New Books in Jewish Studies

What happens when a devout imam and a secular Jewish former federal prosecutor decide to talk about the things that divide them rather than the things they share? In I Am the Other: Debating the Role of Islam in a Divided America (Liminal Space Publications, 2025), Imam Azhar Subedar and Robert Gary offer an unusual model of dialogue. It is not a search for common ground but a sustained, candid engagement with disagreement. Their collaboration began when Gary, attending one of Subedar’s talks at a Florida church, asked a deliberately provocative question about a difficult Qur’anic passage. Subedar answered it directly rather than deflecting, and a friendship and five-year writing partnership followed.
In this conversation, Subedar and Gary reflect on how September 11 reshaped the place of Muslims in American public life. They discuss how selectively quoted scripture and the actions of extremist groups have sustained Islamophobia, and what Subedar sees as the American Muslim community’s own failures of silence and disengagement. They describe how the book, nearly finished on October 7, 2023, had to be reopened. Even so, their dialogue survived a moment when many Jewish–Muslim partnerships collapsed. Subedar argues that much interfaith work failed because it was built on agreement alone. Gary contends that Jews and Muslims, so often targeted by the same forces, have a shared stake in the survival of American democracy.
The conversation closes on their proposals for rebuilding trust through engagement and fact-checking. It also addresses the resistance their public dialogues have met, and why they believe that differing without demonizing is the work this moment requires.
Imam Azhar Subedar is a Canadian-raised Islamic scholar and has served as an imam in American Muslim communities since 2002. Robert Gary is a former prosecutor in the Organized Crime Section of the U.S. Department of Justice and teaches on the Qur’an and geopolitics at the Osher Lifelong Learning Institute.
Iqbal Akhtar is teaches in the Departments of Religious Studies and Politics & International Relations at Florida International University and is the Executive Director of The East-West Foundation. His recent book is Covenantal Pluralism, an open-access book published by Springer Nature. https://link.springer.com/book/10.1007/978-3-032-31479-6

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When German occupiers rolled into Paris in June 1940, they arrived wary of the French Catholic Church. In a country where more than 80 percent of citizens were Catholic, bishops held enormous moral sway. During the 1930s, many used their positions to forcefully condemn the rise of Nazism. But as the persecution of Jews escalated during the Occupation, every bishop in France maintained a deafening silence. In fact, the Church stood publicly alongside Marshal Pétain’s collaborationist Vichy regime. Even when bishops famously broke silence to protest the deportation of Jews in 1942—a moment long remembered as one of moral awakening—they quickly retreated, discouraging further defiance.
The French Church’s public silence during the Holocaust is no secret. But as Aliza Luft shows, private interactions between bishops, French Jewish leaders, and Vichy officials were just as consequential. Turning to letters, diaries, and records of private conversations, Luft traces the moral dilemmas and calculated choices that shaped these hidden negotiations. As Jewish leaders turned to the Church for information and protection, bishops repeatedly assured them of the Church’s sympathy and support. These guarantees from the nation’s highest moral authorities, combined with the false promises of Vichy officials, encouraged French Jews to place their faith in relationships and republican ideals that proved tragically hollow.
Drawing on years of archival research, Sacred Betrayal: How the French Catholic Church Broke Its Pledge to Protect Jews During the Holocaust (Harvard UP, 2026) is a harrowing account of how genocide unfolds day by day—not only through spectacular violence, but also through misleading assurances, quiet capitulations, and broken promises.

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From the discovery of the Dead Sea Scrolls to the Zohar, this is the untold story behind our enduring fascination with lost and found religious texts The Dead Sea Scrolls, the oldest biblical manuscripts ever found, were discovered in a cave by a shepherd and his goat. This story is mostly true, and it is not the first such tale about long-lost books. Legend has it that the Zohar--the foundational text of Jewish Kabbalah--was lost for centuries before being discovered in a cave by a farmer, who sold it to spice merchants as packing material. It was only when a scholar picked through a trash heap and joined the fragments together that the world recovered its mystical secrets. These are just two of many tales recounting the discovery of ancient religious manuscripts. Tracing a time-honored pattern of storytelling about lost and recovered sacred texts, in Hidden Scrolls, Buried Bibles: How We Discover the Sacred Past (Yale UP, 2026) Eva Mroczek reveals a surprising feature of Jewish and Christian thought: the idea that scripture is not complete--that it is partly lost, destroyed, or hidden--is not only the stuff of fantasy novels and conspiracy theories. Mroczek shows that modern scholarly mythmaking is more tightly bound with Jewish and Christian legends than we may think. Through the lens of discovery tales, this innovative book explores how traditions live in tension with the possibility of unknown pasts and surprising discoveries.
New books in late antiquity is presented by Ancient Jew Review
Eva Mroczek is Simon and Riva Spatz Chair in Jewish Studies; Professor; Religious Studies; Undergraduate Advisor for Religious Studies
Michael Motia teaches in Classics and Religious Studies at UMass Boston

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In this latest Books for Better Understanding video from Notre Dame Press, Jake Kildoo facilitates a conversation between Rabbi Irving "Yitz" Greenberg and Ariel Burger about the new introductions they wrote for NDP's recently released expanded editions of two Elie Wiesel classics: Four Hasidic Masters and Their Struggle Against Melancholy and Five Biblical Portraits. Both Greenberg and Burger share illuminating insights about the works, as well as reflections on their friendships with Wiesel.

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Drora interviewed Dr. Eveyln Maria Dean-Olmsted about her book, Coming of Age as Syrian Jewish Mexicans: The Pragmatics of Diaspora (Brill, 2025), published by Brill in 2026. Dr. Dean-Olmsted is a linguistic anthropologist who lived with the Jewish community in Mexico City for a time to research this book. The community includes four distinct groups: Ashkenazi, Aleppans, Damascenes, and Ottoman Sephardim. She explained how these communities formed in the early 20th century following migration from the Ottoman Empire and later Syria and Lebanon, with each group maintaining separate institutions for social and religious purposes. Evelyn noted that while these communities were once strictly separated, there is now more mixing between them, though specific ethnic and geographic identifications remain important within the community.
Dean-Olmsted discussed increased social mixing and institutional collaboration between different Jewish communities, noting that intermarriages between Ashkenazi and Syrian Jews have become more normal though family dynamics can still be tense. She explained that young people are actively navigating questions about religious practice and lifestyle choices, with many experiencing a "holy struggle" she terms "Le'heavec" - referencing Jacob wrestling with an angel - as they make personalized decisions about their Judaism. She described this as an ongoing process that counters stereotypes about Sephardi and Mizrahi Jews' religiosity, while noting that community pressure remains strong, particularly for those who don't fit traditional molds.
As an example, they discussed the tebilah ceremony of immersing in a mikveh before one's wedding. In the traditional Syrian communities this is cause for a large party and in the Ashkenazi community, which has been seeping in to all communities through ultra-orthodox Rabbis and classes, it is a very quiet private affair. This struggle to understand what is one's Judaism and how do we rethink our heritage while staying true to it and our community was a key part of the discussion.
Continue to struggle with the future of our heritage by following and participating in Jewish Tapestry talks and events.

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