These apocalyptic disputes, born of religious extremism, are “tearing apart our four-thousand-year-old civilization,” argues...
From noted student of Mideast affairs and New Yorker correspondent Viorst (In the Shadow of the Prophet: The Struggle for the Soul of Islam, 1998, etc.), a charged warning that the greatest danger facing the state of Israel is the “causeless hatred” of internal disunity.
That disunity is by no means new, allows Viorst: his very title comes from Moses’ complaint to God in Sinai about his ungovernable charges, and Viorst repeats at several points the biblical denunciation of the “stiff-necked” quality that “seems to have remained a part of Jewish nature . . . [and] has perpetuated needless conflict among Jews, when a bit of flexibility would have had better results.” In his account, this inflexibility has colored discussions about the nature and workings of the Jewish state from even before the time of Herzl; it particularly marks the relation of the ultra-Orthodox faction within Israel with secular Jews who are more amenable to making “Halachic adjustments to the shifting demands of modernity” and even inclined to separate affairs of church and state. Sometimes lethal struggles between adaptationists and rejectionists, pragmatists and idealists, and hard-liners of every stripe have crippled the ability of the Israeli state to govern effectively, Viorst suggests. A particular difficulty, in his view, is the growing insistence of the ever more powerful Orthodox leadership that “the Jewish state, of which it deeply disapproves, serve as arbiter of disputes within Judaism,” making of a secular democracy a counterpart to the Vatican that would sit in judgment over matters such as the Jewishness of Conservative and Reform converts (who, some members of the Orthodox leadership hold, are by definition members of heretical sects) and the impiety of surrendering Jewish lands to Gentiles—as the Oslo Accords demand, and in punishment for which one of the ultra-Orthodox took it upon himself to assassinate Yitzhak Rabin.
These apocalyptic disputes, born of religious extremism, are “tearing apart our four-thousand-year-old civilization,” argues Viorst sadly, and most effectively.Pub Date: Oct. 15, 2002
ISBN: 0-684-86289-1
Page Count: 288
Publisher: Free Press
Review Posted Online: May 19, 2010
Kirkus Reviews Issue: Sept. 1, 2002
Worthwhile reference stuffed with facts and illustrations.
A compendium of charts, time lines, lists and illustrations to accompany study of the Bible.
This visually appealing resource provides a wide array of illustrative and textually concise references, beginning with three sets of charts covering the Bible as a whole, the Old Testament and the New Testament. These charts cover such topics as biblical weights and measures, feasts and holidays and the 12 disciples. Most of the charts use a variety of illustrative techniques to convey lessons and provide visual interest. A worthwhile example is “How We Got the Bible,” which provides a time line of translation history, comparisons of canons among faiths and portraits of important figures in biblical translation, such as Jerome and John Wycliffe. The book then presents a section of maps, followed by diagrams to conceptualize such structures as Noah’s Ark and Solomon’s Temple. Finally, a section on Christianity, cults and other religions describes key aspects of history and doctrine for certain Christian sects and other faith traditions. Overall, the authors take a traditionalist, conservative approach. For instance, they list Moses as the author of the Pentateuch (the first five books of the Hebrew Bible) without making mention of claims to the contrary. When comparing various Christian sects and world religions, the emphasis is on doctrine and orthodox theology. Some chapters, however, may not completely align with the needs of Catholic and Orthodox churches. But the authors’ leanings are muted enough and do not detract from the work’s usefulness. As a resource, it’s well organized, inviting and visually stimulating. Even the most seasoned reader will learn something while browsing.
Worthwhile reference stuffed with facts and illustrations.Pub Date: Sept. 1, 2005
ISBN: 978-1-5963-6022-8
Page Count: -
Publisher: N/A
Review Posted Online: May 23, 2010
Review Program: Kirkus Indie
This a book of earlier, philosophical essays concerned with the essential "absurdity" of life and the concept that- to overcome the strong tendency to suicide in every thoughtful man-one must accept life on its own terms with its values of revolt, liberty and passion. A dreary thesis- derived from and distorting the beliefs of the founders of existentialism, Jaspers, Heldegger and Kierkegaard, etc., the point of view seems peculiarly outmoded. It is based on the experience of war and the resistance, liberally laced with Andre Gide's excessive intellectualism. The younger existentialists such as Sartre and Camus, with their gift for the terse novel or intense drama, seem to have omitted from their philosophy all the deep religiosity which permeates the work of the great existentialist thinkers. This contributes to a basic lack of vitality in themselves, in these essays, and ten years after the war Camus seems unaware that the life force has healed old wounds... Largely for avant garde aesthetes and his special coterie.
Pub Date: Sept. 26, 1955
ISBN: 0679733736
Page Count: 228
Publisher: Knopf
Review Posted Online: Sept. 19, 2011
Kirkus Reviews Issue: Sept. 1, 1955
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