Eros and the Jews: From Biblical Israel to Contemporary America
Contradictory stereotypes about Jewish sexuality pervade modern culture, from Lenny Bruce's hip eroticism to Woody Allen's little man with the big libido (and even bigger sexual neurosis). Does Judaism in fact liberate or repress sexual desire? David Biale does much more than answer that question as he traces Judaism's evolving position on sexuality, from the Bible and Talmud to Zionism up through American attitudes today. What he finds is a persistent conflict between asceticism and...
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"This trailblazing book . . . exposes the evolving and often contradictory attitudes of Jews toward sexuality. One comes away with a fresh sense of the variegated nature of Jewish historical experience, and not only in regard to sexuality."—Robert Alter, author of The World of Biblical Literature Publishers Weekly Critiquing a body of texts that runs a wide gamut from the Bible to Philip Roth's Portnoy's Complaint , this fine, authoritative history of Jewish sexuality may well become a standard reference. (Oct.)
PrefaceIntroduction: Dilemmas of Desire1Ch. 1Sexual Subversions in the Bible11Ch. 2Law and Desire in the Talmud33Ch. 3Rabbinic Authority and Popular Culture in Medieval Europe60Ch. 4Sensuality, Asceticism, and Medieval Jewish Philosophy86Ch. 5Sexuality and Spirituality in the Kabbalah101Ch. 6The Displacement of Desire in Eighteenth-Century Hasidism121Ch. 7Eros and Enlightenment149Ch. 8Zionism as an Erotic Revolution176Ch. 9Sexual Stereotypes in American Jewish Culture204Epilogue: Creating Desire228Notes231Bibliography of Selected Secondary Works295Index309
\ Publishers Weekly - Publisher's Weekly\ Critiquing a body of texts that runs a wide gamut from the Bible to Philip Roth's Portnoy's Complaint , this fine, authoritative history of Jewish sexuality may well become a standard reference. Oct.\ \ \ \ \ Library JournalThis engaging history of Jewish sexuality from biblical times to the modern era attempts to answer this question: Is the nature of Judaism and the Jewish tradition ascetic and repressive or sensual and liberatory? Biale ( Power and Powerlessness in Jewish History , Schocken, 1986) shows that Jewish sexuality certainly is not monolithic in nature but exhibits both poles--that of asceticism and gratification--which have been in conflict with each other through the ages. The author covers the entire spectrum from the biblical period, the Talmudic era, the Rabbinic writings, the medieval philosophers, Hasidim, and the modern enlightenment to contemporary American Jewish culture exemplified by Philip Roth's notorious novel Portnoy's Complaint (1969). This volume, scholarly yet accessible to general readers, should remain a basic treatment of an intriguing subject for some time.-- Robert A. Silver, Shaker Heights P.L., Ohio\ \
