Traces four hundred years of Jewish history from the seventeenth to the twenty-first century, and discusses the anti-Semitism facing European Jews, the Jews of czarist Russia, their struggle for civil rights in the 1830s and 1840s, Jewish life in America, the effects of World War One and the Holocaust of World War Two, and much more.

"At 6 P.M. on April 7th, 1944 sirens shrieked continuously as two prisoners escaped from Auschwitz. Once free, Rudolf Vrba and Alfred Wetzler wrote a report that detailed -- for the first time -- the mechanics of the Nazi Death Factory. The report -- known now as the Vrba-Wetzler Report on the Auschwitz Protocols -- warned the world that the Nazis were preparing to kill nearly 800,000 Hungarian Jews. The report was smuggled to Switzerland and eventually reached the U.S. State Department, the Vatican, and the British Embassy in Berlin. I Escaped from Auschwitz is the first-hand account of his daring escape. It also includes the full text of the Auschwitz Protocols which is considered by many to be one of the most important documents of the twentieth century. The subsequent handling and mishandling of the report contained in this book has marred history forever." --

In the face of almost universal Holocaust denial among Arabs, presents evidence of Arab involvement in all aspects of the Holocaust (e.g. persecution, confiscation of property, and forced labor). Describes cases of active collaboration (e.g. sadistic torturers and camp guards) and indifference to the fate of the Jews. In the European context, shows how Vichy France implemented the Holocaust in North Africa. Demonstrates how the Holocaust has largely been ignored, forgotten, or denied in the postwar Arab world. Provides information about the Holocaust as it affected Jews in Morocco, Algeria, and Tunisia, including about labor camps whose existence had been lost to history. The second half of the book relates cases of "righteous" Arabs who saved Jews. Among the latter are Khaled Abdelwahhab and Si Ali Sakkat of Tunisia; Si Kaddour Benghabrit, the rector of the Great Mosque in Paris; the ruler of Tunisia, Moncef Bey, and his prime minister Mohamed Chenik; and Sultan Muhammad V of Morocco. In conclusion, relates how some Arabs are beginning to question Holocaust denial. Pp. 197-198 present a list of sites of 104 French, German, and Italian labor camps in Algeria, Morocco, and Tunisia.

"An acknowledged classic. Katz has transformed our conception of Jewish history from the 16th to the 18th century. Because of his work, we now understand that the ghetto was no longer sealed off at that time from outside opinions and that the movement towards modernity had begun long before the Jews were actually legally emancipated. Making this work available again in the revised edition is a service to scholarship and to public enlightenment." —Arthur Hertzberg "Since it first appeared in Hebrew in 1958, Tradition and Crisis has had a tremendous impact on generations of students and scholars. Katz's innovative use of sources has introduced scholars to new methodologies and opened new vistas for research. This new, unabridged translation is therefore highly welcome. It will ensure its continued use in the English-speaking world." —Jehuda Reinharz, Richard Koret Professor of Modern Jewish History, Brandeis University "Like a lovingly restored painting, Bernard Cooperman's new, annotated translation of Jacob Katz's classic portrait of early Jewish modernity can now be fully appreciated for the first time. An admirable achievement." —Ivan G. Marcus When it first appeared in Hebrew in 1958 and in English in 1961, Tradition and Crisis , Jacob Katz's groundbreaking study of Jewish society at the end of the Middle Ages, dramatically changed our perceptions of the Jewish community prior to the era of modernity. This new, unabridged translation by Bernard Dov Cooperman makes this classic available to new generations of students and scholars, together with Katz's original source notes, and an afterword and an updating bibliographic appendix by Professor Cooperman. Katz revolutionized the field by tapping into a rich and hitherto unexplored source for reconstructing the sociology of a previous era: the responsa literature of the Rabbinic establishment during the Middle Ages. The self-governing communities of Jews in Europe dealt with issues both civil and religious. The questions and answers addressed to the rabbinic authorities and courts provide an incomparable wealth of insights into life as it was lived in this period and into the social, historical, cultural, and economic issues of the day. How did European Jewry progress from a socially and culturally segregated society to become a component of European society at large? What were Jewish attitudes toward the Gentile world from which Jewry had been secluded for centuries? What were the bridges from the old to the new era? Tradition and Crisis traces the roots of modernity to internal developments within the communities themselves. Katz traces the modern movements of the Haskalah (Enlightenment) in the West and Hasidism in the East, to an internal breakdown in the structure of these communities and the emergence of an alternative leadership in the wake of the Sabbatian challenge. A dynamic work that has radically changed our view of this history, Tradition and Crisis remains the pivotal text for understanding the revolution in the entire conception of Jewish identity in the modern era.

This volume collects thirty essays by Shaye J.D. Cohen. First published between 1980 and 2006, these essays deal with a wide variety of themes and texts: Jewish Hellenism; Josephus; the Synagogue; Conversion to Judaism; Blood and Impurity; the boundary between Judaism and Christianity. What unites them is their philological orientation. Many of these essays are close studies of obscure passages in Jewish and Christian texts. The essays are united too by their common assumption that the ancient world was a single cultural continuum; that ancient Judaism, in all its expressions and varieties, was a Hellenism; and that texts written in Hebrew share a world of discourse with those written in Greek. Many of these essays are well-known and have been much discussed in contemporary scholarship. Among these are: The Significance of Yavneh (the title essay), Patriarchs and Scholarchs, Masada: Literary Tradition, Archaeological Remains, and the Credibility of Josephus, Epigraphical Rabbis, The Conversion of Antoninus, Menstruants and the Sacred in Judaism and Christianity, and A Brief History of Jewish Circumcision Blood.

Whether they came from Sioux Falls or the Bronx, over half a million Jews entered the U.S. armed forces during the Second World War. Uprooted from their working- and middle-class neighborhoods, they joined every branch of the military and saw action on all fronts. Deborah Dash Moore offers an unprecedented view of the struggles these GI Jews faced, having to battle not only the enemy but also the prejudices of their fellow soldiers. Through memoirs, oral histories, and letters, Moore charts the lives of fifteen young Jewish men as they faced military service and tried to make sense of its demands. From confronting pork chops to enduring front-line combat, from the temporary solace of Jewish worship to harrowing encounters with death camp survivors, we come to understand how these soldiers wrestled with what it meant to be an American and a Jew. Moore shows how military service in World War II transformed this generation of Jews, reshaping Jewish life in America and abroad. These men challenged perceptions of Jews as simply victims of the war, and encouraged Jews throughout the diaspora to fight for what was right. At the same time, service strengthened Jews' identification with American democratic ideals, even as it confirmed the importance of their Jewish identity. GI Jews is a powerful, intimate portrayal of the costs of a conflict that was at once physical, emotional, and spiritual, as well as its profound consequences for these hitherto overlooked members of the "greatest generation."

A revised version of two courses of lectures delivered as part of the Broadcast University series of Israel Army Radio. Discusses the struggle of Jews for survival under Nazi rule, and attempts at aid and rescue by Jews in the Western democracies and Palestine, by foreign governments, and by "Righteous Gentiles". Emphasizes that the Nazis decided to murder all the Jews only in autumn 1940; until then no one could have foreseen the Holocaust to come. When the first reports of mass murder were received, they met with disbelief on the part of most Jews as well as non-Jews. This lack of awareness explains why the potential victims were slow to escape or resist; and, in conjunction with the prevalence of antisemitism and the political impotence of world and Palestinian Jewry, it also explains the failure of the outside world to come to their rescue. Among the topics covered are the search for countries of asylum; the Transfer Agreement; illegal immigration to Palestine; the ghettos and the Judenräte; the resistance groups and armed uprisings in the ghettos; Jewish partisans; underground rescue groups; negotiations with SS functionaries for Jewish lives; and the British Foreign Office's blocking of rescue proposals.

"In this major intellectual history, Ira Katznelson examines the works of Hannah Arendt, Robert Dahl, Richard Hofstadter, Harold Lasswell, Charles Lindblom, Karl Polanyi, and David Truman, detailing their engagement with the larger project of reclaiming the West's moral bearing"--

"In this major intellectual history, Ira Katznelson examines the works of Hannah Arendt, Robert Dahl, Richard Hofstadter, Harold Lasswell, Charles Lindblom, Karl Polanyi, and David Truman, detailing their engagement with the larger project of reclaiming the West's moral bearing"--

Discusses the legal and illegal ways that millions of Jews managed to leave Germany, the challenges they faced, and the diversity of the refugee experience

Outlines a new approach to understanding the relationship between the United States and Israel, explaining that both nations embrace a philosophy that they were divinely chosen to influence the world for the better.

A panoramic new history of modern Britain, as told through the story of one extraordinary family, and one groundbreaking company. In the early 1800s, Lehmann Gluckstein and his family escaped the pogroms of Eastern Europe and made their way to Whitechapel in London's East End. There, starting with nothing, they worked tirelessly to pull themselves out of poverty, creating a small tobacco factory that grew to become the largest catering company in the world: J. Lyons. For over a century, Lyons was on every high street, in every home, in every coffee and teacup. It was an ascent from rags to riches in the face of many obstacles: poverty, hatred and anti-Semitism stood between this poor immigrant family and the British Dream. Legacy charts the rise and fall of one of the most influential dynasties in British history through the lives of five astonishing generations. Both sweeping and intimate, it is a story of sacrifice and selflessness, betrayal and personal tragedy, and Empire and its cost. It is also an illuminating new exploration of Britain and its place in the world, from the bestselling author of Hanns and Rudolf and The House by the Lake.

Bernard Wasserstein offers the first authoritative history of the fraught diplomatic relations surrounding the Holy City of Jerusalem. Jews, Muslims, and Christians have all claimed the city as their own over the centuries—as have a dizzying array of foreign nations. In the period between the founding of the city and its capture by Israelis in 1967, Jerusalem has been conquered at least thirty-seven times. “No other town,” wrote Arthur Koestler in 1948, “has caused such continuous waves of killing, rape, and unholy misery over the centuries as the Holy City.”Today, Jerusalem lies at the core of the Palestinian-Israeli conflict. It is the most deeply divided capital city in the world: its Arab and Jewish residents inhabit different districts, speak different languages, attend different schools, read different newspapers, observe different holy days—live, in almost every significant respect, different lives. Against the background of renewed violence in and around Jerusalem, this book explores the complicated origins of the current diplomatic impasse. Why is the question of Jerusalem so intractable? Why has it outlasted almost every other political dispute as a focus for diplomatic wrangling and collective violence? And what are the prospects for resolution?Meticulously researched, and written with humanity and elegance, this book offers an illuminating contribution to the effort to achieve a lasting negotiated settlement of a tragic conflict that affects us all.

Drawn to an image of her great-grandfather's ornately carved cane, scholar Elisa New embarked on a journey to discover the origins of her precious family heirloom. Treading back across the paths of her ancestors, she travels from Baltimore to the Baltic to London in order to find and understand an immigrant world profoundly affected by modern German culture, from the Enlightenment through the Holocaust. Deeply ambitious in its narrative sweep, Jacob's Cane captures the rich texture of life on several continents as New's family searches to establish itself in the tobacco trade. A fascinating history of one family's story of progress, innovation, and struggle, Jacob's Cane will change the way we think about the Jewish American experience.

In the fall of 1965 the Israeli newspaper Haaretz sent a young journalist named Elie Wiesel to the Soviet Union to report on the lives of Jews trapped behind the Iron Curtain. “I would approach Jews who had never been placed in the Soviet show window by Soviet authorities,” wrote Wiesel. “They alone, in their anonymity, could describe the conditions under which they live; they alone could tell whether the reports I had heard were true or false—and whether their children and their grandchildren, despite everything, still wish to remain Jews. From them I would learn what we must do to help . . . or if they want our help at all.” What he discovered astonished him: Jewish men and women, young and old, in Moscow, Kiev, Leningrad, Vilna, Minsk, and Tbilisi, completely cut off from the outside world, overcoming their fear of the ever-present KGB to ask Wiesel about the lives of Jews in America, in Western Europe, and, most of all, in Israel. They have scant knowledge of Jewish history or current events; they celebrate Jewish holidays at considerable risk and with only the vaguest ideas of what these days commemorate. “Most of them come [to synagogue] not to pray,” Wiesel writes, “but out of a desire to identify with the Jewish people—about whom they know next to nothing.” Wiesel promises to bring the stories of these people to the outside world. And in the home of one dissident, he is given a gift—a Russian-language translation of Night, published illegally by the underground. “‘My God,’ I thought, ‘this man risked arrest and prison just to make my writing available to people here!’ I embraced him with tears in my eyes.”

In the final days of World War II, a band of Jewish partisans makes its way from Russia to Italy, moving toward the ultimate goal of Palestine. Based on a true story, the novel chronicles their adventures as they wage a personal war of revenge against the Nazis: blowing up trains, rescuing the last victims of concentration camps, scoring victories in the face of unspeakable devastation. Primo Levi captures the landscape and the people of Eastern Europe in vivid detail, depicting as well the terrible bleakness of war-ridden Europe. But finally, what he gives us is a tribute to the strength and ingenuity of the human spirit.

The Nazis needed oil. The Arabs wanted the Jews and British out of Iraq. The Mufti of Jerusalem forged a far-ranging alliance with Hitler resulting in the June 1941 Farhud, a Nazi-style pogrom in Baghdad that set the stage for the devastation and expulsion of the Iraqi Jews and ultimately almost a million Jews across the Arab world. The Farhud was the beginning of what became a broad Nazi-Arab alliance in the Holocaust. --publisher.

"The Holocaust in the Soviet Union is the most complete account to date of the Soviet Jews during World War II and the Holocaust (1941-45). Reports, records, documents, and research previously unavailable in English enable Yitzhak Arad to trace the Holocaust in the German-occupied territories of the Soviet Union through three separate periods in which German political and military goals in the occupied territories dictated the treatment of the Jews."--BOOK JACKET.

A century ago, the Russian Empire contained the largest Jewish community in the world, numbering about five million people. Today, the Jewish population of the former Soviet Union has dwindled to half a million, but remains probably the third-largest Jewish community in the world. In the intervening century, the Jews of that area have been at the center of some of the most dramatic events of modern history - two world wars, revolutions, pogroms, political liberation, repression, and the collapse of the USSR. In startling photographs from the archives of the YIVO Institute for Jewish Research and with a lively and lucid narrative, 'A Century of Ambivalence' traces the historical experience of Jews in Russia from a period of creativity and repression in the second half of the nineteenth century through the paradoxes posed by the post-Soviet era.