Bøger af Mordecai M. Kaplan

Based on the original edition first published in 1934, Judaism as a Civilization: Toward a Reconstruction of American-Jewish Life is a work on Judaism and American Jewish life by Rabbi Mordecai M. Kaplan, the founder of Reconstructionist Judaism.The book is Kaplan's most notable work and has influenced a number of American Jewish thinkers. Kaplan's work centers around the concept that Judaism ought not to be defined as the religion of the Jews, but the sum of Jewish religion, culture, language, literature and social organization.

Mordecai M. Kaplan (1881-1983), founder of Reconstructionism, was a pre-eminent American Jewish thinker and rabbi. His life, which he meticulously recorded, embodies the American Jewish experience of the first half of the 20th century. This first volume covers his early years as a rabbi.

In this classic book, Mordecai Kaplan introduced a new way of looking at Judaism: as an evolving religious civilization. His approach required innovation in liturgy and ritual, elimination of obsolete customs, and adjustment in light of prevailing social, political, and cultural conditions. Kaplan felt that all Jews could play a part in this ""reconstruction"".

Throughout history, Judaism has been under attack by other religions, attacks which strengthened the identification of the group as a whole. Modern challenges, however, are coming from different directions, and are producing different results. Kaplan argues that the multiplicity of threads in Jewish life today represents the process of a radical transformation "nothing less than metamorphosis".

Kaplan, the founder of the Jewish Reconstructionist movement, here takes the major formulation of his theological approach, ""God as the power that makes for salvation"", and demonstrates how it can be used to invigorate the Jewish religion in a changing world.