Best of
Judaism

1978

Raquela


Ruth Gruber - 1978
    A ninth-generation Jerusalemite, she found her true calling as a hospital and battlefield nurse, delivering babies in the infamous Athlit detention camp, where Holocaust survivors were interned by the British, and literally walking across minefields to tend to the wounded during the 1948 War of Independence.Surrounded by men of uncommon bravery, Raquela fell passionately in love with the handsome young captain of one of the refugee ships and had to choose between him and the brilliant and distinguished doctor who waited for her back in Jerusalem. Upon her return to Israel, she helped to found the first hospital in the desert frontier of Beersheba, where she delivered the babies of Bedouin women and Jewish immigrants, eventually organizing the hospitals credited with saving Israeli soldiers during the Six-Day War.  Alive with the courage of a rare woman and a rugged nation, Raquela tells the powerful and deeply moving story of an Israeli woman who knew passionate love, great danger, and shattering loss and who witnessed the darkest -- and most triumphant -- moments in the history of the Jewish people. This edition of Raquela, which won the National Jewish Book Award in 1978, includes an introduction by best-selling novelist Faye Kellerman.

Meditation and the Bible


Aryeh Kaplan - 1978
    First English translation from ancient unpublished manuscripts, with commentary.

The Controversy of Zion


Douglas Reed - 1978
    Called both illuminating and distressing,

Strive for Truth (3 Volume Set/ Parts 1 - 4)


Eliyahu E. Dessler - 1978
    A major work of contemporary Torah thought, now available as a complete set of three volumes. [Hard Cover] This beautifully written and designed work contains the compiled Mussar lectures of Rabbi Eliyahu Dessler, written by his esteemed Talmid, student. A major work of contemporary Torah thought, now available as a complete set of three volumes.

The Warsaw Diary of Adam Czerniakow: Prelude to Doom


Adam Czerniaków - 1978
    But there is more to the story than the tragic death of one man among so many millions. Czerniakow was for almost three years the chairman of the Warsaw Judenrat - a Jew, devoted to his people, who served as the Nazi-sponsored mayor of the Warsaw Ghetto. His personal dealings with the German authorities bring to this daily record of events a depth of knowledge, accuracy of detail, and panorama of view that was possible to no other participant in the epic prelude to the final doom of the largest captive Jewish community in Eastern Europe. This secret journal is not only the testimony of an unbearable personal burden but the documentary of the Ghetto s terminal agony. It is the most important diary to emerge from the Holocaust."A tale of Kafkaesque horror." - Houston Chronicle.

Stories from Ancient Canaan


Mark S. Smith - 1978
    Stories from Ancient Canaan is the first to offer a one-volume translation of all four. This accessible book teaches the principal Canaanite religious literature, and will be useful to students of the history of religion, of the Bible, and of comparative literature.

The Jews in America


Max I. Dimont - 1978
      Beginning with the Sephardim who first reached the shores of America in the 1600s, this fascinating book by historian Max Dimont traces the journey of the Jews in the United States. It follows the various waves of immigration that brought people and families from Germany, Russia, and beyond; recounts the cultural achievements of those who escaped oppression in their native lands; and discusses the movement away from Orthodoxy and the attitudes of American Jews—both religious and secular—toward Israel.   From the author of Jews, God, and History, which has sold more than one million copies and was called “unquestionably the best popular history of the Jews written in the English language” by the LosAngeles Times, this is a compelling account by an author who was himself an immigrant, raised in Helsinki, Finland, before arriving at Ellis Island in 1929 and going on to serve in army intelligence in World War II.

The Lights of Penitence, the Moral Principles, Lights of Holiness, Essays, Letters and Poems


Abraham Isaac Kook - 1978
    The chief Rabbi of Palestine prior to the establishment of the state of Israel, Kook (1865-1935) represents the renewal of the Jewish mystical tradition in modern times.

Nahman of Bratslav: The Tales


Nahman of Bratslav - 1978
    - Mircea Eliade Nahman of Bratslav: The Tales translation, introduction and commentaries by Arnold J. Band preface by Joseph Dan Rav Nahman answered and said: On the way, I told a tale (of such power) that whoever heard it had thoughts of repentance... And that is how I am curing her. Therefore I have this power in my hands. And this is my gift to you this day. And there was great rejoicing and everyone was very happy. Nahman of Bratslav (1772-1810) The body of this book is comprised of the thirteen Tales of Rabbi Nahman of Bratslav, one of the most renowned of the early Hasidic masters of prayer and probably the greatest of the Hasidic storytellers. These tales are presented in a style both readable and scrupulously close to the original. No previous translators of these tales have attempted to take the original text this seriously, for they changed, added and deleted at will. As the editor of the volume states in his foreword, Of the thousands of Hasidic tales circulated in the past two centuries, few have earned the veneration and affection of the thirteen Tales of Nahman of Bratslav...Still studied as scripture, these tales have attracted a varied audience intrigued by the remarkable blend of intense Kabbalistic faith and narrative artistry. Dr. Band goes on to say, In this English translation I have tried to capture the ambiance of...the oral familiarity and charm of the Yiddish and the metaphysical rigor and grandeur of the Hebrew. In his preface Dr. Joseph Dan of Hebrew University, Jerusalem, addresses the question, Why is this an important work today? He says, Rabbi Nahman's tales should be regarded as a great literary accomplishment of a mystical author, who achieved complete identification and unity between external and internal elements and expressed them in a unified spiritual autobiography, in the guise of folktales. Such achievements are very rare in the history of religious literature, and as one such rare example it should be read in the twentieth century. The volume includes an introduction giving a biography of Nahman as well as a theory of spiritual literature. To each of the Tales, Dr. Band prefaced a brief editor's prologue to set the tone and direction of the reading. At the end of the volume he has appended a fuller commentary on each tale.

Four Hasidic Masters and their Struggle against Melancholy


Elie Wiesel - 1978
    Portrays four charismatic leaders of the eighteenthand nineteenth-century Hasidic movement in Eastern Europe

The Jew as Pariah: Jewish Identity and Politics in the Modern Age


Hannah Arendt - 1978
    

Jews in the Renaissance


Cecil Roth - 1978
    

Gates of Repentance: The New Union Prayerbook for the Days of Awe


Chaim Stern - 1978
    ates of Repentance with services, readings, meditations and songs for Rosh Hashana and Yom Kippur, now contains contemporary, gender-inclusive language throughout and will replace the existing edition as the High Holy day prayerbook of the Reform Movement.