This book emerged out of the invitation of the Yale University Program in Judaic Studies and Professor Steven Fraade to deliver the Franz Rosenzweig Lectures in November 2014. I would like to thank my hosts at Yale for their warm hospitality during the week I spent in New Haven to deliver the lectures: in addition to Steven Fraade, I would like to thank Renee Reed for her gracious assistance in all matters logistical, Elli Stern for his good humor and helpful provocations, and the members of the Judaic Studies community, faculty and students, at Yale. A special debt of appreciation is owed to my dear New Haven friends and interlocutors Anne Dailey, Steve Ecker, and Rabbi Jim Ponet.
Versions of this talk were delivered at the Australian Centre for Jewish Civilization of Monash University. I thank my friend Professor Mark Baker for the kind invitation and hospitality during my delightful stay in Melbourne; I also extend deep appreciation to Helen Midler for attending to every detail relating to my visit with efficiency and humor. I presented ideas related to this book in forums at the Katz Center for Advanced Judaic Studies of the University of Pennsylvania, the CUNY Graduate Center, Lehigh University, and Cardozo Law School. Thanks to Professors Steven Weitzman, Francesca Bregoli, Nitzan Lebovic, and Suzanne Last Stone for their invitations to participate in the stimulating intellectual settings they have created at their institutions. I also thank Professor Magda Teter for a most helpful critique of Chapter 3 at a conference on history and law at Cardozo in September 2016.
Numerous colleagues read this manuscript and improved it considerably. Michael A. Meyer offered typically searching comments on an early version of the manuscript—delivered, per his custom, in forty-eight hours. My thanks go, as well, to Sarah Abrevaya Stein, Michael Berenbaum, Saul Friedlander, David Ellenson, John Efron, Michael Brenner, Ethan Kleinberg, Nitzan Lebovic, and Nomi Stolzenberg for their careful reading. A special thanks goes to my erstwhile student and conversation partner Moshe Lapin, who pored over every page of this book with his sharp eye and wide-ranging knowledge. For invaluable research assistance, I thank Lindsay King, Joshua Meyers, and Talia Graff. Nadav Molchadsky offered very helpful criticism and assistance at early and late stages of the project.
Yale University Press has been a most hospitable home for this book. My thanks go to Jennifer Banks, the Press’s editor who oversees publication of the Rosenzweig Lectures series, for her interest, attention, and encouragement. Susan Laity undertook the copyediting of this book with a meticulousness, intelligence, and care that know few peers.
I would like to express my appreciation to Lori and Jim Keir for their friendship and support, as well as to the Sady and Ludwig Kahn Chair in Jewish History which facilitated my work on this project.
Finally, this book is dedicated to my parents, Sondra and Morey Myers, who have avidly followed and encouraged me throughout my career, including in New Haven, to which they dutifully came for the Rosenzweig Lectures. For them, thinking and doing are the necessary and sufficient conditions of a well-lived life. Individually and together, they have modeled the fusing of these two domains in exemplary fashion. I thank them for their ceaseless support, love, and inspiration.
Of course, I alone remain responsible for any errors to be found in the book.