In Life is a Funny Business Alan Shatter revisits his early life experiences and explores how he was shaped and influenced by them. For the first time he describes the tragedy and comedy in his family history and background, depicted through the lens of an Irish Jewish boy growing up in 1950s and 60s Dublin, and his insights as a member of Ireland's small Jewish community. His story travels through the Ireland of the 1950s, 60s and 70s, and his early years of social and political activism and experiences as a lawyer. It ends shortly after Christmas 1981, just over six months following his first election to Dáil Éireann at the age of thirty. It also touches on some more recent events of social, political and historical significance linked to his past. His surprising and perceptive narrative uniquely depicts an Ireland of decades partially forgotten, profound changes that have taken place, incidents and events he has not previously publicly discussed and how he coped with childhood adversity. Alan's deeply moving and thoughtful story reveals the real person behind the public figure and what shaped his values, beliefs, character and self-deprecating sense of humour. It is a story of love, laughter, tears and resilience.

In this close analysis of 'The Fathers According to Rabbi Nathan', a sixth-century commentary on the Mishnah-tractyate 'The Fathers' (Avot), Jacob Neusner considers the way in which the story, as a distinctive type of narrative, entered the canonical writings of Judaism. The final installment in Neusner's cycle of analyses of the major texts of the Judaic canon, 'Judaism and Story' shows that stories about sages exist in far greater proportion in 'The Fathers According to Rabbi Nathan' than in any of the other principal writings in the canon of Judaism of late antiquity. Neusner's detailed comparison of 'The Fathers' and 'The Fathers According to Rabbi Nathan' demonstrates the transmission and elaboration of these stories and shows how these processes incorporated the newer view of the sage as a supernatural figure and of the eschatological character of Judaic teleology. These distinctions, as Neusner describes them, mark a shift in Jewish orientation to world history. 'Judaism and Story' documents a chapter of rabbinic tradition that explored the possibility of historical orientation by means of stories. As Neusner demonstrates, this experiment with narrative went beyond argumentation focused on the explication of the Torah. The sage story moved in the direction of biography, but without allowing biography to emerge. This development, in Neusner's account, parallels the movement from epistle to Gospel in early Christianity and thus has broad implications for the history of religions.

"'The economic history of European jews' attempts to make sense of the economic foundations of Jewish life in the different parts of late antique and early medieval Europe. In the first part Michael Toch describes the demographic arc, decline, subsequent rise, and spatial distribution of Jewish populations. This data is then broadened to include the range of economic activities. The second part analyses the actual share of Jews in different branches of the economy. This includes the idea of their pioneer role and the notion of an intercontinental network of Jewish commerce, the phenomenon of Jews in agriculture and entrepreneurship, gender roles and the household mode of production, and the difficult subject of the significance of minority status for economic activity, among others"--provided by publisher.

This is a highly original and intriguing book which should attract a good deal of interest. It is based on exhaustive, quite remarkable archival research and includes a sophisticated prosopographical analysis of Jewish enrollment over several decades. Most intriguing, the book unearths hitherto unknown information about the growing influence on University policy of the famously anti-Semitic Henry Ford and figures in Ford's orbit. Despite the contentious nature of their research topic, the authors maintain a consistently detached, non-judgmental, yet intellectually incisive perspective. The result is an entirely credible, well written, often quite exciting chronicle of a minority, most of whose families had been in America for only one or two generations, striving to define themselves, and the response of the Gentile community to those aspirations. Given the centrality of immigration politics in the US and Europe at the present moment, this story has wide contemporary relevance. Victor Lieberman, Raoul Wallenberg Distinguished University Professor of History, University of Michigan This is a deeply researched and strikingly original study of Jewish students at an important place in an important time. Its focus on both the lives of the students and their institutional situation yields deep insight and new, subtle understandings of the complicated interactions of Jewish identity and anti-semitism in a state which, in those years, was the virtual capital of the latter and at a university which struggled with both. Required reading for anyone interested in this topic. Terrence J. McDonald, Arthur F. Thurnau Professor, University of Michigan, and Director, Bentley Historical Library

A history of the Hillel chapter at the University of Michigan, focusing on the role it played as a locus of community for Jewish students.

The good news (euangelion) of the crucified and risen Messiah was proclaimed first to Jews in Jerusalem, and then to Jews throughout the land of Israel. In Jerusalem Crucified, Jerusalem Risen, Mark Kinzer argues that this initial audience and geographical setting of the euangelion is integral to the eschatological content of the message itself. While the good news is universal in concern and cosmic in scope, it never loses its particular connection to the Jewish people, the city of Jerusalem, and the land of Israel. The crucified Messiah participates in the future exilic suffering of his people, and by his resurrection offers a pledge of Jerusalem's coming redemption. Basing his argument on a reading of the Acts of the Apostles and the Gospel of Luke, Kinzer proposes that the biblical message requires its interpreters to reflect theologically on the events of post-biblical history. In this context he considers the early emergence of Rabbinic Judaism and the much later phenomenon of Zionism, offering a theological perspective on these historical developments that is biblically-rooted, attentive to both Jewish and Christian tradition, and minimalist in the theological constraints it imposes on the just resolution of political conflict in the Middle East.

First published in 1950, Palestine Under the Mandate is an account of the role of Britain in Palestine during the British mandate period from 1920 to 1948. The author served as the chief immigration officer in British Mandate of Palestine from 1921 to 1934 and considers this book an attempt to dissipate the fog of propaganda in which the whole subject is shrouded. He delineates the difference between the terms Jew, Jewish and Zionist before situating the central question of his What would have been the position of the Jewish National Home today if its germ had not been carefully nursed and protected for a quarter of the century after the acceptance of the Mandate? Since the author was a government employee, it is no surprise that his loyalty lies with the British government; however, this book is still an important record of the arguments employed to both build and destroy Palestine and will be worth reading for students of history, politics, international relations, global studies, and geography.

First published in 1950, Palestine Under the Mandate is an account of the role of Britain in Palestine during the British mandate period from 1920 to 1948. The author served as the chief immigration officer in British Mandate of Palestine from 1921 to 1934 and considers this book an attempt to dissipate the fog of propaganda in which the whole subject is shrouded. He delineates the difference between the terms Jew, Jewish and Zionist before situating the central question of his argument: What would have been the position of the Jewish National Home today if its germ had not been carefully nursed and protected for a quarter of the century after the acceptance of the Mandate? Since the author was a government employee, it is no surprise that his loyalty lies with the British government; however, this book is still an important record of the arguments employed to both build and destroy Palestine and will be worth reading for students of history, politics, international relations, global studies, and geography.

The only country in the world with a line in its national anthem as desperate as “this people has already suffered for its past and its future,” Hungary is a nation defined by poverty, despair, and conflict. Its history, of course, took an even darker and more tragic turn during the Holocaust. But the story of the Jews in Hungary is also one of survival, heroism, and even humor—and that is the one acclaimed author Adam Biro sets out to recover in One Must Also Be Hungarian , an inspiring and altogether poignant look back at the lives of his family members over the past two hundred years. A Hungarian refugee and celebrated novelist working in Paris, Biro recognizes the enormous sacrifices that his ancestors made to pave the way for his successes and the envious position he occupies as a writer in postwar Europe. Inspired, therefore, to share the story of his family members with his grandson, Biro draws some moving pictures of them here: witty and whimsical vignettes that convey not only their courageous sides, but also their inner fears, angers, jealousies, and weaknesses—traits that lend an indelible humanity to their portraiture. Spanning the turn of the nineteenth century, two destructive world wars, the dramatic rise of communism, and its equally astonishing fall, the stories here convey a particularly Jewish sense of humor and irony throughout—one that made possible their survival amid such enormous adversity possible. Already published to much acclaim in France, One Must Also Be Hungarian is a wry and compulsively readable book that rescues from oblivion the stories of a long-suffering but likewise remarkable and deservedly proud people.

"A wave of plague ravaged the cities of northern Italy in 1630-31, ravaging Christian and Jewish communities alike. In Writing Plague Susan L. Einbinder explores the Hebrew texts that lay witness to the event. These Jewish sources on the Great Italian Plague have never been treated together as a group, Einbinder observes, but they can contribute to a bigger picture of this major outbreak and how it affected people, institutions, and beliefs; how individuals and institutions responded; and how they did or did not try to remember and memorialize it"-- Provided by publisher.

Long recognized as a brilliant cross-cultural study, Yochanan Muffs work analyzes the legal formulary of the Aramaic papyri from Elephantine, at the first cataract of the Nile, where a Persian garrison comprised of Jewish soldiers and their families lived throughout most of the 5th century B.C.E. These documents are of exceptional importance for the study of ancient Near Eastern law, and Muffs has investigated their formative background through extensive references to cuneiform law, by a method he calls the Assyriological approach . Virtually every aspect of law-sale of land, marriage and family law, loans and credit, the taking of oaths, and the granting of bequests is studied in great depth and with unusual clarity. Muffs work has enjoyed renewed interest in the light of more recent discoveries of Aramaic legal documents from later periods, as in the Judean Desert.

Aphrahat (fl. ca. 300-350) was a member of a small community of Christians within a large and flourishing Jewish region. His work Demonstrations provide the earliest and one of the best accounts of the Judaism being practiced there with little rabbinical influence. Neusner translates those parts of the work that provide such information.

First published in 1994. This volume takes as its theme Jewish education and learning throughout the ages. The essays explore the nature and function of the 'Jewish Academies' in the broadest sense, the leading personalities associated with them and their social, cultural and moral effect on the Jewish communities of their day.

How should religions disagree with one another today? How might they properly engage in dialogue concerning theory central beliefs when these radically contradict concerning the faith of others? In this book for the first time in Jewish-Christian discussions, a Jewish theologian investigates contemporary Christian doctrines of the Christ and responds to them out of his faith in God's continuing covenant with the people of Israel. Under the guidance of Christian colleagues, he responds to a wide range of Christological theory - Catholic and Protestant, liberal, neo-orthodox, evangelical and post-liberal - and probes the meaning of the Christ not only for the salvation of individual Christians but for their ethics and relations to society as well. In this unique perspective, Judaism Christianity both emerge in a new light. By pointing out the often subtle agreement of the faiths exile not flinching from a direct confrontation with matters in dispute, the unique characteristics of each religion are laid bare. And in carrying out this new form of definition by negation, the logic of inter-religious disagreement is worked out.

Book by Neusner, Jacob

Book by Porter, Jack Nusan