Customer Reviews

Judaism in a Secular Age: An Anthology of Secular Humanistic Jewish Thought (Library of Secular Humanistic Judaism)

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I had always thought of myself as Jewish, always celebrated the holidays with my parents at home. But then I was bat-mitzvah age and suddenly I didn't want to go to synagogue and memorize hebrew texts. I wanted to do something more meaningful to myself. And so we, as a family, shopped around. We spent hours at libraries and read countless books about Jewish heritage and the religion, finally stumbling upon Secular Humanistic Judaism. It fit us exactly. We think of Judaism as our heritage and religion, though in a modern scientific age we'd given up believing in the Bible literally. One line in the introduction of this book states something like, 'Our God does not care whether or not we eat tuna with mayo.' And we agree wholeheartedly. So if you're looking to understand these new movements of Judaism, beyond reformed, I recommed this book. It traces the history of the movement through powerful Jewish thinkers and writers of the centuries. I encourage you to explore, find what Judaism means to you, to shop around.

I had always thought of myself as Jewish, always celebrated the holidays with my parents at home. But then I was bat-mitzvah age and suddenly I didn't want to go to synagogue and memorize hebrew texts. I wanted to do something more meaningful to myself. And so we, as a family, shopped around. We spent hours at libraries and read countless books about Jewish heritage and the religion, finally stumbling upon Secular Humanistic Judaism. It fit us exactly. We think of Judaism as our heritage and religion, though in a modern scientific age we'd given up believing in the Bible literally. One line in the introduction of this book states something like, 'Our God does not care whether or not we eat tuna with mayo.' And we agree wholeheartedly. So if you're looking to understand these new movements of Judaism, beyond reformed, I recommed this book. It traces the history of the movement through powerful Jewish thinkers and writers of the centuries. I encourage you to explore, find what Judaism means to you, to shop around.

Presented with the coming-of-age ceremonies of my nieces and nephews, I sought an anthology of writers who express their Jewishness in the tradition of Albert Einstein, Woody Allen, and Carl Sagan, in an inspiring way, as a stimulus to further thought. That's approximately what we have here, though it's a bit wider-ranging.