An intimate and moving portrait of daily life in New York's oldest
institution of traditional rabbinic learning New York City's Lower
East Side has witnessed a severe decline in its Jewish population in
recent decades, yet every morning in the big room of the city's oldest
yeshiva, students still gather to study the Talmud beneath the great
arched windows facing out onto East Broadway. Yeshiva Days is Jonathan
Boyarin's uniquely personal account of the year he spent as both
student and observer at Mesivtha Tifereth Jerusalem, and a poignant
chronicle of a side of Jewish life that outsiders rarely see. Boyarin
explores the yeshiva's relationship with the neighborhood, the city,
and Jewish and American culture more broadly, and brings vividly to
life its routines, rituals, and rhythms. He describes the compelling
and often colorful personalities he encounters each day, and
introduces readers to the Rosh Yeshiva, or Rebbi, the moral and
intellectual head of the yeshiva. Boyarin reflects on the tantalizing
meanings of "study for its own sake" in the intellectually vibrant
world of traditional rabbinic learning, and records his fellow
students' responses to his negotiation of the daily complexities of
yeshiva life while he also conducts anthropological fieldwork. A
richly mature work by a writer of uncommon insight, wit, and honesty,
Yeshiva Days is the story of a place on the Lower East Side with its
own distinctive heritage and character, a meditation on the enduring
power of Jewish tradition and learning, and a record of a different
way of engaging with time and otherness.
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Produktdetaljer
ISBN
9780691207698
Publisert
2020
Utgiver
Vendor
Princeton University Press
Språk
Product language
Engelsk
Format
Product format
Digital bok
Forfatter