About the book, from the publisher:Belief in the coming of a Messiah poses a genuine dilemma. From a Jewish perspective, the historical record is overwhelmingly against it. If despite all the tragedies that have befallen the Jewish people no legitimate Messiah has come forward, has the belief not been shown to be groundless? Yet for all the problems associated with messianism, the historical record also shows it is an idea with enormous staying power. The prayer book mentions it on page after page. The great Jewish philosophers all wrote about it. Secular thinkers in the twentieth century returned to it and reformulated it. And victims of the Holocaust invoked it in the last few minutes of their life. This book examines the staying power of messianism and analyzes it in a way that retains its redemptive force without succumbing to mythology.Learn more about Jewish Messianic Thoughts in an Age of Despair at the Cambridge University Press website.
Kenneth Seeskin is the Philip M. and Ethel Klutznick Professor of Jewish Civilization at Northwestern University.
The Page 99 Test: Jewish Messianic Thoughts in an Age of Despair.
--Marshal Zeringue
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