Introduction -- Defining oneself against the other: sources and parallels in late antiquity -- Assimilation and integration: the classical rabbinic sources -- From private piety to public prayer: reconciling practice with teaching -- Competitive traditions: early Palestinian practice -- Censorship in medieval and renaissance liturgy -- Women, slaves, boors and beasts -- Material and mystical worldviews -- Recasting boundaries and identity in nineteenth-century European prayer books -- Identity and the creation of community in modern American liturgy -- Conclusion
Summary
Through the lens of a liturgical text in continuous use for over 2000 years, Kahn offers new insights into an evolving religious identity and recurring questions of how to honour both historical teaching and contemporary sensibility
