Description:This annual on Rabbinic Judaism features principal articles, essays on method and criticism, systematic debates (Auseinandersetzungen), occasional notes, long book reviews, reviews of issues of scholarly journals, assessments of textbooks and instructional materials, and other media of academic discourse, scholarly and educational alike. The annual seeks to fill a gap in the study of Judaism, which is left by the prevailing division of Rabbinic Judaism into the standard historical periods (ancient, mediaeval, modern) that in fact do not apply; and by the common treatment of Judaism in bits and pieces (philosophy, mysticism, law, homiletics and institutional history, for example), which obscures the fundamental unity and continuity of Rabbinic Judaism from beginning to the present. This 2000 edition contains articles by Ithamar Gruenwald, Dvora Weisberg, Jacob Neusner, Jose Faur, Simcha Fishbane, Norman Solomon, and Dov Schwartz, as well as reviews by Jacob Neusner, Herbert W. Basser, and Gunter Stemberger.