When a young peasant in sixteenth-century Prague is caught stealing, the lord of the manor sentences him to service in the Jewish ghetto, where he discovers unexpected kindness.

At the end of the 19th century, Jewish writers began writing in Yiddish and creating for the first time popular literature that brought alive the small dramas, struggles, and joys of ordinary life. Sholem Aleichem was one of the very few modern writers who spoke for an entire people. This collection of stories includes the title piece and seven other tales.

Coming of age during the 1982 Arab-Israeli conflict, fatherless sisters Huda and Mary, Christian Arabs living in the Jewish city of Haifa, find their lives impacted by their new neighbor Alex, a trumpet-playing Russian Jew

What we cannot keep. What we cannot lose. A sweeping masterwork of love and loss, secrets and survival, On the Sickle's Edge is told through the voices of three characters who lay bare their family's saga: the endearing, scrappy South-African born Lena, transported to Latvia and later trapped in the USSR; her granddaughter Darya, a true Communist whose growing disillusionment with Soviet ideology places her family at mortal risk; and Steven, a painter from Boston who inadvertently stumbles into the tangled web of his family's past. Against the roiling backdrop of twentieth-century Russia and Eastern Europe, the novel delivers equal parts historical drama, political thriller and poignant love story. On the Sickle's Edge takes the reader on a roller-coaster ride through some of the most tumultuous events of the 20th century. Instantly immersed in seven generations of the Shtein family, we witness their exhilarating celebrations and provocative controversies, and gain an intimate understanding of the pivotal events in South Africa, Latvia and the Soviet Union. Neville Frankel's ability to combine historical insight and human passion is spellbinding. I couldn't put it down. -- Pamela Katz , The Partnership: Brecht, Weill, Three Women, and Germany on the Brink In the hands of a masterful storyteller, On the Sickle's Edge pits the weight of an oppressive regime against individual tenacity and profound personal courage. Inspired by Frankel's own family history, this multi-generational epic holds up a mirror to a universal truth: all immigrants face the powerful tension between assimilation and cultural identity. We have--all of us--lived life on the edge of the sickle. -- Rabbi Andrew Baker , Director of International Jewish Affairs, American Jewish Committee

In 1941, after discovering tuberculosis, Liese, is taken to a sanatorium in Davos, Switzerland by her aunt. The book traces Liese¿s incarceration in the sanatorium where she meets various characters, including her Greek-Jewish friend, Antigone. Upon Nazi orders in 1942 the sanatorium expels all the Jewish patients including Liese and Antigone under the pretext to have their papers checked. However, once they arrive at a small train station in Italy, they are surrounded by German SS troops with whips and vicious dogs. An old family friend from Vienna rescues Liese by pushing her under a train. He finds shelter for Liese in an Italian village church where she encounters a dangerous sexton. She is quickly transported to a forest underground bunker where she meets a number of compelling characters and remains there until liberation by a friendly U.S. Army.

"Moacyr Scliar was the preeminent literary voice of the Jewish immigrant experience in modern Brazil. Now his most ambitiously satirical and irreverent novel is at last translated into English, offering not just a significant contribution to Latin American and Jewish literature but to world literature as well. In a past-life therapy session, a mysterious woman makes a remarkable breakthrough when she discovers that in a previous life she was one of King Solomon's seven hundred wives. In language that hilariously mixes modern jargon and biblical diction, she sets out to tell the story of her earlier incarnation three thousand years in the past, revealing how she went from a provincial nobody to a queen. Yet being royalty isn't all it's cracked up to be. As the least desirable of King Solomon's wives and concubines, she is unceremoniously discarded and forgotten in his harem. But as luck would have it, she possesses a unique gift: she is a woman who knows how to read and write. Once her talent is discovered, King Solomon charges her with writing what will become one of the most important texts in human history. Along the way our nameless narrator leverages her newfound status as royal scribe to bring about her own secret agenda. A brilliant feminist critique skewering the absurdities of patriarchy, The Woman Who Wrote the Bible is a comic masterpiece of truly biblical proportions"-- Provided by publisher.

'Beautiful, lyrical, sensitive and meaningful . . . It deserves to be read and re-read.' "Los Angeles Times" Two deadly enemies - a young Arab rebel and a Jewish runaway - meet in a remote valley to begin a quest. Both have been taught since infancy to hate; to attack for self-defence. But something incredible is happening to them, something that not even the fierce shelling of the Six-Day War can intrude upon. For they are on a fantastic mission, a mission both believe has been set for them by God . . . Gripping, exciting and incredibly poignant, Smith's Gazelle is an intriguing thriller from a master of the genre.

It is set in the summer of 1931, when twenty-year-old Nora Krieger returns to her small-town home in Lithuania from university in Berlin ready to present her new, mature self. Instead, her time at home becomes a period of unrequited love, difficult memories and introspection. Hopeful that her long wallks and intellectual banter with Albert Arin will lead to romance. Nora must abandon the notion when she discovers Arin's affair with his daughter's friend. Determined to come to terms with her relationship with her father, who was driven to madness after being tortured in the First World War, Nora must confront her own fear of losing her sanity. Young, educated and Jewish, she must accept the limits imposed on her by a class-conscious, increasingly anti-Semitic society.

Eight short stories, each featuring a child hero, present the dilemma of anti-Semitism through the ages. Each tale confronts Jewish identity in a different historical period. Each chapter is followed by modern commentary from Albert Vorspan.

As armed battle rages in the Warsaw ghetto during the week preceding Easter of 1943, Jan Malecki, a Polish architect and cold, indecisive leftist, reluctantly takes in his Jewish old flame, Irena Lilien. Irena was a wealthy, bewitching beauty, but is now an embittered homeless fugitive with forged Aryan papers. Jan's pious and pregnant wife, Anna, is kind if condescending to Irena, and Jan's brother identifies with the Jewish insurgents. But Irena is informed on by the neighbor's acidly anti-Semitic wife.

Navigating between the two worlds of wartime experiences in Europe and new life in Australia, this moving memoir of & a Holocaust & survivor is & imbued with an element of fiction. This deeply personal narrative travels from darkness to hope as the author loses his family at Auschwitz, spends the war in concentration camps, and ultimately emigrates to Australia with his wife, leading to an eventual restoration that remains colored by a tragic past.

ABOUT THE AUTHOR:Zangwill was a British author at the forefront of cultural Zionism during the 19th century.This is volume 1 of the "Of the Ghetto Series", a collection of books about Jewish life by Israel Zangwill, that earned him the nickname "the Dickens of the Ghetto". This volume includes:-Children of The Ghetto (1892)-Grand Children of the Ghetto (1892)

A collection of stories finds its main characters in unlikely places and situations, from an affluent Jewish American who returns to Germany to a homosexual restauranteur who gets the chance to cook another meal for his first lover

In 1940s New York a secret from the past comes back to influence the Mannixes, a Jewish family living on the Upper East Side

Chronicles the story of poor Jewish boy Leo Gorodetsky's rise from poverty on New York's Lower East Side to the highest levels of the Mafia

"Home Influence" from Grace Aguilar. Novelist and writer on Jewish history and religion (1816-1847).

Simon, a young Jewish widower with a small son emigrated from Warsaw to London's East End, staying with his sister and her family until he takes up the position of cantor at a smart Reform synagogue off Lower Regent Street. His liaison with Phoebe Fenelle, a leading actress of the day, leads to dire consequences for her husband.

Fannie Hurst (1889-1968) was an American novelist. She was born in Hamilton, Ohio, the only surviving child of a well-to-do Jewish family. She spent the first twenty years of her life in St. Louis, Missouri, where she attended Washington University in St. Louis and graduated in 1909. In 1921, she was among the first to join the Lucy Stone League, an organization that fought for women to preserve their maiden names. She was active in the Urban League, and was appointed to the National Advisory Committee to the Works Progress Administration in 1940. She was also a delegate to the World Health Organization in 1952. Hurst is now best known for the screen adaptations of her works, such as the 1934 film Imitation of Life. Although her books are not well remembered today, during her lifetime some of her more famous novels were Star-Dust (1919), Lummox (1923), A President is Born (1927), Back Street (1931) and Imitation of Life (1933).

"When Juliet Abraham, who is Jewish, has a runaway marriage with Rahul Abhiram, a Hindu, their families are initially furious but soon relent. They buy the couple an apartment in Shalom India Housing Society, Ahmedabad. However, once the couple leaves for Israel, they rent out the apartment to a series of tenants from the Bene Israel community, for each of whom it becomes the venue of an unfolding love story. Myra comes to India from America to teach the Torah to Indian Jews. WOoed assiduously by Ezra, she instead escapes into a new life with a Hindu guru. Ruby rekindles an old flame, only to find out too late that men betray. Ilana, a strict and uptight police officer, is forced to meet potential grooms by her parents and realizes that it's good to let loose sometimes. And Bollywood-crazy Sangita has many adventures in India as she tries to trace her grandmother's grave. The mischievous Prophet Elijah, benevolently presiding over the small community, occasionally creates havoc but finally makes sure that peace prevails. This book is about home, heritage, rites, rituals, and roots."--Back cover.

When the beautiful Jessica Pruitt arrives in Venice to star in a film based on The Merchant of Venice, she is preoccupied: she has recently lost custody of her daughter, and as an older actress she is increasingly aware of the difficulty of landing leading roles. One day, as she wanders through an old Jewish ghetto, Jessica is magically transported to sixteenth-century Venice where she finds herself the heroine of "Will" Shakespeare's play. Immediately attracted to the younger playwright, Jessica enters into an intensely passionate love affair that defies time and place. Reading group guide included.