Research Catalog

Title

Rites of passage : how today's Jews celebrate, commemorate, and commiserate / editor, Leonard J. Greenspoon.

Publication

West Lafayette, Ind. : Purdue University Press, c2010.

Items in the Library & Off-site

Details

Additional Authors

• Greenspoon, Leonard J. (Leonard Jay)
• Creighton University. Kripke Center for the Study of Religion & Society
• Philip M. and Ethel Klutznick Chair in Jewish Civilization
• University of Nebraska--Lincoln. Harris Center for Judaic Studies
• Klutznick-Harris Symposium (21st : 2008 : Omaha, Neb.)

Description

197 p. : ill.; 23 cm.

Summary

• Scholars tend to call them "rites of passage." Most people prefer to speak of them as life-cycle events or milestones. Jews like to speak of simchas, when there is something (a birth, Bar or Bat Mitzvah, or a wedding) to celebrate. These are key moments for individuals and for the families and communities of which they are a part.
• This volume offers new insights into rituals as old as the Hebrew Bible and as recent as the twenty-first century, in contexts as familiar as the American Midwest and as exotic as Karaism. It examines and frequently affirms some of the rituals that have traditionally been associated with these events, while inviting readers to cast a critical eye on the ways in which these customs have developed in recent years.
• The authors, who include congregational leaders as well as scholars, also affirm the need to expand or enhance existing ceremonies to include groups whose needs have not traditionally been addressed. They show how rites of passage may be viewed as both conservative and dynamic--connecting us with generations past as well as with our contemporaries. --Book Jacket.

Series Statement

Studies in Jewish civilization, 1070-8510 ; v. 21

Uniform Title

Studies in Jewish civilization 21.

Subject

• Judaism > Customs and practices > Congresses
• Life cycle, Human > Religious aspects > Judaism > Congresses
• Life change events > Religious aspects > Judaism > Congresses
• Jewish way of life > Congresses

Genre/Form

Conference papers and proceedings

Note

• "Proceedings of the Twenty-First Annual Symposium of the Klutznick Chair in Jewish Civilization--Harris Center for Judaic Studies, October 26-27. 2008"--P. [i].

Bibliography (note)

• Includes bibliographical references.

Processing Action (note)

• committed to retain

Contents

"What makes a bat mitzvah blossom" : pre-bat mitzvah rituals for daughters and mothers / Penina Adelman -- More bar than mitzvah : anxieties over bar mitzvah receptions in postwar America / Rachel Kranson -- Becoming Orthodox women: rites of passage in the Orthodox community / Leslie Ginsparg Klein -- Talking about the Jewish wedding ritual : issues of gender, power, and social control / Irit Koren -- The making of a rabbi : semichah ordination from Moses to Grosses -- Jonathan Gross -- Perspectives on evaluating new Jewish rituals / Vanessa Ochs -- Memory, questions and definitions : images of old and new rites of passage / Ori Z. Soltes -- A need for new rituals? American Judaism and the Holocaust / Oliver Leaman -- Karaism : an alternate form of Jewish celebration / Daniel J. Lasker -- Without a minyan : creating a Jewish life in a small midwestern town / Daniel Mandell, Barbara Smith-Mandell, and Jerrold Hirsch -- Raising the bar, maximizing the mitzvah : Jewish rites of passage for children with autism / Steven Puzarne.

ISBN

• 9781557535771
• 1557535779

LCCN

^^2010021856

OCLC

• 555660802
• SCSB-11738793

Owning Institutions

Harvard Library