This smartly produced and compact two‐volume work is the successor to The Blackwell Companion to Jewish Culture (Abrahamson, 1989). With eight contributing editors and 251 contributors from around the world, it is a well thought‐out and competently executed work of scholarship. The Editor's Preface provides an excellent analytical overview in which she tackles the three title keywords: “modern”, “Jewish” and “culture”. By modern is meant, broadly, post‐European Enlightenment, and the modern conflicts that resulted from exposure to rationalism and liberalism. “Jewish” does not mean just people who were born into the Jewish faith, but those who have had an influence on Jewish thought; while “culture” is shared experience and sources.
Arrangement is alphabetically by some 2,000 headwords. End of article bibliographies list the significant works of the person featured, while Further Reading provides useful resources. There is a sizable index, from Abigail's Party (play), and About Schmidt (Begley) to Zweig, Stefan and Zwick, Fay.
There is no prefatory subject listing to indicate the nature of the coverage, but the editor identifies three broad types of entry: biographical, topics and surveys. Biographical entries are the most prolific of the three. They are factual and give brief evaluations of their work. Freud, Wittgenstein, Einstein, Schoenberg, Gollancz, Derrida, Aaron Copeland and Moses Mendelssohn are well‐known ones, but hundreds of lesser‐known people are encompassed. These include Welsh poet Dannie Abse, Danish author Issac Da Costa, Australian jurist Zelman Cowen, and French statesman Adolph Crémieux. Topics include Baltic – Jewish Culture; Cooking – Jewish; Music in Israel; Museums, Jewish. Surveys tend to be longer articles such as those for Modernism, Judaism and (nine pages); Costume, Jewish (five pages); French‐Jewish Intellectuals after 1968 (four pages); Counterculture, Jewish; Conservative Judaism; Polish Jewry of Communism.
Physical production is excellent: the double‐columned page layouts on good white paper and good sharp type are a joy to handle and browse. It is not a cheap book, but the wide coverage and quality of treatment make it a work of value. Any library wanting a modern guide to Jewish thought and culture would do well to invest in this.
