Part of the Jewish Encounter series One of the world’s best-known attorneys gives us a no-holds-barred history of Jewish lawyers: from the biblical Abraham through modern-day advocates who have changed the world by challenging the status quo, defending the unpopular, contributing to the rule of law, and following the biblical command to pursue justice. The Hebrew Bible’s two great examples of advocacy on behalf of problematic defendants—Abraham trying to convince God not to destroy the people of Sodom, and Moses trying to convince God not to destroy the golden-calf-worshipping Children of Israel—established the template for Jewish lawyers for the next 4,500 years. Whether because throughout history Jews have found themselves unjustly accused of crimes ranging from deicide to ritual child murder to treason, or because the biblical exhortation that “justice, justice, shall you pursue” has been implanted in the Jewish psyche, Jewish lawyers have been at the forefront in battles against tyranny, in advocating for those denied due process, in negotiating for just and equitable solutions to complex legal problems, and in efforts to ensure a fair trial for anyone accused of a crime. Dershowitz profiles Jewish lawyers well-known and unheralded, admired and excoriated, victorious and defeated—and, of course, gives us some glimpses into the gung-ho practice of law, Dershowitz-style. Louis Brandeis, Theodor Herzl, Judah Benjamin, Max Hirschberg, René Cassin, Bruno Kreisky, Ruth Bader Ginsburg, and Irwin Cotler are just a few of the “idol smashers, advocates, collaborators, rescuers, and deal makers” who helped to change history. Dershowitz’s thoughts on the future of the Jewish lawyer are presented with the same insight, shrewdness, and candor that are the hallmarks of his more than four decades of writings on the law and how it is (and should be!) practiced.
Moreover, through Rosenberg's audacious translation of the Abraham story from Genesis, we learn that many of the core tenets of the monotheistic tradition-the idea of God's covenant and the soul-are Sumerian in origin.
This volume delineates the link between Judaism and Christanity, between Old and the New Testaments, and calls Christians to reexamine their Hebrew roots so as to effect a more authentically biblical lifestyle.
Chronicling nearly two thousand years of history, this panoramic saga follows the destiny of Abraham, a Jewish scribe, and his descendants from the burning of Jerusalem under the Romans to the 1943 battle of the Warsaw ghetto.
In Abraham in the Book of Jubilees Jacques van Ruiten offers a systematic analysis of one of the most important and extensive Second Temple Jewish treatments of the figure of Abraham (Jub. 11:14-23:8).
This study of Abraham’s life gives readers an in-depth glimpse into the life of Abraham, and shows them what genuine faith looks like for modern-day Christians.
A story revered by Jews, Christians and Muslims and turned over and over by great secular thinkers searching for meaning, this gripping tale shocks us into complete attention, then takes us - in nineteen short verses - on a roller coaster ...
The stranger-than-fiction story of a self-taught backwoods lawyer's transformation into the savior of a nation. Well-researched, engaging biography, written in 1917 by an Englishman, was one of the first major works on Lincoln.
"This is interpretation at its most daring and at its best" Widely respected scholar J. Richard Middleton suggests we have misread and misapplied the story of the binding of Isaac and explains that God desires more than silent obedience in ...
The publication of the King James version of the Bible, translated between 1603 and 1611, coincided with an extraordinary flowering of English literature and is universally acknowledged as the greatest...
The divine promises to Abraham have long been recognized as a key to the book of Genesis as a whole.