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Democracy and Halakhah »

Authors: Eliezer Schweid, Daniel J. Elazar
ISBN-13: 9780819194305, ISBN-10: 0819194301
Format: Paperback
Publisher: The Rowman & Littlefield Publishing Group Inc
Date Published: October 2001
Edition: (Non-applicable)

Author Biography: Eliezer Schweid

Book Synopsis

Eliezer Schweid in "Democracy and the Halakhah" analyzes the writings of Rabbi Haim Hirschensohn, one of the early Hebrew cultural pioneers who laid the foundation for the Zionist enterprise. Born in Safed Eretz Israel in 1857, Hirschensohn was pushed out of the fanatic Ashkenazi religious community and ended up as an Orthodox rabbi in Hoboken, New Jersey. His writings focus on finding a philosophic basis that could reconcile the Torah with the transformation forced upon the Jewish people by modernity so as to come out with a coherent systematic system of political thought that could encompass both. Co-published with the Jerusalem Center for Public Affairs.

Author Biography: Eliezer Schweid is Full Professor of Jewish Philosophy at The Hebrew University in Jerusalem.

	Foreword
	Preface
	Introduction
Ch. 1	The Challenge of Modern Issues	1
Ch. 2	The Meaning of Nationalism	7
Ch. 3	The Relationship to Secular Culture	23
Ch. 4	The Temptation of Materialism	29
Ch. 5	Torah and Life	33
Ch. 6	On a Democratic State According to Halakhah	47
Ch. 7	Social and Cultural Problems and Their Solutions	77
Ch. 8	Yisraeli Educational Theory	91
Ch. 9	The Issue of Biblical Criticism	115
Ch. 10	A Critique of "False Concepts and Truth"	129
Ch. 11	The Theories of Rabbi Hirschensohn and Rabbi Kook	143
	Index	155
	About the Author	159