- The Oxford Handbook of Jewish Studies
- List of Contributors
- List of Abbreviations
- Preface
- The Nature of Jewish Studies
- Biblical Studies and Jewish Studies
- Jews and Judaism in the Second Temple Period
- The Literature of the Second Temple Period
- Historiography on the Jews in the ‘Talmudic Period’ (70–640 ce)
- Classical Rabbinic Literature
- The Narratives of Medieval Jewish History
- Medieval Jewry In Christendom
- Medieval Jewry in the World of Islam
- Rabbinic Literature in the Middle Ages 1000–1492
- The Study of Hebrew Literature of the Middle Ages: Major Trends and Goals
- Medieval Karaism
- Sephardi and Middle Eastern Jewries since 1492
- European Jewry in the Early Modern Period: 1492–1750
- Western and Central European Jewry in the Modern Period: 1750–1933
- Eastern European Jewry in the Modern Period: 1750–1939
- The Holocaust
- Settlement and State in Eretz Israel
- American Jewish History
- The Hebrew Language
- Modern Hebrew Literature
- Yiddish Studies
- Judaeo-Spanish Studies
- Judaeo-Arabic and Judaeo-Persian
- Other Diaspora Jewish Literatures Since 1492
- Halacha and Law
- Bible Interpretation
- Mysticism
- Jewish Liturgy and Jewish Scholarship: Method and Cosmology
- Jewish Philosophy and Theology
- Jewish Women's Studies
- Demography
- Art, Architecture, and Archaeology
- Music
- Jewish Theatre
- Jewish and Israeli Film Studies
- Anti-Semitism Research
- Jewish Folklore and Ethnography
- Modern Jewish Society and Sociology
- Index
Abstract and Keywords
The academic study of ‘halacha’, like its traditional study in the yeshiva, is far broader than the study of ‘Jewish law’. The halacha, in both its scope and concerns, goes well beyond the scope and concerns of that section of it which has counterparts in secular, Western legal systems. For the purposes of this article, ‘Jewish law’ is that latter subsection of the halacha, a subsection moreover which has attracted the particular attentions of scholars trained in secular jurisprudence. This article surveys trends in the field, in relation to both halacha and Jewish Law, in terms of the fourfold division — historical, dogmatic, comparative, and philosophical.
Keywords: halacha, secular jurisprudence, Jewish law, dogmatic analysis, yeshiva
Bernard Jackson is Alliance Professor of Modern Jewish Studies at the University of Manchester.
Berachyahu Lifshitz is Professor and sometime Dean of the Faculty of Law at the Hebrew University of Jerusalem.
Alyssa M. Gray is Associate Professor of Codes and Responsa Literature at Hebrew Union College–Jewish Institute of Religion in New York. She holds law degrees from Columbia and Hebrew Universities, and a Ph.D. from the Jewish Theological Seminary. She has written and lectured widely on many topics, notably including martyrdom, the formations of the Babylonian and Jerusalem Talmuds, the relationship of halakhah and law, liturgy, and charity. Her essays have or will appear in Conservative Judaism, Journal of Jewish Studies, AJS Review, Jewish Studies Quarterly, and DinéIsrael. She is also the author of A Talmud in Exile: The Influence of Yerushalmi Avodah Zarah on the Formation of Bavli Avodah Zarah.
Daniel B. Sinclair (LL.B. [Hons.]) [London University], LL.M. [Monash University], Ph.D. in Law [Hebrew University], Rabbi) is Professor of Jewish Law and Comparative Biomedical Law at the Striks Law School, CMAS, Israel, and Wolff Fellow in Jewish Law and Visiting Professor of Law at Fordham University Law School, New York. Formerly, Dean of Jews’ College, London University, and Rabbi of the Edinburgh Hebrew Congregation, Scotland, he has published over fifty articles in the fields of Jewish law, its jurisprudence, and comparative biomedical law. His books include Tradition and the Biological Revolution (1989), Law, Judicial Policy and Jewish Identity in the State of Israel (2000), and Jewish Biomedical Law: Legal and Extra-Legal Dimensions (Oxford University Press, 2003). He is a member of the editorial boards of the Jewish Law Annual and the Journal of Law and Religion and has served as a member of the Ethics Committee of the Royal College of Physicians in the United Kingdom. He has testified before the Law Committee of the Israeli Knesset on the issues of cloning and germ-line genetic therapy and is a member of an advisory group to a European Union Committee on ethics and science.
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- The Oxford Handbook of Jewish Studies
- List of Contributors
- List of Abbreviations
- Preface
- The Nature of Jewish Studies
- Biblical Studies and Jewish Studies
- Jews and Judaism in the Second Temple Period
- The Literature of the Second Temple Period
- Historiography on the Jews in the ‘Talmudic Period’ (70–640 ce)
- Classical Rabbinic Literature
- The Narratives of Medieval Jewish History
- Medieval Jewry In Christendom
- Medieval Jewry in the World of Islam
- Rabbinic Literature in the Middle Ages 1000–1492
- The Study of Hebrew Literature of the Middle Ages: Major Trends and Goals
- Medieval Karaism
- Sephardi and Middle Eastern Jewries since 1492
- European Jewry in the Early Modern Period: 1492–1750
- Western and Central European Jewry in the Modern Period: 1750–1933
- Eastern European Jewry in the Modern Period: 1750–1939
- The Holocaust
- Settlement and State in Eretz Israel
- American Jewish History
- The Hebrew Language
- Modern Hebrew Literature
- Yiddish Studies
- Judaeo-Spanish Studies
- Judaeo-Arabic and Judaeo-Persian
- Other Diaspora Jewish Literatures Since 1492
- Halacha and Law
- Bible Interpretation
- Mysticism
- Jewish Liturgy and Jewish Scholarship: Method and Cosmology
- Jewish Philosophy and Theology
- Jewish Women's Studies
- Demography
- Art, Architecture, and Archaeology
- Music
- Jewish Theatre
- Jewish and Israeli Film Studies
- Anti-Semitism Research
- Jewish Folklore and Ethnography
- Modern Jewish Society and Sociology
- Index
