Meshullam Zalman Schachter-Shalomi, commonly called "Reb Zalman", was one of the founders of the Jewish Renewal movement and an innovator in ecumenical dialogue.
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 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. Beyond its use as the name of the first man, adam is also used in the Bible as a pronoun, individually as "a human" and in a collective sense as "mankind". Genesis 1 tells of God's creation of the world and its creatures, including adam, meaning humankind; in Genesis 2 God forms "Adam", this time meaning a single male human, out of "the dust of the ground", places him in the Garden of Eden, and forms a woman, Eve, as his companion; in Genesis 3 Adam and Eve eat the fruit of the tree of knowledge and God condemns Adam to labour on the earth for his food and to return to it on his death; Genesis 4 deals with the birth of Adam's sons, and Genesis 5 lists his descendants from Seth to Noah.
Shaye J. D. Cohen 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.
Arnold M. Eisen, Ph.D. is an American Judaic scholar who was Chancellor of the Jewish Theological Seminary in New York. He stepped down at the end of the 2019-2020 academic year. Prior to this appointment, he served as the Koshland Professor of Jewish Culture and Religion and chair of the Department of Religious Studies at Stanford University. Prior to joining the Stanford faculty in 1986, he taught at Tel Aviv University and Columbia 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, liturgical, and other practices. Within the arena of Jewish thought, beliefs vary widely about the human relation 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.
Reuven Hammer was an American-Israeli Conservative rabbi, scholar of Jewish liturgy, author and lecturer who was born in New York. He was a founder of the "Masorti" (Conservative) movement in Israel and a president of the International Rabbinical Assembly. He served many years as head of the Masorti Beth Din in Israel. A prolific writer in both the Israeli and international press, he was a regular columnist for The Jerusalem Post's "Tradition Today" column. He lived in Jerusalem.
Daniel Gordis is an American-born Israeli author and speaker, who is best known as a passionate advocate of Israel. He is Koret Distinguished Fellow at Shalem College in Jerusalem, where he previously also served as Senior Vice President and Chair of the Core Curriculum, until his retirement from those positions. The author of a dozen books on Judaism and Israel, and twice awarded the National Jewish Book Award, The Forward has called Gordis "one of the most influential Israel analysts around." Gordis is also the author of the blog and podcast, Israel from the Inside, which is published on Substack.
The following outline is provided as an overview of and topical guide to Judaism:
Tziporah Heller Gottlieb is an American-born Haredi educator, author, and speaker based in Jerusalem. She is a senior faculty member at the Neve Yerushalayim College for Women, principal of the Bnos Avigail seminary on the Neve campus, and a lecturer for the online Jewish college, Naaleh.com. She specializes in textual analysis of Biblical literature and Jewish philosophy, and exploration of the role of women in Judaism. The author of eight books, she is also a weekly columnist for the Hamodia newspaper.
The Dyke and the Dybbuk is a 1993 novel by Ellen Galford.
