Eros and the Jews From Biblical Israel to Contemporary America

Name: Eros and the Jews From Biblical Israel to Contemporary America
Price: 5.89 USD
Availability: InStock
ISBN: 9780520211346

ISBN-10: 0520211340

ISBN-13: 9780520211346

Edition: 1997

Authors: David Biale

List price: $29.95

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Contradictory stereotypes about Jewish sexuality pervade modern culture, from Lenny Bruce's hip eroticism to Woody Allen's little man with the big libido (and even bigger sexual neurosis). Does Judaism in fact liberate or repress sexual desire? David Biale does much more than answer that question as he traces Judaism's evolving position on sexuality, from the Bible and Talmud to Zionism up through American attitudes today. What he finds is a persistent conflict between asceticism and gratification, between procreation and pleasure. From the period of the Talmud onward, Biale says, Jewish culture continually struggled with sexual abstinence, attempting to incorporate the virtues of celibacy,…

Book details

List price: $29.95
Copyright year: 1997
Publisher: University of California Press
Publication date: 10/3/1997
Binding: Paperback
Pages: 334
Size: 5.25" wide x 8.00" long x 0.70" tall
Weight: 0.946
Language: English

Robert S. Westman is Professor of History and Science Studies at the University of California, San Diego.David Biale is the Emmanuel Ringelblum Professor of Jewish History at the University of California, Davis. He lives in Berkeley, California.



Preface


Introduction: Dilemmas of Desire



Sexual Subversions in the Bible



Law and Desire in the Talmud



Rabbinic Authority and Popular Culture in Medieval Europe



Sensuality, Asceticism, and Medieval Jewish Philosophy



Sexuality and Spirituality in the Kabbalah



The Displacement of Desire in Eighteenth-Century Hasidism



Eros and Enlightenment



Zionism as an Erotic Revolution



Sexual Stereotypes in American Jewish Culture


Epilogue: Creating Desire


Notes


Bibliography of Selected Secondary Works


Index