting with a warning: reading Kaplan can be boring. His style and language strike us as out-dated. He is often redundant, and long-winded. Yet at times, his writing is lucid, interesting, and nothing short of brilliant. So feel free to skim, but keep your eyes open. Second: most of Kaplan's books provide detailed tables of contents, in which the chapters are sub- divided into specific small chunks. I recommend getting a book or two, and looking at the contents for interesting pieces. Browse a little here and there; get a good feel for Kaplan; and maybe you'll read on . . .
Scult & Goldsmith edited Dynamic Judaism: The Essential Writings of Mordecai M. Kaplan, a readable Kaplan anthology drawing from all of his works, excerpting good, short pieces.
Kaplan, Mordecai M. Meaning of God in Modern Jewish Religion, Reconstructionist Press, NY, 1937. Reprinted many times. I find this his most interesting book; he develops his ideas in relation to the Jewish calendar. I recommend it all. Highlights include pp. 1-39, reinterpreting the God idea and setting up his thesis, and 188-201, God in nature and history, as seen in three pilgrimage festivals.
Kaplan, Judaism as a Civilization, Macmillan, NY, 1934. Reprinted many times. His first & biggest; his magnum opus. If you can, read it all; if not, you're forgiven. Look especially at Part 3, the proposed version of Judaism (173-224), and Chapter 29 (431-459) on folkways. Kaplan's disciple and son-in-law, Ira Eisenstein, digested JC into a much slimmer volume, Creative Judaism (1936; oft reprinted).
Kaplan, Questions Jews Ask, Recon. Press, NY, 1956; revised 1966, and reprinted. His most practical book: Especially Chapter 7 (425-508), on the Recon. movement, and pp. 77-89.
Kaplan, Future of the American Jew, Macmillan, NY, 1948. Long and uneven, but parts are indispensable. See especially Ch. 13 on chosenness (211-230) and Ch. 20 on Jewish women (402-412); also Ch. 2, a Program of Reconstruction (34-57); Ch. 5, Living in Two Civilizations (94-105); Ch. 18, Jewish Continuity and Change (372-386); and Epilogue.
For more about Kaplan rather than by him, Scult also edited American Judaism of Mordecai M. Kaplan, a series of essays on Kaplan's life and thought, some of which are very interesting. The 1952 Mordecai M. Kaplan: An Evaluation, edited by Ira Eisenstein & Eugene Kohn, is by Kaplan's own contemporaries; it includes his useful 40-page autobiographical and ideological synopsis, "The Way I Have Come."
For modern Reconstructionism, start with the brief, useful Exploring Judaism: A Reconstructionist Approach, by Rebecca Alpert and Jacob Staub; available from Recon. Press (270 W. 89th St., NY, NY 10024). On theology: Art Green, Neo-Hasidism, in Raayonot, Summer 1984; and Harold Schulweis, Predicate Theology, in Reconstructionist, Feb. 1975 (41:1.) Two more great articles from the Reconstructionist magazine are Marcia Falk, New (feminist) Blessings, Dec. 1987 (53:3), and Sidney Schwarz, Reconstructionism as Process, June 1979 (45:4). And of course, for the ultimate feminist reconstruction: Standing Again at Sinai: Judaism from a Feminist Perspective, by Judith Plaskow; Harper & Row, S.F., 1990. Go and learn!
If we are promoting books on the listserve, I would strongly encourage you to support independent booksellers. Politics & Prose is our neighborhood book store. I AM NOT an investor, just invested in seeing it and it's likes survive and flourish. I am sure you can place an order with them via e-mail if you are not in the neighborhood.
You might try jewish.com on the internet, this is a Jewish community on line and they have all sorts of resources.
Also, There is Abes Jewish bookstore in Silver Spring on Georgia Ave. My favorite place to browse.
www.abebooks.com gets 72 hits on Mordecai Kaplan; www.bibliofind.com gets about 50 hits on Mordecai Kaplan, www.alibris.com, which has changed URLs and focuses on rare books, got 7 hits on good ol Mordecai.
The Jewish bookstore (also known as Lisbon's) on University Boulevard (next to Shalom kosher market, and next to Max's Kosher restaurant which has **great** falafel!) usually has one or two Kaplan titles in stock. What you really want is Exploring Judaism: A Reconstructionist Approach by Alpert and Staub. If you want to try Kaplan after that, you probably want to start with Dynamic Judaism: The Essential Writings of Mordecai M. Kaplan, edited and introduced by Goldsmith and Scult. These are often used in courses at Adat Shalom.
 Maus: A Survivor's Tale Volume 1: My Father Bleeds History by Art Spiegelman |
 Yiddish: A Nation of Words by Miriam Weinstein |
 Cry of the Peacock by Gina B. Nahai |
 Jew vs. Jew: The Struggle for the Soul of American Jewry by Samuel Freedman |
 When I Lived in Modern Times by Linda Grant |
 In the Beginning: A New Interpretation of Genesis by Karen Armstrong |
 Everything Is Illuminated: A Novel by Jonathan Safran Foer |
The Inextinguishable Symphony: A True Story of Music and Love in Nazi Germany by Martin Goldsmith
The Talmud and the Internet: A Journey between Worlds by Jonathan Rosen
The Last Kabbalist of Lisbon by Richard Zimler
The Jew in the Lotus: A Poet's Rediscovery of Jewish Identity in Buddhist India by Rodger Kamenetz
A Journey to the End of the Millennium: A Novel of the Middle Ages by Abraham B. Yehoshua
Shtetl: The Life and Death of a Small Town and the World of Polish Jews by Eva Hoffman
The Reader by Bernhard Schlink
Rabbi Ilyse Kramer's April/May 2004 classes on Jewish social ethics:
To Do the Right and the Good: A Jewish Approach to Modern Social Ethics,
May, 2004 (hardback)
Kaplan Diaries study group: Communings of the Spirit: The Journals of Mordecai M. Kaplan, Vol. I 1913-1934 (hardback) or paperback
George Driesen's summer 2001 course on theology: Choices In Modern Jewish Thought: A Partisan Guide by Eugene Borowitz
I wish to thank the community for all the wonderful book recommendations sent to me through this listserve. As several of you asked me to share the book list, I am providing them to you (see below.) For those of you who wish to add to the list, please do so. I asked for input about books that have impacted your lives and you feel are important books to read. I greatly appreciate your suggestions!
Other Reconstructionism Suggestions from Members
I am reading a wonderful book which I'd like to share with you all. A Spiritual Life: A Jewish Feminist Journey, by Merle Feld. My sister's
husband heard her speak at a Conservative Rabbi's conference, and he bought her the book, and she bought it for me. And I will buy it for
others... It's filled with stirring poetry and insights into marriage, friendship, Judaism, coming of age, parenting, losing one's parents, Israel, and many other issues. Merle Feld is my age exactly, and it
resonates beautifully for women of my generation and can be a help to those younger....and to the men who love them.
It's not light reading, but I'm about halfway through The Seventh Million: The Israelis and the Holocaust Tom Segev's book on the reaction of the pre-state Yishuv and then Israel to the Holocaust, and its political uses. I picked it up at the B'Taam Yisroel event we had in the social hall a cuple of weaks ago. Very interesting reading. Segev is a "revisionist historian,'' the author of One Palestine, Complete: Jews and Arabs under the British Mandate, which is also good reading.
I had read Potok's The Chosen about fifteen years ago and found it very moving. It touched something fairly deep. I reread it a couple of weeks ago. I was moved with equal intensity. But the reads were very different. The biggest difference was realizing the influence this book had had on me in the intervening years.
I am compelled to recommend in particular Anne Michaels' novel, Fugitive Pieces; it is among my personal top 25 books of all time (no kidding!). Michaels is a Canadian poet, and as far as I know, this beautifully written, vivid and lyrical novel is her only work of prose fiction. The story-line is powerful enough (it's about a Holocaust survivor's search for word of his sister, who may --or may not-- have perished in the Shoah), but the language and imagery are simply stunning. This is an unsung classic.
I highly recommend Linda Grant's When I Lived in Modern Times. This is the story of a young lost soul who makes aliyah without the burning fire of zionist portrayed in most of the heroic fiction depicting this era. She first lives on kibbutz (where socialist ideology--modern thought-- rules) and then in Bauhaus-influenced Tel Aviv (where modern architecture is dominant). This novel portrays a world of ideas and dreams and hopes now gone and what it was like for rootless young people to be transplanted to a world of material poverty but motivated by abstract concepts of creating a Jewish utopia.
An easy introduction is: An Introduction to Judaism; A Reconstructionist Approach. You can get it at The Jewish Bookstore in Silver Spring. They'll mail it to you, if you like. 301-942-2237. I hope you like it.
Try Arthur Green, Seek My Face, Speak My Name: A Contemporary Jewish Theology. It deals with approaches to understanding reconstructionist philosophy.
One easy read is: Exploring Judaism: A Reconstructionist Approach by Rebecca Alpert and Jacob Staub (Staub is professor and dean at the Reconstructionist Rabbinical College) I believe this can be bought at the Jewish Bookstore in Wheaton.
I once picked up an old used book, probably out of print. It's called If Not Now, When? and features Conversations between Mordecai Kaplan and Arthur Cohen. I've read bits and it's quite interesting.
Those trying to make sense of Tuesday's unspeakable tragedy might wish to read the Children of Abraham: An Introduction to Islam for Jews by Khalid Duran, one of two volumes in the Children of Abraham set recently published by KTAV and the American Jewish Committee. Duran makes an important distinction between Islam, the religion practiced by millions all over the world, and Islamism, the radical and jihadist faith of the mullahs in Iran, Hamas in Israel, Hizbollah in Lebanon, the Taliban in Afghanistan, and the Islamic regime in the Sudan. Osama bin Laden is an Islamist. Islamism has a relatively short history but it has had an enormous political impact. It is an enemy not just of Israel but also of the United States and moderate Arab regimes in places like Jordan, Egypt, Morocco, etc. Duran, an academic who has taught at American University and Catholic University (also at Islamabad, the Free University of Berlin, Temple, the University of California at Irvine and the United Nations University), is bitterly critical of the Islamists -- so much so that it interferes somewhat with his explanation of the tenets of Islam. But it will help to explain why many Muslims are hurting after the attack on the U.S. while others are celebrating. Duran edits Transislam, a quarterly published in Washington. If we want to do something with the Muslim community, we might invite him to speak. You should know that because of the book he wrote for the American Jewish Committee a fatwa has been declared against him by one group of Islamist clerics.
I commend to anyone trying to understanding the phenomenon of Islamic fundamentalism Judith Miller's recent God Has Ninety-Nine Names: Reporting from a Militant Middle East which not only traces the origins of this movement back to the Muslim Brotherhood established in Egypt in 1928 but explores how fundamentalism has developed in many different countries in the Middle East. Miller is a respected New York Times reporter and has been following terrorism and Islamic fundamentalism for many years. Her book is straight-forward journalism, not a polemic.
Hard Characters by Elizabeth Rees
Precious Heritage: The Status of Biodiversity in the United States, by Bruce A. Stein (Editor) Lynn S. Kutner (Editor) Jonathan S. Adams (Editor)
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