The 750-year epic tale of the extraordinary Backenroth family, this is at the same time an engaging, scrupulously researched narrative history of Jewish life since the Middle Ages. Throughout this time span, the Backenroths could be found at some of the most important events in Jewish history: the migration of their community from western to eastern Europe, the creation of the Hasidic movement, the birth of Zionism, and the loss of so many of their family during the Holocaust. As they struggle to survive, the Backenroths marry, find their fortune in oil, and spawn families with last names that are still widely known. This sweeping family saga is shaped by real people -- talented and creative women and men swept by the dramatic tides of the history into distant regions and complex situations, where they were forced to display resourcefulness and courage in order to survive. Time and time again they slid from prosperity and opulence to profound poverty and distress, and time after time they managed to surmount crises by virtue of their personal abilities, their tenacious belief in their values, and family solidarity.

This book traces the Jewish thread throughout English life between the Tudors and the beginnings of mass immigration in the mid-nineteenth century. The writing of English history has been very largely framed without taking note of the Jewish presence at all - here, for the first time, the Jewsare shown as an integral part of English religious and social history.David Katz explores completely new subjects in depth, such as the Jewish advocates of Henry VIII's divorce, and the Jewish conspirators of Elizabethan England, without neglecting themes such as the role of Jewish finance and the emergence of Anglo-Jewish institutions. This extensively researched andaccessible history of the Jews in England over almost four centuries will be essential reading for those interested in English and Jewish history.

Reaching from biblical times to the present day, Esther Benbassa’s prize-winning exploration of Jewish identity is both epic and comprehensive. She shows how in the Jewish world, the representation and ritualization of suffering have shaped the history of both the people and the religion. Benbassa argues that the nineteenth century gave rise to a Jewish ‘lachrymose’ historiography, and that Jewish history was increasingly seen to be a ‘vale of tears’—a development that has become even more pronounced since the Holocaust. The treatment of the Holocaust in the State of Israel now has the form of a civil religion. In principle within reach of everyone, the ‘duty of memory’ and the uniqueness of the genocide have mitigated for many Jews the loss of other traditions. The Israeli government invokes the memory of the Holocaust to neutralize threats to its interests—ensuring that suffering continues to be a central part of Jewish identity and positioning the State of Israeli as a redemptive force.

Humanitarian, philanthropist, and campaigner for Jewish emancipation on a grand scale, Sir Moses Montefiore (1784–1885) was the preeminent Jewish figure of the nineteenth century - and one of the first truly global celebrities. His story, told here in full for the first time, is a remarkable and illuminating tale of diplomacy and adventure. Abigail Green's sweeping biography follows Montefiore through the realms of court and ghetto, tsar and sultan, synagogue and stock exchange. Interweaving the public triumph of Montefiore's foreign missions with the private tragedy of his childless marriage, this book brings the diversity of nineteenth-century Jewry brilliantly to life - from London to Jerusalem, Rome to St. Petersburg, Morocco to Istanbul. Here we see the origins of Zionism and the rise of international Jewish consciousness, the faltering birth of international human rights, and the making of the modern Middle East. With the globalization and mobilization of religious identities now at the top of the political agenda, Montefiore's life story is relevant as never before. Mining materials from eleven countries in nine languages, Green's masterly biography bridges the East-West divide in modern Jewish history, presenting the transformation of Jewish life in Europe, the Middle East, and the New World as part of a single global phenomenon. As it reestablishes Montefiore's status as a major historical player, it also restores a significant chapter to the history of our modern world.

An illuminating biography of the great Amsterdam rabbi and celebrated popularizer of Judaism in the seventeenth century Menasseh ben Israel (1604-1657) was among the most accomplished and cosmopolitan rabbis of his time, and a pivotal intellectual figure in early modern Jewish history. He was one of the three rabbis of the "Portuguese Nation" in Amsterdam, a community that quickly earned renown worldwide for its mercantile and scholarly vitality. Born in Lisbon, Menasseh and his family were forcibly converted to Catholicism but suspected of insincerity in their new faith. To avoid the horrors of the Inquisition, they fled first to southwestern France, and then to Amsterdam, where they finally settled. Menasseh played an important role during the formative decades of one of the most vital Jewish communities of early modern Europe, and was influential through his extraordinary work as a printer and his efforts on behalf of the readmission of Jews to England. In this lively biography, Steven Nadler provides a fresh perspective on this seminal figure

"This book asks fundamental questions about the uses of history. That it does so from a rootedness in Jewish history, an unassimilated location, is one part of its strength. But history alone doesn't confer this strength; the poet's continuing labor with Jewish meaning does. The other part, of course, is the integrity of its poetics. A Klepfisz poem lives amid complex tensions, even when its texture may appear transparent. There is a voice, sometimes voices, in these poems which can often best be heard by reading aloud. Her sense of phrase, of line, of the shift of tone, is almost flawless. But perfection is not what Irena Klepfisz is after. It is the tension between so many forces: Language, speechlessness, memory, politics, irony, compassion, hunger for what is lost, hunger for a justice still to be made, that makes this poetry crucial to the new unfoldings of history that we begin, in 1990, to imagine." -- from the introduction by Adrienne Rich

Covering topical issues concerning the nature of the Israeli state, this engaging work presents essays that combine a variety of comparative schemes, both internal to Jewish civilization and extending throughout the world, such as: modern Jewish society, politics and culture; historical consciousness in the 20th century; colonialism, anti-colonialism and postcolonial state-building.With its open-ended, comparative approach, Israel in History provides a useful means of correcting the biases found in so much scholarship on Israel, be it sympathetic or hostile. This book will appeal to scholars and students with research interests in many fields, including Israeli Studies, Middle East Studies, and Jewish Studies.

This course in family history naturally lends itself to family learning.

"In this new history, French author Georges Bensoussan retells the story of what life was like for Jews in the Arab world since 1850. During the early years of this time, it was widely believed that Jewish life in Arab lands was peaceful. Jews were protected by law and suffered much less violence, persecution, and inequality. Bensoussan takes on this myth and looks back over the history of Jewish-Arab relations in Arab countries. He finds that there is little truth to the myth and forwards a nuanced history of interrelationship that is not only diverse, but deals with local differences in cultural, religious, and political practice. Bensoussan divides the work into sections that cover 1850 to the end of WWI, from 1919 to the eve of WWII and then from WWII to the establishment of Israel and the Arab Wars. A new afterword brings the history of Jewish and Arab relations into the present day. Bensoussan has determined that the history of Jews in Arab countries is a history of slowly disintegrating relationships, increasing tension, violence, and persecution"--

"Howard Jacobson's funny, revealing and tender memoir of his path to becoming a writer. It's my theory that only the unhappy, the uncomfortable, the gauche, the badly put together, aspire to make art. Why would you seek to reshape the world unless you were ill-at-ease in it? And I came out of the womb in every sense the wrong way round. In Mother's Boy, Booker-Prize winner Howard Jacobson reveals how he became a writer. It is an exploration of belonging and not-belonging, of being an insider and outsider, both English and Jewish. Jacobson was forty when his first novel was published. In Mother's Boy he traces the life that brought him there. Born to a working-class family in 1940s Manchester, the great-grandson of Lithuanian and Russian immigrants, Jacobson was raised by his mother, grandmother and aunt Joyce. His father was a regimental tailor, as well as an upholsterer, a market-stall holder, a taxi driver, a balloonist, and a magician. Grappling always with his family's history and his Jewish identity, Jacobson takes us from the growing pains of childhood to studying at Cambridge under F.R. Leavis, and landing in Sydney as a maverick young professor on campus." --

An investigation of Jewish identity politics and Jewish contemporary ideology using both popular culture and scholarly texts. Jewish identity is tied up with some of the most difficult and contentious issues of today. The purpose in this book is to open many of these issues up for discussion. Since Israel defines itself openly as the 'Jewish State', we should ask what the notions of 'Judaism', 'Jewishness', 'Jewish culture' and 'Jewish ideology' stand for. Gilad examines the tribal aspects embedded in Jewish secular discourse, both Zionist and anti Zionist; the 'holocaust religion'; the meaning of 'history' and 'time' within the Jewish political discourse; the anti-Gentile ideologies entangled within different forms of secular Jewish political discourse and even within the Jewish left. He questions what it is that leads Diaspora Jews to identify themselves with Israel and affiliate with its politics. The devastating state of our world affairs raises an immediate demand for a conceptual shift in our intellectual and philosophical attitude towards politics, identity politics and history.

Chs. 7 and 8 (pp. 79-110) discuss how the Holocaust has changed Jewish thought, especially on ethics and theology. In keeping with the principle of historicism of Judaism, contends that the Holocaust generated a set of new imperatives, including the importance of Jewish existence as a response to the Holocaust. Regards Rabbi Ephraim Oshry from Kovno as the first halakhic authority who began to alter Jewish ethics in the period of the Holocaust. Divides contemporary Jewish thinkers between those who recognize that the Holocaust was a unique event, and hence justify amendments in Jewish ethics and theology (e.g. Emil Fackenheim), and those who do not recognize it (e.g. Eliezer Berkovits); an intermediate attitude is held by Irving Greenberg.

Marcus Spiegel, a German Jewish immigrant, served with the 67th and 120th Ohio Volunteer regiments during the Civil War. He saw action in Virginia, Mississippi, Arkansas, and Louisiana, where he was fatally wounded in May 1864. These letters to Caroline, his wife, reveal the traumatizing experience of a soldier and the constant concern of a husband and father. Jean Powers Soman is a great-great-granddaughter of Marcus Spiegel. Her coeditor, Frank L. Byrne, is a professor of history at Kent State University and the editor of several books, including Haskell of Gettysburg: His Life and Civil War Papers.

Founded in 1841, The Jewish Chronicle is the oldest continuously published Jewish newspaper in the world. A force for change, a forum for debate and a shaper of Jewish identity, it has played a central part in the development of modern Anglo-Jewry. More than just a mirror of Anglo-Jewish mores, registering waves of immigration and social change, The Jewish Chronicle has been an active player in historical events. Its editors have intervened decisively in communal history and debated with British statesmen. No historian can understand the inner life of British Jews without looking at the social reports, the sports column, the arts and cultural coverage and the advertising that the paper has carried. This book, written by a noted historian of Jewish social affairs, gives an insight into the working of a newspaper, the struggles between editors and directors, and the boardroom politics. It is the story of a publishing adventure that became an institution and helped to shape the destiny of an entire community.

" For Solo Violin is a gracefully written, elegiac memoir of childhood."— The Los Angeles Times "An eloquent tribute to [and] a moving account of those who, despite the cruelty of so many around them, found ways to rejoice and trust in the kindness of a few. One is instantly reminded of Life Is Beautiful ."—André Aciman, author of Out of Egypt In an extraordinary literary debut, Aldo Zargani reconstructs the lost world of his Jewish childhood during the perilous years 1938–45 when he and his family fled from Fascists and Nazis in northern Italy. His haunting memoir acquires a cinematic intensity as he crosscuts from the blood-red stone spires of Basel, where his father failed to find refuge for his family in 1939, to fiery scenes of the Allied bombing of Turin in 1942, to the freezing winter of 1943–44, which Zargani and his brother spent hidden in a Catholic boarding school deep in the countryside. For Solo Violin is filled with colorful portraits of Italian aristocrats and peasants, priests and soldiers, teachers and students, informers and partisans. At its heart is Zargani's vivid depiction of his father, a concert violinist forced to give up his career when the Fascists came to power. In this time of persecution, the Zargani family survived through their own resourcefulness and through the efforts of the many Italians who came to their aid, from the young doctor who helped them escape from Turin to the shepherd who supplied them with milk during the last year of the war, when they lived among the partisans in a remote Piedmont valley. Looking back over a distance of fifty years, Zargani rediscovers the enchantment of childhood shining in "fable-like constellations" even amidst the inferno of war. Lullabies and school games, fairy tales and family jokes are interwoven with the events of terror and oppression. Lyrical, humorous, tender, and wise, For Solo Violin is a testament to resilience and hope during the darkest period in human history. "A broad panorama of Italian-Jewish history in [the last] century. Elegant in its style and, however tragic, also rich with understatement, irony, and wit, For Solo Violin counts among the great, enduring works of art."— Focus Magazine , Germany "A tragic, deeply engaging, delicious book—yes delicious, too. (Reading it makes you smile.) It's a miracle…It makes one think of the wit of Kafka!"— L'Espresso , Italy "Zargani depicts a wealth of sad, despairing, but often also incredibly funny episodes…But vibrating along with the humor is always the sense of threat, and behind it opens the abyss of terror."— Neue Zürcher Zeitung , Switzerland

Published by the University of Nebraska Press, Lincoln, and Yad Vashem, Jerusalem "We were both small nations whose existence could never be taken for granted," Václav Havel said of the Czechs and the Jews of Israel in 1990, and indeed, the complex and intimate link between the fortunes of these two peoples is unique in European history. This book by one of the world's leading authorities on the history of Czech and Slovak Jewry during the Nazi period is the first to thoroughly document this singular relationship and to trace its impact on the fate of the Jews of Bohemia and Moravia during the Holocaust. Livia Rothkirchen provides a detailed and comprehensive history of how Nazi rule in the Czech lands was shaped as much by local culture and circumstances as by military policy. The extraordinary nature of the Czech Jews' experience emerges in chapters on the role of the Jewish minority in Czech life; the crises of the Munich agreement and the German occupation; the reaction of the local population to the persecution of the Jews; the policies of the London-based government in exile; the question of Jewish resistance; and the Theresienstadt ghetto. The Jews of Bohemia and Moravia is based on a wealth of primary documents, many uncovered only after the 1989 November revolution, and includes an epilogue on the post-1945 period.

In this first comprehensive history in English of the Jews of Hebron, Jerold S. Auerbach explores one of the oldest and most vilified Jewish communities in the world. Spanning three thousand years, from the biblical narrative of Abraham's purchase of a burial cave for Sarah to the violent present, it offers a controversial analysis of a community located at the crossroads of the Israeli-Palestinian struggle over national boundaries and the internal Israeli struggle over the meaning of Jewish statehood.Hebron Jews sharply challenges conventional Zionist historiography and current media understa

"When her marriage suddenly ends, and a diary documenting her beloved grandfather's escape from Nazi-occupied Netherlands in the summer of 1942 is discovered, Naomi K. Lewis decides to retrace his journey to learn about her family history. Despite suffering from extreme disorientation and a lifetime of anxiety, she travels alone for the first time. Moving from Amsterdam to Lyon--relying on the marvels of GPS--she discovers family secrets and her own narrative as a second-generation Jewish Canadian. With vulnerability, humour, and wisdom, Lewis's memoir asks tough questions about her identity as a secular Jew, the accuracy of family stories, and the impact of the Holocaust on subsequent generations. How do immigrants weave their sense of identity into their chosen countries? Must we be able to locate ourselves within family and cultural geography to belong?"--

Published by the University of Nebraska Press, Lincoln, and Yad Vashem, Jerusalem Based on an unparalleled and exhaustive collection of original Jewish accounts and sources not available until the fall of Nicolae Ceausescu in the late 1980s, Jean Ancel provides a detailed analysis of the path of antisemitism that led to the unspeakable horrors of the Holocaust in Romania. The Romanians, and other nations inside and outside the Balkans, related differently to ?their Jews? and ?other Jews,? that is, those living in districts annexed to Romania after the First World War and in areas occupied and annexed to the Romanian military administration after the Soviet invasion in June 1941. The Jews of the Regat, the core Romanian principality, suffered pogroms, decrees, and degradation, but on the whole they survived the Holocaust. Contradicting long-held assumptions, Ancel shows that Romanians were largely responsible for murdering their Jewish community?one of the largest in Europe before the war?and although its survival rate was the highest in Europe, the survival rate in areas where Jews were liquidated was one of the lowest.

The Jews of northern France, Germany, and England, known collectively as Ashkenazic Jewry, have commanded the attention of scholars since the beginnings of modern Jewish historiography. Kanarfogel examines the educational process in Ashkenaz, exploring whether there was a developed system of education, whether compensation for Torah study was permitted and what the social status of those who taught Torah was; in the first comprehensive study of the relationship between the educational institutions, leadership, and the communities in medieval Ashkenaz.