A disappointing take on what could be a fascinating topic.
An academic look at Jewish crafts.
In this latest entry in the publisher’s Where Religion Lives series, Eichler-Levine, a professor of Jewish civilization, sets out to provide a book that “examines Jewish material culture with a focus on creativity, gender, and religion in North America. It is a book about the power of craft in relation to Jewish identity.” Unfortunately, readers looking for insight into Jewish arts and crafts will be unsatisfied by this sterile text. Instead of a meaningful exploration of the rich history of craft in Judaism, the author instead uses this heritage as a means to explore modern American Jews as an ethnic group. Eichler-Levine begins by pointing toward the concept of generative resilience, whereby “acts of creation become a crucial part of their makers’ ways of being and coping in the world.” This becomes the starting point from which the author views Jewish craft—as a reactionary expression or a coping mechanism. Eichler-Levine goes on to characterize Jewish craft as having an almost entirely activist role, devoting much attention to such “craftivist” subjects as the “Pussyhats,” which were ubiquitous during the 2017 Women’s March. When exploring Jewish crafts from a less political point of view, the author delves into an esoteric study of crafting that will appeal only to die-hard arts-and-crafts enthusiasts. “I want to think with the frame of what is Jewish expansively,” she writes about a knitting group, “as a critical construction, not just a function of Jewish-affiliated bodies.” In the author’s very act of dissecting and scrutinizing the art of Jewish crafting, she unnecessarily divorces it from the culture and the people who make it. By the end of the book, Jewish craft becomes a byproduct of politics, psychology, and ethnology, in the process losing its individuality and humanity.
A disappointing take on what could be a fascinating topic.Pub Date: Oct. 19, 2020
ISBN: 978-1-4696-6063-9
Page Count: 256
Publisher: Univ. of North Carolina
Review Posted Online: July 27, 2020
Kirkus Reviews Issue: Aug. 15, 2020
In this highly learned yet accessible book, Robinson offers believers fresh insight into a well-studied text.
A deeply thoughtful exploration of the first book of the Bible.
In this illuminating work of biblical analysis, Pulitzer Prize–winning novelist Robinson, whose Gilead series contains a variety of Christian themes, takes readers on a dedicated layperson’s journey through the Book of Genesis. The author meanders delightfully through the text, ruminating on one tale after another while searching for themes and mining for universal truths. Robinson approaches Genesis with a reverence and level of faith uncommon to modern mainstream writers, yet she’s also equipped with the appropriate tools for cogent criticism. Throughout this luminous exegesis, which will appeal to all practicing Christians, the author discusses overarching themes in Genesis. First is the benevolence of God. Robinson points out that “to say that God is the good creator of a good creation” sets the God of Genesis in opposition to the gods of other ancient creation stories, who range from indifferent to evil. This goodness carries through the entirety of Genesis, demonstrated through grace. “Grace tempers judgment,” writes the author, noting that despite well-deserved instances of wrath or punishment, God relents time after time. Another overarching theme is the interplay between God’s providence and humanity’s independence. Across the Book of Genesis, otherwise ordinary people make decisions that will affect the future in significant ways, yet events are consistently steered by God’s omnipotence. For instance, Joseph is sold into slavery by his brothers, and that action has reverberated throughout the history of all Jewish people. Robinson indirectly asks readers to consider where the line is between the actions of God and the actions of creation. “He chose to let us be,” she concludes, “to let time yield what it will—within the vast latitude granted by providence.”
In this highly learned yet accessible book, Robinson offers believers fresh insight into a well-studied text.Pub Date: March 12, 2024
ISBN: 9780374299408
Page Count: 352
Publisher: Farrar, Straus and Giroux
Review Posted Online: Oct. 14, 2023
Kirkus Reviews Issue: Nov. 15, 2023
If the authors are serious, this is a silly, distasteful book. If they are not, it’s a brilliant satire.
The authors have created a sort of anti-Book of Virtues in this encyclopedic compendium of the ways and means of power.
Everyone wants power and everyone is in a constant duplicitous game to gain more power at the expense of others, according to Greene, a screenwriter and former editor at Esquire (Elffers, a book packager, designed the volume, with its attractive marginalia). We live today as courtiers once did in royal courts: we must appear civil while attempting to crush all those around us. This power game can be played well or poorly, and in these 48 laws culled from the history and wisdom of the world’s greatest power players are the rules that must be followed to win. These laws boil down to being as ruthless, selfish, manipulative, and deceitful as possible. Each law, however, gets its own chapter: “Conceal Your Intentions,” “Always Say Less Than Necessary,” “Pose as a Friend, Work as a Spy,” and so on. Each chapter is conveniently broken down into sections on what happened to those who transgressed or observed the particular law, the key elements in this law, and ways to defensively reverse this law when it’s used against you. Quotations in the margins amplify the lesson being taught. While compelling in the way an auto accident might be, the book is simply nonsense. Rules often contradict each other. We are told, for instance, to “be conspicuous at all cost,” then told to “behave like others.” More seriously, Greene never really defines “power,” and he merely asserts, rather than offers evidence for, the Hobbesian world of all against all in which he insists we live. The world may be like this at times, but often it isn’t. To ask why this is so would be a far more useful project.
If the authors are serious, this is a silly, distasteful book. If they are not, it’s a brilliant satire.Pub Date: Sept. 1, 1998
ISBN: 0-670-88146-5
Page Count: 430
Publisher: Viking
Review Posted Online: May 19, 2010
Kirkus Reviews Issue: July 15, 1998
BOOK REVIEW
BOOK REVIEW
BOOK TO SCREEN
© Copyright 2024 Kirkus Media LLC. All Rights Reserved.
Follow
Popular in this Genre
We can’t wait for you to join Kirkus!
It’s free and takes less than 10 seconds!
Already have an account? Log in.
OR
Sign in with GoogleTrouble signing in? Retrieve credentials.
Welcome Back!
OR
Sign in with GoogleTrouble signing in? Retrieve credentials.
bookshelf
