Fred Reiss, EdD

Adon Olam: A Search for Meaning by Rabbi Zalman Weiss, Menorah Books, Jerusalem; ISBN 9978-1-940516-12-7 ©2014, $24.95, p. 350, plus glossary. By Fred Reiss, Ed.D. WINCHESTER, California — Ezra the Scribe, in 458 BCE, led a group of about eighteen hundred Jewish men together with their wives and children from the Babylon Captivity to their new home in

The Lost Matriarch: Finding Leah in the Bible and Midrash by Jerry Rabow, Jewish Publication Society, Philadelphia; ISBN 978-0-8276-1207-5 ©2014, $22.95, p. 193, plus Index and several appendices By Fred Reiss, Ed.D. WINCHESTER, California–Tradition maintains that each word of the Five Books of Moses contains multiple interpretations. Bible stories such as Noah and the flood, Joseph

Judaism in Transition: How Economic Choices Shape Religious Tradition by Carmel U. Chiswick, Stanford University Press, Stanford, CA; ISBN 978-0-8047-7605-9 ©2014, $22.95, p. 201, plus Reference material By Fred Reiss, Ed.D. WINCHESTER, California — Words to an old folksong read, “If religion were a thing that money could buy, then the rich would live and the poor

Defining Jewish Difference: From Antiquity to the Present by Beth A. Berkowitz, Cambridge University Press, New York, NY;  ISBN 978-1-107-66361-9 ©2014, $27.99, p. 247, plus Bibliography and indexes By Fred Reiss, Ed.D. WINCHESTER, California — After delivering a speech at American University in 2005, in which she defended the use of foreign law when deciding

Transgender and Jewish by Naomi Zeveloff, editor, The Forward Association, Inc., New York, NY; ISBN 978-1-499339-72-7 ©2014, $9.00, p. 43, plus A List of Contributors By Fred Reiss, Ed.D. WINCHESTER, California — American Jews seem to always be at the forefront of cultural and social change, such as with the Abolitionists, Suffragettes, and Feminists. Now

Torah, Chazal, and Science By Rabbi Moshe Meiselman, Israel Bookshop, Lakewood, NJ ISBN 978-1-60091-243-6 ©2013, $36.95, p. 887, including appendices, bibliographical notes, and index Reviewed by Fred Reiss, Ed.D. WINCHESTER, California –What does it mean to know something? If you didn’t give an immediate answer, then how do you know that you know if you

The Scandal of Kabbalah: Leon Modena, Jewish Mysticism, Early Modern Venice by Yaacob Dweck, Princeton University Press, Princeton, NJ;  ISBN 978-0-691-16215-7 ©2011 (paperback edition ©2014), $24.95, p. 235, including appendices, bibliography, and index By Fred Reiss, Ed.D. WINCHESTER, California–Kabbalah is the hidden and esoteric theology of Judaism. Kabbalists believe that Moses received this secret wisdom