rezensiertes Werk: Tom Segev: Simon Wiesenthal : Die Biographie. - [Übers. von Markus Lemke]. - München : Siedler, 2010. - 576 S. ISBN 978-3-570-55156-1

rezensierte Werke: Chaim Vogt-Moykopf: Jüdisches Denken als universelles Konzept in der deutschsprachigen Literatur. - Frankfurt [u.a.] : Campus, 2009. - 280 S. ISBN 978-3-593-38910-3 Johannes Sabel: Die Geburt der Literatur aus der Aggada : Formationen eines deutsch-jüdischen Literaturparadigmas. - (Schriftenreihe wissenschaftlicher Abhandlungen des Leo Baeck Instituts ; 74). - Tübingen : Mohr Siebeck, 2010. - X, 296 S. ISBN 978-3-16-150209-5

rezensiertes Werk: Renate Heuer, Ludger Heid (Hrsg.): Deutsche Kultur – jüdische Ethik : Abgebrochene Lebenswege deutsch-jüdischer Schriftsteller nach 1933. - (Campus Judaica ; 27). Frankfurt [u.a.]: Campus 2011. 221 S.

rezensiertes Werk: Jeffrey Burns: The music of psalms, Proverbs and Job in the Hebrew bible : A revised theory of musical accents in the Hebrew bible ; general analysis, bibliography, table of contents CD with complete text and audio files of musically reconstructed psalms, proverbs and Job, sung by computer speech synthesis. Wiesbaden : Harrassowitz Verlag, 2011. 169 S. ISBN 978-3-447-06191-9

rezensiertes Werk: Diana Matut: Dichtung und Musik im frühneuzeitlichen Aschkenas : Ms. opp. add. 4o 136 der Bodleian Library, Oxford (das so genannte Wallich-Manuskript) und Ms. hebr. oct. 219 der Stadt- und Universitätsbibliothek, Frankfurt a. M. (2 Bände). - (Studies in Jewish History and Culture ; 29). Leiden [u.a.]: Brill, 2011. - 461 S. ISBN (Set) 978-90-04-18194-6 ISBN (Band I) 978-90-04-20598-7 ISBN (Band II) 978-90-04-20599-4

Aus dem Inhalt: In der hier vorgelegten Arbeit soll der Versuch unternommen werden, einen der in der rabbinischen Literatur so überaus häufigen "Zahlensprüche", d.h. der nach einem jeweils festgelegten Zahlenmaß listenmäßigen Aufzählung von Worten oder Dingen, die sich durch ein gemeinsames Merkmal auszeichnen, als eine homiletische Komposition mit einer thematischen Aussage aufzuweisen.

PaRDeS. Zeitschrift der Vereinigung für Jüdische Studien e. V., möchte die fruchtbare und facettenreiche Kultur des Judentums sowie seine Berührungspunkte zur Umwelt in den unterschiedlichen Bereichen dokumentieren. Daneben dient die Zeitschrift als Forum zur Positionierung der Fächer Jüdische Studien und Judaistik innerhalb des wissenschaftlichen Diskurses sowie zur Diskussion ihrer historischen und gesellschaftlichen Verantwortung. / PaRDeS. Journal of the Association of Jewish Studies e. V. The journal aims at documenting the fruitful and multifarious culture of Judaism as well as its relations to its environment within diverse areas of research. In addition, the journal is meant to promote Jewish Studies within academic discourse and discuss its historic and social responsibility.

This project examines gender and revivalism in the late nineteenth and early twentieth century America. I use gender and ritual theory to explore how women became powerful female revivalist ministers during the 1890s-1920s an era in which public leadership was seen as naturally male. More specifically, this project offers an explanation for how two women Maria Woodworth-Etter and Aimee Semple McPherson overcame their gender, the taints of divorce, single motherhood, and public scandal to become powerful revivalist pastors. I argue that Woodworth-Etter and McPherson established authoritative careers by co-opting versions of ideal womanhood in service to their ministerial identities, and by displaying those identities through classic revivalist methods. This project demonstrates how the womens use of biblical narrative, public image, worship space, and the ritualized act of preaching established their womanly and authoritative revivalist ministries.

In scholarly literature, the phrase millēʾ yād refers to the ordination of priests. However, of the eighteen occurrences of the phrase in the Hebrew Bible, only thirteen explicitly mention priests or their possible ordination. The other five occurrences appear in contexts that do not address priestly ordination. Moreover, even in some priestly ordination contexts, such as Exod 29, the way in which millēʾ yād is used does not support the accepted meaning, to ordain a priest. In this study, I discuss problems that result from translating millēʾ yād as to ordain a priest in each of the eighteen occurrences. Through an analysis of the constituent words of millēʾ yād, I propose a new basic meaning for the Hebrew phrase that draws support from the Septuagint as well as from the Akkadian semantic equivalent, qātam mullûm. I test this understanding of the phrase by applying it to each of the eighteen occurrences of millēʾ yād.

My doctoral dissertation examines the use and interpretation of the Bible as a religious text and source of Unitarian identity, focusing specifically on four leading figures within Unitarianism from the years 1803-1865. William Ellery Channing, Andrews Norton, Frederick Henry Hedge and Theodore Parker each believed that the Bible, as well as a distinctive set of interpretive principles, was the central gathering principle for their liberal movement. This set of principles, gleaned from the eclectic thought world of these Harvard-educated men, was fourfold. First, they held the belief that the immediate impressions of words in the Bible were the basis for reflection and interpretation. Secondly, they maintained a dynamic understanding of language, which allowed for these first impressions of the words to change with each reading. Third, they held the conviction that new revelation was possible when reading the text. Biblical words were not only a source of mutable meaning, but were an entrypoint to the Mind of God. Finally, though the meaning of words might change and revelations might illuminate new truth, all such instances would never contradict Reason. <p> Using the lives and biblical scholarship of Channing, Norton, Hedge and Parker, I counter the existent portrayal of Unitarians as outliers to the overtly biblical culture of the nineteenth century. In doing so, I reintroduce the Unitarians into the narrative of American religious history as contributors to the American tradition of biblical interpretation who were doing precisely what every other nineteenth century religious movement was doing: claiming they had the right way of interpreting the Bible and that they, in turn, were the true biblical faith. Furthermore, I contend that Unitarianism existed as a Bible-based movement as opposed to a formal denomination - for its first sixty years based upon the Unitarian commitment to maintaining a delicate balance between the Bible and free inquiry.