“Joseph, Adversity, and Autism” – new review of Was Yosef on the Spectrum

Adam Read ● ACEs Connection

Here’s an interesting book….

…Not because it has anything to do with what you’re doing today, but precisely because it doesn’t. Sometimes we have to take a trip to somewhere else… a detour… a backroad…. or an excursion to get our minds out of our daily COVID funk to give us a different perspective on life.

I don’t know about your upbringing, but I spent enough time in church to hear the story of Joseph’s coat of colors many times and how his brothers sold him into slavery. Never, though, have I seen this story through the lens that Joseph may have been Autistic until now. This exploration shows how disabilities and diversity can chemically react with the heat of adversity to create the powerful energy that saved two ancient adversarial cultures from starvation and famine.

The Narrow Halakhic Bridge – new review

Harvey Sukenic ● AJL News and Reviews

Ronen Neuwirth portrays Halacha as the “narrow bridge” between the eternal Torah and the shifting reality, but in need of change to meet the challenges of postmodern society. Neuwirth served as a pulpit rabbi in Israel, rabbi of Bnai Akiva in the US, and founded Beit Hillel, an organization building bridges between religious and secular Israelis. His audience is a modern Orthodox lay readership. In his introduction, he presents those elements of contemporary society which challenge the accep­tance of halacha. He follows with seven chapters tracing the development of the halachic process and an extensive treatment of the basic principles of rabbinic decision making, with over a thousand sources.

BD”E Rabbi Dr. Avraham Twerski

Jerusalem Press ● Hana Levi Julian

Rabbi Dr. Avraham Twerski, z”l Passes and The World is a Darker Place

The world is a darker place tonight with the passing of a Torah luminary whose gift was in keeping Jewish people alive even with they themselves no longer had the will to live.

Rabbi Dr. Avraham Joshua Twerski z”l passed away Sunday (Jan. 31, 2021) at Laniado Hospital in Netanya at age 90 after being hospitalized last week after contracting COVID-19.

A world renown Torah personality, “Rabbi Abe” was a shochet, a mohel, a composer of niggunim, a talmid chacham, an ordained rabbi and a medical doctor — a psychiatrist — specializing in addictions.

The son of the Hornsteipler Rebbe, Rabbi Twerski received his own smicha at the age of seventeen, and then assisted his father as assistant rabbi in his birthplace of Milwaukee.

Although he is best known for his psychiatric knowledge and activities, Rabbi Dr. Twerski z”l was also a tremendous Torah scholar, widely respected for his deep devotion to the Chassidut of his ancestors and the breadth of his learning.

To read the rest of this article, click here.

“Giving” – New Review

Yaacov David Shulman

Giving: The Essential Teaching of the Kabbalah is a conceptual overview of the teachings of Rabbi Yehuda Lev Ashlag, author of the Sulam commentary on the Zohar, with extensive explanations and interpretations by his living student, Rabbi Avraham Mordechai Gottlieb (“with commentary and insights for living the Kabbalah”), translated into English by Aryeh Siegel.
              This is a book of substance because it presents in a popularized form the teachings of an authentic master of Kabbalah. As such, it is an intense and demanding book. And it is in many ways the opposite of most such popular explanations of Judaism because it is unyieldingly and uncompromisingly dedicated to explaining that a person must set aside expectations and desires of receiving and focus as completely as possible solely on giving.

Rabbi Yehuda Herzl Henkin, zt”l

Shira Hanau ● Times of Israel

Henkin’s status as a Jewish legal authority lent weight to his support for expanded female roles, while his moderation helped the changes take root in the mainstream community

New 2020 Titles from Urim Publications

Was Yosef on the Spectrum? – new review

John Elder Robison

In this fascinating study, law professor and Hebrew scholar Samuel Levine looks at Joseph from the Bible with a fresh perspective. I found his arguments well-reasoned and fascinating, but I also understood some of the pushback the book received. Can any modern-day person bestow an autism diagnosis on someone who lived and died thousands of years ago?

Presentation of Ludovit Feld by Silvia Fishbaum

You are cordially invited…

The Life of Ludovit Feld
Presented by AJC New Jersey and the Consulate General of Slovakia in New York

Featuring Silvia Fishbaum, Author of Dirty Jewess
Tuesday, October 27, 2020
3:00 PM

Join us for a fascinating look at the life of renowned artist, Ludovit Feld. Born in Kosice, Slovakia in 1904, Feld was deported to Auschwitz in 1944 where, as a person with dwarfism, he was subjected to the experiments of Dr. Josef Mengele, and forced to become Dr. Mengele’s personal artist. Having survived the Holocaust, Feld moved back to Kosice where he lived until his death in 1991.

Silvia Fishbaum, author of Dirty Jewess and a student of Ludovit Feld’s, introduced by Ladislava Begec, Consul General of Slovakia in New York, will share wiht us his incredible life story and her experience of studying under him in postwar Communist Czechoslovakia, Silvia will also speak about current efforts to keep Feld’s memory and the memory of the Holocaust alive in Kosice.

REGISTER

New and Noteworthy – The Narrow Halakhic Bridge

Tradition Online

This broad-ranging book explores the role of halakha as a bridge between eternal principles and practical application in an ever-changing world. (The “postmodernism” of the title is often used as a synonym for the “contemporary world,” and sometimes for the cluster of assumptions which come hand in hand with that philosophical tradition.) Neuwirth is particularly concerned with issues of personal freedom and autonomy, and the ability of halakhic texts and rabbinic figures to speak with authority today.

[Watch the worldwide Zoom book launch.]

Fascinating and persuasive conjectures about one of the Bible’s most famous men

Kate Gladstone ● 100+ People with Autism to Know

The book fascinated me because I am autistic and Jewish, and because it’s interesting to think about how an autistic person might have appeared to others in the long centuries and millennia before the condition was medically recognized and named.
Although “presumed diagnosis of the dead” is inherently an uncertain endeavor, it is fascinating to see how the author (a Jewish scholar who is also familiar with autism and its sensory/neurological manifestations) finds many commonalities between the Biblical figure of Joseph (as depicted in Scripture and in Hebrew tradition) and modern-day people on the autism spectrum (in terms of shared traits, inclinations, sensitivities, aversions, and so on). Samuel Levine’s book makes me wish that we could go back in time, present the Biblical Joseph with a copy of the book (translated into Hebrew or Egyptian) and ask him if Levine got it right! (I suspect that the answer would be “Yes — is he, too, a dreamer of accurate dreams?” But of course we will never know for sure).
The book may be very encouraging to autistics who are Jews, and to their parents/teachers/fellow congregants/congregational leaders.