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Joseph Reimer

I know of no other treatment of these issues [of Judaism] that matches Eisen's talents for synthesizing a wide range of historical, philosophical, and social scientific sources, and bringing them to bear in a balanced and open-minded way on the delicate questions of why modern Jews relate as they do to the practices of Judaism. -- Boston Book Review

Library Journal

In his new book, Eisen (religious studies, Stanford, and author of Chosen People in America), examines modern Jewish ritual as a window into Jewish feeling. He offers some striking ideas, pointing out that modernity has affected even those who consider themselves of orthodox belief. He seeks to show how Jews of all spectra are continually reinventing traditions. After all, nostalgia and the search for usable history partly motivate religious practice, and in our times the Passover haggadah has been rewritten by various Jewish movements to emphasize different aspects of freedom. -- Paul M. Kaplan, Lake Villa Districk Library, Round Lake Beach, Illinois

David Singer

Arnold Eisen has certainly chosen an opportune time to "rethink" the place of observance in modern Judaism....If Eisen's promiscuous use of religious language serves any purpose, it is to remind us what Judaism has lost in the various attempts to modernize it....Welcome though the current turn to ritual is, it seems unlikely to endure if it is not accompanied by a revival of a more far-reaching and spiritual sort. -- Commentary

Samuel Hynes

An insightful entrace point to understanding the evolution of the theologies of America's largest Jewish denominations. -- Tikkun Magazine

• Table of Contents

Table of Contents