A rare work on Jewish liturgy that offers as much to rabbis and cantors as it does their lay congregations.
A group of prominent American rabbis reimagine the haftarah’s place in the Jewish liturgy in this collection edited by Symons.
Derived from the Hebrew word meaning conclusion, the haftarah is the final word of sacred text read or chanted before the Torah scroll is returned to the ark during Sabbaths and festivals. Its passages typically come from the Old Testament’s second half, such as Isaiah 58, in which the ancient prophet calls out the hypocrisy of Israelites for not practicing the virtues they preach. The haftarah was originally designed to be “liturgically radical,” urging listeners to “disrupt society’s oppressive hypocrisy and call attention to the plight of all those who suffer,” as Rabbi Jonah Dov Pesner says in this book’s foreword; however, many rabbis are familiar with looking out into their congregations as “eyes glaze over during the haftarah reading, which should be summoning us to action.” The idea of this volume, which features roughly 150 contributors, was born during a national conference in 2018 among Reform Jews who sought to direct the moral impulses of their religion to contemporary issues, including racial justice, voting rights, gun violence, reproductive and LGBTQ+ rights, and mass incarceration. It begins with introductory essays about prophetic readings and the origins of the haftarah; the second part provides contemporary interpretations of standard Reform haftarah texts, and the third and fourth parts offer alternative voices to address issues that correspond to the traditional Jewish calendar and American Jewish calendar. The latter includes “Brown v. Board of Education in International Context,” by Justice Ruth Bader Ginsburg for International Women’s Day and “Invisibility in Academe” by Adrienne Rich for the Transgender Day of Visibility. Vetted by an editorial advisory committee of more than a dozen rabbis and Jewish scholars, this is a well-researched work that boasts over 500 endnotes. Under the experienced eye of Symons, the editorial board’s chair, it offers scholarly bona fides and an accessible writing style that’s sensitive to contemporary liturgical needs.
A rare work on Jewish liturgy that offers as much to rabbis and cantors as it does their lay congregations.Pub Date: Feb. 15, 2023
ISBN: 9780881233704
Page Count: 562
Publisher: Central Conference of American Rabbis Press
Review Posted Online: Feb. 6, 2023
Kirkus Reviews Issue: March 15, 2023
Review Program: Kirkus Indie
A pleasure for fans of old-school historical narratives.
Avuncular observations on matters historical from the late popularizer of the past.
McCullough made a fine career of storytelling his way through past events and the great men (and occasional woman) of long-ago American history. In that regard, to say nothing of his eschewing modern technology in favor of the typewriter (“I love the way the bell rings every time I swing the carriage lever”), he might be thought of as belonging to a past age himself. In this set of occasional pieces, including various speeches and genial essays on what to read and how to write, he strikes a strong tone as an old-fashioned moralist: “Indifference to history isn’t just ignorant, it’s rude,” he thunders. “It’s a form of ingratitude.” There are some charming reminiscences in here. One concerns cajoling his way into a meeting with Arthur Schlesinger in order to pitch a speech to presidential candidate John F. Kennedy: Where Richard Nixon “has no character and no convictions,” he opined, Kennedy “is appealing to our best instincts.” McCullough allows that it wasn’t the strongest of ideas, but Schlesinger told him to write up a speech anyway, and when it got to Kennedy, “he gave a speech in which there was one paragraph that had once sentence written by me.” Some of McCullough’s appreciations here are of writers who are not much read these days, such as Herman Wouk and Paul Horgan; a long piece concerns a president who’s been largely lost in the shuffle too, Harry Truman, whose decision to drop the atomic bomb on Japan McCullough defends. At his best here, McCullough uses history as a way to orient thinking about the present, and with luck to good ends: “I am a short-range pessimist and a long-range optimist. I sincerely believe that we may be on the way to a very different and far better time.”
A pleasure for fans of old-school historical narratives.Pub Date: Sept. 16, 2025
ISBN: 9781668098998
Page Count: 208
Publisher: Simon & Schuster
Review Posted Online: June 26, 2025
Kirkus Reviews Issue: Aug. 1, 2025
SEEN & HEARD
Worthwhile reference stuffed with facts and illustrations.
A compendium of charts, time lines, lists and illustrations to accompany study of the Bible.
This visually appealing resource provides a wide array of illustrative and textually concise references, beginning with three sets of charts covering the Bible as a whole, the Old Testament and the New Testament. These charts cover such topics as biblical weights and measures, feasts and holidays and the 12 disciples. Most of the charts use a variety of illustrative techniques to convey lessons and provide visual interest. A worthwhile example is “How We Got the Bible,” which provides a time line of translation history, comparisons of canons among faiths and portraits of important figures in biblical translation, such as Jerome and John Wycliffe. The book then presents a section of maps, followed by diagrams to conceptualize such structures as Noah’s Ark and Solomon’s Temple. Finally, a section on Christianity, cults and other religions describes key aspects of history and doctrine for certain Christian sects and other faith traditions. Overall, the authors take a traditionalist, conservative approach. For instance, they list Moses as the author of the Pentateuch (the first five books of the Hebrew Bible) without making mention of claims to the contrary. When comparing various Christian sects and world religions, the emphasis is on doctrine and orthodox theology. Some chapters, however, may not completely align with the needs of Catholic and Orthodox churches. But the authors’ leanings are muted enough and do not detract from the work’s usefulness. As a resource, it’s well organized, inviting and visually stimulating. Even the most seasoned reader will learn something while browsing.
Worthwhile reference stuffed with facts and illustrations.Pub Date: Sept. 1, 2005
ISBN: 978-1-5963-6022-8
Page Count: -
Publisher: N/A
Review Posted Online: May 23, 2010
Review Program: Kirkus Indie
© Copyright 2025 Kirkus Media LLC. All Rights Reserved.
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