Foreword to the Symposium: Jewish Law and American Law: A Comparative Study (original) (raw)
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Emerging Applications of Jewish Law in American Legal Scholarship: An Introduction
Journal of Law and Religion, 2007
In recent years, the field of Jewish law has gained increasing prominence in American law schools and legal scholarship. 1 On a curricular level, a growing number of law schools offer courses examining various aspects of the Jewish legal system, often presented in a comparative context as a means of illuminating and adding depth to American legal education. 2 Moreover, several law schools have initiated institutes dedicated to the study of Jewish law, 3 while at other schools, discussions of Jewish law serve as an important component of broader programs in law and religion. 4
Some Disparities and Parallels in Jewish and American Law
Conservative Judaism, 2009
riting in honor of Rabbi Neil Gillman is a privilege for me. From the perspective of the American rabbinate, he has, for a half-century, brought a deeply needed understanding of the nature of God and the importance of theological discourse into the training of America's Jewish religious leadership. From my personal perspective as his student and, I like to think, his friend, he has, in the more than five years that I have come to know him, strengthened my love for and appreciation of the richness of the intellectual and spiritual aspects of the Jewish heritage. Perhaps most importantly, from the perspective of the American Jewish community, Rabbi Gillman has truly in the spirit of Maimonides helped thinking American Jews bridge the gap between secular philosophy, as they confront its issues on a daily basis in their professional and personal lives, and the religious tenets of a tradition which seemed to be losing ground during the twentieth and twenty-first century battle for the minds and spirits of this country's Jewish citizens. For that, we should all be grateful. This paper focuses on one small (and indeed, highly controversial) segment of Rabbi Gillman's teaching: his urgent call for a reassessment of the Conservative movement's approach to halakhah-Jewish law. In an address delivered to the 2005 United Synagogue convention (a version of which was published in this journal), he questioned whether the movement should continue to label itself halakhic in light of its consistently applied view that Jewish law must, to be a meaningful reflection of our perception
Can Rabbinic Jurisprudence Help Elevate American Political and Legal Discourse
The Aspen Center for Social Values is more than a think tank. It is a network of socially-minded individuals seeking practical ideas to solve pressing social challenges. Its mission is to promote serious thought about -and to bring a fresh and unique voice to -social and societal challenges that confront the world today.
Equity in American and Jewish Law
Touro Law Review vol. 36 pp. 109-48, 2020
This article examines the subject of equity in the laws of the United States and in Jewish law. The equitable principles and remedies in American law are rooted in the common law of England. Their origins and development are fully addressed and elaborated upon infra. Alternatively, the equitable principles in Jewish law, as established in the Talmud, specifically in the Mishna and Gemara, are rooted in the Torah, which is divided into two separate parts: The written Torah, referred to in Hebrew as the “Torah Shebichtav” (literally translated from the Hebrew, as the “written Torah”), and the oral Torah, or “Torah Sheba’al Peh,” (literally translated from the Hebrew, as the “Torah in the mouth”). Jewish tradition holds that Moses received both at Mt. Sinai and that over the course of the Israelites’ forty-year trek through the desert, he imparted it to the people and that these were then passed down through the generations. The equitable principles of the Jewish law discussed herein focus mostly on the Mishna – a compilation of the oral law undertaken by Rabbi Judah the Prince, the Mishnah, in about the year 200 of the common era. It is the earliest authoritative written body of the Jewish oral law – and the Gemara, is set of texts encompassing the rabbinical analysis of and commentary on the Mishnah.
Elgar Encyclopedia of Comparative Law (2023), 2023
Jewish law has been the legal tradition of the Jewish people over the course of its thousands of years of existence. In important respects, its influence has reached beyond the life of the Jewish people, to the whole of Western law. Over its long history, Jewish law evolved a legal approach with unique features. After reviewing key points about the history and the classic works of Jewish law, this entry addresses several of its most general characteristics, namely, revelation and wisdom, sovereignty and exile, and rights and duties. It closes with a discussion of the role of Jewish law in modern Israeli law. This is a draft entry. The final version will be available in Elgar Encyclopedia of Comparative Law, edited by Katherine Valcke, forthcoming 2022, Edward Elgar Publishing Ltd. The material cannot be used for any other purpose without further permission of the publisher, and is for private use only.
This paper suggests a comprehensive approach to research on interactions of Jewish and other legal systems. It proposes methods to answer old questions and open new frontiers of research. specifically, the article ulitizes system theory, analysis of dynamics in systems and insights from complexity theory in analysing psika - jewish legal decision processes and the Jewish law as a body of knowledge and system. Each methodological argument can be read separately and each should be critically assessed. However, the arguments can also be read as fully intertwined, creating a whole that is greater than its parts. A concluding section discusses the organizational and conceptual challenges that are inherent to this paradigm shift.
Encircling the Law: The Legal Boundaries of Rabbinic Judaism
Jewish Studies Quarterly, 2009
There are a great many things which cannot withstand the implacable, bright light of the constant presence of others on the public scene; there, only what is considered to be relevant... can be tolcrated, so that the irrelevant becomes automatically a private matter. This, to be sure, does not mean that private concerns are generally irrelevant; on the contrary... there are very relevant matters which can survive only in the realm of the private."1 Jewish law has been an unmistakable presence in American legal scholarship. In her comprehensive and incisive article, "In Pursuit of the Counter-Text: The Turn to the Jewish Legal Model in Contemporary American Legal Theory,"2 Suzanne Last Stone traces and accounts for this phenomenon, attributing it to, among many other factors, the reception of Robert Cover's "tour de force,"3 which represents a "significant turning point in the growth of this new literature in American law and Judaism" and which "made it respectable to draw on the Jewish tradition in public discourse."4 Cover's work may be seen as a cornerstone of the "law and literature" movement with its emphasis on the central role of narrative in the construction of the nomos-and it has not only drawn