Halakhic Guidance for Soldiers: The Emergence of a New Corpus
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Stuart A. Cohen
Abstract
Warfare was noticeably marginalized in the vast library of premodern texts that transmit Orthodox Judaism. One consequence was that even when Jews began to perform military service in significant numbers (a phenomenon that commenced in the eighteenth century and became prevalent in the Allied armies of World War II), they continued to suffer from a dearth of halakhic guidance with respect to the ritual and moral challenges posed by battlefield conditions. That is no longer the case. Since the early 1950s, conscription in Israel has generated the production of an increasing number of handbooks expressly designed to serve as works of reference for the growing numbers of religiously observant men and women now serving in the Israel Defense Forces. This paper reviews that corpus, analyzing its authorship, the stages in its development, and the changes in its content.
© 2017 by Academic Studies Press, Boston
Articles in the same Issue
- Masthead
- Table of Contents
- From the Guest Editor
- ESSAYS
- Re-Presenting Judaic Law: Rabbi Yudel Rosenberg’s Popular Guides to Halakha and Their Significance
- Halakhic Guidance for Soldiers: The Emergence of a New Corpus
- Immodest Modesty: The Emergence of Halakhic Dress Codes
- From Ideology to Halakhah: Ultra-Orthodox Opposition to Modern Hebrew
- Preambles: An Insight into Rabbi Avraham Danzig’s Haye Adam
- The Medical Cosmology of Halakha: The Expert, the Physician, and the Sick Person on Shabbat in the Shulchan Aruch
- The Kitzur Shulchan Aruch and Its Impact in Hungary and Beyond
- A Matter of Life and Death: The Halakhic Discussion of Suicide as a Philosophical Battleground
- BOOK REVIEWS
- Adam Afterman, “And They Shall Be One Flesh”: On the Language of Mystical Union in Judaism. Leiden: Brill, 2016, 270 pages
- Oded Porat, Sefer B’rit ha-Menuh . a (Book of Covenant of Serenity): Critical Edition and Prefaces [in Hebrew], Jerusalem: Magnes Press and Hotza’at ha-Kibbutz ha-me’uh . ad, 2016. 601 pages
- Elisheva Baumgarten, Ruth Mazo Karras, and Katelyn Mesler, eds. Entangled Histories: Knowledge, Authority, and Jewish Culture in the Thirteenth Century. Jewish Culture and Contexts. Philadelphia: University of Pennsylvania Press, 2017. 368 pages
- Sara Davidson, The December Project. San Francisco: HarperOne, 2014. 193 pages
- Contributors
Articles in the same Issue
- Masthead
- Table of Contents
- From the Guest Editor
- ESSAYS
- Re-Presenting Judaic Law: Rabbi Yudel Rosenberg’s Popular Guides to Halakha and Their Significance
- Halakhic Guidance for Soldiers: The Emergence of a New Corpus
- Immodest Modesty: The Emergence of Halakhic Dress Codes
- From Ideology to Halakhah: Ultra-Orthodox Opposition to Modern Hebrew
- Preambles: An Insight into Rabbi Avraham Danzig’s Haye Adam
- The Medical Cosmology of Halakha: The Expert, the Physician, and the Sick Person on Shabbat in the Shulchan Aruch
- The Kitzur Shulchan Aruch and Its Impact in Hungary and Beyond
- A Matter of Life and Death: The Halakhic Discussion of Suicide as a Philosophical Battleground
- BOOK REVIEWS
- Adam Afterman, “And They Shall Be One Flesh”: On the Language of Mystical Union in Judaism. Leiden: Brill, 2016, 270 pages
- Oded Porat, Sefer B’rit ha-Menuh . a (Book of Covenant of Serenity): Critical Edition and Prefaces [in Hebrew], Jerusalem: Magnes Press and Hotza’at ha-Kibbutz ha-me’uh . ad, 2016. 601 pages
- Elisheva Baumgarten, Ruth Mazo Karras, and Katelyn Mesler, eds. Entangled Histories: Knowledge, Authority, and Jewish Culture in the Thirteenth Century. Jewish Culture and Contexts. Philadelphia: University of Pennsylvania Press, 2017. 368 pages
- Sara Davidson, The December Project. San Francisco: HarperOne, 2014. 193 pages
- Contributors
