Kalman P. Bland's Books

The Artless Jew

Medieval and Modern Affirmations and Denials of the Visual

By: Kalman P. Bland

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The Artless Jew

Medieval and Modern Affirmations and Denials of the Visual

By: Kalman P. Bland

Conventional wisdom holds that Judaism is indifferent or even suspiciously hostile to the visual arts due to the Second Commandment's prohibition on creating "graven images," the dictates of monotheism, and historical happenstance. This intellectual history of medieval and modern Jewish attitudes toward art and representation overturns the modern assumption of Jewish iconophobia that denies to Jewish culture a visual dimension. Kalman Bland synthesizes evidence from medieval Jewish philosophy, mysticism, poetry, biblical commentaries, travelogues, and law, concluding that premodern Jewish intellectuals held a positive, liberal understanding of the Second Commandment and did, in fact, articulate a certain Jewish aesthetic. He draws on this insight to consider modern ideas of Jewish art, revealing how they are inextricably linked to diverse notions about modern Jewish identity that are themselves entwined with arguments over Zionism, integration, and anti-Semitism. Through its use of the past to illuminate the present and its analysis of how the present informs our readings of the past, this book establishes a new assessment of Jewish aesthetic theory rooted in historical analysis. Authoritative and original in its identification of authentic Jewish traditions of painting, sculpture, and architecture, this volume will ripple the waters of several disciplines, including Jewish studies, art history, medieval and modern history, and philosophy.

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Page Count

244

Publisher

Princeton University Press

Published Date

ISBN 10

1400823579

ISBN 13

9781400823574

Jewish People, Yiddish Nation

Noah Prylucki and the Folkists in Poland

By: Kalman Weiser

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Jewish People, Yiddish Nation

Noah Prylucki and the Folkists in Poland

By: Kalman Weiser

Noah Prylucki (1882-1941), a leading Jewish cultural and political figure in pre-Holocaust Eastern Europe, was a proponent of Yiddishism, a movement that promoted secular Yiddish culture as the basis for Jewish collective identity in the twentieth century. Prylucki's dramatic path - from russified Zionist raised in a Ukrainian shtetl, to Diaspora nationalist parliamentarian in metropolitan Warsaw, to professor of Yiddish in Soviet Lithuania - uniquely reflects the dilemmas and competing options facing the Jews of this era as life in Eastern Europe underwent radical transformation. Using hitherto unexplored archival sources, memoirs, interviews, and materials from the vibrant interwar Jewish and Polish presses, Kalman Weiser investigates the rise and fall of Yiddishism and of Prylucki's political party, the Folkists, in the post-World War One era. Jewish People, Yiddish Nation reveals the life of a remarkable individual and the fortunes of a major cultural movement that has long been obscured.

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Page Count

417

Publisher

University of Toronto Press

Published Date

ISBN 10

1442662107

ISBN 13

9781442662100

The Artless Jew

Medieval and Modern Affirmations and Denials of the Visual

By: Kalman P. Bland

Write a review Read reviews Take a Quiz Solve Book Puzzle

The Artless Jew

Medieval and Modern Affirmations and Denials of the Visual

By: Kalman P. Bland

Average ratings

N/A

Write a review

Solve jigsaw puzzle

Age

Page Count

244

Publisher

Princeton University Press

Published Date

ISBN 10

1400823579

ISBN 13

9781400823574

Book's by Kalman P. Bland

The Artless Jew

The Artless Jew

Jewish People, Yiddish Nation

Jewish People, Yiddish Nation

The Artless Jew

The Artless Jew

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