Synagogue Life: A Study in Symbolic Interaction

Via a participant-observer approach, Synagogue Life analyzes the three essential dimensions of synagogue life: the houses of prayer, study, and assembly. In each Heilman documents the rich detail of the synagogue experience while articulating the social and cultural drama inherent in them. He illustrates how people come to the synagogue not only for spiritual purposes but also to find out where and how they fit into life in the neighborhood in which they share. In his new introduction, Heilman discusses what led him to write this book and the process of personal transformation through which he, as an Orthodox Jew, had to go in order to turn a disciplined eye on the world from which he came. Rather than using the stranger-as-native approach of classic anthropology, he had instead to begin as a native who discoverd how to look at a once-taken-for-granted synagogue life like a stranger. In the afterword, arguing for the efficacy of this approach, Heilman offers guidance on how natives can use their special familiarity and still be trained to distance themselves from their own group, making use of the disciplines of sociology and anthropology. Synagogue Life offers a fascinating portrait that has something to say to social scientists as well as all those curious about what happens in the main arena of Orthodox Jewish community life.

Religion & Spirituality

Heílman, Samuel C.

Judaism

University of Chicago Press

Univ of Chicago Pr

Discusses the traditional practices of groups of Orthodox Jews, who gather together to ritually review and study Jewish law and sacred books

The People of the Book: Drama, Fellowship, and Religion

Politics & Social Sciences

Sociology

Far from simply vanishing in the face of modernity, Orthodox Jews in the United States today are surviving and flourishing. Samuel C. Heilman and Steven M. Cohen, both distinguished scholars of Jewish studies, have joined forces in this pathbreaking book to articulate this vibrancy and to characterize the many faces of Orthodox Jewry in contemporary America. Who are these Orthodox Jews? How have they survived, what do they believe and practice and how do they accommodate the tension between traditional Jewish and modern American values? Drawing on a survey of more than one thousand participants, the authors address these questions and many more. Heilman and Cohen reveal that American Jewish Orthodoxy is not a monolith by distinguishing its three broad varieties: the "traditionalists," the "centrists," and the "nominally" orthodox. To illuminate this full spectrum of orthodoxy the authors focus on the "centrists," taking us through the dimensions of their ritual observances, religious beliefs, community life, and their social, political, and sexual attitudes. Both parochial and cosmopolitan, orthodox and liberal, these Jews are characterized by their dualism, by their successful involvement in both the modern Western world and in traditional Jewish culture. In painting this provocative and fascinating portrait of what Jewish Orthodoxy has become in America today, Heilman and Cohen's study also sheds light on the larger picture of the persistence of religion in the modern world.

Cosmopolitans and Parochials: Modern Orthodox Jews in America

Cohen, Steven M.

Social Sciences

Argues that while American life permits Jews to live in security, this security has led to new concerns--assimilation, intermarriage, and large numbers ignoring their heritage

Portrait of American Jews: The Last Half of the 20th Century (Samuel and Althea Stroum Lectures in Jewish Studies)

History

World

Univ of Washington Pr

Has America been a place that has preserved and protected Jewish life? Is it a place in which a Jewish future is ensured? Samuel Heilman, long-time observer of American Jewish life, grapples with these questions from a sociologist's perspective. He argues that the same conditions that have allowed Jews to live in relative security since the 1950s have also presented them with a greater challenge than did the adversity and upheaval of earlier years.

Portrait of American Jews: The Last Half of the Twentieth Century (Samuel and Althea Stroum Lectures in Jewish Studies)

University of Washington Press

Samuel Heilman's eloquent account of the traditional customs that are put into practice when a Jewish person dies provides both an informative anthropological perspective on Jewish rites of mourning and a moving chronicle of the loss of his own father. This unique narrative crosses and recrosses the boundary between the academic and the religious, the personal and the general, reflecting Heilman's changing roles as social scientist, bereaved son, and observant Jew. Not only describing but explaining the cultural meaning behind Jewish practices and traditions, this extraordinary book shows what is particular and what is universal about Jewish experiences of death, bereavement, mourning, and their aftermath. Heilman describes the many phases of death: the moment between life and death, the transitional period when the dead have not yet been laid to rest, the preparation of the body (tahara), the Jewish funeral, the early seven-day period of mourning (shivah), the nearly twelve months during which the kaddish is recited, and the annual commemorations of bereavement. The richly informative ethnography that surrounds Heilman's personal account deepens our understanding of the customs and traditions that inform the Jewish cultural response to death. When a Jew Dies concludes by revealing the rhythm that lies beneath the Jewish experience with death. It finds that however much death has thrown life into disequilibrium, the Jewish response is to follow a precisely timed series of steps during which the dead are sent on their way and the living are reintegrated into the group and into life. Filled with absorbing detail and insightful interpretations that draw from social science as well as Jewish sources, this book offers new insight into one of the most profound and often difficult situations that almost everyone must face. Cover illustration by Max Ferguson

When a Jew Dies: The Ethnography of a Bereaved Son

Heilman, Samuel

University of California Press

In this first in-depth portrait of ultra-Orthodox Jews in Israel today, Samuel Heilman introduces a community that to many may seem to be the very embodiment of the Jewish past. To outsiders who stumble upon these neighborhoods and find bearded men in caftans, children with earlocks, and women in long dresses, black kerchiefs and stockings, it may appear that these people still hold fast to every tradition while turning their backs to the contemporary world. But rather than being a relic from the past, ultra-Orthodox Jews, or haredim, are very much part of the contemporary landscape and are playing an increasingly prominent role in the Jewish world and in Israeli politics. Defenders of the Faith takes us inside the world of this contemporary fundamentalist community, its lifestyle and mores, including education, religious practices and beliefs, sexual ethics, and marriage. Heilman explores the reasons why this group is more militant and extreme than its pre-Holocaust brethren, and provides insight into the worldview of this small but influential sector of modern Jewry.

Defenders of the Faith: Inside Ultra-Orthodox Jewry

See the best price to sell, buy, or rent books by Heílman, Samuel C.. BookScouter helps to compare book prices from 25+ online bookstores and 30+ buyback vendors with a single search.

Books by Heílman, Samuel C.

See the best price to sell, buy, or rent books by Heílman, Samuel C.. BookScouter helps to compare book prices from 25+ online bookstores and 30+ buyback vendors with a single search.

Synagogue Life: A Study in Symbolic Interaction

Synagogue Life: A Study in Symbolic Interaction

The People of the Book: Drama, Fellowship, and Religion

The People of the Book: Drama, Fellowship, and Religion

Cosmopolitans and Parochials: Modern Orthodox Jews in America

Cosmopolitans and Parochials: Modern Orthodox Jews in America

Portrait of American Jews: The Last Half of the 20th Century (Samuel and Althea Stroum Lectures in Jewish Studies)

Portrait of American Jews: The Last Half of the Twentieth Century (Samuel and Althea Stroum Lectures in Jewish Studies)

When a Jew Dies: The Ethnography of a Bereaved Son

Defenders of the Faith: Inside Ultra-Orthodox Jewry