The three Kosky children help their parents prepare for and celebrate the beginning of Passover.

This collection of tales offers an accessible and engaging introduction to Jewish history. With stories ranging from biblical times to modern day, Moss crafts an immersive narrative that highlights the struggles and triumphs of Jewish communities throughout the ages. 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. We appreciate your support of the preservation process, and thank you for being an important part of keeping this knowledge alive and relevant.

Nun, Gimel, Hey, Shin Sara finds Chanukah celebrations boring. When her Tante Miriam arrives and gives her a Golden Dreydl, everything changes. The dreydl, an enchanted princess in disguise, takes Sara on a journey to a magical world. When the princess is taken by the Demon King, who possesses the power of the Tree of Life, it is Sara who must use her wit to save the princess and return her to her parents -- King Solomon and the Queen of Sheba. A delightful holiday tale that weaves together threads of Jewish folklore and tradition with fantasy and humor.

In the 16th century, there was great interest in the kind of magic that is in fact science. But the scientists were ahead of their time. There was no machinery. Da Vinci had already drawn plans for a submarine and an airplane, but it was impossible to have them built. Legends began to grow. Soon it was told, as absolute truth, that a living being had been created out of clay. Was there reason to believe this? Who can say? But one of the most enduring of all these legends was the story that a great rabbi, by the power of his mystic wisdom, had been permitted by God to create a manlike being in order to save the Jews from destruction. This was the Golem. Now Sulamith Ish-Kishor has written an exciting novel, based on this legend, told through the eyes of an orphan boy, Gideon ben Israyel. By a strange series of events, the High Rabbi of the city of Prague entrusts him with an awesome task. Brave, strong, and loyal, Cideon wants to do right. But he makes one fateful mistake.

When King Philip VI expelled the Jews in 1306, some 100,000 men, women, and children were driven from royal France into the neighboring lands of Spain, Provence, Italy, and North Africa. The great expulsion of 1306 was arguably one of the most traumatic moments of medieval Jewish history and would prove to be the harbinger of a series of recalls and expulsions, local and general, culminating in King Charles VI's expulsion decree of 1394. Despite the upheavals of the fourteenth century, the literary productivity of Jews was astonishing. Yet there are few direct references to the catastrophic events of 1306, even in Jewish liturgical and historiographic texts, where one would expect to find them. In No Place of Rest , Susan Einbinder coaxes out the literary traces of this traumatic expulsion. Why did the memory of this proud and vibrant Jewish community fade from historical memory? Where do its remnants reside among later communities and readers? From the lyrics of the supposed "Jewish troubadour" Isaac HaGorni to medical texts and astronomical charts, Einbinder studies a range of writings she reveals to be commemorative. Her careful readings uncover the ways in which medieval Jews asserted their identity in exile and, perhaps more important, helped to preserve or efface their history.

In evoking the joy and pain of the Jewish immigrant experience, Anzia Yezierska has no peer. Her stories, written from the 1920s to the 1960s, immortalized the lives of the Jews of New York's Lower East Side. The Open Cage collects sixteen of her best stories and excerpts from her autobiography to illustrate her extraordinary storytelling gift as well as her personal experience as an immigrant woman. Along with her novel Bread Givers, the work gathered here constitutes her enduring achievement. Included are "The Fat of the Land," Children of Loneliness," America and I," The Lost 'Beautifulness, '" and other stories; vignettes from Red Ribbon on a White Horse: My Story; and four remarkable stories of old age. The introduction by Historian Alice Kessler-Harris and the afterword by Yezierska's daughter and biographer, Louise Levitas Henriksen, place the writings in a rich and valuable context.

The Gospel of John presents its readers, listeners, and interpreters with a serious problem: how can we reconcile the Gospel's exalted spirituality and deep knowledge of Judaism with its portrayal of the Jews as the children of the devil (John 8:44) who persecuted Christ and his followers? One widespread solution to this problem is the so-called "expulsion hypothesis." According to this view, the Fourth Gospel was addressed to a Jewish group of believers in Christ that had been expelled from the synagogue due to their faith. The anti-Jewish elements express their natural resentment of how they had been treated; the Jewish elements of the Gospel, on the other hand, reflect the Jewishness of this group and also soften the force of the Gospel's anti-Jewish comments. In Cast out of the Covenant, this book, Adele Reinhartz presents a detailed critique of the expulsion hypothesis on literary and historical grounds. She argues that, far from softening the Gospel's anti-Jewishness, the Gospel's Jewish elements in fact contribute to it. Focusing on the Gospel's persuasive language and intentions, Reinhartz shows that the Gospel's anti-Jewishness is evident not only in the Gospel's hostile comments about the Jews but also in its appropriation of Torah, Temple, and Covenant that were so central to first-century Jewish identity. Through its skillful use of rhetoric, the Gospel attempts to convince its audience that God's favor had turned away from the Jews to the Gentiles; that there is a deep rift between the synagogue and those who confess Christ as Messiah; and that, in the Gospel's view, this rift was initiated in Jesus' own lifetime. The Fourth Gospel, Reinhartz argues, appropriates Jewishness at the same time as it repudiates Jews. In doing so, it also promotes a "parting of the ways" between those who believe that Jesus is the messiah, the Son of God, and those who do not, that is, the Jews. This rhetorical program, she suggests, may have been used to promote outreach or even an organized mission to the Gentiles, following in the footsteps of Paul and his mid-first-century contemporaries.

Es ist ein beeindruckend-berührender Rückblick in die dunkelste deutsche Geschichte am Beispiel einer Einzelbiographie [kult]

Book by Porter, Jack Nusan

Life in a town in the north of England can be tough on a lad. Especially this lad. His mum is always embarrassing him; his dad is not around; and money is scarce. He falls out of a tree house trying to stop his friends from stealing school test answers -- and winds up with a broken leg. He wins second prize in an art contest -- but the drawing isn't his. And then he finds himself taking sides with a bunch of bullies when a new Jewish boy comes to school. If he doesn't act mean, the bullies will thump him, but he feels so guilty being mean.... No wonder he can't wait to swap. On the school exchange, he'll swap houses for a week with some posh lad from London. Who knows what he'll discover? George Layton brilliantly captures the balancing act of one boy's eleventh year, when he faces up to prejudice, poverty and pride, and unwittingly discovers who he is...and who he isn't.

Ethel Hofman grew up in the only Jewish family on Shetland. This is the story of her family and childhood, and of the meeting of two diverse cultures in a unique landscape. Fleeing Russia a century ago, Ethel's father, Harry Greenwald, found a safe haven in Lerwick, Shetland. Liking the place, he brought over Jean after an arranged marriage and they set up a shop, Greenvald's, soon popular with the locals as a gathering place. Despite the hardships of living on a remote island, good food and good company were always available, and the recipes for the Jewish and island dishes prepared by Jean are woven throughout the touching, affectionate narrative. As a unique blend of memoir and cookbook, Mackerel at Midnight shows how food can strengthen family and cultural bonds, and celebrates the tolerance and warmth of one Jewish family and the community that embraced them.

Throughout history the heritage of faith has been conveyed within the family and the congregation. In the New Covenant, the primary expression of spiritual life is the congregation, under godly elders, teaching, exhortation, and discipline. However, the first institution in the Bible is the family and only the family can raise children with an adequate appreciation of our faith and heritage. This guide exists to help families learn how to pass on the heritage of spiritual Messianic Jewish life. It is not an exhaustive or fully adequate guide, but is one that each family should complement with their own creativity.

At last, Ruth Sidranksy’s groundbreaking book In Silence: Growing Up Hearing in a Deaf World is back in print. Her account of growing up as the hearing daughter of deaf Jewish parents in the Bronx and Brooklyn during the 1930s and1940s reveals the challenges deaf people faced during the Depression and afterward. Inside her family’s apartment, Sidransky knew a warm, secure place. She recalls her earliest memories of seeing words fall from her parents’ hands. She remembers her father entertaining the family endlessly with his stories, and her mother’s story of tying a red ribbon to herself and her infant daughter to know when she needed anything in the night. Outside the apartment, the cacophonous hearing world greeted Sidransky’s family with stark stares of curiosity as though they were “freaks.” Always upbeat, her proud father still found it hard to earn a living. When Sidransky started school, she was placed in a class for special needs children until the principal realized that she could hear and speak. Sidransky portrays her family with deep affection and honesty, and her frank account provides a living narrative of the Deaf experience in pre- and post-World War II America. In Silence has become an invaluable chronicle of a special time and place that will affect all who read it for years to come.

Jungk gives a profound meditation on a Jewish family and its past, especially the lasting distorting effects on a son of a famous, vital father and a clinging, overwhelming mother, and of the differences between the generation of European intellectual refugees who arrived in the United States during the Second World War and the children of that generation.

These vibrant short stories are about the lives of Jewish families in New York in the mid-twentieth century. But, in Kaplan's vision, everyday life, with its complexity, disorder, and comic subtleties can never obscure a deeper reality. Her sharp-eyed, quirky children and adults are haunted by history, both individual and collective. About this book, Cynthia Ozick said, "Johanna Kaplan's first book of stories blissfully renews character as fiction's chief adventure. Other People's Lives is the source of every intelligent joy, and restores to reading its old flavor of visits busy with crisis, comedy, wisdom, dreaming, irony, redemption." Other People's Lives won the Jewish Book Award, and the Ernest Hemingway-PEN Prize in 1976.

Product Description Friday Night Live is a service held at Sinai Temple in Los Angeles, CA designed for young people, ages 25-40, many of whom were estranged from the synagogue and Jewish life. Now the monthly service is an amazing "happening" that draws 2,000 people! Craig's wonderful music that resulted is recorded with all the energy, excitement, and artistry that mark all of his recording projects. This is the accompanying songbook to the Friday Night Live CD, the best-selling Jewish music album in the country. About the Author Craig Taubman has established himself as a unique voice in family entertainment, blending kid-friendly themes with adult musical appeal. He is a proven entertainer who has been writing and performing music for children and their families for over fifteen years. Craig enjoys a successful career in television and film composing as well. He has composed music for Television Series on Fox, Showtime HBO and PBS. Craig music has also been films from Paramount, New Line Cinema Disney's. His songs have been recorded by such respected artists as Chita Rivera, Whoopi Goldberg and Jennifer Holliday. Perhaps best known for his work in the Jewish community, Craig's dynamic music and moving performance style have been an inspiration for over 22 years. His magical and enchanting music brings to life the joy and spirit of the Jewish heritage, appealing to young and old alike and captivating audiences wherever he goes. His 14 Jewish recordings are an integral part of the Jewish community, weaving song and spirit into the fabric of Jewish life. Craig's most recent release, Friday Night Live was composed for a special Sabbath service held one a month at Sinai Temple in Los Angeles. The service which attracts over 2000 people was designed for young adults, ages 25-40, many of whom were estranged from the synagogue and even from Jewish life.

Algorithmic Shapeshifting is the first poetry collection of Bogi Takács, winner of the Lambda award for editing Transcendent 2: The Year's Best Transgender Speculative Fiction, and finalist for the Hugo and Locus awards. The collection includes poems from the past decade and previously unpublished work. The scope of pieces extends from the present and past of Jewish life in Hungary and the United States to the far-future, outer-space reaches of the speculative—always with a sense of curiosity and wonder. “Bogi Takács is a poet of visceral exuberance and Talmudic invention. Moving as dazzlingly between genres as languages, e makes the reader eir kaleidoscope where ancient traditions, unenvisioned technologies, and children's toys tumble with ordinary, transcendent precision, imagining new ways of being and observing others signally extant. These poems draw blood and spark synapses, make dauntingly familiar and tenderly strange. You should let them change you.” Sonya Taaffe, author of Forget the Sleepless Shores “Bogi Takács's poetry is gleefully and unabashedly itself, pulling the reader through surreal worlds of visceral magic, body modification, political wit, and interpersonal devotion. Whether looking back into Talmudic history, forward into a science fictional psychic war, or sinking into the earth and growing flowers from its own eye sockets, "Algorithmic Shapeshifting" presents a voice that is consistently fresh, startling, and sincere.” Ada Hoffmann, author of The Outside

This historic book may have numerous typos and missing text. Purchasers can download a free scanned copy of the original book (without typos) from the publisher. Not indexed. Not illustrated. 1865 Excerpt: ...coldness of the Rabbi was changed into a loving attachment and paternal tenderness towards the youth. One day a stranger came to Jochanan. "What doest thou want of me?" asked the Rabbi of him, "tell me quickly, in what I can render thee a service; for thou seemest to stand in need of it." "Yes, Rabbi," replied the stranger earnestly, "that Ido; and still I find it difficult to express myself freely of my affairs." "Be it what it may, that lies heavily on thy heart, God will give me strength that I may afford thee help and consolation." "Listen then, Rabbi," said the unknown. "I am a countryman of Judaea; God has amply blessed me with worldly goods; he gave me fields and vineyards, oxen and sheep in abundance; he also granted me a wife and two children." "Andthou hast cause to complain?" eagerly interrupted him the Rabbi. "And two children," repeated the man after a somewhat long and distressing pause; "but of one of them, my son, has become rebellious to me, he is a disobedient son, he it is who has changed for me all the sweet gifts which Heaven has bestowed on me, into naught but wormwood." "What is the guilt of thy son?" inquired Jochanan. "Has he proved himself ungrateful towards thee? has he raised his hand against thee?" "He has dug my grave," answered the stranger, gloomily. "I loved him in a manner God demands it from parents. I bestowed on him every care from his first infancy. I already derived joy from the thought to behold in him a man who, with skilful and industrious hands, and with a pious and virtuous heart, could administer and increase the estates, which his father had acquired, while thinking of him, hones...

According to the account in the Book of Exodus, God addresses the children of Israel as they stand before Mt. Sinai with the words, "You shall be to me a kingdom of priests and a holy nation" (19:6). The sentence, Martha Himmelfarb observes, is paradoxical, for priests are by definition a minority, yet the meaning in context is clear: the entire people is holy. The words also point to some significant tensions in the biblical understanding of the people of Israel. If the entire people is holy, why does it need priests? If membership in both people and priesthood is a matter not of merit but of birth, how can either the people or its priests hope to be holy? How can one reconcile the distance between the honor due the priest and the actual behavior of some who filled the role? What can the people do to make itself truly a kingdom of priests? Himmelfarb argues that these questions become central in Second Temple Judaism. She considers a range of texts from this period, including the Book of Watchers , the Book of Jubilees , legal documents from the Dead Sea Scrolls, the writings of Philo of Alexandria, and the Book of Revelation of the New Testament, and goes on to explore rabbinic Judaism's emphasis on descent as the primary criterion for inclusion among the chosen people of Israel—a position, she contends, that took on new force in reaction to early Christian disparagement of the idea that mere descent from Abraham was sufficient for salvation.