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Contributors
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- By Syed S. Ali, Nathan Allen, John E. Arbo, Elizabeth Arrington, Ani Aydin, Kenneth R. L. Bernard, Amy Caggiula, Nolan Caldwell, Jennifer L. Carey, Jennifer Carnell, Jayaram Chelluri, Michael N. Cocchi, Cristal Cristia, Vishal Demla, Bram Dolcourt, Andrew Eyre, Shawn Fagan, Brandy Ferguson, Sarah Fisher, Jonathan Friedstat, Brian C. Geyer, Brandon Godbout, Jeremy Gonda, Jeremy Goverman, Ashley L. Greiner, Casey Grover, Carla Haack, Abigail Hankin, John W. Hardin, Katrina L. Harper, Gregory Hayward, Stephen Hendriksen, Daniel Herbert-Cohen, Nadine Himelfarb, Calvin E. Hwang, Jacob D. Isserman, Joshua Jauregui, Joshua W. Joseph, Elena Kapilevich, Feras H. Khan, Sarvotham Kini, Karen A. Kinnaman, Ruth Lamm, Calvin Lee, Jarone Lee, Charles Lei, John Lemos, Daniel J. Lepp, Elisabeth Lessenich, Brandon Maughan, Julie Mayglothling, Kevin McConnell, Laura Medford-Davis, Kamal Medlej, Heather Meissen, Payal Modi, Joel Moll, Jolene H. Nakao, Matthew Nicholls, Lindsay Oelze, Carolyn Maher Overman, Viral Patel, Timothy C. Peck, Jeffrey Pepin, Candace Pettigrew, Byron Pitts, Zubaid Rafique, Chanu Rhee, Jonathan C. Roberts, Daniel Rolston, Steven C. Rougas, Benjamin Schnapp, Kathryn A. Seal, Raghu Seethala, Todd A. Seigel, Navdeep Sekhon, Kaushal Shah, Robert L. Sherwin, Kirill Shishlov, Ashley Shreves, Sebastian Siadecki, Jeffrey N. Siegelman, Liza Gonen Smith, Ted Stettner, Marie Carmelle Tabuteau, Joseph E. Tonna, N. Seth Trueger, Chad Van Ginkel, Bina Vasantharam, Graham Walker, Susan Wilcox, Sandra J. Williams, Matthew L. Wong, Nelson Wong, Samantha Wood, John Woodruff, Benjamin Zabar
- Edited by Kaushal Shah, Jarone Lee, Kamal Medlej, American University of Beirut, Scott D. Weingart
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- Book:
- Practical Emergency Resuscitation and Critical Care
- Published online:
- 05 November 2013
- Print publication:
- 24 October 2013, pp xi-xx
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6 - Thinking Judaism through
- from Section 1 - Religious Culture and Institutional Practice
- Edited by Dana Evan Kaplan, University of Miami
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- Book:
- The Cambridge Companion to American Judaism
- Published online:
- 28 May 2006
- Print publication:
- 08 August 2005, pp 117-132
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Summary
Ignored at best, deemed irrelevant or divisive at worst, theological thinking has never been a priority item on the American Jewish communal agenda. American Jewry has expressed its largesse in many ways, but the training and support of Jewish theologians has not been one of them. Until recently, even Jewish theological seminaries in the United States were exceedingly lax in teaching Jewish theology or in training Jewish theologians. If the presence of trained theologians indicates a precondition for the production of theology, then their absence would seem to preclude the very existence of an American Jewish theology. Nevertheless, American Jewish theology has developed in spite of, rather than because of, the interest or support of American Jewry.
According to the British Jewish theologian, Louis Jacobs, Jewish theology may be defined as “an attempt to think through consistently the implications of the Jewish religion.” Although theology literally means “discourse about God,” American Jewry has resisted this and other such attempts for many reasons. One reason is because Americans tend to embrace activism and pragmatism, often neglecting and opposing doctrinal or ideological discourse. If Americans are basically activists, pragmatic and atheological, then American Jews are as well, and even more so. American Jews have tended to understand Judaism as a religion primarily concerned with doing things rather than thinking things, as a religion of action rather than doctrine, as an ethnic commitment rather than adherence to a transcendent faith