Robert Alter's brilliant translation gives us David, the beautiful, musical hero who slays Goliath and, through his struggles with Saul, advances to the kingship of Israel. But this David is also fully human: an ambitious, calculating man who navigates his life's course with a flawed moral vision. The consequences for him, his family, and his nation are tragic and bloody. Historical personage and full-blooded imagining, David is the creation of a literary artist comparable to the Shakespeare of the history plays.

    The whole collection is strong, passionate, and poignant, but the mother and daughter poems, fierce and emotional, with their intense ambivalence, pain and joy, themes of separation and reconnecting, are among the very strongest about that difficult relationship."These striking, original, beautifully sensuous poems do just that. Ordinary moments--a sunset, a walk, a private religious ritual--are so alive in poems like 'Shabbat moment'  and 'Rosh Hodesh.' In the same way that she celebrates ordinary moments, small things become charged with memories and feelings: paper snowflakes, buttons, one bird, a bottle-cap flower made from a ginger ale top and crystal beads. "She celebrates the body in rollicking, gusto-filled poems like 'Belly good' and 'The chuppah,' where 'our bodies open their portals wide.' So much that is richly sensuous: 'hands that caressed you,  . . . untied the knot of pleasure and loosened your flesh till it fluttered,' and lush praise for 'life in our spines, our throats,  our knees, our genitals, our brains, our tongues.'"I love the humor in poems like 'Eat fruit,' the nostalgia and joy in 'The rabbi's granddaughter and the Christmas tree,' the fresh, beautiful images of nature--'In winter . . .the sun hangs its wizened rosehip in the oaks.'"I admire Piercy's sense of the past alive in the present, in personal and social history. The poems are memorials, like the yahrtzeit candle in a glass. 'We lose and we go on losing,' but the poems are never far from harsh joy, the joy that is 'the wine of life.'"Growing up haunted by Holocaust ghosts is an echo throughout the book, and some of the strongest poems are about the Holocaust, poems that become the voices of those who had no voice: 'What you  carry in your blood is us,  the books we did not write, music we could not make, a world  gone from gristle to smoke, only  as real now as words can make it.'"Marge Piercy's words make such a moving variety of experiences beautifully and forcefully real."

    Journey to a place as far from here as breathing out is from breathing in-where people are human with the same grace that a willow is a willow-with this insightful, absorbing and practical introduction to the ten gates of Jewish mysticism.

    Using a hidden camera and under difficult circumstances, Vishniac was able to take over sixteen thousand photographs; most were left with his father in a village in France for the duration of the war. With the publication of Children of a Vanished World, seventy of those photographs are available, thirty-six for the first time. The book is devoted to a subject Vishniac especially loved, and one whose mystery and spontaneity he captured with particular poignancy: children.Selected and edited by the photographer's daughter, Mara Vishniac Kohn, and translator and coeditor Miriam Hartman Flacks, these images show children playing, children studying, children in the midst of a world that was about to disappear. They capture the daily life of their subjects, at once ordinary and extraordinary. The photographs are accompanied by a selection of nursery rhymes, songs, poems, and chants for children's games in both Yiddish and English translation. Thanks to Vishniac's visual artistry and the editors' choice of traditional Yiddish verses, a part of this wonderful culture can be preserved for future generations.Earlier books of Roman Vishniac's photographs include To Give Them Light: The Legacy of Roman Vishniac (1995), A Vanished World (1983), and Polish Jews (1947).A major exhibition titled "Children of a Vanished World: Photographs byRoman Vishniac" is scheduled at the Museum of Jewish Heritage in New York. The show will open to the public on March 7 and run through June 4, 2000.

    of Scranton, Pennsylvania) discusses the many aspects of the life and thought of Rabbi Weinberg (1884-1966), an important ideologue of modern Orthodoxy. The author focuses on his evolving philosophical orientation, from his early years in Poland, his years in Germany, Lithuania, and Poland from WWI through the Nazi era, and his post-war years in Switzerland.

    The Chofetz Chaim's influence continues to grow, as thousands upon thousands adopt his message that the tongue can be a priceless tool or a lethal weapon.This new book is a vital gift for those who "wish to live" and "guard their tongues," and long to learn how.

    In 1945 he escaped with a Vatican passport and fled to South America. In May 1960 the Israelis located and kidnapped Eichmann from Argentina, and brought him to trial in Israel, where he was convicted and hanged, his remains cremated and scattered. For nearly a year prior to his trial Eichmann was interrogated by Captain Avner W. Less, a German Jew whose father and numerous relatives perished in Nazi concentration camps. Eichmann Interrogated is a superbly edited condensation of their 275-hour exchange, representing ten percent of the 3,564-page total. Amid his lies, distortions, evasions, half-truths, and startling admissions, Eichmann fully acknowledges the reality of the Holocaust while attempting to minimize his central role in its execution. As his life from traveling salesman to mass murderer unfolds, Eichmann's defense becomes a chilling self-indictment and a warning of Evil's often unassuming visage.

    His candid and intimate views of teeming village squares and rustic workshops, cattle markets and spinning wheels give us a privileged view of a world that is no more.For more than sixty years, Alter Kacyzne's Forverts photographs-the sole fragment of his vast archive to survive World War II-lay unseen. Now, for the first time, the work of this lost master is restored to the world in a volume of extraordinary poetic force. At once ter and humorous, Poyln tells the story of a way of life and recalls the warmth and spirit of a community on the edge of destruction.Poyln is sure to stand with Roman Vishniac's A Vanished World as a rare treasure, an indispensable portrait of a people.

    So Karyn Kedar reminds us. By sharing significant moments in the lives of ordinary people, she helps us along the journey to spiritual awareness and understanding.Drawing on her experience as a spiritual leader, Kedar's gentle, revealing stories include that of a woman struggling to come to terms with her mother's death at the hands of her father; a thirteen-year-old girl who finds hope within the uncertainty of her parents' divorce; a realtor who entered for the hundredth time a house she was trying to sell--and suddenly saw the beauty of God's creation in the way the sunlight struck the hardwood floors.God Whispers teaches readers of all faiths and backgrounds that the joy and pain in our lives have meaning and purpose, and that by fully embracing life's highs and lows, we can enrich our spiritual well-being. Kedar tells eloquent stories from the lives of ordinary people who, like all of us, must cope with difficulties such as divorce and reconciliation, illness, loss, conflict and forgiveness, loneliness and isolation.God Whispers will inspire you to take a second look at everything around you, and to rediscover a world that can be filled with the wonders of creation. "The universe abounds with gifts," Kedar writes. "Open your heart and receive them."

    It traces its development from a communal institution to one which had a distinctively religious profile, describing its basic features, the roles of its rabbis and priests, its liturgy, and its art.

    Midrashic commentaries and insights of great Jewish thinkers and spiritual leaders enhance the heartwarming, inspiring text. 3 volume gift boxed set. Individual volumes not sold separately. Now available in Pocket size, the Book of Our Heritage, three-volume set is the perfect companion to take with you anywhere you go. Sold as a set only.

    A month later, Haim returns alone, on his first leave home. Struggling to come to terms with his experiences he wonders what happened to Dov during those fateful days.

    Although the term was initially applied only to the good Germans--the apathetic citizens who made genocide possible through unquestioning obedience to evil leaders--recent Holocaust scholarship has shown that it applies to most of the world, including parts of the population in Nazi-occupied countries, some sectors within the international Christian and Jewish communities, and the Allied governments themselves. This work analyzes why this happened, drawing on the insights of historians, Holocaust survivors, and Christian and Jewish ethicists. The author argues that bystander behavior cannot be attributed to a single cause, such as anti-Semitism, but can only be understood within a complex framework of factors that shape human behavior individually, socially, and politically.

    Seen in an anthropological perspective Leviticus has a mystical structure which plots the book into three parts corresponding to the three parts of the deserttabernacle, both corresponding to the parts of Mount Sinai. This completely new reading transforms the interpretation of the purity laws. The pig and other forbidden animals are not abhorrent, they command the same respect due to all God's creatures. Boldly challenging several traditions of Biblecriticism, Mary Douglas claims that Leviticus is not the narrow doctrine of a crabbed professional priesthood but a powerful intellectual statement about a modern religion which emphasizes God's justice and compassion.

    It includes a scholarly introduction, extensive bibliographic and critical notes, and other explanatory material.

    They give the English translation of the name, the gematria of the name and the Torah verses that contain that number. This book could be used as a guide to choosing first names for Jewish babies as well as a reference tool for rabbis who officiate at baby-naming ceremonies.

    The Dutch, French, German, and Italian volumes represent their respective countries; the Hispanic volume includes poems from the many Spanish-speaking nations; and the Hebrew volume encompasses writing in Hebrew from around the world. The poems are presented in their original languages alongside English translations. Each volume includes an introduction, placing the poetry in historical and aesthetic perspective, and full biographical and bibliographical notes on the poets.

    Abrams - Bradley Shavit Artson - Tsvi Blanchard - Lester Bronstein - Nina Beth Cardin - Michael M. Cohen - William Cutter - Amy Eilberg - Dov Peretz Elkins - Edward Feinstein - Mordecai Finley - Nancy Flam - Elyse Frishman - David Gelfand - Neil Gillman - James Stone Goodman - Leonard Gordon - Irving (Yitz) Greenberg - Joel Lurie Grishaver - Lawrence A. Hoffman - Abie Ingber - Elana Kanter - Irwin Kula - Lawrence Kushner - Lori Lefkovitz - Adina Lewittes - Arthur J. Magida - Vivian Mayer - Michael Paley - James Ponet - Bernard S. Raskas - Rachel T. Sabath - Jeffrey K. Salkin - Sandy Eisenberg Sasso - Amy Scheinerman - Harold Schulweis - Rami M. Shapiro - Mychal B. Springer - Ira Stone - Joseph Telushkin - Harlan J. Wechsler - Sharon L. Wechter - David Wolpe

    Definitions include word origins, the cultural context of expressions, and usage, making the book an invaluable reference tool for anyone interested in Romance and Oriental languages and/or Jewish culture.

    With this book, readers can learn Hebrew on their own and will find themselves reading meaningful verses from the Hebrew Bible after just two hours of study The second edition has been updated and revised and includes an audio CD-ROM.

    By telling the story of how capitalism is being built without capitalists in post-communist Central Europe it guides is towards a deeper understanding of the origins of modern capitalism.

    It was in Auschwitz that Cantor Fettman lost nearly every member of his immediate family.With honesty and self-examination, Cantor Fettman relates how he was forced to work in the crematorium, was experimented on by the infamous Dr. Mengele, was shunted from one forced labor camp to another, and how he survived a bungled attempt by a Nazi SS officer to hang him. He describes how, through it all, his faith was tested yet grew stronger as a result of the ordeals.Shoah also examines the motives behind those who are attempting to revise or even deny the fact that the Holocaust ever occurred. Also included is a look into the hate-based groups that are proliferating today.Cantor Fettman's theme throughout the book is one of tolerance, acceptance, hope, and love, all while remaining vigilant and remembering the past in order to avoid in the future such evils as the Holocaust. He travels throughout the United States speaking to audiences of all ages about the Holocaust and Judaism. Shoah will enable even larger audiences to hear his important message.

    Provides suggestions for family participation in the passover celebration and offers advice on everything from ritual platters to recipes and discusses the deeper meanings and mysteries of the festival.

    It collects compelling stories from this ancient text which are retold in lyrical, accessible language. The volume is illustrated with reproductions of illuminated manuscripts, ancient artefacts, synagogue mosaics and paintings by Renaissance masters an others, including William Blake and Marc Chagall.

    From the perspective of traditional Judaism, he helps us understand the varieties of twentieth-century Jewish practice and shows that commitment to both Jewish tradition and to pluralism can create bridges of understanding between people of different religious convictions.

    The Hungarian Jewish population was rounded up and deported to concentration camps in just 54 days. 437,402 Jews. 148 trains. Destination: Auschwitz.The German plan for annihilation of the Jews-called the 'Final Solution'-set the goal that not a single survivor would be left to bear witness to the events. Fifty years later, Steven Spielberg established Survivors of the Shoah Visual History Foundation to record the testimony of as many survivors as possible. From the ashes of the Holocaust these voices now emerge to share their stories and to represent the nearly six million Jews who did not survive.Survivors and liberators share what they experienced in gripping, firsthand testimony. Archival photographs document history, and powerful color images chronicle the survivors' emotional return to the places of their pasts:from homes unseen for fifty years to the ghettos and concentration camps of their imprisonment. Top scholars have been brought together to share their insights into one of humanity's darkest chapters. These elements are poignantly synthesized in The Last Days as a warning for all mankind.

    It will help modern men and women find new wisdom and guidance in Jewish prayer, and bring the liturgy into their lives. It also has received significant attention in the Christian world.The major sections of the prayer book each are covered in separate volumes in this series. My People's Prayer Book provides in each volume: -- The traditional Hebrew text.-- A modern translation (designed to let people know exactly what the prayers actually say).-- Commentators from all perspectives of the Jewish world, some of today's most respected Jewish scholars and teachers, who cover the prayer book's connections to the Bible, history, traditional law, kabbalistic wisdom, feminism, modern developments, and much more.This stunning work, an important expression of the spiritual revival of our times, enables all worshipers to claim their connection to the heritage of the traditional Jewish prayer book. It rejuvenates Jewish worship in today's world, and makes its power accessible to all.

    Indeed, Edison's talking machine became one of the basic tools of anthropology. It not only equipped researchers with the means of preserving folk songs but it also enabled them to investigate a wide spectrum of distinct vocal expressions in the emerging fields of anthropology and folklore. Ethnographers grasped its huge potential and fanned out through regional America to record rituals, stories, word lists, and songs in isolated cultures. From the outset the federal government helped fuel the momentum to record cultures that were at risk of being lost. Through the Bureau of American Ethnology, the Smithsonian Institution took an active role in preserving native heritage. It supported projects to make phonographic documentation of American Indian language, music, and rituals before developing technologies and national expansion might futher undermine them. This study of the early phonograph's impact shows traditional ethnography being transformed, for attitudes of both ethnographers and performers were reshaped by this exciting technology. In the presence of the phonograph both fieldwork and the materials collected were revolutionized. By radically altering the old research modes, the phonograph brought the disciplines of anthropology and folklore into the modern era. At first the instrument was as strange and new to the fieldworkers as it was to their subjects. To some the first encounter with the phonograph was a deeply unsettling experience. When it was demonstrated in 1878 before members of the National Academy of Sciences, several members of the audience fainted. Even its inventor was astonished. Of his first successful test of his tinfoil phonograph, Thomas A. Edison said, "I was never taken so aback in my life." The cylinders that have survived from these times offer an unrivaled resource not only for contemporary scholarship but also for a grassroots renaissance of cultural and religious values. In tracing the historical interplay of the talking machine with field research, The Spiral Way underscores the natural adaptiblity of cultural study to this new technology. Erika Brady is an associate professor in the folk studies programs at Western Kentucky University. She served as technical consultant and researcher on the staff of the Federal Cylinder Project of the American Folklife Center at the Library of Congress.

    A People Apart is the first study to examine the role played by the Jews themselves, across the whole of Europe, during the century and a half leading up to these momentous events. David Vital explores the Jews' troubled relationship with Europe, documenting the struggles of this 'nation without a territory' to establish a place for itself within an increasingly polarized and nationalist continent. This powerful new analysis represents a watershed in our understanding of the history of the Jews in Europe, and as a result, in the whole history of the continent.

    It presents annotated translations of selected passages arranged according to topic. Introductory sections provide an overview and a context for the material in each chapter, and a general introduction does the same for the volume as a whole. It sketches the historical background of the early hasidic movement, charts its central ideas in their intellectual and historical context--the wide range of Jewish religious and mystical thought. Unrivaled in its scope Religious Thought is a veritable encyclopedia of hasidic religious thought, covering all of the major topics and major hasidic thinkers of the first three generations, with occasional forays into later currents. It can be used as either a text or a supplement in courses in Jewish thought or theology, or even general courses in mystical thought or modern religious movements.

    The Jewish New Year of the Trees. This celebrates natural and supernatural renewal. This book brings together for the first time Biblical, Rabbinical, Medieval, and modern sources about the significance and historical development of this holiday.

    It contains newly edited Hebrew and Aramaic transcriptions and English translations of the non-biblical scrolls on facing pages, arranged by serial number from Cave 1 to Cave 11. In addition, it offers a summary of the contents of the biblical scrolls from Qumran. Each Q-number is provided with a heading which contains the essential information on the text and selected bibliographical references. Although unidentified and unclassified fragments have been omitted, and no snippets of manuscripts have been reproduced, this edition aims to be complete for the non-biblical scrolls. The work is primarily intended for classroom use and for use by specialists from other disciplines who need a reliable compendium to all the materials found. It will also be useful as a companion for those studying the original manuscripts using the microfiche or CD-ROM editions of the scrolls. A considerable part of the materials was already accessible in translation in The Dead Sea Scrolls Translated (Wilfred G.E. Watson, Translator). This translation has served as the base-text of the translations presented in this edition, but has been thoroughly checked and corrected by the authors.

    

    He reveals how—and why—medieval Christianity fashioned a Jew on the basis of its reading of the Bible, and how this hermeneutically crafted Jew assumed distinctive character and power in Christian thought and culture.Augustine's doctrine of Jewish witness, which constructed the Jews so as to mandate their survival in a properly ordered Christian world, is the starting point for this illuminating study. Cohen demonstrates how adaptations of this doctrine reflected change in the self-consciousness of early medieval civilization. After exploring the effect of twelfth-century Europe's encounter with Islam on the value of Augustine's Jewish witnesses, he concludes with a new assessment of the reception of Augustine's ideas among thirteenth-century popes and friars.Consistently linking the medieval idea of the Jew with broader issues of textual criticism, anthropology, and the philosophy of history, this book demonstrates the complex significance of Christianity's "hermeneutical Jew" not only in the history of antisemitism but also in the broad scope of Western intellectual history.

    The work, an unparalleled achievement of Jewish thought, is devoted to a demonstration that the Torah, properly understood, is identical to true philosophy.

    Mark Washofsky, a highly respected professor at Hebrew Union College, leads the reader to an understanding of the whole of Jewish lives -- from blessings to bar/bat mitzvah, Havdalah to haftarah, and tikkun olam to tikkun Leil Shavuot. This user-friendly compendium for living a Jewish life is a wonderful tool for those seeking an understanding of current Reform Jewish practice.-- Definitive source for Reform Jewish practice-- Easy-to-use format-- Excellent resource for study or reference

    He traces Vygotsky's ideas to their origins in his early essays on literary criticism, Jewish culture, and the psychology of art, and he explicates brilliantly his psychological theory of language, thought, and development.Kozulin's biography of Vygotsky also reflects many of the conflicts of twentieth-century psychology--from the early battles between introspectionists and reflexologists to the current argument concerning the cultural and social, rather than natural, construction of the human mind.Vygotsky was a contemporary of Freud and Piaget, and his tragically early death and the Stalinist suppression of his work ensured that his ideas did not have an immediate effect on Western psychology. But the last two decades have seen his psychology become highly influential while that of other theoretical giants has faded.

    This edition offers an authoritative, comprehensive, and systematic presentation of the current state of scholarship on fundamental issues of Judaism, both past and present. While heavy emphasis is placed on the classical literature of Judaism and its history, this edition also includes principal entries on circumcision, genetic engineering, homosexuality, intermarriage in American Judaism, and other acutely contemporary issues.