The Brothers Ashkenazi by I.J. Singer is a multi-generational saga set in the tumultuous backdrop of nineteenth- and twentieth-century Poland. The novel follows the lives of two vastly different brothers, Meshulam and Asa Ashkenazi, as they navigate the complexities of family, business, and identity within the Jewish community. Meshulam, a shrewd and ambitious businessman, embraces modernity and capitalism to rise in society, even at the expense of his traditions. Asa, on the other hand, remains deeply rooted in his Jewish faith and studies, rejecting the pursuit of material success. The brothers' contrasting paths lead to a bitter rivalry that mirrors the social changes and political upheavals of their time, including World War I and the rise of antisemitism. Amidst personal struggles, power struggles, and shifting allegiances, the novel explores themes of assimilation, cultural transformation, and the enduring struggle to balance tradition with progress. Through intricate character development and vivid historical detail, Singer crafts a compelling narrative that illuminates the complexities of Jewish identity and the forces that shape a society in flux.

"The adventures of a boy named Ira Stigman, and his extended Jewish immigrant family, from the outbreak of World War I through the beginning of the 1920s."--Jacket.

In Ferrara, Italy, an adolescent Jewish boy is led into misconduct and guilty knowledge by a cynical classmate, in the 1930's.

Dybbuk Kokos, a soul-stealing demon of Jewish folklore, is freed after 200 years trapped inside a tree. She seeks the descendant of the woman she was to haunt long ago--but finds the unexpected in Rainbow Rosenbloom. Copyright © Libri GmbH. All rights reserved.

After the shocking murder of her husband, 19-year-old Ros and her one-year-old son relocate to her childhood home to live with her parents. Palm Springs--full of sunlight, small and safe--should be the perfect place to bring up a child. But things aren't always as they appear. When the father of one of Ros's friends is shot in front of her house--an incident that also lands Ros in the hospital--it marks the beginning of a terrible string of events. Someone is out to get her, and they seem determined not to stop until her friends and family are also drawn in. As she struggles to uncover the identity of her mysterious enemy, Ros finds herself looking for answers in the most unusual places. Could the attacks have something to do with her increasingly disturbing dreams? And if so, how can she make them stop? In Past Crimes, bestselling author Carol Matas once again asks her readers to question their assumptions about the world around them. Are we capable of fully understanding the lives we lead, or do the things we fail to understand far outnumber those that we do? Growing out of her work in books like The Freak, Past Crimes offers an innovative twist on the mystery/thriller genre, and is a must-read for fans of Matas's work. Veteran novelist Carol Matas knows that a fast-paced plot is mandatory for youth raised on television. In Ros [the protagonist], Matas has created a heroin who will appeal to teenage girls Canadian Review of Materials Ive read Past Crimes and its interesting that shes tackled something typically new. Shes gone from one genre to another and not many writers can. Shes willing to challenge different kinds of writing, and shes incredibly productive. Helen Norrie, Childrens reviewer from the Winnipeg Free Press as quoted in the Jewish Tribune

Twenty-first-century London draws in thousands of immigrants, filling the spaces unwanted by the legitimate majority - invisible, untraceable and powerless. So a murdered girl, fished from Hampstead Ponds one morning, could be anyone... Here is Job, driving mini-cabs illegally, his wife lives in Zimbabwe; Ian, the supply teacher, a South African exile; New Yorker Katie, jilted, and impoverished; and fifteen-year-old Ukrainian Anna, trafficked into sexual slavery. And Polly Noble, an immigrant lawyer, the descendant of Jewish refugees, knows how easy it is to fall through the cracks. Yet when her au pair, Irene, disappears, Polly hardly imagines that her own needs and beliefs have dragged her family into a world of danger, deceit and terror, which will threaten not only her home, but London itself.

The world of ten-year-old Jacob and his younger brother Solly falls apart when they are orphaned and pitched into a Sydney children's home, where other refugee Jewish children are gathering as Hitler rises to power in Europe.

Union Square opens in 1920 in the aftermath of World War I and ends two decades later with the shadows of World War II looming. Four strong women are swept up in the worlds of fashion and art amidst a background of Communism, Naziism, and Zionism.

A remarkable collection, Robots through the Ages includes stories from some of the best writers of science fiction, both old and new. This anthology, with an introduction by Robert Silverberg, offers a sweeping survey of robots as depicted throughout literature. Since the Iliad--in which we are shown golden statues built by Hephaestus "with minds and wisdoms"--humans have been fascinated by the idea of artificial life. From the Argonautica to the medieval Jewish legend of the Golem and Ambrose Bierce's tale of a chess-playing robot, the idea of what robots are--and who creates them--can be drastically different. This book collects a broad selection of short stories from celebrated authors such as Philip K. Dick, Seanan McGuire, Roger Zelazny, Connie Willis, and many more. Robots through the Ages not only celebrates the history of robots and the genre of science fiction, but the dauntless nature of human ingenuity.

"Completed in the last year of his life, From Bondage is perhaps Roth's most profound work, for like Tolstoy in The Death of Ivan Ilyich, Roth examines his own imminent passing in the most plaintive of ways, telling the story of the old man, Ira Stigman, who, in spite of his physical frailties, finds solace in re-creating the lost love affair of his youth. Capturing the bohemian downtown world of Manhattan in the 1920s, Roth has set the stage for one of the most memorable of literary romances." "At its heart, From Bondage is the mesmerizing love triangle involving young Ira, an impressionable neophyte from Jewish Harlem, and Edith Welles, a sophisticated professor of English, a muse to starving poets and lovelorn men, who sweeps Ira into her world of soigne parties and literary debaucheries. Edith, as the old man Ira relays the story, is still physically involved with her former student Larry Gordon when she finds herself attracted to Ira, who is Larry's best friend. To complicate the matter even more, Edith is also carrying on a simultaneous affair with Lewlyn, the separated husband of the aspiring anthropologist Marcia Meede." "Fictionalizing the lives of the celebrities of the 1920s, including such burgeoning literary figures as Hart Crane, Louise Bogan, Leonie Adams, and Margaret Mead, Roth creates an unforgettable portrait of New York where "the lights of Manhattan twisted toward him across the rippling water like a gimlet." Perhaps the last witness to this age, Roth paints a gentile and genteel world that contrasts so vividly with the seemingly coarse, abject slums of the Pushcart District from which he had sprung. Ira, then a young man, is the observant witness to the spectacle that unfolds, seeking desperately to ingratiate himself into this world of sophisticates, yet hopelessly tethered to the tenement roots he cannot escape."--BOOK JACKET.Title Summary field provided by Blackwell North America, Inc. All Rights Reserved

"This novel has a laugh track; Adler's a good storyteller and has an ear for the rhythms of a good joke." -Jewish Journal18-year-old Mickey Fine and 17-year-old Mutzie Feder desperately want to escape their drab lives in 1937 Brooklyn. He wants to be a world-famous comic and she is longing to have the glamorous life she sees embodied by her idol on the silver screen, Jean Harlow. Mickey gets his chance when he is hired to be the resident social director and comedian, otherwise known as a "tumler" at the famed Catskills resort, Gorlicks Greenhouse. Mutzie gets her opportunity when she is chosen to be "the number one girl" of notorious hit-man "Pittsburgh Phil" Strauss or "Pep". That summer, Pep travels with Mutzie, his Murder Incorporated cohorts and their families for an extended holiday at Gorlicks. As the season progresses and Strauss has to leave on weekdays for "business reasons", Mickey and Mutzie begin to fall hard for each other. As their feelings grow, so do Pep's suspicions. They must find a way out before Pep marks them both for death.

Critics in Britain are already raving about Charlotte Mendelson’s excoriatingly funny yet deeply humane novel about a glamorous London family that happens to be falling apart. The Rubins are the perfect family. They’re wonderfully happy and very glamorous. The mother, Claudia, is the ultimate Jewish a powerful rabbi known for her charm, brains, and determination. Now this dynastic Jewish family is getting ready to marry off the perfect eldest son. History, community, and even gastronomy unite the guests lucky enough to attend this joyous occasion. But when the groom -- one minute before exchanging vows -- bolts with the wrong woman, the myths that have defined this family take on darker overtones. Mendelson’s astonishing eye for detail, as well as her just-right balance of plot and character, makes the unfolding of this story an uncommon treat. In a marvelously compressed style that also bursts with life, she reveals how all four adult Rubin children, and their parents, struggle with huge secrets, sexual frustration and sexual experimentation, and many betrayals. Charlotte Mendelson opens a window on a realm rarely explored in British the complicated world of English Jewry. But to watch this seemingly blessed family drastically, disastrously fall apart before regaining balance is to understand that their struggles -- like all of ours -- are universal ones.

Born into slavery, adopted as an infant by a princess, and raised in the palace of mighty Pharaoh, Moses struggles to define himself. And so do the three women who love him: his own embittered mother, forced to give him up by Pharaoh's decree; the Egyptian princess who defies her father and raises Moses as her own child; and his headstrong sister Almah, who discovers a greater kinship with the Egyptian deities than with her own God of the Hebrews. Told by Moses and his sister Almah from alternating points of view, this stunning novel by Newbery Honor-author Julius Lester probes questions of identity, faith, and destiny.

In Menachem's Seed , Carl Djerassi , world-renowned scientist and inventor of the birth-control pill, brings us a new novel that explores the human--and passionate--side of science. Melanie Laidlaw and Menachem Dvir meet at a series of international conferences where jet-setting scientists come together to discuss the global implications of their discoveries. Melanie runs a foundation that awards grants for innovations in reproductive technology; Menachem is an infertile nuclear engineer and a married man. Naturally, they fall in love. What follows is a story of sexual steam, stolen seed, and religious conversion--a very modern romance that hinges on a cutting-edge scientific breakthrough. As Melanie and Menachem discover, what science makes possible, only two hearts can make right.

American cancer specialist Dr. Alex Cousins is on a covert mission to the USSR. His task: to save the life of Soviet Politburo Chief Viktor Moiseyevich Dimitrov. But the tenuous alliance between the two crumbles one night. Alex stumbles upon Dimitrov's sinister plans for a nuclear strike on China. The Russians dispatch Alex on a six-thousand-mile journey aboard the infamous Trans-Siberian Express - thus ensuring he won't get home in time to warn the US of the imminent attack.As the train lumbers east across snow-cloaked mountains, watchful eyes rest on the American doctor. Surrounding him are people beaten and broken by life, each drawn to this emperor of trains in search of a brighter future. But most curious is Anna Petrovna Valentinova, the hauntingly beautiful history professor.The Trans-Siberian Express roars onward through a cavern of hopes and memories. A train attendant yearns for love, a persecuted Jewish couple runs to a new home, and a passionate romance transcending political barriers unfolds under KGB surveillance.

In Ariosto's epic 16th-century poem Orlando Furioso, the beautiful Angelica, chained, naked, to a rock and menaced by a sea monster is rescued by the valiant Ruggiero, riding a 'hippogriff', the offspring of a griffin and a mare - an entirely imaginary winged creature (as readers of Harry Potter know). Volatore, as this hippogriff calls himself, has escaped the poem in which he has been confined for centuries and is determined to find his Angelica, even if it takes him to the 21st century and involves some shape-shifting. He lands in contemporary San Francisco and the first person he sets eyes on is Angelica Greenberg, the Jewish owner of a San Franciscan art gallery, who has just dumped her fiance. Volatore rises to her window and they hit it off big-time. But no sooner have they met and fallen in love than events conspire to separate the two so that Volatore must not only seek Angelica but also find the perfect form in which to consummate his undying love. The first is too masculine, the second not enough so, but will the third be just right, and how will Angelica reconcile the imaginary and the real in the perfect lover?

A seductive and intriguing journey from the humble Persian Jewish quarter to the fascinating world of shahs, soothsayers, eunuchs, and sultanas, "Harem" follows three generations of strong-willed and cunning women: Rebekah -- a poor girl married to the abusive blacksmith, Jacob the fatherless -- who emerges from her disastrous match with a mysterious brand between her breasts; Gold Dust, Rebekah's treasured daughter, who enters the opulent and perilous world of the harem and captivates the shah with her singing bones; and Gold Dust's daughter, the revered and feared albino princess Raven, who will one day rule the empire.Rich in visual imagery, "Harem" vividly depicts the exotic bazaars and dangerous alleys of the city and palace chambers brimming with conspiracy and betrayal -- as well as love and redemption. A skillfully crafted, intricately textured novel, "Harem" represents the beginning of a remarkable literary career.

More than three thousand years ago, a black child was found on the shore of the Red Sea. She was given the name Zipporah, 'the bird'. But because of the colour of her skin, her fate was sealed: in the tribal lands where she lived, no man would want her as a wife. But one day, as she was drawing water at a well, Zipporah met a man like no other she'd met before. An outcast like herself, his name was Moses and he was a fugitive from Egypt.A passionate lover and a generous wife, Zipporah the Black, the stranger, the non-Jew, was to share Moses' destiny. Thanks to her, he would forget his fears and hear the message of God, bequeathing to mankind laws that, even today, protect the weak against the strong.But alas for Zipporah, her love for Moses would condemn her: for among the Hebrews of the Exodus her status as a black woman was to have catastrophic consequences ...A forgotten protagonist of the Old Testament, Zipporah was the embodiment of intelligence and love. potential of the role given to Moses, her emotional bravery and strength in adversity making her, like Sarah, an astonishing modern heroine: a woman for her - and our - troubled times.

The award-winning novelist recounts his miraculous survival of the Holocaust, from a forced march across the Ukraine to a labor camp at the age of seven, his escape from the camp, his life in hiding in the Ukranian forests, his negotiation of several displaced persons' camps, his 1946 arrival in Palestine and his struggle to build a new life on the fragments of his past.

Esther David perfectly portrays the individuals of the Bene Israel Jewish community in Ahmedabad, many of them torn between Israel's siren song and their own unique Indo-Jewish heritage. Hers is a window into an all too human world, presided over by a comic though attentive Prophet Elijah.