Yale University Press
November 2012
On Sale: November 20, 2012
232 pages ISBN: 0300156472 EAN: 9780300156478 Kindle: B00A21TWGA Hardcover / e-Book Add to Wish List
Why are words so important to so many Jews? Novelist Amos Oz
and historian Fania Oz-Salzberger roam the gamut of Jewish
history to explain the integral relationship of Jews and
words. Through a blend of storytelling and scholarship,
conversation and argument, father and daughter tell the
tales behind Judaism’s most enduring names, adages,
disputes, texts, and quips. These words, they argue, compose
the chain connecting Abraham with the Jews of every
subsequent generation.
Framing the discussion within
such topics as continuity, women, timelessness, and
individualism, Oz and Oz-Salzberger deftly engage Jewish
personalities across the ages, from the unnamed, possibly
female author of the Song of Songs through obscure
Talmudists to contemporary writers. They suggest that Jewish
continuity, even Jewish uniqueness, depends not on central
places, monuments, heroic personalities, or rituals but
rather on written words and an ongoing debate between the
generations. Full of learning, lyricism, and humor, Jews
and Words offers an extraordinary tour of the words at
the heart of Jewish culture and extends a hand to the
reader, any reader, to join the conversation.