New Books in Jewish Studies

The open access Bloomsbury Handbook of Religion and Heritage in Contemporary Europe (Bloomsbury, 2025) offers readers a state-of-the-art guide to the public debates and scholarship on religious heritage in contemporary Europe. It contains articles by scholars, policy makers and heritage practitioners, who explore the key challenges facing the organizations, churches, and government bodies concerned with religion and heritage.

Featuring polemics, case studies, and analysis, the volume is united by major themes,including Jewish, Muslim and Christian heritage, the (post)secular, interreligious heritage, sacred texts, museums, tourism, and contemporary art.

The book explores the shifting significance of Europe's historic churches, synagogues, and mosques, many of which are caught between declining numbers of worshippers, increasing numbers of tourists, and the pressure to find new uses. It also examines the key role religious heritage plays in political discourse, both in the interest of including and excluding religious minorities.

Todd H. Weir is Professor of History of Christianity and Director of the Centre for Religion and Heritage at the University of Groningen, The Netherlands.

Lieke Wijnia is Head of Curation and Library at Museum Catharijneconvent in Utrecht, The Netherlands.

James Bielo is an anthropologist and associate professor of religious studies at Northwestern University.
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Growing up in Crown Heights, Brooklyn as a member of the Chabad-Lubavitch Hasidic Orthodox Jewish community, Zalman Newfield was raised in an atmosphere of strict gender segregation, rigorous religious education, and nearly all-consuming ritual practices. Trained to be a Lubavitch emissary, he traveled around the world doing Jewish outreach to help usher in the messianic redemption. However, after exposure to the wider world, he abandoned the faith of his youth.

Brooklyn Odyssey: My Journey Out of Hasidism (Temple University Press, 2026) is Newfield's poignant and hopeful memoir about exiting Orthodoxy. He recounts asserting his individuality and taking the radical step of shaving his beard. Reflective about his upbringing, Newfield is open to and curious about a world beyond Brooklyn while also maintaining his profound bond with his family and Jewish tradition. He writes candidly about his emotional, intellectual, and social experiences in and out of the Lubavitch community.

From pivotal moments of devastation, including the illness and death of his younger brother and of his revered spiritual leader Rabbi Menachem Mendel Schneerson, to moments of joyful resolve, including the decision to pursue a doctorate and marry a non-Orthodox Jew, Newfield takes readers on his moving and impactful journey.

Zalman Newfield is Associate Professor of Sociology and Jewish Studies at Hunter College, City University of New York and the author of Degrees of Separation: Identity Formation While Leaving Ultra-Orthodox Judaism (Temple). Visit him online at zalmannewfield.com.

Caleb Zakarin is CEO and Publisher of the New Books Network.
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In the midst of academic debates about the utility of the term “magic” and the cultural meaning of ancient words like mageia or khesheph, this Guide to the Study of Ancient Magic seeks to advance the discussion by separating out three topics essential to the very idea of magic. The three major sections of this volume address (1) indigenous terminologies for ambiguous or illicit ritual in antiquity; (2) the ancient texts, manuals, and artifacts commonly designated “magical” or used to represent ancient magic; and (3) a series of contexts, from the written word to materiality itself, to which the term “magic” might usefully pertain.The individual essays in this volume cover most of Mediterranean and Near Eastern antiquity, with essays by both established and emergent scholars of ancient religions.In a burgeoning field of “magic studies” trying both to preserve and to justify critically the category itself, this volume brings new clarity and provocative insights. This will be an indispensable resource to all interested in magic in the Bible and the Ancient Near East, ancient Greece and Rome, Early Christianity and Judaism, Egypt through the Christian period, and also comparative and critical theory.Contributors are: Magali Bailliot, Gideon Bohak, Véronique Dasen, Albert de Jong, Jacco Dieleman, Esther Eidinow, David Frankfurter, Fritz Graf, Yuval Harari, Naomi Janowitz, Sarah Iles Johnston, Roy D. Kotansky, Arpad M. Nagy, Daniel Schwemer, Joseph E. Sanzo, Jacques van der Vliet, Andrew Wilburn.

David Frankfurter holds the William Goodwin Aurelio Chair of the Appreciation of Scripture at Boston University. He joined the faculty of B.U. in the fall of 2010. A scholar of ancient Mediterranean religions with specialties in Jewish and Christian apocalyptic literature, magical texts, popular religion, and Egypt in the Roman and late antique periods, Frankfurter’s particular interests revolve around theoretical issues like the place of magic in religion, the relationship of religion and violence, the nature of Christianization, and the representation of evil in culture. 

Caleb Zakarin is CEO and Publisher of the New Books Network.
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Cindy Schweich Handler’s work has appeared in The New York Times, The Washington Post, Newsweek, Redbook, The Huffington Post, and a host of other national publications. She is a former editor and writer for the USA Today Network.

A German Jew’s Triumph: Fritz Oppenheimer and the Denazification of Germany (McFarland, 2025) is based on primary sources such as Fritz’s contemporaneous World War I diaries, journals kept by his wife, Elsbeth, and a copious collection of letters he wrote to her during their long separations. After 9/11, Harry Handler decided to explore this inheritance to see whether he could learn more about his grandfather’s life.

A towering personality packed into a 5'3" frame, Oppenheimer was a wealthy Jewish Berliner who fled the Third Reich in mid-1938, joined basic training in the U.S. Army at forty-five, and ultimately became General Eisenhower’s legal aide and translator—tasked with helping to build a sustainable postwar democracy in his former homeland. This historical biography presents a previously untold David-and-Goliath story, demonstrating how one individual’s persistence can help change the course of history and forge a more hopeful future.

A German Jew’s Triumph portrays Fritz Oppenheimer as a figure of extraordinary skill, moral complexity, and intellectual discipline. Cindy Schweich Handler preserves his voice, his diaries, and the historical record while also inviting readers to grapple with the discomforts of assimilation, restraint, and ethical judgment under extreme circumstances.
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Reading the Bible and rabbinic literature to reimagine the bonds between animals. Moving beyond debates about the ethics of animal consumption to focus on animals' intimate lives, Beth A. Berkowitz examines the contribution of religious traditions and sacred texts to contemporary conversations about animals in What Animals Teach us About Families: Kinship and Species in the Bible and Rabbinic Literature (U California Press, 2026). Reading the four "animal family" laws of the Bible alongside their rabbinic interpretations from ancient times to today, she examines the bonds that animals form with each other and reimagines family to include new forms of life and alternative modes of kinship.

Humanitarian politics—and biblical law—tend to take for granted that human interests supersede animal interests and that our moral obligation extends only to avoiding unnecessary suffering, but necessity is determined by humans. What Animals Teach Us About Families looks at animal emotions, animal agency, family diversity, and human response to reconsider the obligations and opportunities the animal family presents.

New books in late antiquity is presented by Ancient Jew Review

Beth A. Berkowitz is Professor and Ingeborg Rennert Chair of Jewish Studies, Department of Religion, Barnard College

Michael Motia teaches in Classics and Religious Studies at UMass Boston
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