Jews and Words - Hardcover

Amos Oz; Fania Oz-salzberger

Hardcover

ISBN 10: 0300156472 ISBN 13: 9780300156478

Publisher: Yale University Press, 2012

Synopsis

Why are words so important to Jews? Novelist Amos Oz and historian Fania Oz-Salzberger roam the gamut of Jewish history to explain the integral relationship of Jews and words. Through a blend of storytelling and scholarship, conversation and argument, father and daughter tell the tales behind Judaism's most enduring names, adages, disputes, texts, and quips. These words, they argue, comprise the chain connecting Abraham with the Jews of every subsequent generation. Framing the discussion within such topics as continuity, women, timelessness, and individualism, Oz and Oz-Salzberger deftly engage Jewish personalities across the ages, from the unnamed, possibly-female author of the "Song of Songs" through obscure Talmudists to contemporary writers. They suggest that Jewish continuity, even Jewish uniqueness, depends not on central places, monuments, heroic personalities, or rituals, but rather on written words and an ongoing conversation between the generations. Full of learning, lyricism, and humour, "Jews and Words" offers an extraordinary tour of the words at the heart of Jewish culture and extends a hand to the reader, any reader, to join the dialogue.

About this title

Review:

"Jews and Words is a wonderful, a great essay... The line 'Ours is not a bloodline but a textline' is a drum beat." --Jurgen Habermas

"Thrilling and entertaining, Jews and Words challenges cliches and stereotypes at every page. Its tone is half serious and half humorous, mixing a mastery of its subject with an informal touch. It promises to be very controversial and widely read." --Mario Vargas Llosa

"Ingenious and thrilling, Jews and Words manages to cram more than 5,000 years of prayers, songs, stories, arguments, praises, curses and jokes into the suitcase of a thin, page-turning work of... what? History? Anthropology? Literary criticism? Theology? All of these and more. It's a wonderful book." --Jonathan Safran Foer

About the Author:

Amos Oz is the internationally renowned author of more than twenty works of fiction and numerous essays on politics, literature, and peace. He is also professor of literature at Ben-Gurion University in Be'er Sheva. Fania Oz-Salzberger is a writer and history professor at the University of Haifa. She recently held the Leon Liberman Chair in Modern Israel Studies, Monash University, Australia and the Laurance S. Rockefeller Visiting Professorship for Distinguished Teaching at Princeton University.

About this edition

• Publisher: Yale University Press
• Publication date: 2012
• ISBN 10: 0300156472
• ISBN 13: 9780300156478
• Binding: Hardcover
• Number of pages: 160