The Rebbe, the Messiah, and the Scandal of Orthodox Indifference
With a new Introduction
David Berger

Author Information - Contents - Publication Details - Reviews - Prizes

'Passionate, powerful, brilliant . . . This is simply the most important book of Judaism‹not about Judaism but of Judaism‹to appear this year, and the most urgent in decades.'
Jacob Neusner, Jerusalem Post

'Compelling . . . imperative reading, as it carefully and systematically documents the true nature and scope of contemporary Lubavitch missionary work.'
Allan Nadler, Forward

'courageous and important book.'
Lippman Bodoff, Midstream

'Until now, no one has made the case as forcefully as Berger.'
Jack Riemer, Moment

'The principle is right, the passion is right, and the deeply classical nature of David Berger's book is very moving. It is rare that the scholarly study of Judaism so intensely engages with living Judaism. Berger's erudite ferocity is exhilarating.'
Leon Wieseltier

This book is a history, an indictment, a lament, and an appeal, focusing on the messianic trend in Lubavitch hasidism. It records the shattering of one of Judaism's core beliefs and the remarkable equanimity with which the standard-bearers of Orthodoxy have allowed it to happen. This is a development of striking importance for the history of religions, and it is an earthquake in the history of Judaism. David Berger describes the unfolding of this historic phenomenon and proposes a strategy to contain it.

AUTHOR INFORMATION

David Berger, who received his Ph.D. from Columbia University and rabbinic ordination from the Rabbi Isaac Elchanan Theological Seminary at Yeshiva University, is Professor of History at the Bernard Revel Graduate School of Yeshiva University. For many years he was Broeklundian Professor of History at Brooklyn College and the Graduate Center of the City University of New York and co-chair of the Academic Advisory Committee of the National Foundation for Jewish Culture. He is a Fellow and Executive Committee member of the American Academy for Jewish Research, and a member of the Council of the World Union of Jewish Studies, the Academic Committee of the Rothschild Foundation Europe, and the editorial board of Tradition. He has been a visiting professor at Harvard and Yale, and from 1998 to 2000, he served as President of the Association for Jewish Studies. He is the author of The Jewish-Christian Debate in the High Middle Ages (1979), which was awarded the John Nicholas Brown Prize by the Medieval Academy of America, and co-author of Judaism¹s Encounter with Other Cultures: Rejection or Integration? (1997), a finalist for the National Jewish Book Award in Jewish Thought.

Author Information - Contents - Publication Details - Reviews

PUBLICATION DETAILS

Author Information - Contents - Publication Details - Reviews - Prizes

PRIZES

Winner of the 2004 Samuel Belkin Literary Award