The richly textured novel details Gutke Gurvich’s odyssey from her apprenticeship as a midwife in a Russian shtetl to her work in the suffrage movement in New York. Interwoven with her tale is that Chava Meyer, who was attended by Gurvich at her birth and grew up to survive the pogrom that took the lives of her parents. Throughout the book, historical background plays a large part: Jewish faith and traditions, the practice of midwifery, the horrific conditions in prerevolutionary Russia and New York sweatshops, and the determined work of labor unionists and suffragists.

    More recently, Kabbalah nearly disappeared—as most of its practitioners perished in the Holocaust. Now this powerful spiritual tradition, after centuries of secrecy and near-extinction, is explained clearly in this book by one of its most prominent teachers.Who are we? Where did we come from? Where are we going? How do we get there? These questions have fueled Kabbalists for nearly a millennium. Rabbi David A. Cooper is the first to bring this obscure and difficult tradition to a mainstream audience in a way that gently leads us to the heart of the subject, showing us how to transform profound teachings into a meaningful personal experience—and appreciate fully this great mystical process we know as God.

    The Complete Stories of Bernard Malamud brings together all of Malamud's published stories--from the classic early story "The Magic Barrel," in which he refashioned the American short story in the Yiddish-infected idiom of his boyhood, to later works such as "Rembrandt's Hat" and "Alma Redeemed,' which dramatize the relationship between life and art with matchless intensity and dark comedy. These fifty-three stories are full of the searching eloquence that characterizes this beloved American writer.Contents:Armistice --Spring rain --The grocery store --Benefit performance --The place is different now --Steady customer --The literary life of Laban Goldman --The cost of living --The prison --The first seven years --The death of me --The bill --The loan --A confession of murder --Riding pants --The girl of my dreams --The magic barrel --The mourners --Angel Levine --A summer's reading --Take pity --The elevator --An apology --The last Mohican --The lady of the lake --Behold the key --The maid's shoes --Idiots first --Still life --Suppose a wedding --Life is better than death --The jewbird --Black is my favorite color --Naked nude --The German refugee --A choice of profession --A pimp's revenge --Man in the drawer --My son the murderer --Pictures of the artist --An exorcism --Glass blower of Venice --God's wrath --Talking horse --The letter --The silver crown --Notes from a lady at a dinner party --In retirement --Rembrandt's hat --A wig --The model --A lost grave --Zora's noise --In Kew Gardens --Alms redeemed.

    In Biblical Literacy, Telushkin turns his attention to the Hebrew Bible (also known as the Old Testament), the most influential series of books in human history. Along with the Ten Commandments, the Bible's most famous document, no piece of legislation ever enacted has influenced human behavior as much as the biblical injunction to "Love your neighbor as yourself." No political tract has motivated human beings in so many diverse societies to fight for political freedom as the Exodus story of God's liberation of the Israelite slaves--which shows that God intends that, ultimately, people be free.The Bible's influence, however, has conveyed as much through its narratives as its laws. Its timeless and moving tales about the human condition and man's relationship to God have long shaped Jewish and Christian notions of morality, and continue to stir the conscience and imagination of believers and skeptics alike.There is a universality in biblical stories:The murder of Abel by his brother Cain is a profound tragedy of sibling jealousy and family love gone awry (see pages 11-14).Abraham',s challenge to God to save the lives of the evil people of Sodom is a fierce drama of man in confrontation with God, suggesting the human right to contend with the Almighty when it is feared He is acting unjustly (see pages 32-34).Jacob's, deception of his blind father, Isaac raises the timeless question: Do the ends justify the means when the fate of the world is at stake (see pages 46-55).Encyclopedia in scope, but dynamic and original in its observations and organization, Biblical Literacy makes available in one volume the Bible's timeless stories of love, deceit, and the human condition; its most important laws and ideas; and an annotated listing of all 613 laws of the Torah for both layman and professional, there is no other reference work or interpretation of the Bible quite like this Stunning volume.

    Complementing these stories is a deep and perceptive commentary on the meaning and spiritual power of coincidence.

    Over 30 years out-of-print, Perfidy is back, with murder, conspiracy and deep betrayal at its disturbing core. Playwright and historian of public conscience, Ben Hecht chronicles one of the most sensational yet least remembered stories in the history of Israel.

    With a new section on mother/daughter relationships, new and updated material on Israel, and new poetry and photographs.

    Rich in stories of David Aaron's own personal experiences as a husband, father, teacher, and spiritual mentor, Endless Light offers us a new and deeper awareness of ourselves, our inner conflicts, and the choices we must make to understand and receive life's bounteous gifts. The author also retells the familiar stories of the Torah - the Creation, the Expulsion from Eden, and many others - clarifying their mysterious meanings and deciphering what they teach us about ourselves and how to fulfill our purpose in life. He shares the Kabbalah's wisdom about how to truly love and be loved; he addresses the conflict between the powers of fate and free will. And he describes the steps along the path of life that will lead us to spiritual growth, creativity, freedom, happiness, and inner peace.

    The true story of a small Jewish boy and bearish lumberjack and how they became friends under the most unusual circumstances.

    Brian Wildsmith's vivid retelling of this powerful Bible story engages children with its timeless messages and helps them see the many ways God provides for his people. Full color.

    First published in 1997, it's a full traditional seder, but with large amounts of art and commentaries, and discussion starters -- all in a user-friendly format that makes it easy to customize your seder. The Four Children section (with 20 representations going back to 1526) is already a classic. Easy-to-follow instructions make this book accessible to even a novice seder leader; and the many short commentaries will enrich anyone's Passover.

    one of the outstanding autobiographies of the century.” – San Francisco Chronicle“Once in a rare while we read a book that puts the urgencies of our time and ourselves in perspective, making us confront the darker realities of human nature... Mrs. Kovaly experienced the two supreme horrors of what Hannah Arendt called this terrible century. But her book is not just a personal memoir of inhumanity. In telling her story – simply, without self-pity – she illuminates some general truths of human behavior... Quietly, with cumulative force, it shows us how the totalitarian state feeds on the blindness and the weakness of man.” – Anthony Lewis, The New York Times“A wonderfully expressive writer. Although her approach is above all personal, Kovaly’s reflections on her experiences reveal a high degree of insight into politics, individual and institutional behavior, and the formation of attitudes.” – Christian Science Monitor“A Jew in Czechoslovakia under the Nazis, Kovaly spent the war years in the Lodz ghetto and several concentration camps, losing her family and barely surviving herself. Returning to Prague at the end of the war, she married an old friend, a bright, enthusiastic young Jewish economist named Rudolf Margolius, who saw the country’s only hope for the future in the Communist Party. Thereafter, Rudolf became deputy minister for foreign trade. For a time, the Margoliuses lived like royalty, albeit reluctantly, but then, in a replay of the Stalinist purges of the 1930s, Rudolf and others, mostly of Jewish background, were arrested and hung in the infamous Slansky Trial of 1952. Kovaly’s memoir of these years that end with her emigration to the West after the Soviet invasion of Czechoslovakia in 1968 are a tragic story told with aplomb, humor and tenderness. The reader alternately laughs and cries as Kovaly describes her mother being sent to death by Dr. Mengele, Czech Communist Party leader Klement Gottwald drunk at a reception, the last sight of her husband, the feverish happiness of the Prague Spring. Highly recommended.” – Publishers Weekly

    After the death of her mother, Frances, in 1989, Helen Epstein set out to research and reconstruct the life of her mother and that of her grandmother and great-grandmother. Like so many children of Holocaust survivors and other people displaced by the catastrophes of the 20th century, she had few family documents, only stories. She traveled to Czechoslovakia, Austria, and Israel, searching out people who had known her family and locating material in libraries and archives on three continents. Using three decades of journalistic training, and working like an archaeologist with shards of data, she pieced together an account of the lives of the women in her family and the social history of Central European Jews.

    It is a commonplace to note how the landless and scattered Jewish communities have, from the time of the destruction of the Temple in Jerusalem in 70 A.D. until the founding of modern Israel in 1948, cleaved to the text and derived their identity from it. But the story is far more complex. The shift from the Bible to the Torah, from biblical religion to rabbinic Judaism mediated by the Sages, and the sealing of the canon together with its continuing interpretive work demanded from the community, amount to what could be called an unparalleled obsession with textuality. Halbertal gives us insights into the history of this obsession, in a philosophically sophisticated yet straightforward narrative.People of the Book offers the best introduction available to Jewish hermeneutics, a book capable of conveying the importance of the tradition to a wide audience of both academic and general readers. Halbertal provides a panoramic survey of Jewish attitudes toward Scripture, provocatively organized around problems of normative and formative authority, with an emphasis on the changing status and functions of Mishnah, Talmud, and Kabbalah. With a gift for weaving complex issues of interpretation into his own plot, he animates ancient texts by assigning them roles in his own highly persuasive narrative.

    She identified with Jewish cultural attitudes, but not with the institutions; she had fond memories of her Jewish grandmothers, but she found their religious practices irrelevant to her life. It wasn't until she entered the kitchen--and world--of her mother-in-law, Miriam, a Holocaust survivor, that Ehrlich began to understand the importance of preserving the traditions of the past. As Ehrlich looks on, Miriam methodically and lovingly prepares countless kosher meals while relating the often painful stories of her life in Poland and her immigration to America. These stories trigger a kind of religious awakening in Ehrlich, who--as she moves tentatively toward reclaiming the heritage she rejected as a young woman--gains a new appreciation of life?s possibilities, choices, and limitations.

    "Because God loves stories." Storytelling has been part of Jewish religion and custom from earliest times and it remains a defining aspect of Jewish life. In Because God Loves Stories, folklorist Steve Zeitlin assembles the work of thirty-six Jewish storytellers, each of whom spins tales that express his or her own distinctive visions of Jewish culture. Contemporary storytellers re-interpret stories from the Talmud for modern sensibilities, the Grand Rabbi of Bluzhov tells tales of the Holocaust, beloved comedian Sam Levenson regales readers with hilarious vignettes of Jewish life in America, and much more.

    A West German cantor and concentration camp survivor crosses the Berlin Wall to minister to Jews in East Berlin. A prominent Berlin family clings to its Communist ideals even after the end of the Cold War. In Hungary a rabbi turns dissident when Communist-controlled Jewish leaders dismiss him. Young citizens of Prague, Warsaw, and Budapest find renewed faith as they uncover a secret heritage buried in the rubble of war. A Polish Catholic woman, a friend to many Jews, discovers a liberating truth about her heritage. Weaving together these stories of old and young, disenchanted and enthusiastic, this luminous cultural group portrait takes us deep into the still-dark soul of Eastern Europe, where we emerge-profoundly moved, and cautiously optimistic about the religious rebirth that is taking place there. • Author is the recipient of the National Jewish Book Award and the Present Tense/American Jewish Committee Award

    This visual and documentary record is introduced by two essays that describe the German assault on Lithuania's Jewry and the Kovno Jews' resilient yet ultimately futile efforts to devise a "normal" world in the ghetto. The book concludes with a Kovno Ghetto survivor's personal reminiscence and a historian's reflection on the experience.

    The Western notion of the aggressive, sexually dominant male and the passive female reaches back through Freud to Roman times, but as Boyarin makes clear, such gender roles are not universal. Analyzing ancient and modern texts, he reveals early rabbis—studious, family-oriented—as exemplars of manhood and the prime objects of female desire in traditional Jewish society.Challenging those who view the "feminized Jew" as a pathological product of the Diaspora or a figment of anti-Semitic imagination, Boyarin argues that the Diaspora produced valuable alternatives to the dominant cultures' overriding gender norms. He finds the origins of the rabbinic model of masculinity in the Talmud, and though unrelentingly critical of rabbinic society's oppressive aspects, he shows how it could provide greater happiness for women than the passive gentility required by bourgeois European standards.Boyarin also analyzes the self-transformation of three iconic Viennese modern Jews: Sigmund Freud, the father of psychoanalysis; Theodor Herzl, the founder of Zionism; and Bertha Pappenheim (Anna O.), the first psychoanalytic patient and founder of Jewish feminism in Germany. Pappenheim is Boyarin's hero: it is she who provides him with a model for a militant feminist, anti-homophobic transformation of Orthodox Jewish society today.Like his groundbreaking Carnal Israel, this book is talmudic scholarship in a whole new light, with a vitality that will command attention from readers in feminist studies, history of sexuality, Jewish culture, and the history of psychoanalysis.

    Rachel decides to borrow potatoes from Mrs. Greenberg. She asks Mrs. Greenberg, who is all alone, to come for Hanukkah. But Mrs. Greenberg is very stubborn!

    Sacks proposes a new politics of responsibility in which all portions of society have a part to play - a politics not of interest but of involvement - and hope.

    Portraits of and dramatic testimonials from Holocaust survivors.

    . . . The pasts and common destiny of two remarkable women--related with perfect timing in Sofia's convincing Yiddish-tinged English--come together beautifully in this nicely crafted, emotionally satisfying, and well-researched historical fiction."--"Publishers Weekly"Set in the brothels and gangster dens of Jewish Buenos Aires at the beginning of the twentieth century, "The Escape Artist "catapults us into the lives of Sofia Teitelbaum (tricked into prostitution and away from the gentility of her Eastern European family), and a handsome, mysterious magician, Hankus--formerly Hannah--Lubarsky.Traveling in a world of small-scale criminals and large emotions, our two lesbian heroes rub elbows with--and up against--Sofia's captors, the formidable and bizarrely religious Madame Perle Goldenberg and her malcontent brother Tutsik; Marek Fishbein, the boorish king pimp of the ghetto; Perle's bordello colleague, salty Red Ruthie; and a bevy of unblushing racketeers, hypocrites, and whores.Written with the bent notes and dizzying rhythms of a Klezmer tune, "The Escape Artist" is a breathtaking, delightful tale, full of spills, chills, and lush language.Judith Katz is the author of two published novels, "The Escape Artist," and "Running Fiercely Toward a High Thin Sound," which won a Lambda Literary Award for Best Lesbian Fiction. She has received Bush Foundation, McKnight Foundation, and National Endowment fellowships for fiction. She teaches at the University of Minnesota.

    In new condition

    This notable work enables the reader to meet the intellectual and spiritual challenge of learning Rashi: to appreciate Rashi's unique style and language and to comprehend the analytical logic that lies behind his brilliant interpretation.

    In a refreshing, straightforward style, the author of 'The Magic Touch' addresses the subject of tzniut, modesty, providing insight and inspiration for all.

    In Stalking Elijah, Kamenetz takes his wild mind on the road, seeking the counsel of spiritual teachers across the country as he searches for his own Jewish truth. Entertaining, illuminating, and deeply moving, Stalking Elijah takes us all on a remarkable journey through the new landscape of Jewish practice.

    Topics include the calendar, the prayers, blessings, family life, and more.

    Holocaust Memorial Museum in Washington, DC, and current director of its Research Institute, compiles a fascinating collection of firsthand accounts of the Holocaust.From the first boycott of Jewish businesses in Germany in 1933 to testimony at the Nuremberg Trials in 1946, this illustrated volume includes survivor testimonies, letters, government documents, newspaper reports, diary entries and other firsthand materials, as well as Holocaust scholar Michael Berenbaum's insightful commentary putting the materials into context. The book's chronologically organized documentary approach provides a unique perspective on this much-published subject, and drawing on the most current research in the field of Holocaust studies, offers readers an unforgettable and engrossing history of the Nazis' largely successful effort to eradicate the Jews and other "undesirables" of Europe.

    

    It advocates the acceptance of lesbians into the Jewish tradition by offering new interpretations of the Torah traditionally regarded as prohibitive of homosexuality. The book counters the millenia of Midrashim (scholarly comment on the Torah) condemning gays and lesbians, by examining the culture of biblical lawgivers and the culture of the commentators themselves.

    This text takes issue with these "revisionists", arguing that they have ignored or misinterpreted much documentation in developing their analysis of Israel's history.

    

    A collection of poems written in Jewish ghettos, way stations, death camps and forests under the nightmarish circumstances of the Holocaust.

    This account tells the story of Lithuanian Jews caught in the sweeping history of the first half of the century in Europe.

    Rabbi Tuvia Basser extracts and clarifies many of the complex ideas found in Derech Chaim, Maharal's commentary to Avos.

    Rabbi Marc Angel looks at the Jewish holidays from the perspective of a Sephardic Jew.

    Nahum Sarna's selection on Egyptian slavery, and Rabbi David Hartman's on storytelling and family education resources for the advanced seder leader - a symposium about the four children, the four questions in depth, famous quotes on slavery and freedom - to trigger a discussion at the seder table short memoirs on great seders and exoduses of the past (Ethiopia, Russia, Marranos, and more) role playing for adults (by Peter Pitzele) and games for young children

    A story of the Israeli wars in the 1940s by a Christian author who was in Jerusalem at the time.

    Belgians, Danes, and Bulgarians did a lot to save their Jews. At the heart of At the Mercy of Strangers is the account of how Suzanne Bamberger, her mother, and her sister managed to be among those lucky enough to survive the long Nazi occupation of Brussels.At the Mercy of Strangers has two voices. Both are Suzanne’s. We hear her as the harassed, frightened, gutsy, and bored adolescent whose diary was her only true confidant. And we hear her as the mature woman, recalling the war years from the safety of post-war America.This coming-of-age book provides us with unusua1 glimpses of the cataclysm that engulfed Nazi-dominated Europe from 1939 to 1945. We watch the storm clouds gathering over Germany. We witness the invasion of Belgium, the futile attempt of a quarter of the population to escape the Germans, and the increasing stranglehold of the German occupation. We gasp at the pace at which incidents escalate from the merely insulting and hurtfu1 to the terrifying and incomprehensible.We are relieved that the Bambergers opt to go into hiding rather than be “resettled” by the Germans. There is poignancy in the juxtaposition of the tedium and frustration of Suzanne’s daily life with the ever-present danger of discovery. There is the fear of being deported to an unknowable fate, and the grief for friends who have vanished.Suzanne’s diary records her blossoming, secret love for Emile, a member of the Belgian Resistance, and of her constant need to be careful and “good.” We share her fantasies as she lies alone and hungry in an attic adjoining a storeroom for onions. We hope with her that she will be able to join the Resistance and work for justice alongside her beloved Emile.Cataclysms like the Nazis’ war against the Jews, the African slave trade, or the slaughter of Native Americans by Europeans forever haunt our consciences. Our collective guilt subsides, however, before the realization that invariably a few “ordinary” people respond to such crises with courage, compassion, and disregard for their own safety .At the Mercy of Strangers is uplifting, even though it never minimizes the horrors of the Holocaust, or of World War II. Suzanne’s mature self summarizes her feelings:“I never regretted having grown up on the edge of the Holocaust. The experience not only left me as a stronger, more compassionate human being, but, strange as it may sound, it provided me with a deep faith in humanity. Though I have much evidence to the contrary, I believe that often, when you have your back against the wall, somebody out there comes to the rescue.”

    MINYAN is an invaluable source of inspiration and insight not only for those large numbers who are returning to Judaism but for people of all faiths who are looking for a way to integrate spirituality into their daily lives.

    Marco Belpoliti and Robert Gordon have selected and translated thirty-six of the most important of these interviews for The Voice of Memory.We recognize the voice familiar to us from Levi's masterpieces, from The Periodic Table to The Drowned and the Saved. But we also see a fuller, more varied and more complex picture of the writer famously shrouded in his past. There is Levi the Holocaust witness; Levi the writer; Levi the intellectual; Levi the political polemicist; and Levi the atheist and Jew, holding onto his Jewish culture while rejecting the symbols of a faith he could not share.Levi emerges in a rich, contradictory and essentially human light. He was a classic figure out of place. As he put it, 'I am an amphibian, a centaur. I live with this paranoiac split'. Levi's status as perhaps the most important of the survivor-writers of the Holocaust is enhanced still further by his many voices speaking in this remarkable book.This volume will be of considerable interest to all readers of Primo Levi's work, as well as to students and scholars of contemporary literature.

    La Shana Tova, they say in Hebrew." How can you tell when it is time for Rosh Hashanah and Yom Kippur? The young girl in this story can tell when her family receives cards wishing them a happy New Year. They gather together to light candles for the holiday meal and say blessings over apples and honey. They go to synagogue to pray and hear the shofar. From New Year cards and having a special holiday meal, to worshiping at temple and sending the year's sins away on the river, the young narrator of this story describes each activity of the High Holy Days as she experiences this special time with her family.

    Ranging from the end of the nineteenth century to the end of the twentieth, these poems explore the immigrant experience in America, assimilation and anti-Semitism, the legacy of the Holocaust and two world wars, Israel and modern Jewish life. They delve into religious matters: the Bible and ancient Jewish history, theology and mysticism, holidays and ritual. And they movingly illuminate universal concerns: relationships between parents and children, the search for love and community, the pain of death and loss, the quest for the meaning of life.Telling and Remembering offers the work of exceptional poets, including Allen Ginsberg, Louise Gluck, Anthony Hecht, John Hollander, Maxine Kumin, Stanley Kunitz, Denise Levertov, Philip Levine, Eve Merriam, Howard Nemerov, Cynthia Ozick, Grace Paley, Marge Piercy, Adrienne Rich, Muriel Rukeyser, Delmore Schwartz, and Karl Shapiro.

    Always mindful of the sophisticated adult reader with little or no Jewish background, Jordan Wagner clearly and comprehensively explains, in a non-dogmatic way, the practices, vocabulary, objects, and attitudes that one can expect to find in any synagogue.