Inspired by a true story, "People of the Book" is a novel of sweeping historical grandeur and intimate emotional intensity by an acclaimed and beloved author. Called "a tour de force" by the San Francisco Chronicle, this ambitious, electrifying work traces the harrowing journey of the famed Sarajevo Haggadah, a beautifully illuminated Hebrew manuscript created in fifteenth-century Spain. When it falls to Australian rare book expert Hanna Heath to conserve this priceless work, the tiny artifacts she discovers in its ancient binding—a butterfly wing fragment, wine stains, salt crystals, a white hair—only begin to unlock the book’s deep mysteries and unexpectedly plunges Hanna into the intrigues of fine art forgers and ultra-nationalist fanatics.

    Through the story of a lonely boy, The Far Euphrates questions how we can find meaning in a post-Holocaust world; how we define the notions of home and family; where the boundaries lie between sanity, madness, and transcendence; and what our responsibilities are to ourselves and to one another. Infused with a rich mystical and scientific understanding, it poignantly addresses the insatiable human longing to know and reclaim our origins, the mythic far Euphrates of Eden, to which we can never return.

    In the years that followed, she was terrified to explore the ancient city she so loved. But, sick of living in fear, she has now chosen to live within the Old City's walls, living in each of the four quarters: Christian, Muslim, Armenian, and Jewish. Jerusalem’s Old City is the hottest piece of spiritual real estate in the world. For millennia empires have clashed and crumbled over this place. Today, the conflict between Israelis and Palestinians plays out daily in her streets, and the ancient stones run with blood. But it’s also an ordinary city, where people buy vegetables, and sooth colicky babies, where pipes break, where the pious get high, and young couples sneak away to kiss in the shadows. Sarah has thrown herself into the maelstrom of living in each quarter—where time is measured in Sabbath sunsets and morning bells and calls to prayer, in stabbing attacks and check points—keeping the holidays in each quarter, buying bread from the same bread seller, making friends with people who were once her enemies, and learning some of the secrets and sharing the stories that make Jerusalem so special, and so exquisitely ordinary. Jerusalem, Drawn and Quartered is a book for anyone who’s wondered who really lives in Israel, and how they coexist. It’s a book that skillfully weaves the personal and political, the heartwarming and the heart-stopping. It’s a book that only Sarah Tuttle-Singer can write. The Old City of Jerusalem may be set in stone, but it’s always changing—and these pages capture that.

    'I have decided,' President Franklin Delano Roosevelt announced, 'that approximately 1,000 refugees should be immediately brought from Italy to this country.' One thousand refugees....For years, refugees knocking on the doors of American consulates abroad had been told, 'You cannot enter America. The quotas are filled.' And, while the quotas remained untouchable ... millions died."With this mixture of desperation and hope, Ruth Gruber begins Haven, the inspiring story of one thousand Jewish and Christian refugees brought to sanctuary in America in 1944. As special assistant to Secretary of the Interior Harold L. Ickes, Gruber was selected to carry out this top-secret mission despite the objections of military brass who doubted the thirty-three-year-old woman's qualifications. When Gruber met the gaunt survivors, they told her about hiding in sewers and forests, of risking their lives to save others. As she wrote down their stories, tears often wiped out the words in her notebook. Gruber became the refugees' guardian angel during the dangerous crossing of the U-boat-haunted Atlantic, and during their eighteen-month internment at a former army camp in Oswego, New York. Lobbying Congress at the end of the war, she also helped the refugees become American citizens. This edition concludes with a new chapter featuring Gruber's look back on her many decades as a crusading journalist, and a special Appendix from the 1946 Congressional Record listing the names of all the camp's residents.Basis for the CBS Mini-series Starring Natasha Richardson.

    Meanwhile, his daughter has a lesbian affair with one of his prostitutes downstairs. This translation debuted at Show World in Times Square in 1999 and "set Show World aflame" according to the Village Voice.

    The angels asked God, "Why don't you clean up this mess?"This collection of short, funny stories is one man's interpretation of how God did just that -- with some very unlikely help.There was Adam, who decided to number the animals instead of giving them names -- until he lost count. There was Max, a matchmaking angel disguised as a camel. And who could forget the kindly dolphins of the Red Sea or the builders of the spectacularly chaotic Tower of Babel, whose foundation rests in one small girl's question: "Mommy, does God have a big toe?"Reflecting Mr. Gellman's lifelong love for his subject, this witty collection of "midrashim" provides a wonderful way to learn about and to share the stories of the Bible. Distinguished artist Oscar de Mejo brings the right blend of reverence and humor with his magnificent oil paintings. Notable Books of 1989 (NYT)Best Illustrated Children's Books of 1989 (NYT)Children's Books of 1989 (Library of Congress)

    The Bus Driver Who Wanted to Be God gathers his daring and provocative short stories for the first time in English. Brief, intense, painfully funny, and shockingly honest, Keret's stories are snapshots that illuminate with intelligence and wit the hidden truths of life. As with the best comic authors, hilarity and anguish are the twin pillars of his work. Keret covers a remarkable emotional and narrative terrain-from a father's first lesson to his boy to a standoff between soldiers caught in the Middle East conflict to a slice of life where nothing much happens. Bus Driver includes stories from Keret's bestselling collections in Israel, Pipelines and Missing Kissinger, as well as Keret's major new novella, "Kneller's Happy Campers," a bitingly satirical yet wistful road trip set in the afterlife for suicides.

    Soon after the child is born, Cossacks ransack the Kolopskys’ home, severely beating Mendel. In the aftermath, he tells Henya that, contrary to his brother Shimshon’s belief that socialism is their ticket to escaping the region’s brutal anti-Semitic pogroms, he still believes America holds the answer. Henya, meanwhile, understands that any future will be perilous: she now knows their baby daughter, who has slept through this night of melee, is surely deaf. So begins a beautifully told story that unfolds over decades of the 20th century—a story in which two families, joined in tradition and parted during persecution, will remain bound by their fateful decision to leave Odessa.

    Serving customers ice cream all summer long, she is desperate for some kind of escape.But one afternoon, a terrible lie slips from her tongue. And suddenly everyone wants to talk to her: the press, her schoolmates, and even the boy upstairs. He is the only one who knows the truth, and he is demanding a price for his silence.Then Nofar meets Raymonde, an elderly immigrant whose best friend has just died. Raymonde keeps her friend alive the only way she knows how, by inhabiting her stories. But soon, Raymonde's lies take on a life of their own.Written with propulsive energy, dark humor, and deep insight, The Liar reveals the far-reaching consequences of even our smallest choices, and explores the hidden corners of human nature to reveal the liar, and the truth-teller, in all of us.

    Kushner shares his wisdom as a rabbi, a parent, a reader, and a human being. Often imitated but never superseded, When Bad Things Happen to Good People is a classic that offers clear thinking and consolation in times of sorrow.Since its original publication in 1981, When Bad Things Happen to Good People has brought solace and hope to millions of readers and its author has become a nationally known spiritual leader.

    A Prayer book for our times, it speaks to today's Jew, relating the thoughts and words of our heritage to the mind and heart of modern, sophisticated Jews.

    delicatessen, a group of Brooklyn natives gets together to discuss basketball, boxing, the weather back east, and the Jewish gangsters of yesteryear. Meyer Lansky. Bugsy Siegel. Louis Lepke, the self-effacing mastermind of Murder, Inc. Red Levine, the Orthodox hit man who refused to kill on the Sabbath. Abe "Kid Twist" Reles, who looked like a mama's boy but once buried a rival alive. These are just some of the vibrant, vicious characters Rich Cohen's father reminisced about and the author evokes so pungently in Tough Jews.Tracing a generation of Jewish gangsters from the candy stores of Brownsville to the clubhouses of the Lower East Side--and, occasionally, to suites at the Waldorf--Cohen creates a densely anecdotal and gruesomely funny history of muscle, moxie, and money. Filled with fixers and schlammers, the squeal of tires and the rattle of gunfire, his book shatters stereotypes as deftly as its subjects once shattered kneecaps.

    Grazia, private secretary to the world-renowned Isabella d'Este, is the daughter of an eminent Jewish banker, the wife of the pope's Jewish physician, and the lover of a Christian prince. In a "secret book," written as a legacy for her son, she records her struggles to choose between the seductions of the Christian world and a return to the family, traditions, and duties of her Jewish roots. As she re-creates Renaissance Italy in captivating detail, Jacqueline Park gives us a timeless portrait of a brave and brilliant woman trapped in an unforgiving, inflexible society.

    Having been brought up in a Roman Catholic family in Havana, Cuba and descending from Spanish ancestry did not ensure that her life would be lived within that realm. In response to strong feelings and an affinity towards Judaism, her search for her family's past, took on a deeper significance as she researched her maternal lineage and not only discovered but documented and verified her Pre-Inquisition Spanish Roots to Fifteenth Century Spain and Portugal where they lived first as Jews, then as Crypto Jews and finally as Roman Catholics. She was able to unravel the web of lies and deceit that her family had spun around themselves in order to survive the Spanish Inquisition .They lived with one foot in each world as they converted to Catholicism openly while secretly practicing their own religion underground. Genie was fortunate enough to grab the brass ring that was thrown in the air over 500 years ago.

    "When you can feel in your cells that you're coming to the end of your tour of duty," he said, "what is the spiritual work of this time, and how do we prepare for the mystery?"Davidson, who has a seeker's heart and a skeptic's mind, jumped at the chance to spend time with him. She'd long feared that death would be a complete annihilation, while Reb Zalman felt certain that "something continues." He said he didn't want to convince her of anything. "What I want is to loosen your mind." Through their talks, he wanted to help people "not freak out about dying," and enable them to have a more heightened and grateful life.For two years, they met every week, and this is Davidson's memoir of what they learned and how they changed. Interspersed with their talks are sketches from Reb Zalman's extraordinary life. He barely escaped the Nazis, became an Orthodox rabbi in the US, was married four times and had eleven children, one from a sperm donation to a lesbian rabbi, and formed friendships with leaders of other faiths, such as Thomas Merton and the Dalai Lama. Breaking with the Orthodox, he founded the Jewish Renewal Movement to encourage people to have a direct experience of God.During their time together, Davidson was nearly killed by a suicide bomb, and Reb Zalman struggled with a steep decline in health. Together they created strategies to deal with pain and memory loss, and found tools to cultivate simplicity, fearlessness, and joy—at any age. Davidson includes twelve exercises so that readers may experience what she did—a sea change in facing what we all must face: mortality.