A Rabbinic Anthology

Founder of Liberal Judaism in England, Claude Goldsmid Montefiore (1858-1938) wrote extensively on Jewish and Christian theology and ethics. His final book, published in 1938 and co-edited with Herbert Loewe (1882-1940), remains one of the most comprehensive and authoritative collections available of Rabbinic literature dating from 100 to 500 CE. The edition, which provides extensive historical and lexical context, features two introductions, one from Montefiore espousing a Liberal perspective and the other from Loewe speaking as an Orthodox Jew. Together, they argue for ‘a common foundation, a common past, and a common future’ linking their outlooks. Their anthology in turn models this co-operation, offering more than 1,600 rabbinical extracts, and covering topics including the nature of God, the Commandments and the Law, prayer and charity. Both a compilation of theological writings and a meditation on theology itself, this work remains a pre-eminent text of Jewish religious scholarship.