It is a profound excursion into religious psychology and phenomenology, a pioneering attempt at a philosophy of halakhah, and a stringent critique of mysticism and romantic religion.

    This fascinating best-seller weaves these golden threads into a glorious tapestry, presenting hundreds of ideas and comments on the Aleph-Beis, including: the Aleph-Beis as the force of Creation, as a primer for Jewish living, and as a fountainhead of Torah insight and mystical meaning. The product of decades of learning, thinking, and teaching by the revered educator, lecturer, and community activist Rabbi Michael L. Munk. A treat not to be missed.

    Why have Jews been the object of the most enduring and universal hatred in history? Why did Hitler consider murdering Jews more important than winning World War II? Why has the United Nations devoted more time to tiny Israel than to any other nation on earth? In this seminal study, Dennis Prager and Joseph Telushkin attempt to uncover and understand the roots of antisemitism—from the ancient world to the Holocaust to the current crisis in the Middle East. Why the Jews? offers new insights and unparalleled perspectives on some of the most recent, pressing developments in the contemporary world, including: -The replicating of Nazi antisemitism in the Arab world -The pervasive anti-Zionism/antisemitism on university campuses -The rise of antisemitism in Europe -Why the United States and Israel are linked in the minds of antisemites Clear, persuasive, and thought-provoking, Why the Jews? is must reading for anyone who seeks to understand the unique role of the Jews in human history.

    Drawn from sources as diverse as Morocco and India, Spain and Eastern Europe, Babylon and Egypt, the stories are characterized by their infusion of traditional Jewish characters with the archetypal forms found in all fairy tales, or by their treatment of Jewish religious themes. The book combines the playfulness of fairy tales with the author's depth of knowledge of the historical origins of the tales. Throughout one can find the quests and riddles of the traditional fairy tale along with the divine intervention that characterizes the Jewish fairy tale.

    Written to give couples an insight into the depth and spiritual power of the Jewish wedding ceremony, and of Judaism as a whole.

    She defines current structures of thought and patterns of organizing reality, clearly distinguishes them from previously reigning Hellenic modes of abstract thought, and connects them with important elements of the Rabbinic interpretive tradition. Hers is the first comprehensive treatment of the undeniable, and undeniably significant, influence of Jewish religious thought on contemporary literary criticism. Dr. Handelman shows how they provide a crucial link among several of the most influential modern theories of textual interpretation, from Freud to the Deconstructionist School of Lacan and Derrida, as well as current literary theorists who revive Rabbinic hermeneutics, such as Harold Bloom and Geoffrey Hartman.

    The Hebrew text is presented in full, with a lucid English translation and commentary digest based on the classical Jewish commentaries. Included are fascinating midrashic, philosophical, literary and mystical interpretations by such commentators as Rashi, Ibn Ezra, Rashbam, Nachmanides, Sforno, Kimchi and Gersonides. This translation has been acclaimed by Rabbis everywhere and is used worldwide.

    . . . With his wisdom and love, the grandfather widens the child's understanding, as Sussman does for the reader of her endearing story.--Publishers Weekly.

    The Jews of the Kovno Ghetto went to Rabbi Oshry, one of the remaining religious authorities in the Kovno ghetto, and posed their questions to him. He answered their questions and recorded each and every query by copying it onto paper that he tore from cement sacks. He then buried these scraps of papers in cans in the soil around the ghetto. This book bears witness to the power of faith to survive in the direst of circumstances.

    The classic born-again experience is a sudden, discontinuous event. For a person growing with God in daily practice, there is likely to be less drama. The experience will be more gentle, natural, and easier on your immediate family.... If you stay with this work, you have every reason to trust the adage, "When the pupil is ready, the teacher appears."--from First Steps to a New Jewish Spirit This extraordinary spiritual handbook is a compassionate call to reconnect with your spiritual roots and nourish your relationship with God. Breaking free from ways of Jewish worship that no longer inspire, Rabbi Zalman Schachter-Shalomi--one of the most important Jewish spiritual teachers since Abraham Joshua Heschel--guides you through practical exercises for enriching the most important aspects of everyday life--physical health, work, marriage, family, prayer--and empowers you with contemporary ways to satisfy your modern spiritual hunger.Whether refreshing your soul with a midday mini-Sabbath or improving your relationships by refining your awareness, Reb Zalman will introduce you to new models of practicing Judaism. In doing so, he will challenge you to embrace your faith as both spiritually and emotionally enriching, and will awaken you to innovative, inspiring ways for leading a meaningful Jewish life.

    

    "Admirable," the word Erika accepts for herself, is taken from an academic's compliment and turned over and over in the auto-biographical narrative as if it were a diamond suspected of flaws.An Admirable Woman is her book, told in her American voice, a voice in which the ghost of her German hovers like a lost homeland. She is the daughter of not-so-Jewish Berlin Jews for whom the coming of the Nazis is a surprise they misread. For Erika, political reality is less of a secret, and she leaves the university for Paris with Martens—the older, Aryan, art historian lover she has married. Paris, bristling with refugees, is meager, and so, with the thin promise of a job for Martens in America, they leave.Erika goes through the writer's grubstreet routines in New York, overcomes the numbing disorientation so many refugees feel, and slowly acquires a substantial, and substantially intimidating, reputation in modern intellectual history. Her success—she becomes one of those whose work the well-informed everywhere must know—is not matched by Martens, and, as their live together dwindles to his death, it is counterpointed by her affair with a famous musician. But even this sweetness cannot breach Erika's insular self-sufficiency and so change the nature of her life.

    

    When he dies, Yentyl feels that she no longer has a reason to remain in the village, and so, late one night, she cuts off her hair, dresses as a young man, and sets out to find a yeshiva where she can continue her studies and live secretly as a man.

    This true story of the rescue and restoration of a small Torah from Brno, Czechoslovakia, teaches the Holocaust not only as a period of destruction but also as an opportunity for redemption.

    In such a way, Richard Schwartz calls for a new vision of the world—one that ensures our personal, interpersonal, and global survival.

    

    By sifting through historical reports, letters, memoirs, court papers, and other documents, the authors rediscover and rescue from obscurity the records of Jewish women from the Bible and Talmud, ancient Greece and Egypt, through medieval and Renaissance times, and into the modern period. The authors remind us of a heritage of Jewish women as property owners, traders, teachers, scribes, printers, poets, queens, commoners--proving Jewish women's presence as a vital force in the march of the Jewish people. This book is perfect for personal reading by adults, young adults, and reading groups, as well as a library reference. The book includes a bibliography, footnotes, and an index. Originally published in 1978 by Bloch Publishing, this 1990 edition includes timely revisions and additions by the authors.