What is Judaism, and who are the Jewish people? Are the Jews a tribe, ethnicity, race, nationality, or religious group? None, all, depends? Batnitzky places the tension between the public, communal nature of Jewish religion and the private, individual nature of Protestantism at the heart of her book. Along the road to answer these questions, she presents an erudite, if at times dry, perspective on the major thinkers and thought systems of the (Jewish) modern era. How Judaism Became a Religion dives into the core questions of Jewish peoplehood courageously, if at times controversially, and it is sure to get you thinking.

Jew vs. Jew is a deeply researched testimony to the ways broad issues pull apart Jewish communities in the particular. From a zoning debate in Cleveland to a liturgy war in Los Angeles, Freedman’s Jew vs. Jew is a masterclass in seeing the forest in the trees. Freedman’s insight is honest, judicial, and perhaps even loving. His fidelity is to the ideas that drive change, the values that are revealed by debate, and the community made up of it all. How do the macro debates of American Judaism manifest on a micro level – in shuls, communities, and homes? Read Jew vs. Jew to find out.