From: faigin@aero.org (Daniel P. Faigin)
Newsgroups: soc.culture.jewish
Subject: Judaism Reading List: Humanistic Judaism (Pt. VII)
Date: 24 Jan 1993 14:29:20 GMT
Organization: The Aerospace Corporation, El Segundo, CA
Distribution: soc
NNTP-Posting-Host: soldan.aero.org


	      Selected Sources for Additional Reading on Judaism
			 Part VII: Humanistic Judaism
			[Last Change: 21 January 1993]
		     [Last Post: Sat Jan 23 18:39:13 1993]

                                         "Humanistic Jews need a literature
                                         that clearly and boldly states what
                                         they think and believe" [Win85]

This message is intended to provide readers of soc.culture.jewish with a list
of references to allow them to learn more about the current practices, past
practices, beliefs, and history of the Humanistic Judaism Movement.

Humanistic Judaism is less well known than Orthodox, Conservative, and
Reform.  But, on a behavioral level, it claims to represent many more
American Jews than any of these official ideologies. Rabbi Sherwin Wine, the
founder of the movement, identifies three kinds of Jews who are neither
honestly Orthodox, Conservative, or Reform. He calls these types the
involuntary, the ethnic, and the humanistic. Rabbi Wine defines the
involuntary Jew is the individual of Jewish descent who finds no meaning
either in his past or in the unique practices of his ancestral religion.  He
defines the ethnic Jew is the person of Jewish descent who bears a strong
attachment to the Hebrew and Yiddish cultures out of which he emerged.

Rabbi Wine feels that these affiliations are negative. He prefers the
positive definition of Humanistic Jew:

   The Humanistic Jew is an individual, of either Jewish or non-Jewish
   descent, who believes in the ultimate value of self-respect and in the
   principles of humanism, community, autonomy, and rationality. He also
   finds meaning in the celebration of life as expressed through the
   historic Jewish calendar and seeks to interpret this calendar in a
   naturalistic way.  He perceives that the power he possesses to determine
   and control his own life is the result of two billion years of
   evolutionary history.  Therefore, his religious feeling re-enforces his
   sense of human dignity.

Humanistic Judaism was organized by Rabbi Sherwin T. Wine, who founded its
first congregation in Farmington Michigan. In 1969, Rabbi Wine helped to
found the Society of Humanistic Judaism, whose membership comprised ten
temples and chapters as of 1978.

This reading list is based on a reading list developed during research at the
University of Judaism in Los Angeles in January 1993. Suggestions for
additions or deletions are welcome, as are submissions of *brief* annotations
of the entries.

This list is archived in the mail.liberal-judaism info-files area on
israel.nysernet.org [192.77.173.2] and is available for anonymous FTP.  It
may be found in the israel/lists/mail.liberal-judaism/info-files directory.
It may also be obtained by email request to faigin@aero.org.

PHILOSOPHY OF MOVEMENT

[Win78]	Wine, Sherwin T. _Humanistic Judaism_. Prometheus Books, Buffalo NY,
	1978. ISBN 0-87975-102-9

[Win85]	Wine, Sherwin T. _Judaism Beyond G@d: A Radical New Way to be
	Jewish_. Society for Humanistic Judaism, Farmington Hills MI. ISBN
	0-912645-08-3. 1985.  

Humanistic  Judaism, being such a young  movmement, does not  yet have a large
body   of  literature. However,  there  are   a  number of   authors that  are
recommended reading by Rabbi Wine:

o CLASSICS OF HUMANISM: Epicurus, Democritus, August Comte, John Stuart Mill,
	Bertrand Russell, John Dewey, Jean Paul Sartre, George Santayana.

o WRITINGS OF JEWS WHO WERE HUMANISTS: Albert Einstein, Sigmund Freud, Erich
	Fromm, Walter Kippman, and Walter Kaufman

o LITERATURE OF SECULAR HISTORIANS:  Spinoza, Julius Wellhausen, Emile
	Durkeim, Max Weber, Simon Dubnow, Salo Baron, and Theodore Gaster

o WRITINGS OF JEWISH NATIONALISTS: I.L. Peretz, Sholem Aleichem, Chaim
	Zhitlowsky, Ahad Haam, Micah Berdichevsky, Theodore Herzl, Max
	Nordau, A.D.  Gordon, Ber Borochov, Saul Tchernikhovsky, Vladmir
	Jabotinsky, David Ben Gurion, and Haum Goldmann

o JEWISH ESSAYISTS AND NOVELISTS WHO ARE ARDENT HUMANISTS:  Saul Bellow,
	Albert Memmi, and George Steiner

Additional information on  Humanistic Judaism, as  well   as   publications on
Humanistic Judaism, may be obtained from:

			Society for Humanistic Judaism
			  28611 W. Twelve Mile Road
			  Farmington Hills MI 48018
				 313/478-7610

Please mail additions or corrections to me at faigin@aero.org.
-- 
[W]:The Aerospace Corp. M1/055 * POB 92957 * LA, CA 90009-2957 * 310/336-8228
[Email]:faigin@aerospace.aero.org              [Vmail]:310/336-5454 Box#13149
		    "And as they say, the rest is compost"