I don't think my stats trackers are working right -- at least I can't imagine any
other reason why I would look at one page here right after posting at about 11:30
and have the day's only tracker appearance from my company's site show up as
someone looking through 8 pages at 2 PM. On the other hand, if someone else from
there really is reading this, it's not that I mind (you will note the many
complimentary references to the company, after all) but I would still appreciate a
comment.
Otherwise.
Jews refer to themselves
as "am hamsefer", or "People of the Book". Actually, assuming that was transcribed
right (it was in Nicholas Basbanes' A Gentle Madness and he was quoting
Aaron Lansk, progenitor of the National Yiddish Book Center) a more exact
translation would be "People from the Book". I've been told that Muslims use a
similar term, "Peoples of the Book", to refer to the three religions which have
grown from the Torah: Islam, Christianity, and Judaism. In the case of Jews,
though, we have always been a bookish, word-driven people and by extension the
term has come to mean more than solely the Torah. (I was going to write "just the
Torah" in the previous sentence and couldn't bring myself to do it.) I think I
need to co-opt the term and refer to the "amim hamseferot", "peoples of the
books", for all those who finding reading or discussing books among life's finest
pleasures.