Tuchman, Pulitzer Prize–winning author of The Guns of August, comes history thru a wide-angle lens: a fascinating chronicle of Britain’s long relationship with Palestine & the Middle East, from the ancient world to the 20th century. Historically, the British were drawn to the Holy Land for two major reasons: first, to translate the Bible into English &, later, to control the road to India & access to Middle Eastern oil. With the lucid vividness that characterize all her work, Tuchman follows these twin spiritual & imperial motives—the Bible & the sword—to their seemingly inevitable endpoint, when Britain conquered Palestine at the conclusion of WWI. At that moment, in a gesture of significance & solemnity, the Balfour Declaration of 1917 established a British-sponsored mandate for a national home for the Jewish people. Throughout this account, Tuchman demonstrates that the seeds of conflict were planted in the Middle East long before the official founding of the modern state of Israel. “Tuchman is a wise & witty writer, a shrewd observer with a lively command of high drama.”—The Philadelphia Inquirer “In her métier as a narrative popular historical writer, Barbara Tuchman is supreme.”—Chicago Sun-Times

    Her father, Leon, was a boulevardier who conducted business on the elegant terrace of Shepheard's Hotel, and later, in the cozy, dark bar of the Nile Hilton, dressed in his signature white sharkskin suit. But with the fall of King Farouk and Nasser's nationalization of Egyptian industry, Leon and his family lose everything. As streets are renamed, neighborhoods of their fellow Jews disbanded, and the city purged of all foreign influence, the Lagnados, too, must make their escape. With all of their belongings packed into twenty-six suitcases, their jewels and gold coins hidden in sealed tins of marmalade, Leon and his family depart for any land that will take them. The poverty and hardships they encounter in their flight from Cairo to Paris to New York are strikingly juxta-posed against the beauty and comforts of the lives they left behind.An inversion of the American dream set against the stunning portraits of three world cities, Lucette Lagnado's memoir offers a grand and sweeping story of faith, tradition, tragedy, and triumph.Winner of the Sami Rohr Prize for Jewish Literature and hailed by the New York Times Book Review as a "brilliant, crushing book" and the New Yorker as a memoir of ruin "told without melodrama by its youngest survivor," The Man in the White Sharkskin Suit recounts the exile of the author's Jewish Egyptian family from Cairo in 1963 and her father's heroic and tragic struggle to survive his "riches to rags" trajectory.

    The Israelis had received top-secret intelligence from a Syrian general and informant code-named Red Falcon, recruited 23 years earlier by Mossad spy Yehuda Gil—himself known as "the man of a thousand faces." Gil had been the general's sole handler, the conduit of decades of critical intelligence. But now, on the brink of war, questions arose about who exactly was handling whom. What information was real and what was a lie? Was Gil, a man of mythic exploits in Israeli intelligence, a hero or a traitor? With exclusive access to Gil and other key figures in one of the greatest intelligence intrigues in modern history, celebrated Israeli investigative journalist Ronen Bergman unravels the incredible true story of the Yehuda Gil affair. Bergman's unprecedented reporting takes him to the heart of Israel's shadowy spy agencies, arguments at the highest levels of a government lurching toward war, and last-minute secret meetings at the CIA and the White House to avert it. At the center of it all is the mystery of Red Falcon, his spymaster handler, and the very nature of deception.

    Both men were born in Jerusalem in the same year: Tamimi on the Arab east side and Ottolenghi in the Jewish west. In this book they explore the vibrant cuisine of their home city together, and present an authentic collection of recipes that reflects the city's melting pot of Muslim, Jewish, Arab, Christian and Armenian communities. From their unique cross-cultural perspectives, Ottolenghi and Tamimi share 120 authentic recipes: from soups (Frikkeh, Chicken with Kneidelach), to meat and fish (Chicken with Cardamom Rice; Sharmula Bream with Rose Petals), to vegetables and salads (Chargrilled Squash with Labneh and Pickled Walnut Salsa), pulses and grains (Beetroot and SaffronRice); and cakes and desserts (Fig and Arak Trifle; Clementine and Almond Cake). Their cookbook is illustrated with 130 full-colour photographs, showcasing their sumptuous dishes in the dazzling setting of Jerusalem city. Ottolenghi and Tamimi have five bustling restaurants in London, UK. Ottolenghi is one of the most respected chefs in the world; his latest cookbook, Plenty, was a New York Times bestseller and one of the most lauded cookbooks of 2011. Jerusalem is his most personal, original and beautiful cookbook yet.

    Dumb crooks, celebrities gone bad, unsolved mysteries, odd laws, and more—Strange Crime has plenty of stories that will make you ask yourself, “What could they possibly have been thinking?” This easily portable paperback book is ideal for readers on the go. Take it to school, to work, to jury duty!

    that Iran could have nukes by spring.* Iran’s president, Mahmoud Ahmadinejad, has called for the end of the United States and Israel.* Chaos is erupting throughout the region.* Rumors abound of an impending Israeli first strike against Iran’s nuclear program.Is war imminent?New York Times best-selling author Joel C. Rosenberg looks at the events developing in the Middle East and asks the tough questions: Could Israel launch a preemptive strike at any moment? How might an Israel-Iran war set the Middle East on fire? What should we be watching for? Israel at War will help you understand what is happening right now behind the scenes in this volatile region—and how this high-stakes showdown could affect the future of the Middle East and the world.

    . . . This treasure trove of linguistics, sociology, history and folklore offers a fascinating look at how, through the centuries, a unique and enduring language has reflected an equally unique and enduring culture.”—Publishers Weekly, starred reviewThe main spoken language of the Jews for more than 1,000 years, Yiddish offers a comprehensive picture of the mind-set that enabled them to survive a millennium of unrelenting persecution across Europe. Through the idioms, phrases, metaphors, and fascinating history of this wonderful tongue, Michael Wex gives us a moving and inspiring portrait of a people, and a language, in exile. From tukhes to goy, meshugener to bobe mayse (cok-and-bull story), Born to Kvetch offers a wealth of material, some that has never appeared in English before, on all elements of Yiddish life, including food, nature, divinity, humanity, and even sex.

    If the present generation is too dull to understand it rightly, a future, finer and better generation will arise to understand it. The Jews who wish for a State shall have it, and they will deserve to have it."—PrefaceTheodor Herzl's passionate advocacy of the founding of a Jewish state grew out of his conviction that Jews would never be assimilated into the populations in which they lived. Born in Budapest, Hungary in 1860, Herzl encountered anti-Semitism when he attended a scientific secondary school. Later, as a newspaper correspondent in Paris, he was shocked and dismayed by the anti-Semitic prejudice surrounding the notorious Dreyfus affair (Herzl said in later years that it was the Dreyfus affair that had made a Zionist out of him). Herzl concluded that the only solution for the majority of Jews would be organized emigration to a state of their own.He discussed the political and historic rationale for such a homeland in this extraordinary and influential book, first published as a pamphlet, Der Judenstaat, in Vienna in 1896. The Jewish question, he wrote, was not a social or religious question but a national question that could be solved only by making it "a political world question to be discussed and settled by the civilized nations of the world in council." In 1897, at a world congress of Zionism, he declared, "We want to lay the foundation stone for the house which will become the refuge of the Jewish nation. Zionism is the return to Judaism even before the return to the land of Israel."The present volume is a complete and unabridged republication of The Jewish State, reproduced from the edition published by the American Zionist Emergency Council, New York, 1946. Translated by Sylvie D'Avigdor, it includes an introduction by Louis Lipsky, and a biography of Herzl based on the work of Alex Bein. For Jews, scholars, historians, anyone seeking to understand the history of the 20th century, The Jewish State is indispensable reading. This edition makes it widely available in an inexpensive high-quality format.

    Laying the historical groundwork in the final decades of the Ottoman era, when the first Zionist settlers arrived in the Holy Land, Black draws on a wide range of sources--from declassified documents to oral histories to his own vivid on-the-ground reporting--to recreate the major milestones in the most polarizing conflict of the modern age, and from both sides. In the third year of World War I, the seed was planted for an inevitable clash: Jerusalem governor Izzat Pasha surrendered to British troops and foreign secretary Lord Balfour issued a fateful document promising the establishment of "a national home for the Jewish people." The chronicle takes us through the Arab rebellion of the 1930s; the long shadow of the Nazi Holocaust; the war of 1948--culminating in Israel's independence and the Palestinian Nakba (catastrophe); the "cursed victory" of the Six-Day War of 1967 and the Palestinian re-awakening; the first and second Intifadas; the Oslo Accords; and other failed peace negotiations and continued violence up to 2017. Combining engaging narrative with historical and political analysis and cultural insights, Enemies and Neighbors is both an accessible overview and a fascinating investigation into the deeper truths of a history that continues to dominate Middle Eastern politics and diplomacy, and which has preserved Palestinians and Israelis as unequal enemies and neighbors, their bitter conflict unresolved as prospects for a two-state solution have all but disappeared.

    8 pages of photographs.

    Jews, lapsed Jews, and their spouses and friends will surely learn a thing or ten while devouring this addictively readable mix of practical information, fun facts and figures, and amusing trivia. Including information on key figures from Saul to Seinfeld, a lesson in proper Jew-fro care, and a basic guide to all those second-tier holidays no one ever celebrates, this engaging compendium is perfect for gifting or for simply learning more while being thoroughly entertained.

    David Horowitz’s classic Why Israel is the Victim, updated by the author, sets the record straight about the basic truths of the Middle East conflict. In addition to restoring the authentic history of the region – a history of obsessive aggression first by Arab countries determined to physically annihilate the Jewish State and later by terror groups determined to destroy its will to survive and right to exist—this booklet brings the story up to date by showing the systematic way in which Hamas and Hezbollah, under Iran’s direction, have subverted peace in the Middle East. As Shillman Fellow Daniel Greenfield notes in his insightful introduction, this pamphlet “tells us why we should reject the “Blame Israel First” narrative that has so thoroughly saturated the mainstream media… It confronts the myth of Palestinian victimhood… and it delivers a rousing restatement of the true history of the hate that led us to all this.” America should be Israel’s protector. Instead, as David Horowitz notes, under the leadership of Barack Obama, it has become its prosecutor.

    In this monumental work, David Shipler delves into the origins of the prejudices that have been intensified by war, terrorism, and nationalism. Focusing on the diverse cultures that exist side by side in Israel and Israeli-controlled territories, Shipler examines the process of indoctrination that begins in schools; he discusses the far-ranging effects of socioeconomic differences, historical conflicts between Islam and Judaism, attitudes about the Holocaust, and much more. And he writes of the people: the Arab woman in love with a Jew, the retired Israeli military officer, the Palestinian guerilla, the handsome actor whose father is Arab and whose mother is Jewish.

    It covered jazz, of course, but it also included Davis’s ruminations on race, politics and culture. Fascinated, Hef sent the writer—future Pulitzer-Prize-winning author Alex Haley, an unknown at the time—back to glean even more opinion and insight from Davis. The resulting exchange, published in the September 1962 issue, became the first official Playboy Interview and kicked off a remarkable run of public inquisition that continues today—and that has featured just about every cultural titan of the last half century.To celebrate the Interview’s 50th anniversary, the editors of Playboy have culled 50 of its most (in)famous Interviews and will publish them over the course of 50 weekdays (from September 4, 2012 to November 12, 2012) via Amazon’s Kindle Direct platform. Here is the interview with the journalist Hunter S. Thompson from the November 1974 issue.

    It’s as devastating and as simple as that’ Noel Gallagher Slade’s music and style dominated and defined the 1970s. With six consecutive number one singles they were the UK’s number one group and sold millions of records all over the world. At their peak, Slade enjoyed success and adulation not seen since The Beatles. Now, for the first time, the man whose outlandish costumes, glittering make-up and unmistakable hairstyle made Slade the definitive act of Glam Rock tells his story.Growing up in a council house in 1950s Wolverhampton, Dave always knew he wanted to be a musician and in the mid-sixties, with Don Powell, founded the band that in 1970 would settle on the name Slade. Their powerful guitar-driven anthems formed the soundtrack for a whole generation, and their Top of the Pops performances, led by their flamboyant, ever-smiling lead guitarist, became legendary.But So Here It Is reveals that there’s much more to Dave’s life than Top of the Pops and good times. Packed with previously unseen personal photos, the book uncovers surprising family secrets, tells the inside story of the original band’s painful break-up, explores Dave’s battles with depression, his decision to reform Slade and go back on the road and his recovery from the stroke that threatened to cut short his career.Told with great heart and humour, So Here It Is is the story of the irresistible rise of Dave Hill, Superyob; the definitive account of his journey from working-class lad to global rock star.