One People, Two Worlds: A Reform Rabbi and an Orthodox Rabbi Explore the Issues That Divide Them


Ammiel Hirsch - 2002
    What resulted is this book: an honest, intelligent, no-holds-barred discussion of virtually every “hot button” issue on which Reform and Orthodox Jews differ, among them the existence of a Supreme Being, the origins and authenticity of the Bible and the Oral Law, the role of women, assimilation, the value of secular culture, and Israel.Sometimes they agree; more often than not they disagree—and quite sharply, too. But the important thing is that, as they keep talking to each other, they discover that they actually like each other, and, above all, they respect each other. Their journey from mutual suspicion to mutual regard is an extraordinary one; from it, both Jews and non-Jews of all backgrounds can learn a great deal about the practice of Judaism today and about the continuity of the Jewish people into the future.From the Hardcover edition.

God's Appointed Times: A Practical Guide for Understanding and Celebrating the Biblical Holidays


Barney Kasdan - 1993
    He teaches about the major and minor holy days, ever mindful that he is writing to both Jews and Christians. Beginning with the Sabbath, the first holy day revealed in Scripture, he writes about Passover, Firstfruits, Pentecost, Trumpets, the Day of Atonement, the Feast of Tabernacles, Hanukkah, and Purim (the special day given in the time of Queen Esther). Each chapter offers historical background, traditional Jewish observance, relevance to the New Testament, prophetic significance, and a practical guide for believers, including recipes, songs, and crafts. There are other books on the same subject but this one goes beyond them all. It is written by a Messianic Jew, a Jew who trusts Yeshua (Jesus). Who better to explain God's Appointed Times? 145 pages.

Uprising: Who the Hell Said You Can't Ditch and Switch -- The Awakening of Diamond and Silk


Lynnette Diamond Hardaway - 2020
    Diamond and Silk’s story is one of overcoming poverty and shame and choosing victory over victimhood. Theirs is a story that defies the left’s narrative and that the mainstream media refuses to acknowledge, accept, and respect.

The Weight of Ink


Rachel Kadish - 2017
    S. Byatt’s Possession and Geraldine Brooks’s People of the Book.Set in London of the 1660s and of the early twenty-first century, The Weight of Ink is the interwoven tale of two women of remarkable intellect: Ester Velasquez, an emigrant from Amsterdam who is permitted to scribe for a blind rabbi, just before the plague hits the city; and Helen Watt, an ailing historian with a love of Jewish history.   As the novel opens, Helen has been summoned by a former student to view a cache of seventeenth-century Jewish documents newly discovered in his home during a renovation. Enlisting the help of Aaron Levy, an American graduate student as impatient as he is charming, and in a race with another fast-moving team of historians, Helen embarks on one last project: to determine the identity of the documents’ scribe, the elusive “Aleph.”   Electrifying and ambitious, sweeping in scope and intimate in tone, The Weight of Ink is a sophisticated work of historical fiction about women separated by centuries, and the choices and sacrifices they must make in order reconcile the life of the heart and mind.

Kabbalah Revealed: The Ordinary Person's Guide to a More Peaceful Life


Michael Laitman - 2007
    It contains chapters which focus on different aspects of the ancient wisdom of Kabbalah. It helps readers learn how they can use their spirits to build a personally peaceful life in harmony with all of Creation.

The Woman Who Laughed at God: The Untold History of the Jewish People


Jonathan Kirsch - 2001
    Kirsch reveals that Judaism has never been a religion of strict and narrow orthodoxy. For every accepted tradition in Jewish faith there are countertraditions rooted in biblical antiquity: the Maccabee freedom fighters who closed the Bible and picked up swords, dervish-like ecstatics who claimed to enjoy direct communication with God even after they had been excommunicated by a distrustful rabbinate, and courageous men and women who were the forgotten heroes of the Holocaust. With drama and narrative verve, Kirsch explores these and many other Judaisms that make up the rich tapestry of Jewish identity.

Rambam's Ladder: A Meditation on Generosity and Why It Is Necessary to Give


Julie Salamon - 2003
     Rambam's Ladder, written by Julie Salamon, the bestselling author and New York Times culture writer, is a book that will inspire every reader to get a toehold on the ladder and start climbing. In eight chapters, one for each rung, the book helps us navigate the world of giving. How much to give? How do we know if our gifts are being used wisely? Is it bettter to give anonymously? Along the way, Rambam's Ladder will help all of us make our lives, and the lives of those around us, better.

Farewell to Salonica: City at the Crossroads


Leon Sciaky - 2003
    This Paul Dry Books rediscovered classic includes many photos courtesy of Leon Sciaky's son Peter, who has also written a short biographical sketch of his father's life in America."Farewell to Salonica is a fresh and charming book that throws a kindly light on a sector of human life unknown to most Americans."—New York Times"A gallery of beautiful and quaint sketches, revealing fascinating aspects of civilization in a strange city where East met West and the ancient past met the future…It creates an atmosphere of expectation and wonder and enjoyment. Most of all, an atmosphere of living."—Christian Science Monitor"An altogether charming book, so simply and truthfully written…The Salonica one reads about is not only a fascinating and complex city in which many national and cultural strains run side by side, but it is a critical city of Aegean politics…The breakdown of the Turkish Empire and its consequences for Balkan affairs are better understood when one has read this book. But it is not the political value of the book that should be emphasized so much as its quiet charm, its unpretentious and easy portrayal of a cultural pattern through an account of an engaging family…A warm and softly luminous book."—The Nation"This is a story of one man's intensely happy boyhood, set against the politically seething years at the turn of the century in the ever-coveted prize city of the Balkans, Salonica…written in a charming and effortless manner."—Philadelphia Inquirer"For the gift of a happy youth, Mr. Sciaky has repaid his city handsomely…it recalls Rebecca West's Black Lamb and Grey Falcon…It is an intensely personal story, yet so completely was [the young Sciaky] of his time and place that it is also the story of Salonica in the final phase of its existence; for the city that Sciaky knew, largely dominated by its 70,000 Spanish Jews, has gone…The author has made Salonica a living town, peopled by men and women of flesh and blood, people with all the human faults and weaknesses, but also with the lovable qualities that may be found in humanity everywhere by the man with skill to pick them out"—New York Herald Tribune"A charming portrait of an era."—Honolulu Advertiser"This picture of a Jewish childhood among rich merchants in Salonica has a glow, the radiant sunshine of a protected childhood."—Chicago SunLeon Sciaky was born in 1894, when the Turkish flag still waved over Salonica. His family left their beloved but turbulent homeland in 1915, settling in New York City. Sciaky lived in America—mainly upstate New York—with his wife, Frances, and son until his death in 1958. He taught at a number of progressive schools and camps and, in his last years, owned and operated a school and camp with Frances.

Old Jews Telling Jokes: 5,000 Years of Funny Bits and Not-So-Kosher Laughs


Sam Hoffman - 2010
    For five thousand years, God’s chosen people have cornered the market on knee-slappers, zingers, and knock-knock jokes. Now Old Jews Telling Jokes mines mothers, fathers, bubbies, and zaydes for comic gelt. What we get are jokes that are funnier than a pie in the punim: Abie and Becky jokes; hilarious rabbi, doctor, and mohel tales; and those bits just for Mom (Q: What’s the difference between a Jewish mother and a Rottweiler? A: Eventually a Rottweiler will let go!). Some are just naughty and some are downright bawdy—but either way you’ll laugh till you plotz. With Borscht Belt gags from Brooklyn to Bel Air to Boca, Old Jews Telling Jokes is like chicken soup for your funny bone. I mean, would it kill you to laugh a little?

A Day of Small Beginnings


Lisa Pearl Rosenbaum - 2006
    On the ground above her crouches Itzik Leiber, a reclusive, unbelieving fourteen-year-old whose fatal mistake has spurred the town's angry residents to violence. The childless Friedl rises to guide him to safety -- only to find she cannot go back to her grave. Now Friedl is trapped in that thin world between life and death, her brash decision binding her forever to Itzik and his family: she is fated to be forever restless, and he, forever haunted by the ghosts of his past. Years later, after Itzik himself has gone to his grave, his son, Nathan, knows nothing of his bitter father's childhood. When he begrudgingly goes to Poland on business, Nathan decides on a whim to visit his ancestral town. There, in Zokof, he meets the mysterious Rafael, the town's last remaining Jew, who promises to pass on all the things Itzik had failed to teach his son - about Zokof, about his faith, and about himself.

Earth's Last Empire: The Final Game of Thrones


John Hagee - 2020
    Pastor Hagee reveals who they are, where they come from, and what they signify. Learn why Hagee believes that we are in the beginning stages of World War III, and how this will eventually take us to the Battle of Armageddon. Pastor Hagee vividly describes the key players that signify the King is coming!

Broken Leaves of Autumn: A Novel


Eli Hai - 2021
    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.

Quotes To Enrich Life & Spirit - From Buddha through Gandhi to Zen


Anthony Morganti - 2011
    The book has two main sections with the first having the quotes divided by their topic such as Love, Happiness, Anger, etc. The second part of the book has specific quotes from Buddha, Gandhi, Mother Teresa, the Dalai Lama, Lao Tzu and Zen Quotations.

The Story of the Jews: Finding the Words, 1000 BCE – 1492 CE


Simon Schama - 2013
    It spans the millennia and the continents - from India to Andalusia and from the bazaars of Cairo to the streets of Oxford. It takes you to unimagined places: to a Jewish kingdom in the mountains of southern Arabia; a Syrian synagogue glowing with radiant wall paintings; the palm groves of the Jewish dead in the Roman catacombs. And its voices ring loud and clear, from the severities and ecstasies of the Bible writers to the love poems of wine bibbers in a garden in Muslim Spain.And a great story unfolds. Not - as often imagined - of a culture apart, but of a Jewish world immersed in and imprinted by the peoples among whom they have dwelled, from the Egyptians to the Greeks, from the Arabs to the Christians. Which makes the story of the Jews everyone's story, too.

Deborah, Golda, and Me: Being Female and Jewish in America


Letty Cottin Pogrebin - 1991
    A leading feminist activist, author, and nationally known lecturer writes of her struggle to integrate a feminist head with a Jewish heart.