"A master of American and Jewish thought brings his broad know ledge and deep devotion to Jewish ideals to fashion this elegant and stimulating collection of essays. The two traditions are illuminated anew in their interplay as major influences on Western thought and contemporary life."—Abraham J. Karp, professor emeritus of history and religion, University of Rochester
Description
In this work, which spans his entire career, as an expert on the justice system, Milton R. Konvitz analyzes the connections between the Torah and the American Constitution. He elaborates on the centrality of law both in America and in Judaism: the first bound to the Constitution and the Framers, the second bound to Revelation, expanding to a legal system fashioned and refashioned by human interpretation. Konvitz has long been considered a preeminent scholar on First Amendment rights, civil rights, and the law in America. These pieces, compiled here for the first time, gain new resonance as part of an ongoing theme-the accord of American democracy and the Jewish religious tradition.
Table of Contents
Introduction
PART ONE: Jewish, Constitutional, and Natural Law
1. The Confluence of Torah and Constitution
2. Religious Liberty: The Congruence of Thomas Jefferson and Moses Mendelssohn
3. The Jewish Quest for Equality and the American Experience
4. Profane Religion and Sacred Law
5. Law and Morals in the Bible, Plato, and Aristotle
6. Natural Law and Judaism: The Case of Maimonides
PART TWO: Judaism and Pluralism
7. Many Are Called and Many Are Chosen I 119
8. Tradition and Change in American Judaism: A Letter to David Daiches
9. What Is Jewish Living?
10. Chaim Grade's Quarrel
PART THREE: Zionism and Homelessness
11. Zionism: Homecoming or Homelessness?
12. Of Exile and Double Consciousness
13. Herman Melville Makes a Pilgrimage to the Holy Land
About the Author
Milton R. Konvitz, professor emeritus of industrial labor relations and of law at Cornell University, is the author of ten books, including The Constitution and Civil Rights, A Century of Civil Rights, Religious Liberty and Conscience, and Judaism and the American Idea, and he has edited thirteen other books, including First Amendment Freedoms, The Recognition of Ralph Waldo Emerson, Judaism and Human Rights and Bill of Rights Reader.
February 1998