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.

    The author, foremost poet and thinker of the Jewish Middle Ages, offers clear and usable delineations of the religion of Israel. In the easy style of a Platonic dialogue, he presents first a critique of Christianity and Islam, and then explores the nature of Israel's religious faculty, the question of the "chosen" people, the implications of a "minority religion." Against those who accommodate to prevailing philosophical trends, Judah Halevi is blunt, frank and uncompromising in his discourse on the central teachings of Judaism: revelation, prophecy, the laws, the Holy Land, and the role of the Jewish people as spokesman for religious faith.[Take from the back cover]

    Braudel's scope embraces the natural world and material life, economics, demography, politics, and diplomacy.

    Its survival has been an incredible journey, especially considering how often Jews have tried to kill it themselves. Underlying Neal Karlen's unique, brashly entertaining, yet thoroughly researched telling of the language's story is the notion that Yiddish is a mirror of Jewish history, thought, and practice—for better and worse.Karlen charts the beginning of Yiddish as a minor dialect in medieval Europe that helped peasant Jews live safely apart from the marauders of the First Crusades. Incorporating a large measure of antique German dialects, Yiddish also included little scraps of French, Italian, ancient Hebrew, Aramaic, the Slavic and Romance languages, and a dozen other tongues native to the places where Jews were briefly given shelter. One may speak a dozen languages, all of them Yiddish.By 1939, Yiddish flourished as the lingua franca of 13 million Jews. After the Holocaust, whatever remained of Yiddish, its worldview and vibrant culture, was almost stamped out—by Jews themselves. Yiddish was an old-world embarrassment for Americans anxious to assimilate. In Israel, young, proud Zionists suppressed Yiddish as the symbol of the weak and frightened ghetto-bound Jew—and invented modern Hebrew.Today, a new generation has zealously sought to explore the language and to embrace its soul. This renaissance has spread to millions of non-Jews who now know the subtle difference between a shlemiel and a shlimazel; hundreds of Yiddish words dot the most recent editions of the Oxford English Dictionary.The Story of Yiddish is a delightful tale of a people, their place in the world, and the fascinating language that held them together.

    Southern describes the chief forms of social, political & religious organization.

    A rich farmer fears he'll go to hell for cheating his neighbours. His wife wants pilgrim badges to sew into her hat and show off at church. A poor, ragged villager is convinced his beloved cat is suffering in the fires of purgatory and must be rescued. A mother is convinced her son's dangerous illness is punishment for her own adultery and seeks forgiveness so he may be cured. A landlord is in trouble with the church after he punched an abbot on the nose. A sexually driven noblewoman seeks a divorce so she can marry her new young beau.These are among a group of pilgrims that sets off on the tough and dangerous journey from England to Rome, where they hope all their troubles will be answered. Some in the party who have their own, secret reasons for going.Matthew Kneale is the author of English Passengers and Rome: A History in Seven Sackings. His new novel, Pilgrims is a riveting, sweeping narrative that shows medieval society in a new light, as a highly rule-bound, legalistic world, though religious fervour and the threat of violence are never far below the surface. Told by multiple narrators, 'Pilgrims' has much to say about Englishness, then and now.

    Duke William of Normandy may have just won the most recent battle in the area but he has mislaid something precious; something so precious no one must even know it is missing. He carefully assembles a team for a secret mission of recovery, (the assembly is careful, not the team), and he sends them forth to the north. But his secret is already out and another band has the treasure in their sights. In a race across a savage land, against the clock and against one another, two forces hurtle towards a finale of cataclysmic proportions; all in 29 concise and entertaining chapters. Find out what the treasure is. Find out who gets it first. Find out what happens to everyone afterwards. Find out some other stuff. Containing several facts and a brief appearance by a monk; it could have happened, it might have happened... but probably didn't. Out of the Scriptorium comes an extraordinary history. A book so epic it has a map. The author of the world's best selling medieval crime comedy series has done something amazing: he has written another book. International best selling, prize winning author, Howard of Warwick, has taken the Battle of Hastings and added meticulous fabrication to weave an explosive, controversial and hilarious tale which will have historians up and down the country throwing their slide rules at the radio.

    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.

    . . . As one young Sandinista commented, 'Rambo is like the Nicaraguan soldier. He's a superman. And if the United States invades, we'll cut the marines down like Rambo did.' And then he mimicked Rambo's famous war howl and mimed his arc of machine gun fire. We both laughed."—from the bookThere is a Nicaragua that Americans have rarely seen or heard about, a nation of jarring political paradoxes and staggering social and cultural flux. In this Nicaragua, the culture of machismo still governs most relationships, insidious racism belies official declarations of ethnic harmony, sexual relationships between men differ starkly from American conceptions of homosexuality, and fascination with all things American is rampant. Roger Lancaster reveals the enduring character of Nicaraguan society as he records the experiences of three families and their community through times of war, hyperinflation, dire shortages, and political turmoil.Life is hard for the inhabitants of working class barrios like Doña Flora, who expects little from men and who has reared her four children with the help of a constant female companion; and life is hard for Miguel, undersized and vulnerable, stigmatized as a cochón—a "faggot"—until he learned to fight back against his brutalizers.Through candid discussions with young and old Nicaraguans, men and women, Lancaster constructs an account of the successes and failures of the 1979 Sandinista Revolution, documenting the effects of war and embargo on the cultural and economic fabric of Nicaraguan society. He tracks the break up of families, surveys informal networks that allow female-headed households to survive, explores the gradual transformation of the culture of machismo, and reveals a world where heroic efforts have been stymied and the best hopes deferred. This vast chronicle is sustained by a rich theoretical interpretation of the meanings of ideology, power, and the family in a revolutionary setting.Played out against a backdrop of political travail and social dislocation, this work is a story of survival and resistance but also of humor and happiness. Roger Lancaster shows us that life is hard, but then too, life goes on.

    Dietz, the New York Times bestselling author of the America Rising novels, comes RED DRAGON, the third book in the Winds of War series following RED FLOOD. World War III is a few months month old. After attacking, and sinking the Destroyer USS Stacy Heath, the Chinese seize control of Nepal and Bhutan and push into India where the Allies manage to stop them. But for how long? Pakistan is attacking from the north--and China is preparing for the "big push” from the east. Worse yet, China’s Ministry of State Security has orders to assassinate the Dalai Lama, rather than run the risk that he will inspire a Buddhist rebellion in Tibet. As a team of assassins close in on the Dalai Lama, Green Beret Captain Jon Lee and his men are behind Chinese lines in Nepal, battling to rescue a downed fighter pilot before enemy troops can capture him.   The entire subcontinent is at risk if the assassins succeed…  And, if the region falls, hundreds of thousands of people will die--even as millions more are lost to the Axis.  Together with a self-centered army doctor named Wendy Kwan, and a team consisting of both green berets and Gurkhas, it will be Lee's responsibility to navigate treacherous terrain--and prevent Chinese Agent Fan Tong and his special ops team from changing the course of the war.

    They built lavish villas designed by the best Beaux Arts–style architects of the time, including Richard Morris Hunt, Charles McKim and Robert Swain Peabody. America’s elite delighted in referring to these grand retreats as “summer cottages,” where they would play tennis and polo and sail their yachts along the shores of the Ocean State. The coachman had an important role as the discreet outdoor butler for Gilded Age gentlemen—not only was he in charge of the horses, but he also acted as a travel advisor and connoisseur of entertainment venues. From the driver’s seat, author and guide Edward Morris provides a diverse collection of biographical sketches that reveal the outrageous and opulent lives of some of America’s leading entrepreneurs.

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    With breathtaking command of medieval Muslim sources as well as the vast literature on medieval European and Muslim culture, Carole Hillenbrand has produced a book that shows not only how the Crusades were perceived by the Muslims, but how the Crusades affected the Muslim world - militarily, culturally, and psychologically.

    When Benzion Netanyahu shows up for an interview, family unexpectedly in tow, Blum plays the reluctant host, to guests who proceed to lay waste to his American complacencies. Mixing fiction with non-fiction, the campus novel with the lecture, THE NETANYAHUS is a wildly inventive, genre-bending comedy of blending, identity, and politics - 'An Account of A Minor and Ultimately Even Negligible Incident in the History of a Very Famous Family' that finds Joshua Cohen at the height of his powers.

    Featuring work by today’s preeminent writers, these essays explore significant Jewish athletes, coaches, broadcasters, trainers, and even team owners (in the finite universe of Jewish Jocks, they count!).Contributors include some of today’s most celebrated writers covering a vast assortment of topics, including David Remnick on the biggest mouth in sports, Howard Cosell; Jonathan Safran Foer on the prodigious and pugnacious Bobby Fischer; Man Booker Prize–winner Howard Jacobson writing elegantly on Marty Reisman, America’s greatest ping-pong player and the sport’s ultimate showman. Deborah Lipstadt examines the continuing legacy of the Munich Massacre, the fortieth anniversary of which coincided with the 2012 London Olympics. Jane Leavy reveals why Sandy Koufax agreed to attend her daughter’s bat mitzvah. And we learn how Don Lerman single-handedly thrust competitive eating into the public eye with three pounds of butter and 120 jalapeño peppers. These essays are supplemented by a cover design and illustrations throughout by Mark Ulriksen. From settlement houses to stadiums and everywhere in between, JEWISH JOCKS features men and women who do not always fit the standard athletic mold. Rather, they utilized talents long prized by a people of the book (and a people of commerce) to game these games to their advantage, in turn forcing the rest of the world to either copy their methods—or be left in their dust.