Justice in the City argues, based on the rabbinic textual tradition, especially the Babylonian Talmud, and utilizing French Jewish philosopher Emmanuel Levinas' framework of interpersonal ethics, that a just city should be a community of obligation. That is, in a community thus conceived, the privilege of citizenship is the assumption of the obligations of the city towards Others who are not always in view--workers, the poor, the homeless. These Others form a constitutive part of the city. The second part of the book is a close analysis of homelessness, labor, and restorative justice from within the theory that was developed. This title will be useful for scholars and students in Jewish studies, especially rabbinic literature and Jewish thought, but also for those interested in contemporary urban issues.
About the Author
Aryeh Cohen (PhD Brandeis University) is an associate professor of Rabbinic Literature at the American Jewish University. His previous book is Rereading Talmud: Gender, Law and the Poetics of Sugyot (Brown University, 1998).
