New York Times bestselling author It’s 1975, and Shaltiel Feigenberg – professional storyteller, writer and beloved husband – has been abducted from his home in Brooklyn, blindfolded and tied to a chair in a dark basement. His captors, an Arab and an Italian, don’t explain why he was chosen, just that his life will be bartered for the freedom of three Palestinian prisoners. As his days of waiting commence, Shaltiel resorts to what he does best, telling stories – to himself and to the men who hold his fate in their hands. A Communist brother, a childhood spent hiding from the Nazis in a cellar, the kindness of liberating Russian soldiers, the unrest of the 1960s – these are the stories that unfold in Shaltiel’s captivity, as the outside world breathlessly follows his disappearance and the police move toward a final confrontation with his captors. Wiesel’s] terse first-person, present-tense narrative will hold readers . . . With the intense contemporary action, the prisoner’s memories also bring close the sweep of Jewish history, including persecution and survival. - Booklist

Why aren't Jewish women circumcised? This improbable question, first advanced by anti-Jewish Christian polemicists, is the point of departure for this wide-ranging exploration of gender and Jewishness in Jewish thought. With a lively command of a wide range of Jewish sources—from the Bible and the Talmud to the legal and philosophical writings of the Middle Ages to Enlightenment thinkers and modern scholars—Shaye J. D. Cohen considers the varied responses to this provocative question and in the process provides the fullest cultural history of Jewish circumcision available.

Chaim Aron Kaplan, born in 1880 in Belarus, wrote his "Megillat yissurin" ("Scroll of Suffering") in the Warsaw ghetto. A Zionist who emphasized the role of history in Jewish culture, he wrote his diary in Hebrew for future historians, but lost his belief in God and feared that his diary may serve no purpose if the entire Jewish nation is annihilated. He was killed in Treblinka in 1942.

Author of The Jewish Book of Knowledge and The Pictorial History of the Jewish People. "A must for everyone, Christians and Jews alike." --New York Times. This classic collection of more than 800 traditions, legends, parables, and songs, with a glossary of Yiddish and Hebrew words, has remained a favorite gift-giving item and a family treasure for decades. 12 pieces of sheet music.

"A moving and unsettling exploration of a young man's formative years in a country still struggling with its past As a Jew in postwar Germany, Yascha Mounk felt like a foreigner in his own country. When he mentioned that he is Jewish, some made anti-Semitic jokes or talked about the superiority of the Aryan race. Others, sincerely hoping to atone for the country's past, fawned over him with a forced friendliness he found just as alienating. Vivid and fascinating, Stranger in My Own Country traces the contours of Jewish life in a country still struggling with the legacy of the Third Reich and portrays those who, inevitably, continue to live in its shadow. Marshaling an extraordinary range of material into a lively narrative, Mounk surveys his countrymen's responses to "the Jewish question." Examining history, the story of his family, and his own childhood, he shows that anti-Semitism and far-right extremism have long coexisted with self-conscious philo-Semitism. But of late a new kind of resentment against Jews has come out in the open. Unnoticed by much of the outside world, the desire for a "finish line" that would spell a definitive end to the country's obsession with the past is feeding an emphasis on German victimhood. Mounk shows how, from the government's pursuit of a less "apologetic" foreign policy to the way the country's idea of the "Volk" makes life difficult for its immigrant communities, a troubled nationalism is shaping Germany's future"--

Could our sense of who we are really turn on a sliver of DNA? In our multiethnic world, questions of individual identity are becoming increasingly unclear. Now in ABRAHAM'S CHILDREN bestselling author Jon Entine vividly brings to life the profound human implications of the Age of Genetics while illuminating one of today's most controversial topics: the connection between genetics and who we are, and specifically the question "Who is a Jew?" Entine weaves a fascinating narrative, using breakthroughs in genetic genealogy to reconstruct the Jewish biblical tradition of the chosen people and the hereditary Israelite priestly caste of Cohanim. Synagogues in the mountains of India and China and Catholic churches with a Jewish identity in New Mexico and Colorado provide different patterns of connection within the tangled history of the Jewish diaspora. Legendary accounts of the Hebrew lineage of Ethiopian tribesmen, the building of Africa's Great Zimbabwe fortress, and even the so-called Lost Tribes are reexamined in light of advanced DNA technology. Entine also reveals the shared ancestry of Israelites and Christians. As people from across the world discover their Israelite roots, their riveting stories unveil exciting new approaches to defining one's identity. Not least, Entine addresses possible connections between DNA and Jewish intelligence and the controversial notion that Jews are a "race apart." ABRAHAM'S CHILDREN is a compelling reinterpretation of biblical history and a challenging and exciting illustration of the promise and power of genetic research.

Menachem Begin, Prime Minister of Israel from 1977 to 1983, principal figure of the Israeli right, co-author of the historic peace between Israel and Egypt, and arguably one of the principal figures in the history of the Jewish People in the 20th century, is carefully portrayed in this extraordinary biography by Harry Hurwitz, a trusted friend and compatriot. Begin the man, the elected leader of Israel, and by force of personality, character and ideas, one of the Israeli Prime Ministers who became a leader of the Jewish People, is what Hurwitz excels at revealing. Here is the story of Begin's life told with the insights of a journalist who was also a close friend of more than forty years. The struggle of Begin's life, his early attachment to the Zionist prophet Vladimir Ze'ev Jabotinsky, his life in Poland, his suffering during the Holocaust, and his leadership of the Irgun Zvai Leumi's revolt against British rule in Eretz Yisrael, is the well-told prelude to his thirty years as a leader of the opposition to Israel's Labor government. Especially rich in detailing the years of Begin's Premiership, the reader will be enthralled by the careful review of these six momentous years, and enriched by the opportunity to read many of Begin's most important speeches and statements. Hurwitz believes that Begin is best understood when he speaks for himself, and he skillfully weaves together a well paced biography with the public utterances of his subject. This biographical portrait succeeds in giving the reader a vivid sense of what motivated Menachem Begin to seek peace with Egypt, to demand much of the 'peace process' and to deal firmly with the enemies of Israel and the Jewish People. Though not a study of ideas, every reader will come away with an understanding of Begin's view of the world, the strategic needs of the State of Israel, the importance of democratic values in Israeli life, and his commitment to the security and continuity of the Jewish People. In the end the author's admiration for his subject is a case well made.

Josephus, author of the "Jewish War" and the "Jewish Antiquities", belongs equally to Jewish and to Greco-Roman history. A well-to-do priest and Pharisee at Jerusalem, he was a contemporary and chronicler of the great changes which took place in the Roman Empire in the first century AD and a controversial general in the great Jewish revolt of 66-73 against Rome. Tessa Rajak, an ancient historian versed in both Greek and Hebrew, assesses the varied source material to produce a sociological account of the Jewish revolt which casts fresh light on Josephus' attitudes, placing his achievement in the context of both Jewish values and the Greek historical tradition. This second edition includes a substantial new introduction and bibliography.--Amazon.com.

Comedy is full of famously funny Jews, from Groucho Marx to Larry David to Sarah Silverman. This smart and funny book includes tales from many of these much-loved comics, and will appeal to their broad audience, while revealing the history, context, and wider culture of Jewish joking.The Jewish joke is as old as Abraham, and like the Jews themselves it has wandered over the world, learned countless new languages, worked with a range of different materials, been performed in front of some pretty hostile crowds, and yet still retained its own distinctive identity. So what is it that animates the Jewish joke? Why are Jews so often thought of as "funny"? And how old can a joke get?With jokes from Lena Dunham to Woody Allen, as well as Freud and Marx (Groucho, mostly), Baum balances serious research with light-hearted humor and provides fascinating insight into this wellknown and much loved cultural phenomenon.

Excerpt from The Jewish Encyclopedia, Vol. 4: A Descriptive Record of the History, Religion, Literature, and Customs of the Jewish People From the Earliest Times; Chazars-Dreyfus Case Cyrus adler, Pan. (departments of post-biblical Antiquities; the Jews of America.) President of the American Jewish Historical Society Librarian, Smithsonian Institution, Washington, D. C. About the Publisher Forgotten Books publishes hundreds of thousands of rare and classic books. Find more at www.forgottenbooks.com This book is a reproduction of an important historical work. Forgotten Books uses state-of-the-art technology to digitally reconstruct the work, preserving the original format whilst repairing imperfections present in the aged copy. In rare cases, an imperfection in the original, such as a blemish or missing page, may be replicated in our edition. We do, however, repair the vast majority of imperfections successfully; any imperfections that remain are intentionally left to preserve the state of such historical works.

"An essential exploration of a rich literary tradition from the Bible to modern times, by a "rare literary authority" (New York Times Book Review). Jews have long embraced their identity as "the people of the book." But outside of the Bible, much of the Jewish literary tradition remains little known. The People and the Books shows how central questions and themes of our history and culture are reflected in the Jewish literary canon: the nature of God, the right way to understand the Bible, the relationship of the Jews to their Promised Land, and the challenges of living as a minority in Diaspora. Adam Kirsch explores eighteen classic texts including the biblical books of Deuteronomy and Esther, the philosophy of Maimonides, the autobiography of the medieval businesswoman Gluckel of Hameln, and the Zionist manifestos of Theodor Herzl. From the Jews of ancient Rome to the mystical devotees of Hasidism in Eastern Europe, The People and the Books brings the treasures of Jewish literature to life and offers new ways to think about their enduring power and influence"--

With 120 pages of photographs illustrating this is a splendid updated narrative.MY The Story of the Jews is the account-epic & moving—of a small people unique from any other, whose history has had a profound influence on the entire human condition. Here's a sampling of reviews of the hardcover edition of the"Fascinating...written with knowledge, perception, lucidity eloquence & passion."—Nelson Glueck, NY Times Book Review"Masterful...Israel's foreign minister who has been called a blend of Shakespeare & Churchill, gives his personal evaluation of the forces, events & personalities that shaped Jewish destiny."—Walter Berkov, Cleveland Plain Dealer"Stirring...The best short history of a long-lived people."—John Barkham, Saturday Review Syndicate

Kosher Jesus is a project of more than six years research and writing. The book seeks to offer to Jews and Christians the real story of Jesus, a wholly observant, Pharisaic Rabbi who fought Roman paganism and oppression and was killed for it. While many Christians will be confused by its assertion that Jesus never claimed divinity and not only did not abrogate the Torah but observed every letter of the Law, they will find comfort in my tracing most of Jesus' principal teachings back to Jewish sources, this before he was stripped of his Jewishness by later writers who sought to portray him as an enemy of his people. This is especially true of Jesus' most famous oration, the Sermon on the Mount, which is a reformulation of the Torah he studied and to which he was committed. A small sampling: Jesus: (Matt 5:5) Blessed are the meek, for they shall inherit the earth. Hebrew Bible: (Psalms 37) The meek shall inherit the earth, and delight themselves in the abundance of peace. Jesus: (Matt 5:8) Blessed are the pure in heart, for they shall see G-d. Hebrew Bible: (Psalms 24) Who shall ascend the mount of the Lord - the pure-hearted. Jesus: (Matt 5:39) But if anyone strikes you on the right cheek, turn to him the other also. Hebrew Bible: (Lamentations 3:30) Let him offer his cheek to him who smites him.... Jesus: (Matt 6:33) But seek first his kingdom and his righteousness, and all these things shall be yours as well. Hebrew Bible: (Psalms 37:4) Delight yourself in the Lord, and He shall give you the desires of your heart. Jesus: (Matt 7:7) Ask, and it will be given you; search, and you will find; knock, and the door will be opened for you. Hebrew Bible: (Jer 29:13) When you search for me, you will find me; if you seek me with all your heart. Jesus: (Matt 7:23) Then I will declare to them, "I never knew you; go away from me, you evildoers." Hebrew Bible: (Psalms 6:9) Depart from me, all you workers of evil... The book is also for Jews who remain deeply uncomfortable with Jesus because of the Church's long history of anti-Semitism, the deification of Jesus, and the Jewish rejection of any Messiah who has not fulfilled the Messianic prophecies. We Jews will forever reject the divinity of any man, the single most emphatic prohibition of our Bible. And we can never accept the Messiahship of any personality, however noble or well-intended, who died without ushering in the age of physical redemption. But as Christians and Jews now come together to love and support the majestic and humane Jewish state, it's time that Christians rediscover the deep Jewishness and religious Jewish commitment of Jesus, while Jews reexamine a lost son who was murdered by a brutal Roman state who sought to impose Roman culture and rule upon a tiny yet stubborn nation who will never be severed from their eternal covenant with the G-d of Israel.

There is a popular and romantic myth about Rembrandt and the Jewish people. One of history's greatest artists, we are often told, had a special affinity for Judaism. With so many of Rembrandt's works devoted to stories of the Hebrew Bible, and with his apparent penchant for Jewish themes and the sympathetic portrayal of Jewish faces, it is no wonder that the myth has endured for centuries. Rembrandt's Jews puts this myth to the test as it examines both the legend and the reality of Rembrandt's relationship to Jews and Judaism. In his elegantly written and engrossing tour of Jewish Amsterdam—which begins in 1653 as workers are repairing Rembrandt's Portuguese-Jewish neighbor's house and completely disrupting the artist's life and livelihood—Steven Nadler tells us the stories of the artist's portraits of Jewish sitters, of his mundane and often contentious dealings with his neighbors in the Jewish quarter of Amsterdam, and of the tolerant setting that city provided for Sephardic and Ashkenazic Jews fleeing persecution in other parts of Europe. As Nadler shows, Rembrandt was only one of a number of prominent seventeenth-century Dutch painters and draftsmen who found inspiration in Jewish subjects. Looking at other artists, such as the landscape painter Jacob van Ruisdael and Emmanuel de Witte, a celebrated painter of architectural interiors, Nadler is able to build a deep and complex account of the remarkable relationship between Dutch and Jewish cultures in the period, evidenced in the dispassionate, even ordinary ways in which Jews and their religion are represented—far from the demonization and grotesque caricatures, the iconography of the outsider, so often found in depictions of Jews during the Middle Ages and the Renaissance. Through his close look at paintings, etchings, and drawings; in his discussion of intellectual and social life during the Dutch Golden Age; and even through his own travels in pursuit of his subject, Nadler takes the reader through Jewish Amsterdam then and now—a trip that, under ever-threatening Dutch skies, is full of colorful and eccentric personalities, fiery debates, and magnificent art.

The theme of this book is the gradual emergence of the Jewish people from total political powerlessness - a development stretching over nearly 100 years and culminating in the consolidation in the State of Israel. Ironically, Professor Bauer demonstrates, events during this period stemmed in part from a belief in the power of the international Jewish community that never existed - but that motivated both the Germans and, after the war, the British.This is a brief but absorbing study by one of the world's great experts on the Holocaust, who has drawn on a huge body of material to depict one of the unforgettable events in recent history from an arresting and unfamiliar view point.

Traces the role of Judaism and the Jewish people in God's plan for the salvtion of mankind, from Abraham through the Second Coming, as revealed by the Catholic faith and by a thoughtful examination of history. It will give both Jews and Christians a deeper understanding of Judaism, both as a religion in itself and as a central component of salvation history. The book examines the unique and central role Judaism plays in the destiny of the world. It documents that throughout history attacks on Jews and Judasim have been rooted, not in Christianity, but in the most anti-Christian of forces. Areas addressed in depth include: the Messianic prophecies in Jewish Scripture; the very anti-Christian roots of Nazi anti-Semitism; the links between Nazism and Arab anti-Semitism; the theological insights of well-known Jewish converts; and the role of the Jews in the Second Coming.

Hidden behind a screen of euphemisms and evasions, of political expediency and psychological denial, the most terrible crime in human history was committed. Despite the shock and outrage that swept the world when the Nazi death camps were first liberated in 1945, the truth about the extermination of European Jewry had been an open secret since at least 1941. Using sources and documents only recently made available, Walter Lacquer examines when and how information about the genocide became known to millions of Germans, international Jewish organizations, leaders of Jewish communities throughout Europe, and top government officials in neutral and Allied countries. Laying bare the lethal combination of disbelief and indifference that met this news, "The Terrible Secret" offers a brilliant and chilling demonstration of paralysis in the face of ultimate evil.

In the final months before 9/11, liberal Jewish studies professor Michael Fischer has reunited with his two sisters to celebrate their father's seventy-fifth birthday. Each deeply invested in their own version of family history, the siblings clash over everything from Michael's controversial scholarly work to the mounting pressures of caring for an ailing parent. As destructive secrets and long-held resentments bubble to the surface, the three negotiate--with biting humor and razor-sharp insight--how much of the past they're willing to sacrifice for a chance at a new beginning. IF I FORGET tells a powerful tale of a family and a culture at odds with itself.

The Optical Unconscious is a pointed protest against the official story of modernism and against the critical tradition that attempted to define modern art according to certain sacred commandments and self-fulfilling truths. The account of modernism presented here challenges the vaunted principle of "vision itself." And it is a very different story than we have ever read, not only because its insurgent plot and characters rise from below the calm surface of the known and law-like field of modernist painting, but because the voice is unlike anything we have heard before. Just as the artists of the optical unconscious assaulted the idea of autonomy and visual mastery, Rosalind Krauss abandons the historian's voice of objective detachment and forges a new style of writing in this book: art history that insinuates diary and art theory, and that has the gait and tone of fiction. The Optical Unconscious will be deeply vexing to modernism's standard-bearers, and to readers who have accepted the foundational principles on which their aesthetic is based. Krauss also gives us the story that Alfred Barr, Meyer Shapiro, and Clement Greenberg repressed, the story of a small, disparate group of artists who defied modernism's most cherished self-descriptions, giving rise to an unruly, disruptive force that persistently haunted the field of modernism from the 1920s to the 1950s and continues to disrupt it today. In order to understand why modernism had to repress the optical unconscious, Krauss eavesdrops on Roger Fry in the salons of Bloomsbury, and spies on the toddler John Ruskin as he amuses himself with the patterns of a rug; we find her in the living room of Clement Greenberg as he complains about "smart Jewish girls with their typewriters" in the 1960s, and in colloquy with Michael Fried about Frank Stella's love of baseball. Along the way, there are also narrative encounters with Freud, Jacques Lacan, Georges Bataille, Roger Caillois, Gilles Deleuze, and Jean-Francois Lyotard. To embody this optical unconscious, Krauss turns to the pages of Max Ernst's collage novels, to Marcel Duchamp's hypnotic Rotoreliefs, to Eva Hesse's luminous sculptures, and to Cy Twombly's, Andy Warhol's, and Robert Morris's scandalous decoding of Jackson Pollock's drip pictures as "Anti-Form." These artists introduced a new set of values into the field of twentieth-century art, offering ready-made images of obsessional fantasy in place of modernism's intentionality and unexamined compulsions. Rosalind Krauss is Professor of Art History at Columbia University and an editor of the journal October.

Elie Wiesel (1928-2016) is best known as the author of Night, survivor of Auschwitz and a powerful, enduring voice of the Holocaust. A recipient of the Nobel Peace Prize and the Presidential Medal of Freedom, he was a hero of human rights, professor and author of more than 50 books. Among his accomplishments, Wiesel co-founded Moment Magazine with Leonard Fein in 1975 to be a place of conversation for America's Jews. For editor-in-chief Nadine Epstein, he became a mentor and friend after she took over the magazine in 2004. In this striking volume, Epstein shares her memories of Wiesel and brings together 36 interviews with friends, colleagues and others who knew him - including, his son Elisha, Michael Berenbaum, Wolf Blitzer, Father Patrick Debois, Ronald S. Lauder, Bernard Henri-Levi, Kati Marton, Natan Sharansky, Ben Kingsley, and Oprah Winfrey. The foreword is by British Rabbi Jonathan Sacks and the afterword is by broadcaster Ted Koppel. To celebrate this humanitarian and keep his inspiration alive, Epstein presents readers with a visual history of Wiesel's life and examines the influence of Night. This chilling story of the Holocaust has already gripped the souls of millions of readers. Epstein includes a selection of his speeches and writings, lively conversations with teenagers about Night and discussion questions. The book features more than 100 photos. Says Rabbi Jonathan Sacks: "This book of reflections is a fitting tribute to the legacy of Elie Wiesel. In its pages and through the words of its contributors, you will feel a promise, not just to the souls who perished, but also to Elie and all those who survived Europe's darkest night." From the Inside Flap "It is absolutely imperative for this legacy of Elie Wiesel's to continue. It has to, and if it doesn't, it is our loss, and it will be an unfathomable loss." ―Ben Kingsley "Wiesel taught us that we must not forget; that there is no greater sin than that of silence and indifference. In doing so he has not just illumined the past, he has illumined the future" ―Oprah Winfrey "There was something burning inside of Elie, a flame ignited by injustice and pain. He was willing to share that part of himself. Pain can make people retreat from life, but opened Elie to the world." ―Kathleen Kennedy Townsend "He performed the alchemy of converting pain, injustice and horror into love, compassion and tolerance. We remember him not so much because he so often succeeded but because he never stopped trying." ―Ted Koppel "I believe there is a risk of Elie Wiesel, the Holocaust, and other genocides being forgotten. Without a real effort to retain their memory, they may simply disappear from history. Elie Wiesel was a light in the night for the whole world, not just the Jewish one." ―Father Patrick Desbois About the Author Editor: Nadine Epstein, Editor-in-Chief of Moment Magazine, is the founder and executive director of the Center for Creative Change and founder of the Daniel Pearl Investigative Journalism Initiative. An award-winning journalist and author, she reported for the City News Bureau of Chicago and the Chicago Bureau of the New York Times and covered the U.S.-Mexico border. She was a Knight-Wallace Fellow at the University of Michigan, where she also taught journalism. She is also an artist and the creator of the iShadow Project. Foreword: Rabbi Lord Jonathan Sacks is the former Chief Rabbi of the United Kingdom. He is the author of more than 25 books, most recently Not in God's Name: Confronting Religious Violence. Ted Koppel was the anchor and managing editor of ABC News Nightline for 25 years. He is currently a contributor to CBS News Sunday Morning and author of Lights Out.