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Book Reviews .. ~. 149 questions as "Did Zionism mean to create an American-style supermarket on the Mediterranean built by Arab masons and carpenters?" In that same essay he excoriated the Orthodox· establishment in Israel for "its veto over free religious expression by Israeli Jews," and he castigated Orthodoxy for adding to the militarism of many religious citizens of Israel. In a portrait of Yeshayahu Leibowitz written in 1981 in Sh 'rna, Rabbi Wolfcontinuedhis attack on Orthodoxy in Israel, stating, "Religious Jews have become a mere sect instead ofa model. Therefore the established synagogue must be disestablished." Again, he spoke out in favor oflsrael's disengaging itselffrom the occupied territories. It should also be mentioned that his portraits ofsuch distinguished thinkers as Jean Paul Sartre, Mordecai Kaplan, and Martin Buber, among others, are among the highlights of this challenging, provocative and very illuminating book. Rabbi Wolf, as a Reform rabbi, teacher, writer, and theologian, has always sought to engage Jewish minds and hearts in a dialogue based upon his unshaken conviction that only a radical politics firmly rooted in meaningful and substantive Jewish piety and practice deserves to be called "Judaism." There are those who refer to Rabbi Arnold Jacob Wolf as a "prophet become rabbi," and indeed, Unfinished Rabbi resonates with such a voice. The American Jewish community is fortunate to number a Rabbi Arnold Jacob Wolf in its ranks. Hopefully, others will continue to pursue the questions he has raised and so strengthen and sustain American Jewry and American Judaism. Rabbi Samuel Weingart Temple Israel West Lafayette, Indiana From Patriarch to Priest: The Levi-Priestly Tradition from Aramaic Levi to Testament of Levi, by Robert A. Kugler. SBL Early Judaism and Its Literature 9. Atlanta: Scholars Press, 1996. 255 pp. $21.95. This monograph, a revision ofthe author's dissertation at the University ofNotre Dame (directed by Professor James VanderKam), is an ambitious and a welcome project for specialists in Second Temple Judaism, biblical studies, and Jewish history. Studies on priests in Israel have been few enough, but ones with a focus on the figure of Levi are even more rare. Most research has focused on the Zadokite priesthood, apparently the regnant group throughout most of the life of the Jerusalem temple. So the numerous reverences to Levi as priest, especially in the Pseudepigrapha and now in other Qumran texts, have long invited scholarly attention to this priestly figure, and we can be very grateful to Kugler for organizing and studying the materials. 150 SHOFAR Fall 1999 Vol. 18, No. I Access to the Levi priestly texts has increased greatly in the last century. Previously it was possible to access the Testament of Levi, one of the Testaments of the Twelve Patriarchs. When some ofthe Cairo Genizah texts (discovered in 1896) were studied at Cambridge, an important Aramaic Levi document was recognized (considered as a possible source for the Testament ofJudah!). When an additional Genizah fragment in the Bodleian Library was published in 1907, parallels to the Testament ofLevi became much clearer. About the same time, R. H. Charles associated a Levi-text in Greek from the monastic library at Mt. Athos with the Genizah texts. Finally, with the discoveries .at Qumran, fragments from Caves 1 and 4 provided additional material for the complex and difficult task of reconstructing an Aramaic text about Levi. Kugler's major contribution must be his attempt to sift through all these fragments ofa text, considering their language and contents carefully, comparing them to what is known as the Testament of Levi, and then reconstructing an Aramaic Levi document. The figure of Levi also plays an important role in the Book of Jubilees 30-32; though his connection to the priesthood is similarly rooted in a retelling/interpretation ofthe rape ofDinah in Genesis 34, this tradition differs considerably from other parallel traditions. According to Kugler, this writer employed Levi in order to propose a program for Jewish priesthood after the Maccabean revolt. By contrast, the reconstructed Aramaic Levi document has far greater emphasis on purity concerns. Comparison of these two traditions suggests to Kugler an original Levi Apocryphon from which both Aramaic Levi and Jubilees drew some inspiration. Finally, his comparison with the Testament...

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