A Reform rabbi in Albany, Ga., Kaplan has edited a collection of essays on American Judaism and written three books on Reform Judaism. His newest contribution focuses on American Judaism since the end of WWII, emphasizing recent innovations in the religion of the Jewish people. The first chapter provides a broad overview of both religious and historical developments, including the impact of the Holocaust and Israel. Changes in religious identity are sketched. The next seven chapters flesh out the fundamentals identified in the introductory chapter. Kaplan discusses spirituality, Jewish denominationalism, intermarriage, feminism, Jewish Renewal, mysticism and synagogue revitalization. He concludes by emphasizing the need to transform Judaism, implying that a more orderly structure is needed but not necessarily achievable. He fails to mention the value of ferment and debate as guarantors of survival, an odd omission given his insightful description of radical changes in American Judaism.
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"Kaplan...skillfully portrays the wide variety of untraditional, often idiosyncratic, ways of 'doing Jewish.'" --
Forward --Forward newspaper review
"Enter this volume and discover the multilayered story of American Judaism since 1945." -- David Geffen,
Jerusalem Post --Jerusalem Post book review
"A tour de force that covers every important development in each of the branches of American Judaism, and Kaplan does it with a deep sensitivity to the issues involved." -- Chaim I. Waxman, Rutgers University --Back cover of Book
"
Contemporary American Judaism is a pioneering and exciting study. Dana Evan Kaplan should be highly commended for facing boldly and honestly the new realities of American Jewish life." -- Yaakov Ariel, UNC --Back cover of book
There is no better guide to the remarkable changes in American Jewish religion.
(Nathan Glazer, Harvard University )
A tour de force that covers every important development in each of the branches of American Judaism, and Kaplan does it with a deep sensitivity to the issues involved.
(Chaim I. Waxman, Rutgers University )
Contemporary American Judaism is a pioneering and exciting study. Dana Evan Kaplan should be highly commended for facing boldly and honestly the new realities of American Jewish life.
(Yaakov Ariel, University of North Carolina at Chapel Hill )
Spread around the world, interacting with diverse centers of communications, politics, and culture, the Jewish community is changing quickly and often in bewildering ways. But Judaism also remains a bellwether for what may be expected in other faiths as well. Dana Evan Kaplan has his finger on these changes and writes about them fairly and eloquently. You don't have to be Jewish to savor this book and learn from it.
(Harvey Cox, author of
When Jesus Came to Harvard: Making Moral Choices Today )
[Kaplan] skillfully portrays the wide variety of untraditional, often idiosyncratic ways of 'doing Jewish.
(
Forward )
[An] insightful description of radical changes in American Judaism.
(
Publishers Weekly )
A keen observer of the faith of his people in the U.S., Kaplan does not hesitate to underline the fact that 'the American environment has impacted Judaism.'
(David Geffen
Jerusalem Post Magazine )
Kaplan is clearly breaking new ground and writing a new narrative for twenty-first-century American Judaism.
(
Jewish Review of Books )
Kaplan's gallery of American-inflected Jewish innovators is entertaining and... illuminating.
(
Wilson Quarterly )
Kaplan's book is exhaustive in detail and broad in scope, touching on the fundamental challenges to contemporary Judaism in America from intermarriage, conversion, and the end of religious denominations to questions of ethnicity, spirituality, Israel, and the Holocaust.
(
Zeek )
