In evoking the joy and pain of the Jewish immigrant experience, Anzia Yezierska has no peer. Her stories and novels, written from the 1920s to the 1960s, immortalized the Jews of New York's Lower East Side and their struggle to escape poverty and to partake of America's promise. How I Found America gathers together all of Yezierska's short fiction: the two collections published during her lifetime--Hungry Hearts and Children of Loneliness--and seven additional tales. Each story is authentic and immediate, as memorable as family history passed from one generation to the next. taken together, they constitute an enduring portrait of a time and a people.

One of America's most popular Jewish writers, Chaim Potok (b. 1929) is the author of such novels as The Chosen (1967), The Promise (1969), The Book of Lights (1981), and Davita's Harp (1985). Each of his novels explores the tension between tradition and modernity, and the clash between Jewish culture and contemporary Western civilization, which he calls "core-to-core culture confrontation." Although primarily known as a novelist, Potok is an ordained Conservative rabbi and a world-class Judaic scholar who has also published children's books, theological discourses, biographies, and histories. Conversations with Chaim Potok presents interviews ranging from 1976 to 1999. Potok discusses the broad range of his writing and the deep influence of non-Jewish novels-in particular, Evelyn Waugh's Brideshead Revisited and James Joyce's Portrait of the Artist as a Young Man -on his work. Interviews bear witness to Potok's many other influences-Orthodox Jewish doctrine, Freudian psychoanalytical theory, Picasso's Guernica, and Jewish kabbalah mysticism. Though labeled an American Jewish writer, Potok argues that Flannery O'Connor should then be called an American Catholic writer and John Updike an American Protestant writer. "In his mind," editor Daniel Walden writes, "just as Faulkner was a writer focused on a particular place, Oxford, Mississippi, . . . so Potok's territory was a small section of New York City." Potok often explores conflict in his writings and in his interviews. Strict Jewish teachings deem fiction an artifice and therefore unnecessary, yet since the age of sixteen Potok has been driven to write novels. At the root of all of these conversations is Potok's intense interest in the turmoil between Jewish culture, religion, and tradition and what he calls "Western secular humanism." As he discusses his work, he continually includes broader issues, such as the state of Jewish literature and art, pointing out with pride and enthusiasm his belief that Jewish culture, in the twentieth century, has finally begun to have a significant role in producing and shaping the world's art and literature. Whether discussing the finer details of Talmudic textual analysis or his period of chaplaincy during the Korean War, Potok is articulate and philosophical, bringing deep consideration into what may seem small subjects. Although his novels and histories take place primarily in the recent past, the Chaim Potok that emerges from this collection is a writer deeply rooted in the tensions of the present. Daniel Walden is Professor Emeritus of American Studies, English and Comparative Literature at Penn State University. He has written or edited several books, including On Being Jewish (1974), Twentieth Century American Jewish Writers (1984), The World of Chaim Potok (1985), and American Jewish Poets: The Roots and the Stems (1990).

Oskar, a survivor of the Holocaust, is a man of little faith. Despite his inability to find answers, he persists in asking questions that all human beings have a right to ask. He encounters diverse characters, such as Bella, a New York prostitute, mystic Martin Buber, and an anti-Semitic high school teacher on the Canadian prairies. Strong language.

Anzia Yezierska's "Children of Loneliness" explores the complex experiences of Jewish immigrants in New York City. This literary work delves into the challenges of social alienation and the struggles inherent in cultural assimilation. Through compelling prose, Yezierska examines the conflicts that arise between generations as they navigate new identities in a rapidly changing world. A poignant portrayal of the immigrant experience, "Children of Loneliness" offers a powerful glimpse into the lives of those seeking a new home while grappling with the loss of their traditions. The novel masterfully portrays the universal themes of identity, belonging, and the search for connection in an unfamiliar land, ensuring its enduring relevance. This carefully prepared print republication makes this important historical fiction accessible to all. 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.

Shock number one for Dinah is that she is actually dating Geoff, star quarterback and all-around great guy. Shock number two is that her usually supportive family objects and that Geoff does not understand why. Why must difficult choices always come with wanting to have fun?

Growing up in Soviet Russia, Kat Knopman worships her parents, Jewish intellectuals who teach literature at a Moscow school, run a drama club, and dabble in political radicalism. When Kat is diagnosed with rapidly-progressing scoliosis, the trajectory of her life changes and she finds herself at a different institution-- a school-sanatorium for children with spinal ailments. Confined to a brace, surrounded by unsympathetic peers, Kat embarks on a quest to prove that she can be as exceptional as her parents despite her physical limitations, her Jewishness, and her suspicion that her beloved parents are in fact flawed.

"In the beginning there was Lucette, who is the mother to three children--Sammy, a gentle giant, almost blind, but a genius with locks; Corinne, a flighty beauty who cannot keep a job; and "the child," an afterthought, who strives to make sense of her fractured Egyptian-Jewish immigrant family. Lucette's children would like a kinder, warmer home, but what they have is a government-issued concrete box, out in the thorns and sand on the outskirts of Tel Aviv; and their mother, hard-worn and hardscrabble, who cleans homes by night and makes school lunches by day. Lucette quarrels with everybody, speaks only Arabic and French, is scared only of snakes, and is as likely to lock her children out as to take in a stray dog. The child recounts her years in Lucette's house, where Israel's wars do not intrude and hold no interest. She puzzles at the mysteries of her home, why her father, a bitter revolutionary, makes only rare appearances. And why her mother rebuffs the kind rabbi whose home she cleans in his desire to adopt her. Always watching, the child comes to fill the holes with conjecture and story. In a masterful accumulation of short, dense scenes, by turns sensual, violent, and darkly humorous, The Sound of Our Steps questions the virtue of a family bound only by necessity, and suggests that displacement may not lead to a better life, but perhaps to art"--

A collection of stories celebrating the Jewish tradition in many different places and different times, some reconstructed from actual events, some based on tradition, and some fictional in form.

This tale follows the adventures of John of Gamala during the years of Roman occupation, political infighting, and lawlessness that resulted in the destruction of the Temple in AD 70. It puts the reader at the heart of the conflict between Rome and the greedy political groups and robber bands of Palestine. Although fighting a losing struggle, John keeps his integrity and honor intact, even overcoming slavery and eventually becoming a procurator after the struggle. Solomon Joseph Solomon RA (16 September 1860 - 27 July 1927) was a British painter, a founding member of the New English Art Club and member of the Royal Academy.Solomon's family was Jewish, and his sister, Lily Delissa Joseph (née Solomon), was also a painter.He made an important contribution to the development of camouflage in the First World War, working in particular on tree observation posts and arguing tirelessly for camouflage netting.... George Alfred Henty (8 December 1832 - 16 November 1902) was a prolific English novelist and war correspondent.He is best known for his historical adventure stories that were popular in the late 19th century. His works include The Dragon & The Raven (1886), For The Temple (1888), Under Drake's Flag (1883) and In Freedom's Cause (1885).G. A. Henty was born in Trumpington, near Cambridge. He was a sickly child who had to spend long periods in bed. During his frequent illnesses he became an avid reader and developed a wide range of interests which he carried into adulthood. He attended Westminster School, London, and later Gonville and Caius College, Cambridge, where he was a keen sportsman. He left the university early without completing his degree to volunteer for the Army Hospital Commissariat when the Crimean War began. He was sent to the Crimea and while there he witnessed the appalling conditions under which the British soldier had to fight. His letters home were filled with vivid descriptions of what he saw. His father was impressed by his letters and sent them to The Morning Advertiser newspaper which printed them. This initial writing success was a factor in Henty's later decision to accept the offer to become a special correspondent, the early name for journalists now better known as war correspondents.Shortly before resigning from the army as a captain in 1859 he married Elizabeth Finucane. The couple had four children. Elizabeth died in 1865 after a long illness and shortly after her death Henty began writing articles for the Standard newspaper. In 1866 the newspaper sent him as their special correspondent to report on the Austro-Italian War where he met Giuseppe Garibaldi. He went on to cover the 1868 British punitive expedition to Abyssinia, the Franco-Prussian War, the Ashanti War, the Carlist Rebellion in Spain and the Turco-Serbian War. ........

Gotz and Meyer, two noncommissioned SS officers, are entrusted with an assignment, "not a big one," but one that "requires efficiency." Their task is to transport five thousand women, children and elderly, one hundred at a time, from a concentration camp near Belgrade in a hermetically sealed truck, in which they are gassed. As Albahari's anonymous narrator, a teacher, obsessively pursues the truth of this systematic annihilation, he shares his findings with his students. Their school bus becomes that truck, and as the memory of Belgrade's lost Jewish souls is evoked, the students are bewildered. Their teacher, worn down as much by the task of making history come alive as by the toll his research has taken on him, is overwhelmed by the horror of his own imaginings. A harrowing, masterfully written story, full of compassion, irony, and lyricism.

“Jewish stories,” writes Adam Biro, “resemble every people’s stories.” Yet at the same time there is no better way to understand the soul, history, millennial suffering, or, crucially, the joys of the Jewish people than through such tales—“There’s nothing,” writes Biro, “more revelatory of the Jewish being.” With Is It Good for the Jews? Biro offers a sequel to his acclaimed collection of stories Two Jews on a Train . Through twenty-nine tales—some new, some old, but all finely wrought and rich in humor—Biro spins stories of characters coping with the vicissitudes and reverses of daily life, while simultaneously painting a poignant portrait of a world of unassimilated Jewish life that has largely been lost to the years. From rabbis competing to see who is the most humble, to the father who uses suicide threats to pressure his children into visiting, to three men berated by the Almighty himself for playing poker, Biro populates his stories with memorable characters and absurd—yet familiar—situations, all related with a dry wit and spry prose style redolent of the long tradition of Jewish storytelling. A collection simultaneously of foibles and fables, adversity and affection, Is It Good for the Jews? reminds us that if in the beginning was the word, then we can surely be forgiven for expecting a punch line to follow one of these days.

"The Matrimonial Flirtations of Emma Kaulfield is an often laugh-out-loud comedy of conflicting manners, values, and customs, set against the backdrop of a Russian immigrant family's struggle to assimilate, their newfound love of capitalism, and their insistent push for their children's tangible success. Emma Kaulfield escaped the Soviet Union in the 1980s when she was 10--hers was one of the last Jewish families to be let out. Now a gorgeous young woman, going to grad school at NYU, chaffing at the cultural restraints of her heritage, Emma is engaged to someone just like her--a handsome young Russian Jew--but then a steamy encounter with a stranger in a restaurant bathroom turns into a torrid love affair. She wrestles with what she knows she should do (career vs. art); who she should love (one of her own vs. the exotic temptation), to remain loyal to her family, her people--after all they have suffered--or cut ties and defy those who love her. The Matrimonial Flirtations of Emma Kaulfield builds in power and suspense, easily becoming an all-night binge read, impossible to put down. Fishbeyn's debut novel is sexy, hilarious, heartbreaking, and breathtaking"--back cover.

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 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.

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.

Uncompromising exploration of post-Holocaust memory and loss. Pat Goldman is a successful Dublin journalist planning a trip to Israel to report on the Intifada. Before she leaves, her mother tells her of a sister her parents had placed in the care of Christian friends just before she and her husband were deported to a Nazi camp. As Pat becomes involved in the complexities of the Israeli-Palestinian conflict, she meets Daniel, a ruthless member of the renowned Israeli secret service. He, too, is a son of Holocaust survivors. Their meeting inspires Pat to start an investigation into the history of their families' survival.

When Flora Elhayani is twelve years old, God appears to her through the television and suddenly, after being mute for two months, she can speak again. Flora changes her name to Ori, and acquires a new, fantastical vantage point of her life in the desert town of Netivot. Trying to decipher what the revelation holds for her, Ori comes across a rare series of young adult novels about a strange wonderland whose heroine plays special part in Ori's own coming of age. Twenty years later, we meet Ori again. She now lives in Tel Aviv, where she is married to a successful man and the mother of a little girl. She has become a writer for young adults, focusing her work on various Wonderland themes. Life is good until a second revelation, very different from the first, rattles the very foundations of her life and puts all in doubt. Sunburnt Faces examines the nature of revelation in a world in which the fantastical takes place only in situations of error and misunderstanding. But will the social and political nature of this world allow Ori to find the certainty without which she cannot live?