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Abhimanyu Unnuth is a contemporary poet, playwright, novelist, and public intellectual in Mauritius. His poetry, written in Hindi, attempts to recover the religious identity of the Bihari indentured servant community of the nineteenth century in the service of a re-membrance, in the Thiong'oian sense, of a post-independence Mauritian Hindu identity. In his best work, Kaiktus ke Dant, he inhabits the character of an ancestor working the sugar cane fields and understanding that work through his tenuous connection to his left-behind Hindu society through the Ramcaritmanas of Tulsidas. This protagonist is contrasted with the shadow subject: himself, as a post-colonial, post-independence, postlabour Hindu on the island. The myths of his ancestors connect him to narratives, but not to the sense of the place that contextualizes the epic's stories. Only by understanding, and being able to embody, the pain that his ancestors endured on the field by invoking mythic figures, can he come to be a Mauritian Hindu. This paper assesses his linguistic choices and the effect they have on the tone of his work.

Intro -- Contents -- Foreword by Jimmy Carter -- Introduction -- Part I The Early Years 1900-1965 -- 1 The Educational and Scientific Revolution: Higher Standards and Changing Priorities -- 2 The Consumer Revolution: Increasing Accessto Medical Care -- Part II In the Wake of Medicare and Medicaid 1965-1985 -- 3 Emerging Tensions between Regulation andMarket Forces: Dealing with Growth -- 4 Education for the Health Professions:The Impact of Growth -- Part III Moving to the Present 1985-2005 -- 5 The Entrepreneurial Revolution: A Changing Face for Medicine -- 6 Beyond the Dollars: Progress in Health and theRole of Public Health -- Part IV Anticipating the Next Revolution 2005 and Beyond -- 7 Medical Challenges and Opportunities -- 8 Increasing Equity: Achieving Universal Health Insurance -- Notes -- Index.

This study evaluates the extent to which the asset valuation arguments raised by medieval post-Talmudic legal scholars are consistent with modern contingent claims analysis. In particular, this study evaluates the arguments proposed by these scholars in order to rationalize the Talmud's differential valuation of the same asset by multiple claimants. Modern contingent claims analysis is able to explain differential valuation by invoking market imperfections such as transactions costs and asymmetric information. We conjecture that market imperfections lie behind the Talmud's differential valuation of the kethubah. This study finds that although some post-Talmudic scholars—notably Rashi, Rashbam, and Rosh—can be interpreted as raising transactions costs and asymmetric information arguments to rationalize differential valuation of the kethubah, their lines of reasoning are typically included as part of a broader set of less convincing arguments. We argue that this mixture of deep insights into asset valuation and abstruse logic is likely a continuation of Talmudic ambivalence to the valuation of non—human capital, an ambivalence induced by the biblical prohibition against interest.

Introduction: the rise of the study of digital religion /Heidi A. Campbell --Ritual /Christopher Helland --Identity /Mia Lövheim --Community /Heidi A. Campbell --Authority /Pauline Hope Cheong --Authenticity /Kerstin Radde-Antweilier --Religion /Gregory Price Grieve --Hindu worship online and offline /Heinz Scheifinger --Virtual Buddhism: Buddhist ritual in second life /Louise Connelly --Playing Muslim hero: construction of identity in video games /Vit Sisler --Digital storytelling and collective religious identity in a moderate to progressive youth group /Lynn Schoefield Clark and Jill Dierberg --Charting frontiers of online religious communities: the case of Chabad Jews /Oren Golan --Considering religious community through online churches /Tim Hutchings --The kosher cell phone in ultra-Orthodox society: a technological ghetto within the global village? /Tsuriel Rashi --Formation of a religious Technorati: negotiations of authority among Australian emerging church blogs /Paul Emerson Teusner --Alt-Muslim: Muslims and modernity's discontents /Nabil Echchaibi --You are what you install: religious authenticity and identity in mobile apps /Rachel Wagner --Japanese new religions online: Hikari no Wa and "net religion" /Erica Baffelli --"'Go online!' said my guardian angel": the Internet as a platform for religious negotiation /Nadja Miczek --Theoretical frameworks for approaching religion and new media /Knut Lundby --Ethical issues in the study of religion and new media /Mark D. Johns --Theology and the new media /Stephen Garner --Concluding thoughts: imagining the religious in and through the digital /Stewart M. Hoover.

Written at different times and for different audiences - some for scholars of rabbinic literature, some for laymen or for scholars not necessarily Jewish - the essays gathered together in this volume nevertheless have an inner coherence. They reflect the author's lifetime interest in the history of halakhah - not as intellectual history per se, but rather a concern to identify measurable deflection in the unfolding of halakhic ideas that could point to an undetected force at work. What was it that stimulated change, and why? What happened when strong forces impinged upon halakhic observance, and both the scholarly elite and the community as a whole had to grapple with upholding observance while adapting to a new set of circumstances? Haym Soloveitchik's elegant presentation shows skilfully that the line between adaptation and deviance is a fine one, and that where a society draws that line is revelatory of both its values and its self-perception. Many of the articles presented here are well known in the field but have been updated for this publication (the major essay on pawnbroking has been expanded to half again its original size); some have been previously published only in Hebrew, and two are completely new. An Introduction highlights the key themes of the collection and explains the underlying methodology. Having these essays in a single volume will enable scholars and students to consult all the material on each theme together, while also tracing the development of ideas. The opening section of the volume is a brief description and characterization of the dramatis personae who figure in all these essays: Rashi and the Tosafists. It covers the halakhic commentaries and their authors; the creativity of Ashkenaz; and the halakhic isolation of the Ashkenazic community. The second section focuses on usury and money-lending, including the practice of pawn-broking, while the third section deals with the ban on Gentile wine and how that connected to the development of money-lending. The final section presents general conclusions in the form of four studies of the communal self-image of Ashkenaz and its attitude to deviation and change.

Throughout the Middle Ages, the synagogue developed as the central identifying institution and physical building for Jews, replacing the still yearned for but increasingly distant Jerusalem Temple as the focus of Jewish identity. Equally important, the synagogue became the symbol par excellance of the Jews and their community for the Christian (or Muslim) majority populations in the countries where Jews were settled. For Christians, the synagogue was a Jewish church, but much more so, it came to symbolize in opposition all that the church represented. Though relatively little known today, medieval synagogues were not symbolic abstractions to the men and women of the Middle Ages. They were at the very center of their religious, social and political lives. These synagogues, which were once omnipresent across Europe, the Middle East and North Africa are now, however, sparsely preserved, and in most localities their former presence is entirely forgotten. With the exception of a few buildings that still stand, such as the so-called Rashi Synagogue in Worms, Germany; the Altneushul in Prague; and the former Great Synagogue and Samuel Abulafia Ha-Levi Synagogues in Toledo, medieval synagogues receive little attention other than from a few dedicated scholars, except when their long-buried remains are uncovered. Until recently, such discoveries were mostly accidental, but a new generation of researchers is now seeking out these remains to reveal a hidden past. In the past two decades much more evidence has become available to enhance our knowledge and understanding of medieval synagogues. Some of this information is archaeological, and even more derives from the close study of documentary evidence – in Hebrew and local languages – by historians such as Yom-Tov Assis in Spain and Ariel Toaff in Italy, to whose work I am indebted. This information, often collected in the course of other research, can be assembled to present a fairly detailed picture of synagogue architecture, decoration and use in some places for some periods of the Middle Ages. We know the general and specific distribution of medieval synagogues, and we have physical evidence for perhaps a few dozen. This paper focuses on evidence from the Mediterranean region, especially from Southern Europe. Until the 15th century, hundreds of Jewish communities populated the Iberian and Italian peninsula, and there were Jewish communities throughout the Balkans. These places had synagogues, and many had more than one. While still little physical evidence of these buildings is known (exceptions are Trani and Sermoneta in Italy and Toledo, Cordoba and Segovia in Spain), we can reconstruct much of their appearance and some aspects of their use and significance. In Spain and Italy there were synagogues of many sizes and plan types. Many were richly decorated. There were community synagogues, private synagogues, and synagogue organized by charitable societies. The locations of synagogue were well known, but the entrances to most synagogues were often protected by exterior courtyards, rather than face directly onto the public street. Synagogue were usually imbedded into the physical as well as the social fabric of their surrounding (Jewish) communities, and prayer halls were often part of larger complexes which includes spaces for other religious and communal functions. While the synagogue was not a distinct architectural type, it was a functional one, and the architectural and liturgical adaptations needed to produce and protect the medieval synagogue were influential in subsequent centuries. Many of our modern notions of what a synagogue looks like, how it functions, and what it signifies are present in the Middle Ages.

Throughout the Middle Ages, the synagogue developed as the central identifying institution and physical building for Jews, replacing the still yearned for but increasingly distant Jerusalem Temple as the focus of Jewish identity. Equally important, the synagogue became the symbol par excellance of the Jews and their community for the Christian (or Muslim) majority populations in the countries where Jews were settled. For Christians, the synagogue was a Jewish church, but much more so, it came to symbolize in opposition all that the church represented. Though relatively little known today, medieval synagogues were not symbolic abstractions to the men and women of the Middle Ages. They were at the very center of their religious, social and political lives. These synagogues, which were once omnipresent across Europe, the Middle East and North Africa are now, however, sparsely preserved, and in most localities their former presence is entirely forgotten. With the exception of a few buildings that still stand, such as the so-called Rashi Synagogue in Worms, Germany; the Altneushul in Prague; and the former Great Synagogue and Samuel Abulafia Ha-Levi Synagogues in Toledo, medieval synagogues receive little attention other than from a few dedicated scholars, except when their long-buried remains are uncovered. Until recently, such discoveries were mostly accidental, but a new generation of researchers is now seeking out these remains to reveal a hidden past. In the past two decades much more evidence has become available to enhance our knowledge and understanding of medieval synagogues. Some of this information is archaeological, and even more derives from the close study of documentary evidence – in Hebrew and local languages – by historians such as Yom-Tov Assis in Spain and Ariel Toaff in Italy, to whose work I am indebted. This information, often collected in the course of other research, can be assembled to present a fairly detailed picture of synagogue architecture, decoration and use in some places for some periods of the Middle Ages. We know the general and specific distribution of medieval synagogues, and we have physical evidence for perhaps a few dozen. This paper focuses on evidence from the Mediterranean region, especially from Southern Europe. Until the 15th century, hundreds of Jewish communities populated the Iberian and Italian peninsula, and there were Jewish communities throughout the Balkans. These places had synagogues, and many had more than one. While still little physical evidence of these buildings is known (exceptions are Trani and Sermoneta in Italy and Toledo, Cordoba and Segovia in Spain), we can reconstruct much of their appearance and some aspects of their use and significance. In Spain and Italy there were synagogues of many sizes and plan types. Many were richly decorated. There were community synagogues, private synagogues, and synagogue organized by charitable societies. The locations of synagogue were well known, but the entrances to most synagogues were often protected by exterior courtyards, rather than face directly onto the public street. Synagogue were usually imbedded into the physical as well as the social fabric of their surrounding (Jewish) communities, and prayer halls were often part of larger complexes which includes spaces for other religious and communal functions. While the synagogue was not a distinct architectural type, it was a functional one, and the architectural and liturgical adaptations needed to produce and protect the medieval synagogue were influential in subsequent centuries. Many of our modern notions of what a synagogue looks like, how it functions, and what it signifies are present in the Middle Ages.