Here, as in the book generally, Byrne’s case has significant force against recent interpretations of Kant’s philosophy of religion that claim Kant as an orthodox Christian thinker. But here, as elsewhere in the book, that the domi- nant interpretive question is, as Byrne expresses it early, Hare versus Heinrich Heine (3) (i.e., taking Kant as essentially an orthodox Christian thinker versus taking Kant’s transition from morality to religion in his practical writings as so unserious as to be hardly sincere), seems to obstruct a more internal, charitable engagement with the fundamental claims of Kant’s philosophy of religion. However, beyond the case against recent interpretations, there is much valuable in Byrne’s book as a clear, detailed presentation of Kant’s various doctrines pertaining to religious faith, coupled with sharp analytical criticism of these doctrines, informed by comprehensive knowledge of Kant’s corpus. doi:10.1093/jaarel/lfn063 Katherine Crawford Advance Access publication September 6, 2008 University of Wisconsin, Milwaukee Creating Judaism: History, Tradition, Practice. By Michael L. Satlow. Columbia University Press, 2006. 384 pages. $24.50. Michael Satlow is a theoretically sophisticated scholar who utilizes the most cutting-edge research in his work. What makes Creating Judaism, Satlow’s introduction to Jewish cultural and religious history, especially signifi- cant is the combination of an innovative methodological framework with a nuanced overall narrative. Unlike the approach taken in many introductions to the history of Judaism, Satlow rejects essentialist definitions of Judaism, which tend to serve particular Jewish communities, and are thus inappropriate for an academic treatment of the subject. Similarly, he rejects the “unitary approach to Judaism,” which describes the organic unfolding of a “single normative Judaism” (6). In place of these typical frameworks, Satlow focuses on specific Jewish communities throughout history and describes them using a “poly- thetic” or “family characteristics” model (6–9) in which each community can be uniquely “mapped” by the way its members identify themselves as Jewish (or, as “Israel”), by the texts they treat as canonical, and by their ritual and cul- tural practices. In applying this methodology, Satlow creates a compelling narrative of Judaism, perhaps the most significant contribution of the book. Surprisingly, Satlow denies this—he claims that his “snapshots” of individual communities and eras “do not constitute a narrative” (18). While the book may not tell of a simple linear and organic progression from one normative community to the next, this reviewer argues that its chapters do indeed constitute a narrative. They tell the story of a variety of communities, each of which defines itself and draws on traditional texts and practices from earlier periods in ways that are unique to the historical circumstances and cultural environment in which it Book Reviews 983 by guest on March 9, 2016 http://jaar.oxfordjournals.org/ Downloaded from