Review by Choice Review
Continuing his explorations of Jewish self-definition initiated in The Beginnings of Jewishness (CH, Oct'99, 37-0869), Cohen focuses here on questions raised by the fact that only Jewish males are circumcised. Cohen begins with the history of Jewish circumcision and the earliest Jewish reflections on it. He then turns to Christians who both defend male-only circumcision, inasmuch as it was instituted at God's command, while also attacking its practice among Jews living after the advent of Christianity. In contrast to those who argue that rabbinic Judaism defined itself over against Christianity (e.g., D. Boyarin), Cohen demonstrates that rabbinic texts show little interest in these attacks. In the second part of the book he presents four rationales that medieval and modern Jews developed to explain why only Jewish men are circumcised. Cohen concludes by showing how the various strategies within Jewish tradition that are used to explain male-only circumcision provide a resource for contemporary Judaism. This book is not an attempt to explain the "real meaning" of circumcision through social-scientific criticism of the classical sources (as in H. Eilberg-Schwartz's The Savage in Judaism, 1990), but rather a magisterial presentation of the range of Jewish thought on this ritual. ^BSumming Up: Highly recommended. Upper-level undergraduates and above; general readers. J. S. Kaminsky Smith College
Copyright American Library Association, used with permission.
Review by Choice Review
