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This book examines the origins of communal and institutional almsgiving in rabbinic Judaism.
List of contents
1. Introduction; 2. The poor and poverty in Roman Palestine; 3. From vessels to institutions; 4. Tamhui, the soup kitchen; 5. Quppa, the charity fund; 6. Charity with dignity; 7. The charity supervisor; 8. Conclusion: after the Tannaim.
About the author
Gregg E. Gardner is Assistant Professor and the Diamond Chair in Jewish Law and Ethics at the University of British Columbia. Gardner held a Doctoral Dissertation Completion Fellowship from the Charlotte W. Newcombe Foundation at Princeton University, New Jersey (2008–9). He has also served as a Starr Fellow at the Center for Jewish Studies at Harvard University, Massachusetts (2008–10), a Mellon/American Council of Learned Societies Fellow at the Cogut Center for the Humanities at Brown University, Rhode Island (2010–11), an Early Career Faculty Fellow at the American Academy for Jewish Research (2012–13), a Faculty Associate at the Peter Wall Institute for Advanced Studies (2012–13), and a Mandel Fellow at Brandeis University, Massachusetts (2013–14). Gardner is the co-editor of Antiquity in Antiquity: Jewish and Christian Pasts in the Greco-Roman World (2008). His work has been published or will be published in such journals as the Hebrew Union College Annual, the Jewish Quarterly Review, the Journal for the Study of Judaism, and the Journal of Biblical Literature.
Summary
Charity is a central concept of Judaism and a hallmark of Jewish giving is to provide for the poor in collective and anonymous ways. This book examines the origins of these ideas in the foundational works of rabbinic Judaism, texts from the second to third centuries CE.
