This sweeping, eighty-year memoir is the last work of veteran journalist Israel Epstein (1915-2005), one of the very few Western writers to experience the Chinese Communist Revolution firsthand. Born in Poland and raised in China, Epstein served as a war correspondent from the front lines of the Chinese War of Resistance against Japan, as well as during the Communist-Nationalist struggle. Inspired by the immense social revolution taking place, Epstein took Chinese citizenship, only to be imprisoned during the Cultural Revolution. During this dark period, Epstein found his ideals challenged in ways he never imagined, yet his lifelong struggle for social equality has never wavered. This powerful memoir resonates with some of the twentieth century's most turbulent years and is a fascinating read for anyone interested in Chinese history.

Describes the Jewish community in Victoria, Australia. The stereotype of the Jew as moneylender or old clothes peddler pursued him from Britain to Australia, and to it was added the role of bookmaker as a result of local success in this field. Antisemitic attacks in the local newspaper, the "Melbourne Punch, " were common after 1856. Relates how these attacks multiplied following the pogroms in Russia in the late 19th century, when the press aroused fears of an invasion of bloodsucking Russian Jewish paupers. Gives examples of antisemitic caricatures.

The enigma of King Herod as a cruel bloodthirsty tyrant on the one hand, and a great builder on the other is discussed in a systematic modern historical and psychological study. It seeks to unravel the contradictory historic mystery of the man and his deeds. After A. Schalit's König Herodes, this study is a new comprehensive, pioneering study on the intriguing personality of Herod, also using the insights of psychology. Herod's mental state reached an acute level, consistent with the DSM-IV diagnosis for "Paranoid Personality Disorder". He grew up with an ambiguous identity and suffered from feelings of inferiority. Haunted by persecutory delusions, he executed almost any suspect of treason, including his wife and three sons. The Hebrew original text was Winner of the Ya'acov Bahat Prize for Non-Fiction Hebrew Literature for 2006.

This volume brings together thirty-four essays and ar- ticles by Werner J. Cahnman representing four decades (1940-1980) of work by an extraordinary, multidisciplinary scholar. Cahnman's work encompasses the experiences of a German Jewish refugee, an economist turned sociologist, and a scholar of Judaism. Part 1 contains personal and autobiographical writings and includes analyses of the cultural ambiguities of Jewish assimilation in Germany and Austria. Part 2 is devoted to sociological essays ranging from a critical assessment of Gunnar Myrdal's landmark study of the problems of race and democracy, An American Dilemma , to a probing look at the stigma of obesity, based on empirical research, a subject very much in the news today and that shows Cahnman ahead of his time. Part 3 offers some of Cahnman's most perceptive essays dealing with geopolitical themes. Included are theoretically based writings that help to clarify the methods and concepts of geopolitics, marking the intellectual beginnings of the global approach to world affairs. Here Cahnman broached the possibility of a united Europe (1944), realized sixty years later in the formation of the European Union. The twelve essays of Part 4 return to Cahnman's ever-present concern with Jews and Judaism. They present a wide-ranging historical-sociological view, from the Jews of Vienna in the 1930s to the American scene in the 1960s, to the still-unresolved problematics of Arab-Israeli relations, with Cahnman arguing for coexistence and a two-state solution for Jews and Arabs. The volume, carefully selected and assembled by the editors, presents for the first time essays representing the full range of Werner Cahnman's scholarship and thought. It will be of interest to students of sociology, history, political science, and Judaic studies.

Dating from the sixteenth century, there were hundreds of shtetls—Jewish settlements—in Eastern Europe that were home to a large and compact population that differed from their gentile, mostly peasant neighbors in religion, occupation, language, and culture. The shtetls were different in important respects from previous types of Jewish settlements in the Diaspora in that Jews had rarely formed a majority in the towns in which they lived. This was not true of the shtetl, where Jews sometimes comprised 80% or more of the population. While the shtetl began to decline during the course of the nineteenth century, it was the Holocaust which finally destroyed it. During the last thirty years the shtetl has attracted a growing amount of scholarly attention, though gross generalizations and romanticized nostalgia continue to affect how the topic is treated. This volume takes a new look at this most important facet of East European Jewish life. It helps to correct the notion that the shtetl was an entirely Jewish world and shows the ways in which the Jews of the shtetl interacted both with their co-religionists and with their gentile neighbors. The volume includes chapters on the history of the shtetl, its myths and realities, politics, gender dynamics, how the shtetl has been (mis)represented in literature, and the changes brought about by World War I and the Holocaust, among others. Contributors: Samuel Kassow, Gershon David Hundert, Immanuel Etkes, Nehemia Polen, Henry Abramson, Konrad Zielinski, Jeremy Dauber, Israel Bartel, Naomi Seidman, Mikhail Krutikov, Arnold J. Band, Katarzyna Wieclawska, Yehunda Bauer, and Elie Wiesel. This is the first book published in the Elie Wiesel Center for Judaic Studies Series .

Two creative centres of Jewish life rose to prominence in the twentieth century, one in Israel and the other in the United States. Although Israeli and American Jews share kinship and history drawn from their Eastern European roots, they have developed divergent cultures from their common origins, often seeming more like distant cousins than close relatives. This book explores why this is so, examining how two communities that constitute eighty percent of the world's Jewish population have created separate identities and cultures. Using examples from literature, art, history, and politics, leading Israeli and American scholars focus on the political, social, and memory cultures of their two communities, considering in particular the American-Jewish challenge to diaspora consciousness and the Israeli struggle to forge a secular, national Jewish identity. At the same time, they seek to understand how a sense of mutual responsibility and fate animates American and Israeli Jews who reside in distant places, speak different languages, and live within different political and social worlds.

"Tearing down stereotypes about Jews, Richard Marceau tells us about himself, using his own story to convey Jewish history and culture. He draws an original portrait of the State of Israel, the role it plays in today's Jewish identity, and helps us discover Quebec's Jewish community. Denouncing prejudices and intellectual dishonesty, identifying himself as a pro-Palestinian Zionist, Richard Marceau calls for a respectful dialogue, promoting both the legitimacy of the Jewish State of Israel and the creation of an independent Palestinian state."--Pub. desc.

From Kirkus Reviews paper 0-8142-0780-4 A second collection from English professor (U. of Mass.) and critic Clayton, the first winner of the Sandstone Prize for Short Fiction. Clayton's new volume is, in many ways, a maturing of the concerns of his previous collection. As in Bodies of the Rich (1984), he focuses on the minutiae of daily life as a reflection of the ways in which his intelligent, middle-class protagonists express and experience loss. In Radiance, the protagonists are almost all Jews, assimilated to varying degrees but aware of and generally comfortable with their ethnic/religious identity. What they arent comfortable with is their lives--marriage as an act of settling for less, marriages that are failing or have long since dissolved, friends and family who die, parents who commit suicide. For several of his low-key heroes--in ``Glory,'' ``Open-Heart Surgery,'' and the most fully realized piece here, ``The Man Who Could See Radiance''--coping with loss takes the form of a sort of magic realist device in which people see and feel beyond their senses, becoming aware of a larger presence that may be understood as having a religious significance. The use of this device in three stories out of only ten, though, makes for a certain repetitiveness. Two tales, ``Muscles'' and ``Time Exposure,'' about episodes in an unhappy marriage that involves the husband's domineering brotherall as experienced by the couples sonhave the feeling of sketches for a novel-in-progress; theyre affecting but seem unfinished. Still, Clayton's best, ``Talking to Charlie'' and ``History Lessons,'' have a poignance that comes from an intense sensitivity to the quiet suffering that most often goes unexpressed in the rush of daily life. Uneven but distinctive short fiction from an author with a genuine gift. -- Copyright ©1998, Kirkus Associates, LP. All rights reserved. Product Description A collection of short stories about the lives of assimilated American Jews, who attempt to reach an opening into the spiritual realm while dealing with unsuccessful marriages, middle-class life, and the unhappiness of existence Review ...[Clayton writes] with compassion, simplicity and power... -- The New York Times Book Review, Patrick Farrell

The latter part of the thirteenth century is regarded as a key period in the history of Italian Jewry. During that time many Jewish communities sprang up in the regions of central and northern Italy. Their appearance marked a turning-point in the history of Jews in the Italian peninsula as the Jewish presence had previously been focused on Rome and the south. In this much-acclaimed study, originally published in Italian, Ariel Toaff captures all the intricacies of everyday life in the medieval Jewish communities of Umbria. A thorough examination of Hebrew and Italian archival sources enables him to characterize in detail the defining features of Jewish life in the region at that time and to show clearly how the common stereotype of a single, undifferentiated Jewish community does not reflect the reality. Instead, he presents a picture of a complex society that--far from being a 'mere' minority and somewhat isolated--actually contributed greatly to contemporary society and played a significant role in shaping it, while at the same time also being influenced by the surrounding Christian society. Professor Toaff elaborates contemporary Jewish traditions and practices associated with love, marriage, food, work, sickness, and death in the context of everyday social relations between Christians and Jews. In so doing he presents a full and fascinating reconstruction of the Jewish life of the period that faithfully reflects the links and divides between the two communities. Engagingly written, Love, Work, and Death: Jewish Life in Medieval Umbria will be of interest to the general reader, while its detailed references to archival documentation make it a particularly valuable source for students of medieval Jewish history and specialists in the social history of medieval and Renaissance Italy.

Thea: To Alexandria, Jerusalem and Freedom - is a movng and exciting story of life in Egypt during the tumultuous thirties and forties. The kaleidoscope of human events described, over sixty years of our century, gives the reader a sense of having lived and witnessed important moments of history. It is a book which makes a strong protest against war. But most of all it is the story of ordinary people performing extraordinary feats of love for their fellowmen. This is a sincere, well-written and poignant book with universal appeal.

The book deals with the history of the Jews in Baghdad, from the first mention of the place in the Talmud until recent times, and contains additional chapters on customs and usages, superstitions and proverbs, and also chapters on the settlement of Bagdad Jews in India and the Far East. The work describes the internal history of the Jews in Baghdad their communal, social and intellectual life. The work bases itself almost exclusively on Jewish sources these include many manuscripts from the Sassoon collection used here for the first time. The author an eminent scholar, who worked with untiring zeal collecting documents on Jewish history and building up the famous Sassoon collection of manuscripts at Oxford University. We are fortunate to have a short history of the Jews in Baghdad from his pen, a milestone book which laid the foundation stone for future writers on the subject.

A study of Jewish-Christian relations in Assisi in the late medieval period. Inter alia, discusses anti-Jewish sermons by Franciscan friars in the 15th century, particularly by Fortunato Coppoli da Perugia. At his instigation, the Monte di Pieta was instituted in Assisi in 1468 in order to facilitate the passage of banking and finance from Jewish to Christian hands; other anti-Jewish measures were adopted as well. The Jews requested the intervention of Pope Paul II, who stated that all contracts with Jews were valid, but the Jews continued to be hounded by Franciscan preachers. In 1485 the Monte di Pieta and other measures were reinstituted, and shortly afterwards most of the Jews left the city. Pp. 101-213 contain documents, some of which refer to anti-Jewish measures.

After World War II, the center of gravity for world Jewry moved outside Europe. In the aftermath of the Holocaust, large-scale emigration and postwar assimilation resulted in a disheartening contraction of European Jewry, with the notable exception of France. Today, Europe's Jews number only 17 percent of the world Jewish population. At the beginning of this century, they comprised 83 percent and were the center of the modern Jewish experience. In a radical reversal, former peripheries became the centers, notably American Jewry, the largest and most dynamic of the Diaspora communities, and the State of Israel. An examination of the altered place of Europe and its future role in Jewish history is long overdue.In Jewish Centers and Peripheries, S. Han Troen presents evidence of cultural renewal and community reorganization - both internally driven and supported by Israeli-and American-based Jewish organizations - which promise to assure the continuity and vitality of Jewish life in Europe. This volume presents the contributions of scholars, senior community professionals, lay leaders, and former diplomats from Europe, Israel, and America, including Yosef Gorny, Gabriel Sheffer, Rashid Kaplanov, Barry Kosmin, Ralph Goldman, Jean-Jacques Wahl, Israel Finestein, David Patterson, and Daniel Elazar.These original and thoughtful contributions examine dynamic relationships among European, American, and Israeli communities at times bringing personal knowledge of significant events pertinent to understanding these relationships. Collectively they suggest that present conditions are ripe for the reemergence of European Jewry, though on a scale much diminished from that of the pre-Holocaust period. Moreover, the prospects for the rejuvenation of European Jewry mirror the possibilities for Jewish continuity everywhere. Jewish Centers and Peripheries is a strikingly informative assessment of the condition of world Jewry at the close of the century.

After World War II, the center of gravity for world Jewry moved outside Europe. In the aftermath of the Holocaust, large-scale emigration and postwar assimilation resulted in a disheartening contraction of European Jewry, with the notable exception of France. Today, Europe's Jews number only 17 percent of the world Jewish population. At the beginning of this century, they comprised 83 percent and were the center of the modern Jewish experience. In a radical reversal, former peripheries became the centers, notably American Jewry, the largest and most dynamic of the Diaspora communities, and the State of Israel. An examination of the altered place of Europe and its future role in Jewish history is long overdue. In Jewish Centers and Peripheries, S. Han Troen presents evidence of cultural renewal and community reorganization—both internally driven and supported by Israeli-and American-based Jewish organizations—which promise to assure the continuity and vitality of Jewish life in Europe. This volume presents the contributions of scholars, senior community professionals, lay leaders, and former diplomats from Europe, Israel, and America, including Yosef Gorny, Gabriel Sheffer, Rashid Kaplanov, Barry Kosmin, Ralph Goldman, Jean-Jacques Wahl, Israel Finestein, David Patterson, and Daniel Elazar. These original and thoughtful contributions examine dynamic relationships among European, American, and Israeli communities at times bringing personal knowledge of significant events pertinent to understanding these relationships. Collectively they suggest that present conditions are ripe for the reemergence of European Jewry, though on a scale much diminished from that of the pre-Holocaust period. Moreover, the prospects for the rejuvenation of European Jewry mirror the possibilities for Jewish continuity everywhere. Jewish Centers and Peripheries is a strikingly informative assessment of the condition of world Jewry at the close of the century.