Background
Scult, Mel was born on May 28, 1934 in Paterson, New Jersey, United States. Son of Morris and Bertie (Lifshutz) Scult.
(This text offers the first full-length study of Mordecai ...)
This text offers the first full-length study of Mordecai M. Kaplan since his death in 1983. The most distinctive feature is the broad range of perspectives from which Kaplan is viewed. Although most of the essays are appreciative of Kaplan's significance, they are critical rather than hagiographic. Readers will find here an historical context for the life and works of Mordecai Kaplan. Essays dealing with key issues in Kaplan's career focus on the establishment of the Jewish Center, Kaplan's life at the Jewish Theological Seminary, and his relationship to Israel Friedlaender and Milton Steinberg. Kaplan's Jewish and non-Jewish contemporaries, including John Dewey, Henry Nelson Weiman, Ahad Ha-Am, Martin Buber, and A.J. Heschel, are presented in terms of comparison and influence. Kaplan's metaphysics, his interpretation of the Bible, his views on education, economic justice, and the role of women are given full consideration. This work also includes a complete bibliography of Kaplan's works beginning with his first publication in 1907 and ending with those works published posthumously.
http://www.amazon.com/gp/product/0814730248/?tag=2022091-20
( Mordecai M. Kaplan, founder of the Jewish Reconstructio...)
Mordecai M. Kaplan, founder of the Jewish Reconstructionist movement, is the only rabbi to have been excommunicated by the Orthodox rabbinical establishment in America. Kaplan was indeed a radical, rejecting such fundamental Jewish beliefs as the concept of the chosen people and a supernatural God. Although he valued the Jewish community and was a committed Zionist, his primary concern was the spiritual fulfillment of the individual. Drawing on Kaplan's 27-volume diary, Mel Scult describes the development of Kaplan's radical theology in dialogue with the thinkers and writers who mattered to him most, from Spinoza to Emerson and from Ahad Ha-Am and Matthew Arnold to Felix Adler, John Dewey, and Abraham Joshua Heschel. This gracefully argued book, with its sensitive insights into the beliefs of a revolutionary Jewish thinker, makes a powerful contribution to modern Judaism and to contemporary American religious thought.
http://www.amazon.com/gp/product/0253017114/?tag=2022091-20
(Kaplan's concept of Judaism as an evolving religious civi...)
Kaplan's concept of Judaism as an evolving religious civilization was widely influential in 20th-century American Jewish life, and his founding of the Reconstructionist Rabbinical College created a new denomination. This book contains a biographical essay and excerpts from all his major works.
http://www.amazon.com/gp/product/0823213102/?tag=2022091-20
( Judaism Faces the Twentieth Century is the first critic...)
Judaism Faces the Twentieth Century is the first critical examination of the early life of Mordecai Caplet-the sources of his inspiration, the evolution of his thought as a religious ideologue, and his inner struggles. Kaplan is perhaps the most important Jewish thinker to appear on the American scene in the last one hundred years. Arriving in the United States as a boy, growing up in New York City, becoming thoroughly Americanized, he struggled to find ways of making Judaism compatible with the American experience and the modern temper. Judaism Faces the Twentieth Century returns to the freshness of Kaplan's earliest formulations and concludes with the publication of Judaism as a Civilization in 1934. Based on a mass of unpublished letters, sermons, and a twenty-seven volume journal, this richly textured biography reappraises Kaplan's significance and offers an original and intimate look at the man, his mind, and his work.
http://www.amazon.com/gp/product/0814322794/?tag=2022091-20
researcher Judaic studies educator
Scult, Mel was born on May 28, 1934 in Paterson, New Jersey, United States. Son of Morris and Bertie (Lifshutz) Scult.
Bachelor, New York University, 1955. Biodiversity Heritage Library, Jewish Theological Seminary, New York City, 1956. Doctor of Humane Letters (honorary), Jewish Theological Seminary, New York City, 1987.
Master of Arts in Teaching, Harvard University, 1959. Doctor of Philosophy, Brandeis University, 1967. Doctor of Humane Letters (honorary), Rabbinical College, 1999.
Teacher history Concord (Massachusetts) Academy, 1959-1967, Akiba Hebrew Academy, Philadelphia, 1967-1969. Teaching fellow Brandeis University, Waltham, Massachusetts, 1963-1967. Professor religion Vassar College, Poughkeepsie, New York, 1969-1975.
Member faculty New School, New York City, 1979. Professor Judaic studies Brooklyn College, City University of New York, 1975—2000, director religion program, 1980—2000. Member Jewish studies advisory board City University of New York, 1987.
( Judaism Faces the Twentieth Century is the first critic...)
( Judaism Faces the Twentieth Century is the first critic...)
(Kaplan's concept of Judaism as an evolving religious civi...)
(This text offers the first full-length study of Mordecai ...)
(Will be shipped from US. Used books may not include compa...)
( Mordecai M. Kaplan, founder of the Jewish Reconstructio...)
Member American Jewish History Society (academic county since 1989), Association for Jewish Studies (board directors 1991-1995), Jewish Coalition for Higher Education.
Married Ruth Bermant, August 11, 1959 (divorced May 1979). Children: Rachel Ilana, Joshua Raphael. Married Barbara R. Gish, March 22, 1987.