"Comprised of rabbinic debates in the aftermath of the destruction of the Second Temple (70 C.E.), the Talmud has provided the basis for Jewish ethical and practical norms for centuries. It is also an extremely long and forbiddingly difficult work that has accumulated countless commentaries just as complex. A recent translation with extensive notes has made the Talmud more accessible to English-language readers, but the textual difficulties remain. This volume looks at Avodah Zarah, one tractate of the Talmud concerned with idolatry, page by page. Idolatry was one of the cardinal sins for which an observant Jew was to accept death before transgressing. Daily Reflections on Idolatry offers a modern commentary with doses of humor and comparative examples in an effort to both explain and humanize the text and make it even more accessible to contemporary readers." --Cover page 4.

Japan and China did not begin to emerge as unified political entities until the nineteenth century. Yet scholars and politicians persistently refer to "Japan" and "China" in discussions of earlier periods, as if the modern nation-state had long been established in these regions. Joshua Fogel here brings together essays by eight renowned East Asian scholars to demonstrate why this oversight distorts our historical analysis and understanding of both countries. The nation-states of Japan and China developed much later and, indeed, far less uniformly than usually conveyed in popular myth and political culture. Moreover, the false depiction of an earlier national identity not only alters the factual record; it serves the contemporary engines of nationalist mythology and propaganda. This interdisciplinary volume asks deceptively simple questions: When did "Japan" and "China" become Japan and China? When and why do inhabitants begin to define their identity and interests nationally rather than locally? Identifying the role of mitigating factors from disease and travel abroad to the subtleties of political language and aesthetic sensibility, the answers provided in these diverse and insightful essays are appropriately complex. By setting aside Western notions of the nation-state, the contributors approach each region on its own terms, while the thematic organization of the book provides a unique lens through which to view the challenges common to understanding both Japan and China. This highly readable collection will be important to scholars both inside and beyond the field of East Asian studies.

Newsweek' s Jerusalem bureau chief Joshua Hammer arrived in the West Bank in October 2000 -- just after Ariel Sharon made his inflammatory visit to the Haram al-Sharif, otherwise known as the Temple Mount. Sharon's trip ignited the worst violence the Middle East had seen in decades. Overnight, the peace process gave way to an ever-worsening cycle of attack, revenge, and retaliation, destabilizing the entire region, killing thousands, and culminating in Israel's reoccupation of Palestinian towns in 2002. A Season in Bethlehem is the story of one West Bank town's two-year disintegration, as witnessed by a reporter who was there from the beginning. Woven together from Hammer's own firsthand reportage plus hundreds of interviews, it follows a dozen characters whose lives collided on the streets of this biblical city. They include a Bedouin tribesman who rose to become the commander of Bethlehem's most feared and brutal gang of gunmen; the beleaguered governor, an opponent of the al-Aqsa intifada, who believed he had a mandate to stop the violence, only to discover that Yasser Arafat was undermining him; a Christian businesman who watched helplessly as his community was squeezed between Muslim militants and the Israeli army; an eighteen-year-old female honors student turned suicide bomber; and an Israeli reservist, son of a leader of the Peace Now movement, who wrestled with his left-wing convictions as he rode to battle through the predawn streets. The narrative reaches a climax with a moment-by-moment recreation of the epochal drama that drew many of these characters together: the thirty-nine-day siege of the Church of the Nativity. A clear-eyed chronicle of deepening chaos and violence, in which Hammer lets the opposing sides speak for themselves, A Season in Bethlehem is both a timely and timeless look at how longstanding religious and political tensions finally boiled over in a place of profound resonance: the birthplace of Jesus.

Finally, here's how to do all those showy tricks and flourishes that card players are dying to know: how to send a deck cascading from one hand to the other. How to snap open two flawless fans. How to cut a deck with one hand. Choose four aces seemingly at random. Flick a card accurately across the room. The clearest, easiest-to-follow book of step-by-step directions, The Amazing Book of Cards will show anyone how to do 52 amazing things with a deck of cards. Written by Joshua Jay, the award-winning close-up magician and card-obsessed author of Magic: The Complete Course , The Amazing Book of Cards combines friendly, concise text and full-color photos with a full-length DVD that teaches the lessons and shows the subtleties of performance. Here are simple, killer tricks, like "Presto Prediction," which performs the impossible task of knowing someone's choice before she even makes it. Nine different shuffles, including the Faro Shuffle, the one most often used by pros, which helps you perfectly weave a split deck together in seconds. How to perform fans, flips, and flourishes, including Ribbon Spread & Flip and Catch-a-Deck. Tricks you can't loseÑgo ahead, take the bet to throw a card in a hat. How to memorize a deck in less than ten seconds, how to put a deck of cards into a glass bottle, build a card castle, and more. Filling out this labor of love is a whole world of card trivia, including the origins of Kings: King of Spades is modeled after King David, the King of Diamonds is Julius Caesar, Hearts is Charlemagne, and Clubs, Alexander the Great.

"In the Six Day War of 1967, polls showed that Americans favored Israel over the Arabs by overwhelming margins while in Europe support for Israel ran even higher. In the UN Security Council, a British resolution essentially gave Israel the terms of peace it sought; and when the Arabs and their Soviet backers tried to counteract this in the General Assembly they fell short of the necessary votes. Fast forward forty years and Israel had become perhaps the most reviled country in the world. True, Americans remained constant in their sympathy for the Jewish state, but America stood virtually alone while almost all the rest of the world treated Israel as a pariah. What had caused this remarkable turnabout? Joshua Muravchik traces the process by which material pressures and intellectual seductions reshaped world opinion. First, terrorist intimidation, oil blackmail, and the sheer weight of Arab and Muslim numbers gave the world powerful inducements to back the Arab cause. Then, a prevalent new paradigm of Leftist orthodoxy, in which class struggle was supplanted by the noble struggles of people of color, created a lexicon of rationales to take sides against Israel. Thus could nations behave cravenly while striking a high-minded pose in aligning themselves on the Middle East conflict."--

Today's children are bombarded with images of violence in cartoons, news reports, television shows, computer games, movies, and other media. In growing numbers, they are also exposed to real-life violence in their own homes and communities--as witnesses, victims, and, increasingly, perpetrators. Emphasizing the need for early intervention and prevention, this timely book details the incidence and scope of the violence epidemic and examines the developmental impact of violence on children. Contributors describe several exemplary prevention and intervention programs currently in place around the country and propose a range of educational and policy initiatives.

Recent years have seen significant advances in knowledge about the effects of exposure to psychological trauma on young children from birth to age 5. This volume brings together leading experts to address practical considerations in working with traumatized young children and their caregivers. State-of-the-art assessment and treatment approaches are presented, together with innovative service delivery models. With a focus on building cross-disciplinary collaboration to better serve this vulnerable population, this is an indispensable resource for all mental health and human service professionals working with children at risk. In a new preface to the paperback edition, editor Joy D. Osofsky reflects on critical lessons learned in the aftermath of Hurricane Katrina.

In recent decades, prominent American Jewish women like Bella Abzug and Betty Friedan have made headlines and history, challenging the constraints facing women in American public life. Few realize that these women embody a hundred-year legacy of remarkable activism. From suffrage to birth control, from trade unionism to higher education, from civil rights to feminism to every aspect of popular culture, Jewish women have been in the vanguard, leading key social movements.

Maynard writes about the struggles and joys of staying married and being a parent in a world more complicated than one most people imagine, a world in which everyday life is an adventure. A confirmation of the power of that mysterious and indestructible force known as maternal love.--People.

"A practical workbook on the creative process of acting that blends two major approaches to actor training - the improvisational method, and the "Stanislavski System""--

Teachings of Rabbi Judah Loew ben Bezalel (the Maharal of Prague) taken from his works as they apply to various passages in the zemirot and birkat ha-mazon.

This work has been selected by scholars as being culturally important and is part of the knowledge base of civilization as we know it. This work is in the public domain in the United States of America, and possibly other nations. Within the United States, you may freely copy and distribute this work, as no entity (individual or corporate) has a copyright on the body of the work. Scholars believe, and we concur, that this work is important enough to be preserved, reproduced, and made generally available to the public. To ensure a quality reading experience, this work has been proofread and republished using a format that seamlessly blends the original graphical elements with text in an easy-to-read typeface. We appreciate your support of the preservation process, and thank you for being an important part of keeping this knowledge alive and relevant.

"After defeating his arch nemesis Nero, Green Lantern gains the power of his enemy as well that of every Green Lantern who has ever worn a power ring. Wielding such ultimate power, Green Lantern christens himself Ion and begins to use his godlike abilities in morally questionable ways. Now as Superman, Wonder Woman, and the Flash begin to distrust their teammate, the former Green Lantern must come to terms with his new capabilities or risk losing everything he has." -- Goodreads.com.

This is a book about psychiatry and alternatives to it, written from a patient's point of view. For too long, mental patients have been faceless, voiceless people. We have been thought of, at worst, as subhuman monsters, or, at best, as pathetic cripples, who might be able to hold down menial jobs and eke out meagre existences, given constant professional support. Not only have others thought of us in this stereotyped way, we have believed it of ourselves. It is only in this decade, with the emergence and growth of the mental patients' liberation movement, that we ex-patients have begun to shake off this distorted image and to see ourselves for what we are- a diverse group of people, with strengths and weaknesses, abilities and needs, and ideas of our own. Our ideas about our "care" and "treatment" at the hands of psychiatry, about the nature of "mental illness," and about new and better ways to deal with (and truly to help) people undergoing emotional crises differ drastically from those of mental health professionals.

"Summer in London-the sun is finally shining, the flowers are in bloom, and life is humming merrily along for book editor Samantha Clair, off to lunch with her old friend, art-dealer Aidan Merriam. Humming merrily until she learns that his partner has just been found dead in their gallery, slumped over his desk with a gun in his hand. Could anything be worse? Oh yes, the police investigation is being led by Inspector Jake Field, who just happens to be Sam's new boyfriend. And Aidan, who just happens to be Sam's ex-boyfriend, wants Sam's help. Finding herself drawn into another investigation, Sam does the only sensible thing and calls her mother. Before long, Sam finds her loyalties stretched to the limit as she herself is threatened. Armed with nothing more than her trusty weapons of satire, cynicism and a stock of irrelevant information culled from novels, Sam races to find a killer who is determined to find her first in the newest fast-paced, uproarious novel in the critically acclaimed series from New York Times bestselling author Judith Flanders"--

"For years, Matthew Greene and Daniel Rosen have enjoyed a quiet domestic life together in Northampton, Massachusetts. Opposites in many ways, they have grown together and made their relationship work. But when they learn that Daniel's twin brother and sister-in-law have been killed in a bombing in Jerusalem, their lives are suddenly, utterly transformed. In dealing with their families and the need to make a decision about who will raise the deceased couple's two children, both Matthew and Daniel are confronted with challenges that strike at the very heart of their relationship. What is Matthew's place in an extended family that does not completely accept him or the commitment he and Daniel have made? How do Daniel's questions about his identity as a Jewish man affect his life as a gay American? Tensions only intensify when they learn that the deceased parents wanted Matthew and Daniel to adopt the children--six-year-old Gal, and baby Noam. The impact this instant new family has on Matthew, Daniel, and their relationship is subtle and heartbreaking, yet not without glimmers of hope. They must learn to reinvent and redefine their bond in profound, sometimes painful ways. What kind of parents can these two men really be? How does a family become strong enough to stay together and endure? And are there limits to honesty or commitment--or love?"--

It's the beginning of an extraordinary night of wild antics, high spirits and unthinkable surprises from all the zoo animals, and still nobody knew - except, of course, YOU!Enthralling, rhyming text and exquisite colored-pencil illustrations combine to make this counting book a wonderful, zoological adventure.

Lovers is pure Krantz, an intoxicating dance of love lost, stolen, and found among women and men who lure each other with potent combinations of money, talent, ambition, and passion. Chief among them is irresistible Gigi Orsini, the high-spirited, merry, adventurous creature who grew up into enchanting womanhood in Scruples Two . Now Gigi is working as a copywriter in a new Los Angeles advertising agency, with her creative "teammate," David Melville, a brilliant young art director who joins her in seeking new accounts. The agency is headed by dashing Archie Rourke, humorous Byron Bernheim and the severely difficult beauty, Victoria Frost, daughter of the famed Millicent Frost Caldwell who, with her husband Angus Caldwell, owns one of New York's largest advertising agencies. Ben Winthrop, a proper Bostonian and an enormously successful mall builder, attempts to capture Gigi's quicksilver affections, although his fierce contenders for the same prize include both David Melville and the dominating film director, Zach Nevsky. Meanwhile, Billy Winthrop Ikehorn Orsini Elliott, the unforgettably impulsive heroine of Scruples , and her new husband, the great charmer, Spider Elliott, are busy with their own fascinating lives, as are Gigi's father, canny film producer Vito Orsini, and her best friend, the ravishing Sasha Nevsky, none of whom can be forgotten from Scruples and Scruples Two . Lovers completes all the stories set in motion in the first two novels, yet it stands entirely on its own as a slice of life in the exciting years of 1983 and 1984.