Accessible Judaism: A Concise Guide

Product Information

TABLE OF CONTENTS

Jewish History

Introduction
In the Beginning: From Early Dawn to 200 C.E.
The Diaspora: From 200 to 1900 C.E.
From Horror to Liberation: The Twentieth Century
The American Jewish Community
Jewish Life options: The Main Jewish Movements Today
At-a-Glance:
Timeline

Jewish Beliefs and Values

Tanach: The Bible
The Origin and Growth of Jewish Law
Basic Beliefs
God in Judaism
Revelation
Olam HaBa: Ideas on the World to Come
At-a-Glance:
Differences among Jewish Movements

Time in Judaism

The Life Cycle
The Yearly Cycle
At-a-Glance
Holidays and the Calendar

Jews by Choice

Jewish Attitudes towards Conversion
Becoming Part of the Covenant: The Formal Process
Converts and Israel
At-a-Glance
Gerim and the Jewish Movements

Appendix

Where Judaism Differs
Jewish Objects
Blessings and Prayers
Glossary

REVIEWS

Rabbi Cukierkorn has made a notable contribution in his book Accessible Judaism by affording a comprehensive compendium --a kind of postmodern Shulchan Aruch-- that seeks to explain with remarkable clarity and useful charts what any Jew --or non-Jew-- ought to know about Judaism with respect to its basic history, theologies and practices as reflected in the multiple choices that the various forms of Judaism have to offer questing Jews, would-be converts.

Indeed, this is a book for anyone wishing to have some minimal awareness of just how complex the questions of what Judaism is or is not and who is a Jew or who is not. Rabbi Cukierkorn's appreciation of all forms of Judaism serve as a role model of that compassionate understanding of the trials and tribulations that God-seeking has generated through the ages and that account of our perplexities about God's universe and the meaning of it all for humankind.

Especially sensitive is Rabbi Cukierkorn's discussion of interfaith marriages, with his focus on the love that seeks fulfillment and only secondarily on the religious impediments to that fulfillment. This book does what it claims to do: it gives all of us access to Judaism."

Dr. Ellis Rivkin,
The Adolph S. Ochs Emeritus Professor of Jewish History
Hebrew Union College Cincinnati, Ohio, USA

Price: $20.00

• Tell a Friend