Losing the Mandate of Heaven

 

The People's Republic of Amnesia: Tiananmen Revisited by Louisa Lim is a deeply moving and intelligent account of the aftermath of the Tiananmen massacres, and its lasting impact on China.  In fact, Lim makes a compelling case that Tiananmen was the pivot point around which modern Chinese history hinges.  After the massacre, the state increasingly turned toward its own people as a threat, spending more on surveillance than defense.  Lim believes that a Tiananmen moment is on China’s horizon. We can only hope, so the genius of the Chinses people can shine forth in every enterprise.  

A Better Shade of Frum

 

Foundations of Sephardic Spirituality: The Inner Life of Jews of the Ottoman Empire by Rabbi Marc D. Angel provides a fascinating look at the Jews of Spain after their expulsion from the Iberian Peninsula, and their lives in the Ottoman Empire.  In many surveys of Jewish history, the decline of the Sephardic community after their exile from Spain is stated, but not contextualized.  Rabbi Angel walks us through the context, erasing the stigma of the so-called Sephardic decline.  Rabbi Angel also explains how Sephardic communities remained orthodox in modern times while not embracing denominations.  While most Sephardic communities were orthodox, the lacked the dogmatism of the Ashkenazi versions.  Sephardic religious practice was always less strident; it was always more worldly and accepting of difference, to their credit and our edification.  

A Loose Affiliation

 

Rabbi Pini Dunner is the Senior Rabbi at Beverly Hills Synagogue. This book, Mavericks, Mystics & False Messiahs: Episodes from the Margins of Jewish History, is an interesting view of some of the figures in (more or less) modern Judaism who have inhabited the “margins” of the Jewish experience, and yet had some kind of impact on the center.  There isn’t an overall theme or frame of reference to these examples; Rabbi Dunner appears to pick them because they are interesting.  All in all, this is an informative and even (at times) humorous read.

the documentary hypothesis: Lower Case

 

The Documentary Hypothesis by Umberto Cassuto as it is a relatively early attempt to dismantle the theory that dominated biblical studies for a century.  And certainly, the DH has deep flaws – some of them nearly fatal.  There is a certainty to the theory which the evidence does not and will never hold.  But the arguments that Cassuto brings forward to create his own hypothesis are equally shaky – or plausible, depending how we view the idea of ‘evidence’ and ‘plausibility’ about the biblical texts.  

At this point in the history of biblical study, who would not claim that the bible is a composite text?  It is not the work of one person, or two, but many.  So what is it, how was it created, and what is the history of its composition?  What can we really know with certainty? 

We really need to embrace more post-modern versions of biblical criticism.  Grand theories are over; we should have many theories that both compete and compliment each other.  Grand theories simply no longer hold.

The Comparison Fallacy

 

Gods, Goddesses, and the Women Who Serve Them by Susan Ackerman is an excellent series of essays mainly confined to the topics of the goddess(es) in Ancient Israel, and the Israelite society.  There is a lot of great material here, and much food for thought.  This and all studies like this suffer from the comparison fallacy.  Ackerman compares different rites and cultic activities from Bronze and Iron Age Greece, Mesopotamia, and Egypt.  It provides interesting material, but we have no proof of any connections between these cultures.  This is not the author’s fault – just an impediment to any ancient Israel study.

After the War

 

Savage Continent: Europe in the Aftermath of World War II by Keith Lowe explains with attention and clarity how the displacement, violence, and casual disregard for human life, continued well after the end of the war in Europe.  And not only the deportation of ethnic Germans in Czechoslovakia and East Prussia, which are somewhat known.  Lowe goes into great detail about the Greek civil war, where the British and the Americans supported a right wing government to defeat the communists.  The book sheds much needed like on a piece of neglected history.

The Definitive Warhol

 

Warhol a Biography by Blake Gopnik, at 965 pages, appears very nearly comprehensive.  The author explores every aspect of the artist’s life, with sympathy and an eye toward giving us an understanding of this complex man.  Whatever your impression of Warhol before reading this book, afterward it will no doubt change, and for the better.  Warhol was often seen as less than serious when he was alive (and to be fair, that was part of the mission of his art).  Gopnik will disabuse you of this notion.  Warhol deserves his place in the pantheon of twentieth century artists, both at the level of the execution of his art, and its abiding impact.