172 results for "Jewish History"

INHERIT THE TRUTH 1939-1945 : THE DOCUMENTED EXPERIENCES OF A SURVIVOR OF AUSCHWITZ AND BELSEN

Lasker-Wallfisch, Anita
Told in her own words, this is the incredible true story of one young woman's survival of Auschwitz and Belsen because she happened to play the cello. Although my head was shaved and I had a number on my arm, I had not lost my identity totally. I may no longer have had a name, but I was identifiable ... I was 'the cellist'. When eighteen-year-old Anita arrived at Auschwitz, she found herself plucked from the Nazi death machine by a twist of fate: she played the cello, and the camp orchestra needed a cellist. Now the last living survivor of the Auschwitz Women's Orchestra, this is her story told in her own words. Like so many German Jewish schoolgirls, Anita had been busy with her studies and ambitions when her everyday life began to turn by degrees into one of unimaginable horror. School was cancelled, her parents were summoned for deportation, and when she and her sister, Renate, attempted to escape to France, they were arrested and imprisoned. Through her sharp-etched memories, alongside family letters, photos, and other historical documents, Inherit the Truth leads us into one of humanity's darkest chapters, where we are forced to confront the fragility of the line between civilisation and barbarity. Marking the eightieth anniversary of her arrival in the UK after her release from Belsen concentration camp, Anita Lasker-Fallfisch's account of her and her sister's survival of both Auschwitz and Belsen is a testament to their remarkable courage, resilience, ingenuity and luck. This edition includes a new foreword from Philippe Sands.
FABER AND FABER 2026-04-23 272 pages

The Transfer Agreement The Dramatic Zionist Rescue of Jews from the Third Reich to Jewish Palestine

Edwin Black
The Transfer Agreement is Edwin Black's compelling, award-winning story of a negotiated arrangement in 1933 between Zionist organizations and the Nazis to transfer some 50,000 Jews plus and $100 million of their assets, to Jewish Palestine in exchange for stopping the worldwide Jewish-led boycott threatening to topple the Hitler regime in its first year. It was originally published in 1984, updated in 2009 for its 25thanniversary, and published in 2021 in Portuguese as Haavara: O Acordo de Transferência: a Dramatica Historia do Pacto Entre a Palestina Judaica e o Terceiro Reich.
Dialog Press 2025-12-28 634 pages

Historicism, the Holocaust, and Zionism: critical studies in modern Jewish thought and history

Katz, Steven T.
"[Of] the 12 well-crafted essays in this volume...the most useful are those dealing with the Holocaust." — Choice "Especially recommended for college-level students of Jewish history and culture." — The Bookwatch This is a critical exploration of the most repercussive topics in modern Jewish history and thought. A sequel to Katz's National Jewish Book Award-winning study, Post-Holocaust Dialogues, this book identifies the main issues in the contemporary Jewish intellectual universe and outlines a larger, more synthetic understanding of contemporary Jewish existence.
New York University Press 1992 315 pages

The Classic Tales: 4000 Years of Jewish Lore

Frankel, Ellen
Frankel has compiled the classic stories and tales of 4,000 years of Jewish legend, and made them accessible without necessitating hours of Talmudic study. There's Lot's Wife, The Witches of Ashkelon, and 298 more, culled from the Bible, the Talmud, and Diaspora lore. The writing is simple enough to read aloud to children, the font's large enough to invite the tired eye, and the selection's interesting enough to read to yourself after bedtime stories are over. Well-referenced so you can look up the Giant Og when you want, it's the sort of book that becomes a family favorite.
Jewish Pubn Society 1998 704 pages

Post-holocaust dialogues: critical studies in modern Jewish thought

Katz, Steven T.
In his introduction to this book, Steven Katz states, "Philosophical truth develops through criticism." In that interest, 'Post-Holocaust Dialogues' argues forthrightly that many of the most widely circulated and deeply held opinions in the body of modern Jewish thought are inadequate, if not false. In an attempt to construct a more compelling - and ultimately truthful - philosophical outlook, Katz focuses on issues with particular relevance to current circumstances: the extraordinary influential work of Martin Buber; Jewish response to the Holocaust; and the meaning of Hasidism today. As a result, 'Post-Holocaust Dialogues' tellingly portrays the spiritual condition of contemporary Jewry as reflected through philosophical and theological ruminations.
New York University Press 1985-04-01 327 pages

Meir Kahane: the public life and political thought of an American Jewish radical

Magid, Shaul
The life and politics of an American Jewish activist who preached radical and violent means to Jewish survival Meir Kahane came of age amid the radical politics of the counterculture, becoming a militant voice of protest against Jewish liberalism. Kahane founded the Jewish Defense League in 1968, declaring that Jews must protect themselves by any means necessary. He immigrated to Israel in 1971, where he founded KACH, an ultranationalist and racist political party. He would die by assassination in 1990. Shaul Magid provides an in-depth look at this controversial figure, showing how the postwar American experience shaped his life and political thought. Magid sheds new light on Kahane’s radical political views, his critique of liberalism, and his use of the “grammar of race” as a tool to promote Jewish pride. He discusses Kahane’s theory of violence as a mechanism to assure Jewish safety, and traces how his Zionism evolved from a fervent support of Israel to a belief that the Zionist project had failed. Magid examines how tradition and classical Jewish texts profoundly influenced Kahane’s thought later in life, and argues that Kahane’s enduring legacy lies not in his Israeli career but in the challenge he posed to the liberalism and assimilatory project of the postwar American Jewish establishment. This incisive book shows how Kahane was a quintessentially American figure, one who adopted the radicalism of the militant Left as a tenet of Jewish survival.
Princeton University Press 2023-08-08 276 pages

Plunder A Memoir of Family Property and Nazi Treasure

Menachem Kaiser
From a gifted young writer, the story of his quest to reclaim his family's apartment building in Poland--and of the astonishing entanglement with Nazi treasure hunters that follows Menachem Kaiser's brilliantly told story, woven from improbable events and profound revelations, is set in motion when the author takes up his Holocaust-survivor grandfather's former battle to reclaim the family's apartment building in Sosnowiec, Poland. Soon, he is on a circuitous path to encounters with the long-time residents of the building, and with a Polish lawyer known as "The Killer." A surprise discovery--that his grandfather's cousin not only survived the war, but wrote a secret memoir while a slave laborer in a vast, secret Nazi tunnel complex--leads to Kaiser being adopted as a virtual celebrity by a band of Silesian treasure seekers who revere the memoir as the indispensable guidebook to Nazi plunder. Propelled by rich original research, Kaiser immerses readers in profound questions that reach far beyond his personal quest. What does it mean to seize your own legacy? Can reclaimed property repair rifts among the living? Plunder is both a deeply immersive adventure story and an irreverent, daring interrogation of inheritance--material, spiritual, familial, and emotional.
HarperCollins Publishers 2022-03-15 288 pages

Kol Dodi Dofek - קול דודי דופק: Listen, My Beloved Knocks

Soloveitchik, Joseph B
Given first as an address at Yeshiva University in NY on the occasion of Israel’s Independence Day (Yom HaAtzmaut 1956), Kol Dodi Dofek discusses God and the Holocaust, the importance of the modern State of Israel and the role of Zionism in American Orthodoxy. Kol Dodi Dofek has become a classic text of religious Zionist philosophy.
Independently published 2022 65 pages

The Heart Has Reasons Dutch Rescuers of Jewish Children During the Holocaust

Mark Klempner
"You can't let people be treated in an inhuman way around you....Otherwise you start to become inhuman." So declares rescuer Hetty Voûte in this updated edition of THE HEART HAS REASONS, an acclaimed historical account that offers an in-depth look into the hearts and minds of the Holocaust rescuers and explores the meaning that their lives and deeds have for us today. Individually or in small "humanitarian cells," the ten Dutch people Klempner profiles saved the lives of thousands of Jewish children during the Nazi occupation of Holland. How did they do what they did--and why did they risk everything to do it? Although their tales of rescue vary greatly, the integrity of the rescuers does not. Thus these narratives provide a glimpse into their personalities and character while shedding light on their extraordinary acts of courage and kindness. Framed by Klempner's quest for meaning, the rescuers' words resonate across generations, providing timeless insight into how people of conscience can navigate morally and resist tyranny in a world where the old specters of prejudice and fascism are again ascendant.
hearthasreasons.com 2012-11-15 244 pages

Aristotle's Children How Christians, Muslims, and Jews Rediscovered Ancient Wisdom and Illuminated the Dark Ages

Richard E. Rubenstein
Europe was in the long slumber of the Dark Ages, the Roman Empire was in tatters, and the Greek language was all but forgotten, until a group of Arab, Jewish, and Christian scholars rediscovered and translated the works of Aristotle. His ideas spread across Europe like wildfire, offering the scientific point of view that the natural world, including the soul of man, was a proper subject of study. The Catholic Church convulsed, and riots took place at the universities of Paris and Oxford.
RB Large Print 2003 492 pages

JEWISH HISTORY FOR DUMMIES

Kurzweil, Arthur
"Jewish History For Dummies provides unbiased, factual history of Jewish life, culture, and history. You'll take a look at the roots of Jewish history, beginning in 2000 B.C.E. with Abraham and his descendants. Chapter by chapter, you'll trace the evolution of the Jewish people through the biblical record and other sources, learning how King David united Israel, how the Jews were exiled under Babylonian rule, and how Jewish people have adapted to life in the diaspora, from ancient times all the way up to today. Whatever era of Jewish history you're interested in, you'll find comprehensive coverage in this Dummies guide."--
JOHN WILEY 2026-04-30 334 pages

Who by Fire War, Atonement, and the Resurrection of Leonard Cohen

Matti Friedman
"An expedition into the troubled soul of one of the world's greatest songwriters."-- Haaretz "A fascinating and intense account of Leonard Cohen's time in Israel during the 19-day Yom Kippur War of 1973. A must for any Leonard Cohen completist."--Suzanne Vega A Vanity Fair Best Book of 2022 * Mosaic Magazine Best Book of 2022 The untold story of Leonard Cohen's concert tour to the front lines of the Yom Kippur War, including never-before-seen selections from an unfinished manuscript by Cohen and rare photographs In October 1973, the poet and singer Leonard Cohen--thirty-nine years old, famous, unhappy, and at a creative dead end--traveled to the chaos and bloodshed of the Sinai desert when Egypt attacked Israel on the Jewish high holiday of Yom Kippur. Moving around the front with a group of local musicians, Cohen sang for hundreds of young soldiers, men and women at the worst moment of their lives. Those who survived never forgot the experience. And the war transformed Cohen, reigniting his creativity and inspiring him to compose some of his most memorable songs. Who by Fire provides a riveting account of those weeks in the Sinai, drawing on Cohen's previously unpublished writing and original reporting to create a kaleidoscopic depiction of a harrowing, existential moment for both a young country at war and a singer at a crossroads.
Spiegel & Grau 2024-09-03 224 pages

Communities of violence: persecution of minorities in the middle ages

Nirenberg, David
In the wake of modern genocide, we tend to think of violence against minorities as a sign of intolerance or, even worse, a prelude to extermination. In Communities of Violence, David Nirenberg argues that violence in the Middle Ages functioned differently. In this provocative book, he focuses on specific attacks against minorities in fourteenth-century France and the Crown of Aragon. He argues that these attacks were often perpetrated not by irrational masses laboring under inherited ideologies and prejudices, but by groups that manipulated and reshaped the available discourses on minorities. Nirenberg shows that their use of violence expressed complex beliefs about topics as diverse as divine history, kinship, sex, money, and disease, and that their actions were frequently contested by competing groups within their own society. -- from back cover.
Princeton University Press 2015-05-26 301 pages