Growing up in Soviet Russia, Kat Knopman worships her parents, Jewish intellectuals who teach literature at a Moscow school, run a drama club, and dabble in political radicalism. When Kat is diagnosed with rapidly-progressing scoliosis, the trajectory of her life changes and she finds herself at a different institution-- a school-sanatorium for children with spinal ailments. Confined to a brace, surrounded by unsympathetic peers, Kat embarks on a quest to prove that she can be as exceptional as her parents despite her physical limitations, her Jewishness, and her suspicion that her beloved parents are in fact flawed.

"In the beginning there was Lucette, who is the mother to three children--Sammy, a gentle giant, almost blind, but a genius with locks; Corinne, a flighty beauty who cannot keep a job; and "the child," an afterthought, who strives to make sense of her fractured Egyptian-Jewish immigrant family. Lucette's children would like a kinder, warmer home, but what they have is a government-issued concrete box, out in the thorns and sand on the outskirts of Tel Aviv; and their mother, hard-worn and hardscrabble, who cleans homes by night and makes school lunches by day. Lucette quarrels with everybody, speaks only Arabic and French, is scared only of snakes, and is as likely to lock her children out as to take in a stray dog. The child recounts her years in Lucette's house, where Israel's wars do not intrude and hold no interest. She puzzles at the mysteries of her home, why her father, a bitter revolutionary, makes only rare appearances. And why her mother rebuffs the kind rabbi whose home she cleans in his desire to adopt her. Always watching, the child comes to fill the holes with conjecture and story. In a masterful accumulation of short, dense scenes, by turns sensual, violent, and darkly humorous, The Sound of Our Steps questions the virtue of a family bound only by necessity, and suggests that displacement may not lead to a better life, but perhaps to art"--

The murder of a third of Europe's Jews by the Nazis is unquestionably the worst catastrophe in the history of contemporary Judaism and a formative event in the history of Zionism and the State of Israel. Understandably, therefore, the Shoah, written about, analyzed, and given various political interpretations, has shaped public discourse in the history of the State of Israel. The key element of Shoah in the Israeli context is victimhood and as such it has become a source of shame, shrouded in silence and subordinated to the dominant discourse which, resulting from the construction of a "new Hebrew" active subjectivity, taught the postwar generation of Israelis to reject diaspora Jewry and its alleged passivity in the face of catastrophe. This book is the culmination of years of preoccupation with the meaning of the Shoah for the author, an Israeli woman with a "split subjectivity: - that of a daughter of a family of Shoah survivors, and that of a daughter of the first Israeli-born generation; the culmination of her need to break the silence about the Shoah in a society which constructed itself as the Israeli antithesis to diaspora Jewry, and to excavate a "truth" from underneath the mountain of Zionist nation-building myths. These myths, the author argues, not only had deep implication for the formation of her generation but also a profound impact on the Israeli-Palestinian conflict. Moreover, they are shot through with images of the "masculine" Israeli, constrasted with those of the weak, passive, non-virile Jewish "Other" of the diaspora. This book offers the first gendered analysis of Israeli society and the Shoah. The author employs personal narratives of nine Israeli daughters of Shoah survivors, writers and film makers, and a feminist re-reading of official and unofficial Israeli and Zionist discourses to explore the ways in which the

A collection of stories celebrating the Jewish tradition in many different places and different times, some reconstructed from actual events, some based on tradition, and some fictional in form.

An account written by Tubach of his own life experiences and those of his friend, Bernat Rosner, as related to him. Rosner, a Holocaust survivor, was born in 1932 in the village of Tab, Hungary. Tubach, a non-Jew, was born in 1930 as Friedrich (Fritz) Tubach, and grew up in the village of Kleinheubach, Franconia. After the war, Tubach and Rosner both immigrated to the USA, where they met and became friends. Their wartime stories are interwoven in the book. In July 1944, after the German occupation of Hungary, Rosner and his family were deported to Auschwitz. In September 1944 Rosner was sent to Mauthausen, and then to Gusen and Gunskirchen. His parents and brother perished in Auschwitz. Rosner created a new American identity for himself, and it was only in the 1990s that he and Tubach began to record their conversations on their lives in wartorn Europe. Tubach also relates the fate of some Jews of Kleinheubach and describes the "Kristallnacht" pogrom in the village.

To Joel, David and Rachel – Jewish children in post-war South Africa – bitter conflict, racial conflict and social upheaval are all they have ever known. Resolving never to repeat the mistakes of their parents, they seek a new code of behaviour – and one that will lead them all through their journeys of self-discovery.

This collection of commentaries, written during the recent Gaza war as it unfolded, represents an attempt of one Jew on behalf of Jews of Conscience everywhere, to come to grips with the state of Israel as it is rather than what it purports to be. Though written from a geographic distance, one feels the pain Palestinians experienced as a challenge to Jewish history. Have Jews survived the Holocaust only to recreate scenes of horror Israel now visits upon the Palestinian people? Or is there a way forward for Jews and Palestinians beyond mutual recrimination, displacement and war? Using the burning children of the Holocaust as the core of Jewish ethical post-Holocaust life, these commentaries ask Jews, the state of Israel and all those in solidarity with Jews and Jewish history to hold Israel accountable for its assault on Gaza and provide a vehicle for a future where Jews and Palestinians live together in justice and peace.

'In 1786, Giuseppe Coen presented his bride with an exquisite gift: a book of psalms, blessings, and prayers. The volume focused on the concerns of the married woman, in particular her responsibility to create a Jewish home and bear children. In Out of the Depths I Call to You: A Book of Prayers for the Married Jewish Woman , Rabbi Nina Beth Cardin translates these prayers and provides insightful commentary, bringing to light the essence of Jewish women's liturgical and ritual experiences that have long been overlooked by scholars.' - Women's League Outlook

Israel Zangwill was born in London on 21st January 1864, to a family of Jewish immigrants from the Russian Empire. Zangwill was initially educated in Plymouth and Bristol. At age 9 he was enrolled in the Jews' Free School in Spitalfields in east London. Zangwill excelled here. He began to teach part-time at the school and eventually full time. Whilst teaching he also studied with the University of London and by 1884 had earned his BA with triple honours in philosophy, history, and the sciences. His writing earned him the sobriquet "the Dickens of the Ghetto" primarily based on his much lauded novel 'Children of the Ghetto: A Study of a Peculiar People' in 1892 and its glimpse of the poverty-stricken life in London's Jewish quarter. As a writer he was keen to reflect on his political and social outlooks. His simulation of Yiddish sentence structure in English aroused great interest. His mystery work, 'The Big Bow Mystery' (1892) was the first locked room mystery novel. Zangwill was also involved with narrowly focused Jewish issues as an assimilationist, an early Zionist, and later a territorialist. In the early 1890s he had joined the Lovers of Zion movement in England. In 1897 he joined Theodor Herzl (considered the father of modern political Zionism) in founding the World Zionist Organization. Zangwill quit the established philosophy of Zionism when his plan for a homeland in Uganda was rejected and founded his own organisation; the Jewish Territorialist Organization. Its stated goal was to create a Jewish homeland in whatever territory in the world could be found for them. Amongst the challenges in his life he found time to write poetry. He had translated a medieval Jewish poet in 1903 and his volume 'Blind Children' in 1908 shows his promise in this new endeavour. 'The Melting Pot' in 1909 made Zangwill's name as an admired playwright. When the play opened in Washington D.C., former President Theodore Roosevelt leaned over the edge of his box and shouted, "That's a great play, Mr. Zangwill, that's a great play." Israel Zangwill died on 1st August 1926 in Midhurst, West Sussex.

Theodore Newman Kaufman was an American Jewish businessman and writer known for his eliminationist views on Germans. In 1939, he published pamphlets as "chairman of the American Federation of Peace" that argued that Americans should be sterilized so that their children will no longer have to fight in foreign wars. In 1941, he wrote and published Germany Must Perish! which called for the sterilization of the German people and the distribution of the German lands. *** GERMANY MUST PERISH! is a book written by Theodore Newman Kaufman, which he self-published in 1941 in the United States. The book advocated sterilization of all Germans and the territorial dismemberment of Germany, believing that this would achieve world peace. The Nazi Party used the book, written by a Jewish author, to support their argument that Jews were plotting against their country. *** Includes Kaufman's other writings: A Will and Way to Peace: Passive Purchase(1939) No More German Wars! Being An Outline For Their Permanent Cessation (1942)

This tale follows the adventures of John of Gamala during the years of Roman occupation, political infighting, and lawlessness that resulted in the destruction of the Temple in AD 70. It puts the reader at the heart of the conflict between Rome and the greedy political groups and robber bands of Palestine. Although fighting a losing struggle, John keeps his integrity and honor intact, even overcoming slavery and eventually becoming a procurator after the struggle. Solomon Joseph Solomon RA (16 September 1860 - 27 July 1927) was a British painter, a founding member of the New English Art Club and member of the Royal Academy.Solomon's family was Jewish, and his sister, Lily Delissa Joseph (née Solomon), was also a painter.He made an important contribution to the development of camouflage in the First World War, working in particular on tree observation posts and arguing tirelessly for camouflage netting.... George Alfred Henty (8 December 1832 - 16 November 1902) was a prolific English novelist and war correspondent.He is best known for his historical adventure stories that were popular in the late 19th century. His works include The Dragon & The Raven (1886), For The Temple (1888), Under Drake's Flag (1883) and In Freedom's Cause (1885).G. A. Henty was born in Trumpington, near Cambridge. He was a sickly child who had to spend long periods in bed. During his frequent illnesses he became an avid reader and developed a wide range of interests which he carried into adulthood. He attended Westminster School, London, and later Gonville and Caius College, Cambridge, where he was a keen sportsman. He left the university early without completing his degree to volunteer for the Army Hospital Commissariat when the Crimean War began. He was sent to the Crimea and while there he witnessed the appalling conditions under which the British soldier had to fight. His letters home were filled with vivid descriptions of what he saw. His father was impressed by his letters and sent them to The Morning Advertiser newspaper which printed them. This initial writing success was a factor in Henty's later decision to accept the offer to become a special correspondent, the early name for journalists now better known as war correspondents.Shortly before resigning from the army as a captain in 1859 he married Elizabeth Finucane. The couple had four children. Elizabeth died in 1865 after a long illness and shortly after her death Henty began writing articles for the Standard newspaper. In 1866 the newspaper sent him as their special correspondent to report on the Austro-Italian War where he met Giuseppe Garibaldi. He went on to cover the 1868 British punitive expedition to Abyssinia, the Franco-Prussian War, the Ashanti War, the Carlist Rebellion in Spain and the Turco-Serbian War. ........

Our Challenge, published in April 1974, offers a plan to infuse Jewish youth with an iron-clad sense of identity to make them impervious to modern Western influences and strong enough to overcome the weariness of an interminable struggle with the Arabs. Rabbi Kahane maintains that the State of Israel's foreign policy should include its role as the guardian of all Jews throughout the world. The government must realize that there are no permanent allies for Israel among the other nations. Jewish interests come first, no matter what the world may say. He wrote: The great tasks of our day are ... to define clearly and precisely the purpose and destiny of the Jewish people.... Our State must not seek merely to be like all the rest, but a distinctively Jewish one. The Jewish people stands or falls on the knowledge that it is NOT like other people... A review of the book by Rabbi Isaac L. Swift states that it shows "a serious mind grappling with problems of serious magnitude." 19 Professor Arnold Ages noted that Rabbi Kahane's "candor on the question of the Arabs in Israel is refreshing.... Kahane feels that Israel's future depends ultimately on the spiritual regeneration of the Israelis.... If this return to mitzvah Judaism is not accomplished, there is a danger that Israel's people will slip into the quagmire of leftist ideology which inevitably saps the life of a nation." The evaluation in Kirkus Reviews began: "When it comes to righteous wrath, Moses has nothing on Rabbi Kahane. The militant leader of the Jewish Defense League damns the "assimilationist rot" contaminating both young Israeli leftists and the children of Jews in the Diaspora. Strident and uncompromising, he hammers away at his fundamentalist precepts: divine ordinance guides Jewish destiny.... The Arabs are bent on the destruction of Israel; not an inch of the territory conquered in 1967 must be surrendered: only armed might can insure the political survival of the Jewish state." Ever since reading Ha'etgar, I've been amazed as events have proven, over and over, the extent of your foresight. You have a lot to contribute to the Israeli scene, if only as a catalyst.... It may take a while to get used to the Israeli mentality, but you have definitely touched a responsive chord. ... Besides the general need for spreading Jewish values, I think the most important problem you could tackle now is, once more, the problem of "Who is NOT a Jew" - the question of Arab residents of the State of Israel and your program for its solution.... The best thing is to take one issue and get people first to think about it.... Stepping on toes, even intellectual ones, gets action - You've already proven that. Choice, a journal for librarians, stated simply: ... This slim volume presents Kahane's views in their bluntest expression. He believes the Emancipation to have been a failure, trusts only Jewish self-defense, and predicts a coming wave of anti-Semitism in the U.S. Repudiated by the government of Israel and by large sectors of American Jewry, Kahane yet deals with real problems and issues.

Gotz and Meyer, two noncommissioned SS officers, are entrusted with an assignment, "not a big one," but one that "requires efficiency." Their task is to transport five thousand women, children and elderly, one hundred at a time, from a concentration camp near Belgrade in a hermetically sealed truck, in which they are gassed. As Albahari's anonymous narrator, a teacher, obsessively pursues the truth of this systematic annihilation, he shares his findings with his students. Their school bus becomes that truck, and as the memory of Belgrade's lost Jewish souls is evoked, the students are bewildered. Their teacher, worn down as much by the task of making history come alive as by the toll his research has taken on him, is overwhelmed by the horror of his own imaginings. A harrowing, masterfully written story, full of compassion, irony, and lyricism.

From Library Journal Bloch gives us lines worth storing in the heart against nameless pain. Themes include giving birth, raising children, relationships that fail ("Whatever you gave me, I used it right away/ for breathing"), marriage that lasts ("Rosin of sunlight slides up and down/ a string of spiderweb,/bowing a high note"), and childhood ("If we were so happy/ why weren't we happy?"). Adding to the ongoing work of late 20th-century women telling their lives in honest detail, her voice is at its best when her own body is at risk ("There's a future loose in my body and I/ am its servant:/carrying wood, fetching water"). Surprisingly, the Russian Jewish inheritance articulate in the matrioshka doll poem points us more toward Bloch's human identity than toward any specific ethnic experience. The poems' elegant simplicity of diction make them very readable. Recommended for most contemporary poetry and women's studies collections.- Judy Hogan, Durham, N.C.Copyright 1992 Reed Business Information, Inc. From the Publisher 6 x 9 trim. LC 92-9628

Angelica Balabanoff was one of the best-known & widely beloved figures of European socialism in the early 20th century. She left home at age 19 to study in Belgium & began a lifetime of travel & activism that was to center around the politics of the 2nd Internat'l & bring her into contact with a fascinating range of political figures, including Luxemburg, Zetkin, Trotsky, Lenin, Goldman, Berkman & Mussolini. During & after WWI, she was a major figure of the left wing of the Socialist movement & a member of the Zimmerwald Group. She returned to Russia after the Revolution, serving as a Comintern officer before becoming disillusioned by the authoritarianism of the Bolshevik regime. Born in Chernigov in the Ukraine, in 1878, the youngest of 16 children, 7 of whom had died before she was born, Angelica was raised to be the “crown of the family.” Her father was a landowner & businessman. She was educated at home by a series of governesses & tutors. From early youth, she was troubled by the privileges she enjoyed, reporting in her autobiography that she “cringed with shame” at the way the servants humiliated themselves before her & her parents. She attributed her own rebelliousness & commitment to the cause of social justice not to any influence of her Jewish heritage (unmentioned in her autobiography), but to these experiences at home & her sense of an “unbridgeable abyss” between herself & her “despotic” mother. She left home in 1897 to study at the Université Nouvelle in Brussels, an institution known for radicalism. There, she hoped to learn how to translate her passion for social justice into practical strategies for aiding the downtrodden. Thru the combination of classes & meetings at the socialist-sponsored People’s House, she met & was deeply influenced by Plekhanoff & a variety of other Russian & Italian emigrés, who befriended her & introduced her to many of the major figures of the 2nd Internat'l. After doing research in the British Museum library, she returned to Brussels, earning a doctorate in philosophy & literature from the Université. She then went to Leipzig, & on to Rome, where she studied with the Italian Marxist philosopher Antonio Labriola & began what was to be a lifelong relationship with the Italian & internat'l socialist movements. From '01 to '02, she worked with Italian immigrant workers in Switzerland, & organized among young women who'd been recruited by the Swiss to be a docile labor force. Altho hostile to bourgeois feminism, she was committed to addressing the needs of working-class women as well as men—-needs she believed would be best met thru socialist transformation. She was successful as a speaker & journalist. Elected to the executive committee of the Italian Socialist Party in Switzerland, she served as its official representative to congresses of the 2nd Internat'l in '07 & '10. Also during this period, she befriended a poor Italian emigré, Benito Mussolini, helping him to find work & introducing him to socialist clubs in which he became active. In '10, she left Switzerland for Italy, where she began her active involvement in Italian socialism. In ensuing years, she was elected to the party’s Central Committee; served as coeditor of the party organ, Avanti & increasingly came to support the more revolutionary antireformist wing of the Italian Socialist Party. Disillusioned by the failure of socialist internat'lism in '14, she helped to found & remained active thruout the war in the Zimmerwald movement, a socialist organization protesting imperialism & demanding immediate peace. Her fluency in many languages, combined with her strong commitment to internat'l socialism & her popularity as a public speaker, made her indispensable at socialist conferences & conventions. Altho she rejected Lenin’s call for socialist revolutions to end the war, she returned to Russia in '17 to help rally internat'l support. Despite reservations (shared with exiles Emma Goldman & Alexander Berkman), she became secretary of the Communist Internat'l in '19, but was removed after about a year for opposing the manipulative tactics of Lenin & Zinoviev. Early in '21, she left Russia forever. In ensuing years, she suffered from a continuing slander campaign on the part of Lenin & his associates. After living in Vienna & Paris, she spent WWII in NYC, where she became friends with Norman Thomas & was a contributor to Socialist Review. Balabanoff dedicated herself to awakening the American population to the dangers of Italian fascism, publishing The Traitor: Benito Mussolini & His Conquest of Power, as well as her autobiography, My Life as a Rebel. At war's end, she returned to Italy, where she continued to be active in the Italian Socialist Party, dying in Rome on 11/25/65.

“Jewish stories,” writes Adam Biro, “resemble every people’s stories.” Yet at the same time there is no better way to understand the soul, history, millennial suffering, or, crucially, the joys of the Jewish people than through such tales—“There’s nothing,” writes Biro, “more revelatory of the Jewish being.” With Is It Good for the Jews? Biro offers a sequel to his acclaimed collection of stories Two Jews on a Train . Through twenty-nine tales—some new, some old, but all finely wrought and rich in humor—Biro spins stories of characters coping with the vicissitudes and reverses of daily life, while simultaneously painting a poignant portrait of a world of unassimilated Jewish life that has largely been lost to the years. From rabbis competing to see who is the most humble, to the father who uses suicide threats to pressure his children into visiting, to three men berated by the Almighty himself for playing poker, Biro populates his stories with memorable characters and absurd—yet familiar—situations, all related with a dry wit and spry prose style redolent of the long tradition of Jewish storytelling. A collection simultaneously of foibles and fables, adversity and affection, Is It Good for the Jews? reminds us that if in the beginning was the word, then we can surely be forgiven for expecting a punch line to follow one of these days.

Upon arriving at the kibbutz, after years of running and living in a constant state of fear and anxiety, I finally felt that I could unburden my heart and mind. I had dreamed of the day I would arrive, alive, in Eretz Israel. The constant stress of the last few years was made easier by my constant desire to achieve that goal. So, when I first arrived in the kibbutz dining hall, it was as if all my dreams had come true. David J. Azrieli was born in 1922 in Maków Mazowiecki, Poland. Written by his daughter Danna, this gripping account of survival during World War II describes David’s extraordinary travels, always just one step ahead of life-threatening danger, which took him to the Soviet-occupied zones of Poland and later to Ukraine, Tashkent, and Buchara. He subsequently served in the Anders Army, before making his way from Baghdad to the frontiers of British-occupied Palestine. The memoir chronicles David J. Azrieli’s arrival in Palestine, his studies at the Technion in Haifa, his experiences as a soldier in the War of Independence, and his realization that most of his immediate family had perished in the Holocaust. Azrieli finally settled in Canada in 1954. There he married his wife, Stephanie, and together they raised four children—Rafi, Sharon, Naomi, and Danna. This story of survival is all the more remarkable given Azrieli’s later achievements as a successful real estate developer and philanthropist. One of the economic giants of the Jewish world, his many developments changed the face of Israel and stand as a striking testament to the strength and courage of a boy whom Hitler could not defeat. The highlight of his activities is the establishment of the Canadian and Israeli Azrieli Foundations, which focus on improving the lives of present and future generations through education, research, healthcare, and arts. -- page 4 of cover.

"The Matrimonial Flirtations of Emma Kaulfield is an often laugh-out-loud comedy of conflicting manners, values, and customs, set against the backdrop of a Russian immigrant family's struggle to assimilate, their newfound love of capitalism, and their insistent push for their children's tangible success. Emma Kaulfield escaped the Soviet Union in the 1980s when she was 10--hers was one of the last Jewish families to be let out. Now a gorgeous young woman, going to grad school at NYU, chaffing at the cultural restraints of her heritage, Emma is engaged to someone just like her--a handsome young Russian Jew--but then a steamy encounter with a stranger in a restaurant bathroom turns into a torrid love affair. She wrestles with what she knows she should do (career vs. art); who she should love (one of her own vs. the exotic temptation), to remain loyal to her family, her people--after all they have suffered--or cut ties and defy those who love her. The Matrimonial Flirtations of Emma Kaulfield builds in power and suspense, easily becoming an all-night binge read, impossible to put down. Fishbeyn's debut novel is sexy, hilarious, heartbreaking, and breathtaking"--back cover.

With his father gunned down in a petty robbery and his aunt haunted by the threats of the Gestapo, Richard Michelson's experiences growing up in Brooklyn were far from ordinary, yet they remain all too common--too much a part of ongoing violence--to be dismissed as merely private events, safely past. In Counting to Six Million he writes out memory, anxiety, and grief, worry over his wife and children, and the recurring clashes between love and cruelty that test wisdom with suffering, day after day.