The Radical American Judaism of Mordecai M. Kaplan (ebook)

Argumento de The Radical American Judaism of Mordecai M. Kaplan (ebook)

"The book is highly readable?at times almost colloquial in its language and style?and is recommended for anybody with a familiarity with Kaplan but who wants to understand his thought within a broader context." ?AJL Reviews

"All in all, an interesting, stimulating, and well-done analysis of Kaplan?s life and thought. All students of contemporary Jewish life will benefit from reading this excellent study." ?Jewish Media Review

"I've read a lot of Kaplan. I even used to sneak peeks at his personal correspondences when I worked in his archive at RRC. This book by Mel Scult is by far the best on Kaplan's ideas. Heck, it is even better than Kaplan himself because Scult does an amazing job of tying together loose threads and making Kaplan more readable." ?Rabbi Howard Cohen

"[This book has] frequent quotations from Kaplan's writings... his diary underlines the deep attachement of Kaplan to the Jewish people, to the evolution and expansion of Judaism as a force for all humankind... [Mel Scult] agrees that Kaplan was... a heretic who reconstructed Judaism from its increasing loss of significance into a vital and meaningful force in contemporary life... The Radical American Judaism of Mordecai M. Kaplan is true to its title, rigorously examining Kaplan's bold thinking and innovative contributions to Jewish life in America." ?Jewish Book Council

"An important and powerful work that speaks to Mordecai M. Kaplan's position as perhaps the most significant Jewish thinker of the twentieth century.... Scult shows Kaplan's theology to be imbued with American values of democracy and individualism." ?Deborah Dash Moore, coeditor of Gender and Jewish History

Mel Scult is Professor Emeritus of Judaic Studies at Brooklyn College, City University of New York, and a member of the history faculty at the CUNY Graduate School. He is author of Judaism Faces the Twentieth Century: A Biography of Mordecai M. Kaplan and editor of Communings of the Spirit: The Journals of Mordecai M. Kaplan, Volume 1: 1913-1934.

"[T]his book is the work of a mature scholar. It displays the erudition Scult has acquired over a lifetime of research on Kaplan and is unparalleled in its clarity as well as in the breadth and depth of its treatment of Kaplan?his writings, his achievements, and his meaning for Judaism and the Jewish people today and in the future." ?The American Jewish Archives Journal0Acknowledgments
Preface

Introduction
1. Excommunications: Kaplan and Spinoza
2. Self-Reliance: Kaplan and Emerson
3. Nationalism and Righteousness: Ahad Ha-Am and Matthew Arnold
4. Universalism and Pragmatism: Felix Adler, William James, and John Dewey
5. Kaplan and Peoplehood: Judaism as a Civilization and Zionism
6. Kaplan and His God: An Ambivalent Relationship
7. Kaplan's Theology: Beyond Supernaturalism
8. Salvation: The Goal of Religion
9. Salvation Embodied: The Vehicle of Mitzvot
10. Mordecai the Pious: Kaplan and Heschel
11. The Law: Halakhah and Ethics
12. Kaplan and the Problem of Evil: Cutting the Gordian Knot
Conclusion

Appendix: "Thirteen Wants" of Mordecai Kaplan Reconstructed
Notes
Selected Bibliography and Note on Sources
Index