MARRIAGE
Norman E. Frimer and Dov I. Frimer, "Reform Marriages in Contemporary
Halakhic Responsa", Tradition 21/3 (l984), 7-39. - The authors
identify three positions on Reform Jewish marriages which traditionalist
authorities have asserted. First is the position which renders Reform Marriages
invalid ab initio and thus necessitates no need for Jewish divorce
proceedings. Second is the position that does admit a measure of halakhic
validity to Reform Marriages. Third is the position which would seek to
determine the validity of the marriages on a case by case basis. (S.M.P.)
Walter Jacob, "Virginity and the Ketuba", Journal of
Reform Judaism 33/2 (1986), 79-82. - In a reform responsum the author
concludes that one may refrain from specifying any designation for the bride
in the ketubah. The author cites halakhic precedent for this view.
He also suggests that the term "virgin" may be used as a "standard
formula" in the same spirit that is used for standardizing other types
of formulas in the document. (S.M.P.)
Ingo Müller, Hitler's Justice, The Courts of the Third
Reich, trld. D.L. Schneider, with an Introduction by G. Vagts, London:
I.B. Tauris, ISBN 1-85043-294-5, Pp. xviii, 349, Price: £29.55. -
A book such as this would not normally figure in the Survey of Recent Literature
of The Jewish Law Annual, but the appearance of this work in English
deserves to be brought to the notice of readers of the Annual. The
book chronicles the distortion of law under the Third Reich, and its aftermath
in the denazification programme. Though not concerned primarily with the
legal basis of the Holocaust, it deals at some length with intermarriage
between Jews and gentiles, and the notion of "civil death" as
applied to Jews. (B.S.J.)
Moshe Zemer, "An Halachic and Historical Critique of 'Responsa
on Jewish Marriage'", Journal of Reform Judaism 35/2 (1988),
31-47. - The author argues vigorously against Eugene Mihaly's contention
that mixed marriage can be deemed halakhically valid. In addition to the
absence of empirical data supporting Mihaly, Zemer contends that the overwhelming
majority of liberal authorities, not to mention traditional ones, hold that
the marriage of a Jew and an unconverted gentile has no Jewish sanction
whatsoever. (S.M.P.)
M. Zipor, "Restrictions on Marriage for Priests (Lev. 21, 7.13-14)",
Biblica 68 (1987), 259-267. - It is understandable that a priest
may not marry a prostitute or a divorced women since neither can be counted
as a woman of irreproachable behaviour. The term 'profaned woman' (halalah)
here is obscure. The word means 'profane' rather than 'pierced' (raped)
or a woman associated with fertility rites. It is not itself a term parallel
to the kinds of woman, prostitute or divorcee. It probably signifies a 'hierodule'
(cult prostitute) and so indicates a third category of woman whom a priest
may not marry. (R.A.M.)
J. Ziskind, John Selden on Jewish Marriage Law, the Uxor
Hebraica, translated with a commentary, Leiden: E.J. Brill, 1991, Pp.
xii, 537, ISBN 90-04-09237-4. - John Selden's Uxor Hebraica is one
of the high points of seventeenth century Christian Hebraism. Published
in 1646, it deals with the Jewish law of marriage and divorce, using classical
Jewish sources from the Bible to the medieval codifiers and commentators
(especially Maimonides), and offering comparative comments from Greek, Roman,
Islamic, Germanic and a wide variety of Christian sources. Professor Ziskind
has made an immense contribution to the study of this text, and of the wider
cultural context to which it belongs, by providing a meticulous annotated
translation, with a substantial scholarly introduction, a Bibliography,
General index, and Indices of sources cited (from the Bible to Maimonides).
It is, in a sense, paradoxical that knowledge of Jewish law amongst Christian
intellectuals could reach the level that it did in Selden's work, at a time
when Jews were still excluded from England. (B.S.J.)
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