Secular Judaism: Faith, Values and Spirituality

by Yaakov Malkin

The majority of Jews throughout the world are secular. However, few can define their secular beliefs. Secular Faith, Values, and Spirituality attempts to articulate these beliefs and the practice of Secular Judaism. It discusses Secular Humanist values, Judaism as Culture and examines Judaism as both a religion and a "nation". It also raises the "Who is a Jew?" issue and presents the Bible as source of collective memory and the foundation of Jewish culture and civilization, going on to examine classic texts and the secular view on "God as Literary Hero." The idea of pluralism as being not merely desirable, but as having existed in accord with ancient life and tradition is dealt with and the Talmudic mechanisms of debate and implied democratic values are described. Finally the difference between pluralism and relativism and the danger of the latter is discussed together with a secular humanistic perspective on the need for "spirituality," with emphasis on community and principles of education. Secular Judaism proposes an orientation and guidelines for a curriculum in "Judaism as Culture" studies and deals with both theoretical issues and practical experiences of secular Jewish communities.

Genres: Jewish

Hardcover

First published January 1, 2004

About the author

Yaakov Malkin was an intellectual, educator, writer, literary critic, and professor emeritus in the Faculty of Arts at Tel Aviv University. Malkin was active in several cultural and educational institutions that deal with cultural and humanistic Judaism.

Malkin was born in Warsaw, Poland, to a secular Jewish family. His father, Dov Ber Malkin, was a professor and theatre critic. He attended the Bund school. He moved to Mandatory Palestine at age 7, where he continued his schooling in the school system of the Histadrut labor federation. In 1950 he married the artist Felice Pazner Malkin and they had two children, Professor Irad Malkin (2004 Israel Prize Laureate) and Rabbi Sivan Malkin Maas. He died two weeks before his 93rd birthday in his Jerusalem home.