A compelling and generative way to study and teach Jewish ethics.
 
The field of Jewish ethics is characterized by foundational questions about how to do Jewish ethics—questions that are inseparable from other scholarly work within the subject area. The essays in this collection show that analyzing methods of reasoning is a productive approach for both students and teachers of Jewish ethics. The volume is organized not by standalone essays but by sets of curated conversations between scholars from different time periods, academic subfields, and religious commitments (or lack thereof). These deliberate juxtapositions encourage scholars and students to undertake similar meta-ethical analyses on Jewish ethics as related to theories and methods, communities, constructions of the human, and bioethics. For the editors, Jewish ethics is not just a set of propositions or principles; it cannot be reduced to a single trajectory of thought or abstracted as an elaborate system of ideas. Instead, Jewish ethics is the field of study that engages Jewish texts, ideas, history, and experience in conversations about values and virtues, justice and good judgment, and human relations and responsibilities. This volume, which presents such discussions, is certain to spark many more.

Kateřina Králová is professor of contemporary history, Balkan, Eurasian, and Central European studies at the Institute of International Studies at Charles University, Czech Republic, where she was formerly the Vice-Dean for International Relations of the Faculty of Social Science.