Creating Judaism: History, Tradition, Practice (review)

Hebrew Studies 49 (2008) 329 Reviews should be debated more openly, such as whether historians of ancient Israel are like other historians, and whether they can be or should be. Megan Bishop Moore Wake Forest University Winston-Salem, NC 27109 mooremb@wfu.edu CREATING JUDAISM: HISTORY, TRADITION, PRACTICE. By Michael L. Satlow. Pp. xxi + 340. New York, N.Y.: Columbia University Press, 2006. Cloth, $69.50. Paper, $24.50. While Michael Satlow of Brown University does not explicitly state that his new volume, Creating Judaism: History, Tradition, Practice, is intended to be a textbook for an Introduction to Judaism course, the tone and structure of the book both indicate that the classroom is its most natural context. Satlow freely acknowledges the origins of much of the book in his own experiences teaching introductory courses, and the overall plan of the book—a sociological presentation of Judaism embedded in a framework that emphasizes intellectual history—lends itself well to such use. The ten chapters provide a reasonable scaffolding for a quarter- or semester-length course, while the back matter (including a good, basic bibliography for each chapter and a glossary of terms) makes the book approachable for beginning students . It does not suffice as a stand-alone textbook, however; like any such book, it has gaps in both its approach and content which individual instructors will have to fill, and for classroom use, it would need to be supplemented significantly with primary sources. The book begins with a methodological introduction (presented as a personal reflection on both the author’s Jewish identity and the challenges he faces when teaching Introduction to Judaism courses) which emphasizes the author’s sociological approach to key concepts such as “Jew” and “Judaism.” He states his thesis explicitly: “[This book’s] goal is to create and apply a non-normative model of Judaism that might help us to better understand how Jewish communities throughout history have been diverse and yet considered themselves to be members of the same family” (p. 8). In this chapter, Satlow provides useful and provocative definitions of key, recurrent concepts in a way that should easily engage students and promote discussion . While Satlow’s openness about his own Jewish identity may put off some readers, the book explicitly (and effectively) seeks to engage students from a variety of backgrounds. The personal elements of the presentation implicitly engage students from the perspective of the beginning student of Hebrew Studies 49 (2008) 330 Reviews religion, drawing out and articulating the unstated assumptions that most American students have about “religion” when they first study any religious tradition. The remainder of the book offers “snapshots of Judaism throughout time” (p. 18), focusing on a specific Jewish community (or more), its history, and its self-definition of Jewishness or Judaism; Satlow emphasizes the processes by which “traditional” ideas are transformed in response to various internal and external pressures. The first major chapter of the book begins with an inductive analysis of Judaism as it is practiced (and as it presents itself) in the United States and Israel. The emphasis is on the varieties of observable Jewish practices, and how those contrast with institutional Judaism in each context. At the same time, by juxtaposing American and Israeli manifestations of Judaism, Satlow attempts to delineate a concept of a “universal” Judaism, a recurring issue throughout the book. Pedagogically, Satlow’s decision to begin his book with the contemporary period— particularly with sketches of the modern American movements and the major issues in Israeli Judaism—is a real strength. It addresses some of the most basic questions that tend to lead students to take an Introduction to Judaism course but uses them effectively to set up the remainder of the book, which focuses almost exclusively on the pre-modern period. The bulk of the book (chapters 2 through 10) follow a roughly chronological sequence, moving from the biblical period (chapter 2) through the various manifestations of the Jewish encounters with modernity in Eastern and Western Europe (chapter 10). Satlow, whose specialty is Judaism in antiquity , devotes three chapters to Rabbinic Judaism: chapter 4, “The Rabbis,” describes the historical rise of the Rabbis and their literary legacy, addressing important texts (Talmud...