Even people who have tried other books without success have learned to read Hebrew using this book. Here's what makes it different: * Fun memory tricks make it super simple to remember the sounds of the letters * Pace - The book is divided into 12 simple lessons. Two a week for 6 weeks. * The cheerful style of the book is great for adults and children alike. * From week one you are given words you can read from the Hebrew Bible! * The charming illustrations make learning Hebrew a pleasure. At the end of six weeks you WILL be able to read from the original Hebrew Bible, Psalms or the Siddur (Jewish prayer book) and you will have taken the first big step towards learning the Hebrew Language!

    Raoul was shocked to discover that Edgardo was once a Jew who had turned his back on the Jewish religion and his parents. Edgardo was abducted by the order of Pope Pius IX in 1858. When he was only six years of age, he was dragged from the arms of his parents in the back streets of Bologna to the rose gardens of the Vatican. The Pope thought it was justified to take the boy under his wing when the church found that he was secretly baptized by his father's maid who wanted to save his soul when she thought he was dying. There is world outcry. Christians and Jews from Sydney to San Francisco unite to petition the Pontiff to return the boy to his parents. However Pius IX refuses to return the boy to his family, risking his political power for the love of a son he calls his own. Edgardo was given many privileges as the Pope's "son" at a time when the Jews were in ghettos and starving. He never tried to return to his parents who were all but destroyed in their constant attempts to get him back into the Jewish faith. Raoul eventually realised that Father Mortara had not done much with his life in spite of the privileges he had as a child. Instead, he ended up as a sad character, beset with guilt and self-justification instead of reconciling himself to his beliefs. Raoul himself gradually became more aware that he must now choose between a life of passive stability or a life where he goes out into the world and affects changes. Almost 90% of the story of Edgardo Mortara's life and events are based on fact. This truly sad and perhaps unforgivable act of the Catholic Church should be seen against a backdrop of pre-unified Italy in the 1850s, a country overrun with Austrian soldiers, religious fanaticism and fierce anti-semitism at a time when the Pope was one of the most powerful princes in Europe.

    What he gets instead is just the opposite. His daughter, Hannah, twelve, struggles with grief, loneliness, and what it means to be Jewish as a Chinese adoptee. She wants to fit in, but that's difficult in their new mostly white and Christian town--so she decides to secretly convert. His son, Aaron, a senior in high school, is applying to Ivy League schools and counting down to when he can leave the small town--until he discovers a shocking secret that threatens his entire future. Lurking in the shadows is a pastor who says he just wants to support the kids in his congregation, but is that all he really wants? The Opposite of Normal is about what it means to love and accept, what it means to do the right thing, and what it means to heal after loss.

    Always wearing an easy smile, Hasidic rabbi Haskel Besser spreads joy wherever he goes, enriching the lives of his many friends and congregants with his profound understanding of both Orthodox Judaism and humannature.With warmth and admiration, journalist Warren Kozak writes about the rabbi's extraordinary life—from his family's escape to Palestine in the late 1930s to his witnessing of Israel's rebirth in 1948, to his move to New York City, where he lives today.A rare window into the normally closed world of Hasidic Jews, The Rabbi of 84th Street is also the story of Judaism in the twentieth century; of the importance of centuries-old traditions; and of the triumph of faith, kindness, and spirit.

    Set in Israel between the Six Day War and the assassination of Yitzhak Rabin, 'If You Awaken Love' is an intensely moving story of a stormy and spiritual young girl and her love-hate relationships with her childhood sweetheart, with her father, and with God.

    Second Hand Smoke is the story of Mila's sons, Issac and Duncan, the one secretly abandoned in Poland, and the other, American-born, raised as an avenging Nazi hunter, poisoned with rage.Told in bursts of fractured realism and dark comedy, Second Hand Smoke is a postmodern mystery of great lyrical power, deep insight, and emotional resonance.

    In Brooklyn, he grows an unexpected friendship with Aaron, a young ultra-orthodox Jew that helps him find a job and invites him to his home. Jeff meets Eva, a successful businesswoman, who works as a broker at the World Trade Center. When Rebecca, Aaron’s ultra-orthodox sister, falls in love with Jeff, she throws her life, and his, into a swirl.A touching and mind-opening novel that will catch your attention from the very first page.Broken Leaves of Autumn is a fascinating and many-folded love affair that takes the reader from small-town Arizona to the Ultra-Orthodox Jewish community of Brooklyn NY, and from World Trade Center “ground zero” to Israel. It is a delicate and absorbing love story which will not leave you indifferent.A sensitive and perfectly written story the holds an unexpected surprise.A young man trying to build a new life for himself while dealing with his family secrets; A beautiful young woman exiled from her community after her passion is exposed; A handsome broker, pregnant with two, caught in the World Trade Center in 9/11. All these are brilliantly and skillfully brought together into a page turning novel that will catch you by the heart.

    You may find it for free on the web. Purchase of the Kindle edition includes wireless delivery.

    Harris chronicles the personal transformation she experienced as she grew closer to the largely hidden men and women of the Hasidic world.

    

    In The Pious Ones, New York Times journalist Joseph Berger traces their origins in eighteenth-century Eastern Europe, illuminating their dynamics and core beliefs that remain so enigmatic to outsiders. He analyzes the Hasidim’s codified lifestyle, revealing its fascinating secrets, complexities, and paradoxes, and provides a nuanced and insightful portrayal of how their all-encompassing faith dictates nearly every aspect of life—including work, education, food, sex, clothing and social relations—sustaining a sense of connection and purpose in a changing world. From the intense sectarian politics to the conflicts that arise over housing, transportation, schooling, and gender roles, The Pious Ones also chronicles the ways in which the fabric of Hasidic daily life is threatened by exposure to the wider world and also by internal fissures within its growing population. What lies ahead for the Hasidim, and what lies ahead for American culture and politics as these Ultra-Orthodox Jews occupy a greater place in our society?

    It was ordered by then Prime Minister Menachem Begin to rescue thousands of Ethiopian Jewish refugees in Sudan and "deliver them to me" in the Jewish state. No stranger to action in enemy countries, the agency established a covert forward base in a deserted holiday village in Sudan, and deployed a handful of operatives to launch and oversee the exodus of the refugees to the Promised Land, by sea and by air, in the early 1980s. Gad Shimron, the author of this book, was one of their number. First published in Hebrew in 1998, this updated English version of the book offers a thrilling firsthand account of how the operation was put in place, and how the Mossad team in Sudan brought it off, despite great personal risk, running a partying vacation spot for wealthy tourists by day as they stole through the Sudanese desert to rescue desperate refugees by night. The book sheds light on American involvement in the latter stages of the operation, when the White House facilitated an airlift of Ethiopian Jews and the CIA station in Khartoum sheltered the last Mossad operatives, on the run from Libyan secret service agents, and spirited them out of Sudan in special boxes labeled Diplomatic Mail. Enhanced by Gad Shimron's wide-ranging historical observations and his crisp, incisive prose, this is at once an entertaining read and a powerful tale of idealistic heroism.

    This smart and funny book includes tales from many of these much-loved comics, and will appeal to their broad audience, while revealing the history, context and wider culture of Jewish joking.The Jewish joke is as old as Abraham, and like the Jews themselves it has wandered over the world, learned countless new languages, worked with a range of different materials, been performed in front of some pretty hostile crowds, and yet still retained its own distinctive identity. So what is it that animates the Jewish joke? Why are Jews so often thought of as ‘funny’? And how old can a joke get?The Jewish Joke is a brilliant—and laugh-out-loud funny—riff on about what marks Jewish jokes apart from other jokes, why they are important to Jewish identity and how they work. Ranging from self-deprecation to anti-Semitism, politics to sex, Devorah Baum looks at the history of Jewish joking and asks whether the Jewish joke has a future. With jokes from Lena Dunham to Woody Allen, as well as Freud and Marx (Groucho, mostly), Baum balances serious research with light-hearted humor and provides fascinating insight into this well-known and much loved cultural phenomenon.

    The Himsels followed an evangelical branch of Christianity—the Worldwide Church of God—which espoused a doomsday philosophy. Only faith in Jesus, the Bible, significant tithing, and the church's leader could save them from the evils of American culture—divorce, television, makeup, and even medicine.From the time she was a young girl, Himsel believed that the Bible was the guidebook to being saved, and only strict adherence to the church's tenets could allow her to escape a certain, gruesome death, receive the Holy Spirit, and live forever in the Kingdom of God. With self-preservation in mind, she decided, at nineteen, to study at The Hebrew University in Jerusalem. But instead of strengthening her faith, Himsel was introduced to a whole new world—one with different people and perspectives. Her eyes were slowly opened to the church's shortcomings, even dangers, and fueled her natural tendency to question everything she had been taught, including the guiding principles of the church and the words of the Bible itself.Ultimately, the connection to God she so relentlessly pursued was found in the most unexpected place: a mikvah on Manhattan's Upper West Side. This devout Christian Midwesterner found her own form of salvation—as a practicing Jewish woman.Himsel's seemingly impossible road from childhood cult to a committed Jewish life is traced in and around the major events of the 1970s and 80s with warmth, humor, and a multitude of religious and philosophical insights. A River Could Be a Tree: A Memoir is a fascinating story of struggle, doubt, and finally, personal fulfillment.

    It offers fresh perspectives on the individual characters of the Jewish sages (Chazal), the historical contexts in which they lived, and the creativity they brought to the pursuit of Jewish wisdom. This first volume in a three-volume set examines the teachings of the Men of the Great Assembly, Yosi Ben Yoezer, Hillel, Shamai and others of the Second Temple Period.