The small strip of arid land is 5,700 miles away but remains a hot-button issue and a thorny topic of debate. But while everyone seems to have a strong opinion about Israel, how many people actually know the facts? Here to fill in the information gap is Israeli American Noa Tishby. But “this is not your Bubbie’s history book” (Bill Maher, host of Real Time with Bill Maher). Instead, offering a fresh, 360-degree view, Tishby brings her “passion, humor, and deep intimacy” (Yossi Klein Halevi, New York Times bestselling author of Letters to My Palestinian Neighbor) to the subject, creating an accessible and dynamic portrait of a tiny country of outsized relevance. Through bite-sized chunks of history and deeply personal stories, Tishby chronicles her homeland’s evolution, beginning in Biblical times and moving forward to cover everything from WWI to Israel’s creation to the disputes dividing the country today. Tackling popular misconceptions with an abundance of facts, Tishby provides critical context around headline-generating controversies and offers a clear, intimate account of the richly cultured country of Israel.

    Leon Uris magnificently portrays the birth of a new nation in the midst of enemies--the beginning of an earthshaking struggle for power. Here is the tale that swept the world with its fury: the story of an American nurse, an Israeli freedom fighter caught up in a glorious, heartbreaking, triumphant era.

    In fact, her career is dedicated to helping Christians and Jews understand the Jewishness of Jesus, thereby deepening the understanding of him, and facilitating greater interfaith dialogue. In this book, she shows how liberal Christians misunderstand Judaism, misunderstand the New Testament, and thus yank Jesus out of his Jewish context and wind up promoting hatred of Jews. Only with the deeper understanding this top Jewish, Southern–born New Testament scholar provides can we hope to respect each other's beliefs, as well as enrich our own.Through a extremely busy teaching and speaking schedule, Levine has honed her message at synagogues, Catholic conferences, Jewish Community Centers, denominational meetings, in the classroom and in her highly successful Teaching Company audios and videos. Levine is brilliant, charming, funny and forceful, and uses these traits to give a completely fresh perspective on Jesus and the New Testament. In addition to offering new insights with great skill, she has the remarkable ability to be tough, pointing out how even liberal Christians can be unwittingly anti–Semitic in their understanding of what Jesus stood for.Her truth–telling here will provoke honest dialogue on how Christians and Jews should understand Jesus and our New Testament heritage.

    They lived a paradox--unwanted by a repressive Stalinist state, yet forbidden to leave. "When They Come for Us, We'll Be Gone" is the astonishing and inspiring story of their rescue.Journalist Gal Beckerman draws on newly released Soviet government documents as well as hundreds of oral interviews with refuseniks, activists, Zionist "hooligans," and Congressional staffers. He shows not only how the movement led to a mass exodus in 1989, but also how it shaped the American Jewish community, giving it a renewed sense of spiritual purpose and teaching it to flex its political muscle. He also makes a convincing case that the movement put human rights at the center of American foreign policy for the very first time, helping to end the Cold War.In cinematic detail, the book introduces us to all the major players, from the flamboyant Meir Kahane, head of the paramilitary Jewish Defense League, to Soviet refusenik Natan Sharansky, who labored in a Siberian prison camp for over a decade, to Lynn Singer, the small, fiery Long Island housewife who went from organizing local rallies to strong-arming Soviet diplomats. This multi-generational saga, filled with suspense and packed with revelations, provides an essential missing piece of Cold War and Jewish history.

    Popular author Rabbi Daniel Lapin digs into the "holy" Hebrew language -- which not only conveys data but, as linguists know, also contains it. On a fascinating treasure hunt, his book decodes eternal wisdom embedded in the ancient tongue on relationships, human pleasure, life's meaning, and more. With real-life anecdotes, drawn from his lifetime in the rabbinate, the author uncovers a wealth of insights intended for our enrichment and enjoyment. A practical, easy read which will fascinate, entertain, and instruct us in the awesomeness of the Lord's language.

    Jewish identity is tied up with some of the most difficult and contentious issues of today. The purpose in this book is to open many of these issues up for discussion. Since Israel defines itself openly as the Jewish State, we should ask what the notions of Judaism, Jewishness, Jewish culture and Jewish ideology stand for. Gilad examines the tribal aspects embedded in Jewish secular discourse, both Zionist and anti Zionist; the holocaust religion; the meaning of history and time within the Jewish political discourse; the anti-Gentile ideologies entangled within different forms of secular Jewish political discourse and even within the Jewish left. He questions what it is that leads Diaspora Jews to identify themselves with Israel and affiliate with its politics. The devastating state of our world affairs raises an immediate demand for a conceptual shift in our intellectual and philosophical attitude towards politics, identity politics and history.

    Initially, Paul lives with his mother–a secular, assimilated schoolteacher, who he adores until she “betrays” him by marrying the gentile André. He is then sent to live with his father–once an admired avant-garde artist, but now reviled by the critics as a “decadent Jew,” who drowns his anger, pain, and humiliation in drink. Paul searches in vain for stability and meaning in a world that is collapsing around him, but his love for the earthy peasant girl who briefly takes care of him, the strange pull he feels towards the Jews praying in the synagogue near his home, and the fascination with which he observes Eastern Orthodox church rituals merely give him tantalizing glimpses into worlds of which he can never be a part.The fates that Paul’s parents will meet with Paul as terrified witness–his mother, deserted by her new husband and dying of typhus; his father, gunned down while trying to stop the robbery of a Jewish-owned shop–and his own fate as an orphaned Jewish child alone in Europe in 1938 are rendered with extraordinary subtlety and power, as they foreshadow, in the heart-wrenching story of three individuals, the cataclysm that is about to engulf all of European Jewry.

    Khushwant Singh tells the story of the land and its people from the earliest time to the present day. In broad, vivid sweeps he encapsulates the saga of the upheavals of a sub-continent over five millennia, and how their interplay over the centuries has molded the India of today. More, Khushwant Singh offers perceptive insights into everything Indian that may catch one's eye or arouse curiosity: its ethnic diversity, religions, customs, philosophy, art and culture, political currents, and the galaxy of men and women who have helped shape its intricately inlaid mosaic. He is also an enlightening guide to much else: India's extensive and varied architectural splendors, its art and classical literature. Khushwant Singh's own fascination with the subject is contagious, showing through on every page, and in every sidelight that he recounts. India: An Introduction holds strong appeal for just about anyone who has more than a passing interest in the country, Indians as well as those who are drawn to it from farther afield. And for a traveller, it is that rare companion: erudite, intelligent, lively

     Relying on recent disclosures about what instigated the greatest Mideast war, “The Jerusalem Inception” tells the story of courageous yet imperfect men and women engaged in a race against a national calamity. It starts in Neturay Karta, a fiercely anti-Zionist Orthodox sect in Jerusalem, and continues through the corridors of power and the annals of covert operations as the Jewish state is caught in a titan match between the U.S. and the Soviet Union. Faced with the most dangerous moment in Israel’s short history, the agents of the Mossad and its sister spy agencies will stop at nothing to prevent a second Holocaust. “The dramatic outcome of the 1967 war continues to dominate the Middle East. If you want to know what really happened (and at the same time fall in love with a striking cast of unforgettable characters) then ‘The Jerusalem Inception’ is for you. In the best tradition of ‘Eye of the Needle’ and ‘The Bourne Identity,’ this one is a hit!” —Stephen J. Wall, author of ‘The Morning After’ and ‘On the Fly.’

    along with a glossary of the important characters and terms used in the original book. Just in case that’s not enough for you, I’ve also included a list of possible study questions (book club discussion topics) and quotes from the book that I found interesting.Wrapping it all up is a discussion of the critical reviews for Killing Jesus as well as my overall opinion of the book. Plus much more!Whether you’re reading this for a book club, school report, or just want to get a quick preview before diving into the full length book, you can use this book review and study guide to get the most out of your experience reading Killing Jesus by Bill O'Reilly.I hope you enjoy this review summary book...~ Anthony Granger ~

    One is the now legendary tale of a defiant Jew's refusal to abandon God, even in the face of the greatest suffering the world has known, a testament of faith that has taken on an unpredictable and fascinating life of its own and has often been thought to be a direct testament from the Holocaust.The parallel story is that of Zvi Kolitz, the true author, whose connection to Yosl Rakover has been obscured over the fifty years since its original appearance. German journalist Paul Badde tells how a young man came to write this classic response to evil, and then was nearly written out of its history. With brief commentaries by French philosopher Emmanuel Levinas and Leon Wieseltier, author of Kaddish, this edition presents a religious classic and the very human story behind it.

    But in the aftermath, Avi is forced to flee to America. His darling wife Sara and the rest of his family soon follow – all except his brother Lieb, who stubbornly refuses to abandon his home. In ensuing years, while Avi lives the American immigrant’s dream, Lieb lives Russia’s nightmare: World War I, the Communist revolution, civil war, typhus, and famine. Still Lieb rejects Avi’s pleas to leave Russia. Then on the eve of World War II, Stalin’s pathological purges finally ensnare Lieb’s family. At last he realizes he must escape the Communist nightmare, but now all avenues are blocked, and Hitler’s armies are gathering. He turns to Avi, his brother in America, who frantically tries to rescue Lieb and his family with little more to work with than his own wit. Stretching from pre-Revolution Russia to post-Holocaust America, A Fine September Morning blends historical facts and fictional characters into a compelling epic family saga.

    The place was called Birobidzhan.The idea of an autonomous Jewish region was championed by Jewish Communists, Yiddishists, and intellectuals, who envisioned a haven of post-oppression Jewish culture. By the mid-1930s tens of thousands of Soviet Jews, as well as about a thousand Jews from abroad, had moved there. The state-building ended quickly, in the late 1930s, with arrests and purges instigated by Stalin. But after the Second World War, Birobidzhan received another influx of Jews--those who had been dispossessed by the war. In the late 1940s a second wave of arrests and imprisonments swept through the area, traumatizing Birobidzhan's Jews into silence and effectively shutting down most of the Jewish cultural enterprises that had been created. Where the Jews Aren't is a haunting account of the dream of Birobidzhan--and how it became the cracked and crooked mirror in which we can see the true story of the Jews in twentieth-century Russia.(Part of the Jewish Encounters series)

    By carefully introducing the letters and vowels of the Hebrew alphabet, the goal is to develop the reader's ability to decode written Hebrew words as well as to ground the learning of Hebrew in the broader sense of its use in Jewish life, ritual, study, and tradition. Each chapter introduces two or three Hebrew letters; through instructional drills and exercises, the reader progressively becomes familiar with key Hebrew vocabulary and its role in Jewish tradition, text, and prayer.

    He experiences himself, his thoughts, and feelings as something separate from the rest--a kind of optical delusion of his consciousness..." --Albert EinsteinWhen Rabbi Naomi Levy came across this poignant letter by Einstein it shook her to her core. His words perfectly captured what she has come to believe about the human condition: That we are intimately connected, and that we are blind to this truth. Levy wondered what had elicited such spiritual wisdom from a man of science? Thus began a three-year search into the mystery of Einstein's letter, and into the mystery of the human soul. What emerges is an inspiring, deeply affecting book for people of all faiths filled with universal truths that will help us reclaim our own souls and glimpse the unity that has been evading us. We all long to see more expansively, to live up to our gifts, to understand why we are here. Levy leads us on a breathtaking journey full of wisdom, empathy and humor, challenging us to wake up and heed the voice calling from within--a voice beckoning us to become who we were born be.