Guided Reading for The Western Traditions.

Find the answer to each of these questions as it is given in the textbook before moving on to the next question. Some answers, drawn from the textbook alone, will be rather simplistic. They can, and should, be elaborated upon as your knowledge of the subject grows.

The symbol (*) after a question indicates that these might be used for longer essays in your quizzes.

Pages 111 - 150 (74 Questions):

  1. What does Segal mean by the "ethicization of prayer?"

    2.  

  2. What do Reform Jews usually do with the tallith?

    3.  

  3. What is a yarmulke? How long has it been in use?

    4.  

  4. What are tefillin and mezuzoth?

    5.  

  5. For what is the constant round of Jewish prayer beneficial?

    6.  

  6. On what day and at what time of day does the Jewish Sabbath begin?

    7.  

  7. Why may the Jewish people have built up a system that sanctified and sought the presence of God in everyday occurrences? (*)

    8.  

  8. Why do some Orthodox Jews use "Sabbath elevators"?

    9.  

  9. In what three areas do Jewish dietary laws apply?

    10.  

  10. What sort of sea creatures are approved of by Jewish dietary laws?

    11.  

  11. What does Kosher animal slaughter do with the blood of the animals?

    12.  

  12. What is the term for the opposite of Kosher?

    13.  

  13. What additional food restriction is imposed for Passover?

    14.  

  14. What rules are based on the biblical injunction not to eat a kid boiled in its mother’s milk
    (Ex. 23:19)?

    15.  

  15. What is Kasrut?

    16.  

  16. Who conducts the synagogue service?

    17.  

  17. What is a Targum?

    18.  

  18. When does the Jewish month begin? What type of a calendar is used?

    19.  

  19. From what time is the Jewish calendar supposed to date?

    20.  

  20. What are Rosh Hashanah and Yom Kippur?

    21.  

  21. What is a shofar?

    22.  

  22. What is Sukkoth?

    23.  

  23. What does the festival of Hanukkah commemorate?

    24.  

  24. What does the feast of Purim recall? To what land and period does it go back?

    25.  

  25. With what event is Passover associated? (*)

    26.  

  26. What is the connection between the Jewish festival of Shavuoth and the Christian festival of Pentecost?

    27.  

  27. What does the Ninth of Ab commemorate?

    28.  

  28. When is a Jewish male circumcised?

    29.  

  29. What part of the Jewish community is enjoined to marry and raise children?

    30.  

  30. What does the Jewish funeral state about life after death? (*)

    31.  

  31. When are contemporary Jewish dead to be buried?

    32.  

  32. What is the Kaddish?

    33.  

  33. Who was Rashi?

    34.  

  34. What central element of Jewish tradition are other religious communities said to admire and even envy?

    35.  

  35. What circumstance may have dampened the Jewish desire to proselytize (that is, to actively seek converts)?

    36.  

  36. Is an already circumcised male completely excused circumcision on his conversion to Judaism?

    37.  

  37. What form of baptism do Jews exercise?

    38.  

  38. Does apostasy (the rejection of one’s religious beliefs) remove one’s Jewish identity?

    39.  

  39. What is a ghetto? How did it get this name?

    40.  

  40. Who was Moses Mendelssohn?

    41.  

  41. What did Mendelssohn argue concerning Jewish identity and German nationalism?

    42.  

  42. How do Reform (Liberal) Jews tend to see tradition? (*)

    43.  

  43. Did the Jewish community in 1885 expect to return to Israel (Palestine)?

    44.  

  44. What was particular about the menu of the banquet of Jewish reformers who met in Cincinnati in 1889?

    45.  

  45. What justification for change in traditions do the Conservative Jews recognize?

    46.  

  46. Put Orthodox, Reform, and Conservative Judaism in increasing order of strictness. (*)

    47.  

  47. In what language do Orthodox Jews conduct their services?

    48.  

  48. What is the derekh eretz? What does this mean?

    49.  

  49. What are the primary differences among the main branches of North American Judaism? (*)

    50.  

  50. What rationale distinguishes these branches? (*)

    51.  

  51. Of what is Franz Rosenzweig a good example?

    52.  

  52. Why does Rosenzweig leave Islam out of his considerations?

    53.  

  53. What was Rosenzweig's concept of Israel’s place in history?

    54.  

  54. Rosenzweig and Buber were both religious ——————?

    55.  

  55. What, according to Buber, is the "I -Thou experience?"

    56.  

  56. When and where did Reconstructionism become a separate entity?

    57.  

  57. What is "Zion?" What is Zionism?

    58.  

  58. Of what was Peretz Smolenskin an advocate?

    59.  

  59. What is a Kibbutz and when did this institution originate?

    60.  

  60. What is a pogrom?

    61.  

  61. Under whose leadership did the Zionist movement coalesce?

    62.  

  62. What is sometimes known as the “Dreyfus affair?”

    63.  

  63. What is the difference between assimilation and acculturation?

    64.  

  64. What happened to the first, Sephardic, wave of Jewish immigrants to the US?

    65.  

  65. What happened to Jewish immigration to the US after 1922?

    66.  

  66. Were only Germans involved in the Holocaust?

    67.  

  67. Roughly what proportion of all of the world’s Jews were killed in the Holocaust?

    68.  

  68. What is the attitude to Jewish martyrdom advocated by, among others, Emil Fackenheim?

    69.  

  69. What proportion of Jewish marriages in contemporary North America are to non-Jews?

    70.  

  70. What notion do most North American Jews accept?

    71.  

  71. Who are the haredim?

    72.  

  72. What concept of Judaism has emerged for most Jews living in Israel (with the exception of the haredim)?

    73.  

  73. What kind of acculturation is progressing in Israel?

    74.  

  74. What is a huppah?

 

Additional Notes: