Harold Samuel Kushner was an American rabbi, author, and lecturer. He was a member of the Rabbinical Assembly of Conservative Judaism and served as the congregational rabbi of Temple Israel of Natick, in Natick, Massachusetts, for 24 years.
Meshullam Zalman Schachter-Shalomi, commonly called "Reb Zalman", was one of the founders of the Jewish Renewal movement and an innovator in ecumenical dialogue.
Samael is an archangel in Talmudic and post-Talmudic lore; a figure who is the accuser or adversary, seducer, and destroying angel.
In Jewish mythology, a dybbuk is a malicious possessing spirit believed to be the dislocated soul of a dead person. It supposedly leaves the host body once it has accomplished its goal, sometimes after being exorcised.
Avraham Gabriel "Boolie" Yehoshua was an Israeli novelist, essayist, and playwright. The New York Times called him the "Israeli Faulkner". Underlying themes in Yehoshua's work are Jewish identity, the tense relations with non-Jews, the conflict between the older and younger generations, and the clash between religion and politics.
Aggadah is the non-legalistic exegesis which appears in the classical rabbinic literature of Judaism, particularly the Talmud and Midrash. In general, Aggadah is a compendium of rabbinic texts that incorporates folklore, historical anecdotes, moral exhortations, and practical advice in various spheres, from business to medicine.
Adam is the name given in Genesis 1–5 to the first human. Adam is the first human-being aware of God, and features as such in various belief systems.
Shaye J. D. Cohen is an American Hebraist, historian, and rabbi. He is a modern scholar of Hebrew Bible. Currently, he is the Littauer Professor of Hebrew Literature and Philosophy in the Department of Near Eastern Languages and Civilizations of Harvard University.
Uri Shulevitz is an American writer and illustrator of children's books. He won the 1969 Caldecott Medal for U.S. picture book illustration, recognizing The Fool of the World and the Flying Ship, an Eastern European fairy tale retold by Arthur Ransome in 1916.
Elisheva Carlebach Jofen is an American scholar of early modern Jewish history.
Jewish mythology is the body of myths associated with Judaism. Elements of Jewish mythology have had a profound influence on Christian mythology and on Islamic mythology, as well as on Abrahamic culture in general. Christian mythology directly inherited many of the narratives from the Jewish people, sharing in common the narratives from the Old Testament. Islamic mythology also shares many of the same stories; for instance, a creation-account spaced out over six periods, the legend of Abraham, the stories of Moses and the Israelites, and many more.
Jewish folklore are legends, music, oral history, proverbs, jokes, popular beliefs, fairy tales, stories, tall tales, and customs that are the traditions of Judaism. Folktales are characterized by the presence of unusual personages, by the sudden transformation of men into beasts and vice versa, or by other unnatural incidents. A number of aggadic stories bear folktale characteristics, especially those relating to Og, King of Bashan, which have the same exaggerations as have the lügenmärchen of modern German folktales.
Urim Publications, an independent publisher of Jewish interest books, is based in Jerusalem, with an outlet in Brooklyn, New York.
Judaism and environmentalism intersect on many levels. The natural world plays a central role in Jewish law, literature, liturgy, and other practices. Within the arena of Jewish thought, beliefs vary widely about the human relationship to the environment.
The Koret Jewish Book Award is an annual award that recognizes "recently published books on any aspect of Jewish life in the categories of biography/autobiography and literary studies, fiction, history and philosophy/thought published in, or translated into, English." The award was established in 1998 by the Koret Foundation, in cooperation with the National Foundation for Jewish Culture, to increase awareness of the best new Jewish books and their authors.
Daniel Gordis is an American-born Israeli author. He is Koret Distinguished Fellow at Shalem College in Jerusalem, where he previously was Senior Vice President and Chair of the Core Curriculum.
The following outline is provided as an overview of and topical guide to Judaism:
In the Bible, Lot's wife is a figure first mentioned in Genesis 19. The Book of Genesis describes how she became a pillar of salt after she looked back at Sodom. She is not named in the Bible, but is called Ado or Edith in some Jewish traditions. She is also referred to in the deuterocanonical books at the Book of Wisdom and the New Testament at Luke 17:32.
The Dyke and the Dybbuk is a 1993 novel by Ellen Galford.
