Non­fic­tion

Judaism: All That Matters

Kei­th Kahn-Harris
  • Review
By – July 2, 2013

Soci­ol­o­gist and social crit­ic Kei­th Kahn-Har­ris offers an overview of Judaism. This brief book looks at reli­gious beliefs, cul­ture, his­to­ry, and what it means to be Jew­ish in today’s world. A short intro­duc­tion attempts to explain who is a Jew and offers an out­line of the rest of the book. The chap­ters that fol­low look at Jew­ish time, liv­ing Jew­ish­ly, anti-Semi­tism, the Holo­caust, and Israel. An appen­dix offers one hun­dred ideas: ref­er­ences to books and movies about Judaism. Notes pro­vide ref­er­ences for fur­ther infor­ma­tion. Since the author is British, some of the cul­tur­al icons men­tioned will be unfa­mil­iar to Amer­i­cans, but every­one now knows Sacha Baron-Cohen. This is a use­ful book for quick answers to ques­tions and for those seek­ing an intro­duc­tion to Judaism.

Bar­bara M. Bibel is a librar­i­an at the Oak­land Pub­lic Library in Oak­land, CA; and at Con­gre­ga­tion Netiv­ot Shalom, Berke­ley, CA.

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