To this day Jewish thinkers struggle to articulate the appropriate response to the unprecedented catastrophe of the Holocaust. Here, Morgan offers the first comprehensive overview of Post-Holocaust Jewish theology, quoting extensively from and interpreting all of the significant American writings of the movement. Morgan's lucid analysis clarifies the background of the movement in the postwar period, its origins, its character, and its legacy for subsequent thinking, theological and otherwise. Ultimately, Morgan's primary purpose is to tell the story of the movement, to illuminate its real, deep point, and to demonstrate its continuing relevance today.

Beyond Auschwitz: Post-Holocaust Jewish Thought in America

History

Morgan, Michael L.

World

Oxford University Press

To this day Jewish thinkers struggle to articulate the appropriate response to the unprecedented catastrophe of the Holocaust. Here, Morgan offers the first comprehensive overview of Post-Holocaust Jewish theology, quoting extensively from and interpreting all of the significant American writings of the movement. Morgan's lucid analysis clarifies the background of the movement in the postwar period, its origins, its character, and its legacy for subsequent thinking, theological and otherwise. Ultimately, Morgan's primary purpose is to tell the story of the movement, to illuminate its real, deep point, and to demonstrate its continuing relevance today.

Americas

Levinas's Ethical Politics (The Helen and Martin Schwartz Lectures in Jewish Studies)

Emmanuel Levinas conceives of our lives as fundamentally interpersonal and ethical, claiming that our responsibilities to one another should shape all of our actions. While many scholars believe that Levinas failed to develop a robust view of political ethics, Michael L. Morgan argues against understandings of Levinas’s thought that find him politically wanting or even antipolitical. Morgan examines Levinas’s ethical critique of the political as well as his Jewish writings―including those on Zionism and the founding of the Jewish state―which are controversial reflections of Levinas’s political expression. Unlike others who dismiss Levinas as irrelevant or anarchical, Morgan is the first to give extensive treatment to Levinas as a serious social political thinker whose ethics must be understood in terms of its political implications. Morgan reveals Levinas’s political commitments to liberalism and democracy as well as his revolutionary conception of human life as deeply interconnected on philosophical, political, and religious grounds.

Politics & Social Sciences

Jay, Martin

Philosophy

Indiana University Press

Interim Judaism: Jewish Thought in a Century of Crisis

Confronting the challenges of the 20th century, from modernity and the Great War to the Holocaust and postmodern culture, Jewish thinkers have wrestled with such fundamental issues as redemption and revelation, eternity and history, messianism and politics. From the turn of the century through the 1920s, European Jewish intellectuals confronted alienation and the challenges of modernity by seeking secure grounds for a meaningful life. After the Holocaust and the fall of Nazism, the rich results of their thinking―on topics such as transcendence, redemption, revelation, and politics―were reinterpreted in an atmosphere of increasing disillusion and fragmentation. In Interim Judaism, Michael L. Morgan traces the evolution of this shift in values, as expressed in the work of social thinkers, novelists, artists, and poets as well as philosophers and theologians at the beginning and end of the century. Focusing on the problem of objectivity, the experience of the transcendent, and the relationship between redemption and politics, he argues that the outcome for contemporary Jews is a pragmatic style of religiosity that has abandoned traditional conceptions of Judaism and is searching and waiting for new ones, a condition that he describes as "interim Judaism."
Published with the generous support of Hebrew Union College–Jewish Institute of Religion, Cincinnati

Interim JudaismJewish Thought in a Century of CrisisMichael L. MorganProbes the impact of the 20th century on Jewish belief and practice.Confronting the challenges of the 20th century, from modernity and the Great War to the Holocaust and postmodern culture, Jewish thinkers have wrestled with such fundamental issues as redemption and revelation, eternity and history, messianism and politics. From the turn of the century through the 1920s, European Jewish intellectuals confronted alienation and the challenges of modernity by seeking secure grounds for a meaningful life. After the Holocaust and the fall of Nazism, the rich results of their thinking—on topics such as transcendence, redemption, revelation, and politics—were reinterpreted in an atmosphere of increasing disillusion and fragmentation. In Interim Judaism, Michael L. Morgan traces the evolution of this shift in values, as expressed in the work of social thinkers, novelists, artists, and poets as well as philosophers and theologians at the beginning and end of the century. Focusing on the problem of objectivity, the experience of the transcendent, and the relationship between redemption and politics, he argues that the outcome for contemporary Jews is a pragmatic style of religiosity that has abandoned traditional conceptions of Judaism and is searching and waiting for new ones, a condition that he describes as "interim Judaism."Michael L. Morgan is Professor of Philosophy and Jewish Studies at Indiana University, Bloomington. He is author of Platonic Piety and Dilemmas in Modern Jewish Thought (Indiana University Press). He has edited The Jewish Thought of Emil Fackenheim; Classics in Moral and Political Theory; Jewish Philosophers and Jewish Philosophy (Indiana University Press); and A Holocaust Reader: Responses to the Nazi Extermination. With Paul Franks, he has translated and edited Franz Rosenzweig: Philosophical and Theological Writings.Published with the generous support of Hebrew Union College–Jewish Institute of Religion, CincinnatiJuly 2001128 pages, 5 1/2 x 8 1/4cloth 0-253-33856-5 $35.00 L / £26.50paper 0-253-21441-6 $15.95 s / £12.50

"MIchael Morgan has served up an intellectual treat. These subtle and carefully reasoned essays explore the dilemmas of the post-modern Jew who would take history seriously without losing the commanding presence Israel heard at Sinai.... It is a pleasure to be nourished by a fresh mind exploring the tension between reason and revelation, history and faith." ―Rabbi Samuel Karff
"This is without doubt one of the most significant works in modern Jewish thought and a must for a thoughtful student of contemporary Jewish philosophy." ―Rabbie Sheldon Zimmerman
"This may well mark the next stage in the long history of Jewish self-understanding." ―Ethics
"... rigorous history of modern Jewish thought... " ―Choice
Is Judaism a timeless, universal set of beliefs or, rather, is it historical and contingent in its relation to different times and places? Morgan clarifies the tensions and dilemmas that characterize modern thinking about the nature of Judaism and clears the way for Jews to appreciate their historical situation, yet locate enduring values and principles in a post-Holocaust world.

Dilemmas in Modern Jewish Thought: The Dialectics of Revelation and History

Hardcover with dust jacket. VG/VG. Previous owner's stamp inside front cover.

Platonic Piety: Philosophy and Ritual in Fourth Century Athens

Religion & Spirituality

Literature & Fiction

Yale Univ Pr

This book provides a clear and helpful overview of the thought of Emmanuel Levinas, one of the most significant and interesting philosophers of the late twentieth century. Michael L. Morgan presents an overall interpretation of Levinas's central principle that human existence is fundamentally ethical and that its ethical character is grounded in our face-to-face relationships with other people. He explores the religious, cultural, and political implications of this insight for modern Western culture and how it relates to our conception of selfhood and what it is to be a person, our understanding of the ground of moral values, our experience of time and the meaning of history, and our experience of religious concepts and discourse. The book includes an annotated list of recommended readings and a selected bibliography of books by and about Levinas. It will be an excellent introduction to Levinas for readers unfamiliar with his work, and even for those without a background in philosophy.

The Cambridge Introduction to Emmanuel Levinas

Cambridge University Press

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

Books by Morgan, Michael L.

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

Beyond Auschwitz: Post-Holocaust Jewish Thought in America

Beyond Auschwitz: Post-Holocaust Jewish Thought in America

Levinas's Ethical Politics (The Helen and Martin Schwartz Lectures in Jewish Studies)

Levinas's Ethical Politics (The Helen and Martin Schwartz Lectures in Jewish Studies)

Interim Judaism: Jewish Thought in a Century of Crisis

Interim Judaism: Jewish Thought in a Century of Crisis

Dilemmas in Modern Jewish Thought: The Dialectics of Revelation and History

Platonic Piety: Philosophy and Ritual in Fourth Century Athens

The Cambridge Introduction to Emmanuel Levinas

The Cambridge Introduction to Emmanuel Levinas