1.

Record Nr.

UNINA9910807757303321

Autore

Finkelman Yoel

Titolo

Strictly kosher reading [[electronic resource] ] : popular literature and the condition of contemporary Orthodoxy / / Yoel Finkelman

Pubbl/distr/stampa

Boston, : Academic Studies Press, 2011

ISBN

1-61811-102-7

Descrizione fisica

1 online resource (258 p.)

Collana

Jewish identities in post modern society

Disciplina

296.832

Soggetti

Ultra-Orthodox Jews - Intellectual life

Popular culture - Influence

Orthodox Judaism - Social aspects

Orthodox Judaism - Relations - Nontraditional Jews

Jews - Cultural assimilation

Judaism and culture

Judaism and literature

Lingua di pubblicazione

Inglese

Formato

Materiale a stampa

Livello bibliografico

Monografia

Note generali

Description based upon print version of record.

Nota di bibliografia

Includes bibliographical references and index.

Nota di contenuto

Frontmatter -- Contents -- Acknowledgments -- Preface: The Gehinom Trio at Slime's Bar -- Chapter I: ArtScroll Judaism: Haredi Popular Literature in Context -- Chapter II: "Ancient Wisdom": Haredi Popular Literature and General Culture -- Chapter III: "Not Absolute Truth": Haredi Writers Debate Their Own Acculturation -- Chapter IV: "There Was Only One Man in the Shtetl...": Haredi Judaism's Founding Myth -- Chapter V: "Knowledge of the Clearest and Most Objective Kind": Simple Faith and Haredi Popular Theology -- Chapter VI: "We Have Been Influenced...": The Rhetoric of Haredi Internal Criticism -- Chapter VII: Truth, Fiction, and Narrative -- Endnotes -- Selected Bibliography -- Index

Sommario/riassunto

For centuries, fervently observant Jewish communities have produced thousands of works of Jewish law, thought, and spirituality. But in recent decades, the literature of America's Haredi [ultra-Orthodox] community has taken on brand-new forms: selfhelp books, cookbooks, monthly magazines, parenting guides, biographies, picture books, even adventure stories and spy novels- all produced by Haredi men and



women, for the Haredi readership. What's changed? Why did these works appear, and what do they mean to the community that produces and consumes them? How has the Haredi world, as it seeks fidelity to unchanging tradition, so radically changed what it writes and what it reads? In answering these questions, Strictly Kosher Reading points to a central paradox in contemporary Haredi life. Haredi Jewry sets itself apart, claiming to reject modern secular culture as dangerous and threatening to everything Torah stands for. But in practice, Haredi popular literature reveals a community thoroughly embedded in contemporary values. Popular literature plays a critical role in helping Haredi Jews to understand themselves as different, even as it shows them to be very much the same.