In this volume Yehuda Bauer describes the efforts made to aid European victims of World War II by the New York-based American Jewish Joint Distribution Committee. In this volume Yehudi Bauer describes the efforts made to aid European victims of World War II by the New York-based American Jewish Joint Distribution Committee, American Jewry's chief representative abroad. Drawing on the mass of unpublished material in the JDC archives and other repositories, as well as on his thorough knowledge of recent and continuing research into the Holocaust, he focuses alternately on the personalities and institutional decisions in New York and their effects on the JDC workers and their rescue efforts in Europe. He balances personal stories with a country-by-country account of the fate of Jews through ought the war years: the grim statistics of millions deported and killed are set in the context of the hopes and frustrations of the heroic individuals and small groups who actively worked to prevent the Nazis' Final Solution. This study is essential reading for anyone who seeks to understand the American Jewish response to European events from 1939 to 1945. Bauer confronts the tremendous moral and historical questions arising from JDC's activities. How great was the danger? Who should be saved first? Was it justified to use illegal or extralegal means? What country would accept Jewish refugees? His analysis also raises an issue which perhaps can never be answered: could American Jews have done more if they had grasped the reality of the Holocaust?

"This book examines the central role that the biblical idea the "image of God" has played in the development of Western civilization. Focusing on five themes-selfhood, freedom, conscience, equality, and meaning-it presents a cultural history of the Judeo-Christian tradition, from biblical times through modernity, suggesting also an answer for the troublesome question: Why the West?"--

In this ground-breaking and controversial history of the founding of Israel, originally published in 1987, noted Israeli scholar and peace activist Simha Flapan gives a candid account of one of the most momentous political events of the 20th century. The official story is well known: the Zionists welcomed the partition of Palestine into an Arab and a Jewish state; the Arabs rejected partition and launched a war to drive the Jews into the sea; the Palestinians fled Israel despite the efforts of Jewish leaders to get them to stay; after Israel's victory in 1948 its hand was extended in peace, but not a single Arab leader responded. The Birth of Israel exposes these 'historical truths' as propaganda myths that have misguided Israel policy for decades. Drawing on declassified material - from Ben-Gurion's war diaries to the minutes of secret meetings - Flapan reconstructs the real events of that critical time. He demonstrates that the Zionist leadership accepted partition purely as a tactical strategy, that their intention was always to establish a homogenous Jewish homeland in most, if not all, of Palestine. Flapan shows, furthermore, how these objectives shaped Israeli actions: their expulsion of the Palestinians, their exploitation of the 1948 war for territorial gain and their refusal to make any concessions that might have brought about accommodation. Flapan's lucid analysis sheds new light on the figures and events of that time: Ben-Gurion emerges as Menachem Begin's forerunner, the 'just' war of 1948 as the precursor of the debacle in Lebanon. Full of unsettling revelations, The Birth of Israel is a seminal work for understanding the tragic Arab-Israeli stalemate which persists to this day.

"In this new collection of conversations, conducted from 2010 to 2012, Noam Chomsky explores the most immediate and urgent concerns: the future of democracy in the Arab world, the implications of the Fukushima nuclear disaster, the European financial crisis, the breakdown of American mainstream political institutions, and the rise of the Occupy movement. As always, Chomsky presents his ideas vividly and accessibly, with uncompromising principle and clarifying insight. The latest volume from a long-established, trusted partnership, this collection shows once again that no interlocutor engages with Chomsky more effectively than David Barsamian. These interviews will inspire a new generation of readers, as well as longtime Chomsky fans eager for his latest thinking on the many crises we now confront, both at home and abroad. They confirm that Chomsky is an unparalleled resource for anyone seeking to understand our world today"--

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.

A political biography of Haj Amin al-Husaini (1895-1974), the Palestinian Arab nationalist leader and one-time Mufti of Jerusalem. Husaini adopted aggressive antisemitism in his youth, while studying in Cairo. He bears responsibility for the bloody anti-Jewish riots in the Land of Israel in 1920, 1921, and 1929, and was an instigator of the Arab revolt of 1936-39 in the country. In the 1930s he was close with Nazi leaders, with whom he shared extreme antisemitism and the goal of annihilation of the Jews. In the 1940s Husaini was instrumental in the establishment of pro-Nazi Muslim military formations in Europe, among them the Bosnian SS division "Handschar", which killed 12,600 Bosnian Jews. Argues that Husaini's legacy is alive in the modern Muslim world. He was the link between World War II antisemitism and the modern Islamic one, as well as a founding father of radical Islamic antisemitism. Dwells on the latter, which adopted from the West belief in the "Protocols of the Elders of Zion", blood libels, Holocaust denial, etc.

David Frum celebrates a conservatism that defends both liberty and morality. Frum dissects such current political figures as Pat Buchanan, Newt Gingrich, Colin Powell, and Jack Kemp, offering insight into the mechanics of Republican party politics as well. Whether the issue is health care, social programs, supply-side tax cutting, crime, or censorship, Frum cuts to the essential matters of principle with passion and wit. He makes a powerful case for Republicans to reject populism, protectionism, and nationalism and return to their core doctrines: smaller government and American world leadership.

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.

"A powerful indictment of the political and military decisions that led to October 7 While Israel Slept tells the gripping inside story of how Hamas, Israel's weakest enemy, succeeded in launching a surprise attack on one of the world's most powerful militaries. Through a detailed examination of the events leading up to October 7, 2023, the book exposes the intelligence and strategic failures that enabled this devastating invasion. It takes readers back in time, showing how years of complacency, mistaken intelligence analysis, and a misguided policy of containment enabled Hamas to prepare for an assault that Israel did not believe was possible and that would change the Middle East. The book unveils the dramatic events of the night before the attack, highlighting the cracks in Israel's military and political leadership. It provides unprecedented details on how key warnings were missed, and how Israel ignored the growing threat from Hamas, believing that the group was weak and deterred. By exposing these failures, While Israel Slept offers a stark, sobering account of how overconfidence and complacency paved the way for disaster, while underscoring the critical lessons Israel must embrace to safeguard its future"-- Provided by publisher.

This book, first published in 1989, is the first general study of Communism in Mediterranean Europe during and immediately after the war. It explores controversial issues including Stalin's intentions in post-war diplomacy, Communist attitudes to Nazi collaboration in France, and the origins of the Cold War.

"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.

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Includes the author's Maclean's columns which provoked lawsuits from the Canadian Islamic Congress, as well as other essays in response to the legal action.

Lisa Fittko's Escape through the Pyrenees (Northwestern, 1991) told the extraordinary true tale of her life as an "enemy alien" in France before and after the Nazi invasion of 1940, when she and her husband smuggled small groups of refugees to safety along a tortuous route through the mountains. Solidarity and Treason: Resistance and Exile, 1933-1940 is Fittko's equally gripping memoir of the preceding years in the underground and exile. The volume opens with Hitler's.

This text is a harrowing eye-witness account of the horrors of possibly the world's worst-ever concentration and extermination camp. It tells of the humiliation of the inmates, the ruthless SS guards, and one woman's struggle for survival.

Originally published in Algiers in 1943, Joseph Kessel's Army of Shadows is one of the first books to have been written about the French Resistance. Now available in paperback, Contra Mundum Press is proud to present the first new translation in over 70 years, and the first edition since Jean-Pierre Melville's iconic 1969 film. "What, then, when it comes to recounting the story of France, an obscure, secret France, which is new to its friends, its enemies, and new especially to itself? France no longer has bread, wine, fire. But mainly it no longer has any laws. Civil disobedience, individual or organized rebellion, have become duties to the fatherland. The national hero is the clandestine man, the outlaw. Nothing about the order imposed by the enemy and by the Marshal is valid. Nothing counts. Nothing is true any more. One changes home, name, every day. Officials and police officers are helping insurgents. One finds accomplices even in ministries. Prisons, getaways, tortures, bombings, scuffles. One dies and kills as if it's natural. France lives, bleeds, in all its depths. It is toward the shadow that its true and unknown face is turned. In the catacombs of revolt, people create their own light and find their own law. Never has France waged a nobler and more beautiful war than in the basements where it prints its free newspapers, in its nocturnal lands, and in its secret coves where it received its free friends and from where its children set out, in torture cells where, despite tongs, red-hot pins, and crushed bones, the French died as free men."

In this moving memoir, a young Polish Jew chronicles his life under the Nazis. In the vain hope of protecting himself and his family, Calel Perechodnik made the wrenching decision to become a ghetto policeman in a small town near Warsaw. The true tragedy of his choice becomes clear when during the Aktion he must witness his own wife and child forced to board a train to the Treblinka extermination camp. Filled with loathing for the Germans, the Poles, his Jewish brethren, and himself, Perechodnik fled the ghetto to shelter with a Polish woman in Warsaw. In the course of 105 terror-filled days in hiding, he poured out his poignant story. Written while Nazi boots pounded the streets of the neighborhood and while his tortured memory was painfully fresh, this memoir has a rare immediacy and raw power. Shortly before his death in 1944, he entrusted the precious diary to a Polish friend. The document was eventually deposited in the Yad Vashem Archives in Jerusalem. Left nearly forgotten for half a century, it was finally published in Poland in 1993. We owe a great debt to historian Frank Fox for bringing us this sensitive translation, which reminds us anew of the power and truth of historical memory.