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In recent years, many formerly ultra-Orthodox Jews have documented leaving their communities in published stories, films, and memoirs. This movement is often identified as ?off the derech? (OTD), or off the path, with the idea that the ?path? is paved by Jewish law, rituals, and practices found within their birth communities. This volume tells the powerful stories of people abandoning their religious communities and embarking on uncertain journeys toward new lives and identities within mainstream society. Off the Derech is divided into two parts: stories and analysis. The first includes original selections from contemporary American and global authors writing about their OTD experiences. The second features chapters by scholars representing such diverse fields as literature, history, sociology, psychology, anthropology, religion, and gender studies. The interdisciplinary lenses provide a range of methodologies by which readers can better understand this significant phenomenon within contemporary Jewish society.

Judaism and secularism. --- Judaism and culture. --- Jewish way of life.

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Modernity offers people choices about who they want to be and how they want to appear to others. The way in which Jews choose to frame their identity establishes the dynamic of their social relations with other Jews and non-Jews - a dynamic complicated by how non-Jews position the boundaries around what and who they define as Jewish. This book uncovers these processes, historically, as well as in contemporary behavior, and finds explanations for the various manifestations, in feeling and action, of 'being Jewish.' Boundaries and borders raise fundamental questions about the difference between Jews and non-Jews. At root, the question is how 'Jewish' is understood in social situations where people recognize or construct boundaries between their own identity and those of others. The question is important because this is by definition the point at which the lines of demarcation between Jews and non-Jews, and between different groupings of Jews, are negotiated. Collectively, the contributors to the book expand our understanding of the social dynamics of framing Jewish identity. The book opens with an introduction that locates the issues raised by the contributors in terms of the scholarly traditions from which they have evolved. Part I presents four essays dealing with the construction and maintenance of boundaries - two by scholars showing how boundaries come to be etched on an ethnic landscape and two by activists who question and adjust distinctions among neighbors. Part II focuses on expressive means of conveying identity and memory, while, in Part III, the discussion turns to museum exhibitions and festive performances as locations for the negotiation of identity in the public sphere. A lively discussion forum concludes the book with a consideration of the paradoxes of Jewish heritage revival in Poland, and the perception of that revival by Jews and non-Jews. *** ..".these essays help us understand the social dynamics of Jewish identity and how identity is constructed in modern life." -- AJL Reviews, February/March 2015 (Series: Jewish Cultural Studies - Vol. 4) [Subject: Jewish Studies, Cultural Studies]

Jews --- Judaism and culture --- Identity --- History --- Social life and customs --- Cultural assimilation --- Civilization

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Judaic Technologies of the Word argues that Judaism does not exist in an abstract space of reflection. Rather, it exists both in artifacts of the material world - such as texts - and in the bodies, brains, hearts, and minds of individual people. More than this, Judaic bodies and texts, both oral and written, connect and feed back on one another. Judaic Technologies of the Word examines how technologies of literacy have interacted with bodies and minds over time. The emergence of literacy is now understood to be a decisive factor in religious history, and is central to the transformations that took place in the ancient Near East in the first millennium BCE. This study employs insights from the cognitive sciences to pursue a deep history of Judaism, one in which the distinctions between biology and culture begin to disappear.

Judaism --- Literacy --- Judaism and culture. --- Communication and culture. --- Culture and communication --- Culture --- Culture and Judaism --- Jews --- Religions --- Semites --- History --- Philosophy. --- Religious aspects --- Judaism. --- Religion --- Judaism and culture --- Judaïsme --- Alphabétisation --- Judaïsme et culture --- Communication et culture --- Histoire --- Philosophie --- Aspect religieux

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"The book examines the fate and symbolic status of Jewish cemeteries and synagogues in post-WWII Poland, focusing on the ways in which these sites were perceived, discussed, and experienced by municipal officials and local inhabitants in small towns that had a substantial Jewish presence until the Holocaust" --

Jewish cemeteries --- Synagogues --- Judaism and culture --- Social aspects --- History --- Jewish cemeteries and synagogues after the Holocaust, memory of the Holocaust in Poland, postwar poland Jewish culture, Polish population in the former shtetls, how socities live with their past.

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Religious ideas, practices, discourses, institutions, and social expressions are in constant flux. This volume addresses the internal and external dynamics, interactions between individuals, religious communities, and local as well as global society. The contributions concentrate on four areas: 1. Contemporary religion in the public sphere: The Tactics of (In)visibility among Religious Communities in Europe; Religion Intersecting De-nationalization and Re-nationalization in Post-Apartheid South Africa;2. Religious transformations: Forms of Religious Communities in Global Society; Political Contributions of Ancestral Cosmologies and the Decolonization of Religious Beliefs; Esoteric Tradition as Poetic Invention; 3. Focus on the individual: Religion and Life Trajectories of Islamists; Angels, Animals and Religious Change in Antiquity and Today; Gaining Access to the Radically Unfamiliar in Today's Religion; Religion between Individuals and Collectives; 4. Narrating religion: Entangled Knowledge Cultures and the Creation of Religions in Mongolia and Europe; Global Intellectual History and the Dynamics of Religion; On Representing Judaism.

291 <063> --- 291 <063> Godsdienstwetenschap: vergelijkend--Congressen --- 291 <063> Science et histoire comparée des religions--Congressen --- Godsdienstwetenschap: vergelijkend--Congressen --- Science et histoire comparée des religions--Congressen --- Conferences - Meetings --- Religion and culture. --- Apartheid --- Shinto and state --- Imperialism --- Buddhism --- Established churches. --- Cultural pluralism. --- Fuxi (Legendary character) --- Islamic fundamentalism. --- Judaism and culture. --- Religious aspects. --- National churches --- State churches --- State religion --- Church and state --- Ecclesiastical law --- Religion and state --- Free churches --- Colonialism --- Empires --- Expansion (United States politics) --- Neocolonialism --- Political science --- Anti-imperialist movements --- Caesarism --- Chauvinism and jingoism --- Militarism --- Separate development (Race relations) --- Segregation --- Anti-apartheid movements --- Post-apartheid era --- Culture and religion --- Culture --- Culture and Judaism --- Fundamentalism, Islamic --- Islamism --- Islam --- Religious fundamentalism --- Baoxi (Legendary character) --- Fu Hsi (Legendary character) --- Fu-hsi-shih (Legendary character) --- Fu Xi (Legendary character) --- Fuxishi (Legendary character) --- Mi Hsi (Legendary character) --- Mixi (Legendary character) --- Pao Hsi (Legendary character) --- Tai Hao (Legendary character) --- Legends --- Cultural diversity --- Diversity, Cultural --- Diversity, Religious --- Ethnic diversity --- Pluralism (Social sciences) --- Pluralism, Cultural --- Religious diversity --- Cultural fusion --- Ethnicity --- Multiculturalism --- Religious change. --- historiography of religion. --- religion in society. --- spirituality.