On February 26, 1938, 17-year-old Georg Klaar took his girlfriend Lisl to his first ball at the Konzerthaus. His family was proudly Austrian; they were also Jewish, and two weeks later came the German Anschluss. This incredibly affecting account of Nazi brutality towards the Jews includes a previously unpublished post-war letter from the author's uncle to a friend who had escaped to Scotland. This moving epistle passes on the news of those who had survived and the many who had been arrested, deported, murdered, or left to die in concentration camps, and those who had been orphaned or lost their partners or children. It forms a devastating epilogue to what has been hailed as a classic of holocaust literature.

John Beckett was a rising political star. Elected as Labour's youngest M.P. in 1924, he was constantly in the news and tipped for greatness. But ten years later he was propaganda chief for Mosley's fascists, and one of Britain's three best known anti-Semites. Yet his mother, whom he loved, was a Jew. Her ancestors were Solomons, Isaacs and Jacobsons, originally from Prussia. He successfully hid his Jewish ancestry all his life - he said his mother's family were "fisher folk from the east coast." His son, the author of this book, acclaimed political biographer and journalist Francis Beckett, did not discover the truth until John Beckett had been dead for years. He left Mosley and founded the National Socialist League with William Joyce, later Lord Haw Haw, and spent the war years in prison, considered a danger to the war effort. For the rest of his life, and all of Francis Beckett's childhood, John Beckett and his family were closely watched by the security services. Their devious machinations, traced in records only recently released, damaged chiefly his young family. This is a fascinating and brutally honest account of a troubled man in turbulent times.

This book is a study of the pratical application of a religious idea: the belief in the continuing validity of the Old Testament, especially the Ten Commandments, which ordained the observance of the Sabbath on the seventh day, Saturday. The author traces the growth and development of the most radical of English Sabbath observers, those who revered the Jewish Sabbath in a Christian context. But this is not only a pre-history of the Seventh-Day Adventists. It is also the story of the remarkable persistence of a revolutionary religious belief powerful and convincing enough to survive the Restoration and continue into modern times. The Saturday-Sabbath gradually became institutionalized in a nonconformist sect in which the ideological foundation was sufficient to unite men who on political grounds should have been the most bitter of enemies, including Fifth Monarchists, millenarians, neutrals, and Royalists alike. That those men and their followers could amicably join forces after the Restoration is testimony to the power of religious ideas which might overshadow the political affiliations of the civil war.

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).

The year is 1031. Karimah, a charming, headstrong Jewish nineteen-year-old has followed her heart on an adventure that will take her far from home. The story is revealed in her letters to the family she left behind in Egypt, their letters to her, and their correspondence with others as they seek to make sense of the disorder that Karimah has brought to their lives. Details of everday life from a millennium ago are now familiar to scholars through the discovery of the Cairo Geniza, a synagogue storeroom full of several centuries' worth of religious manuscripts, receipts, and business correspondence. The author creates an impassioned portrayal of a time when Jews and Muslims lived together in reasonable harmony.

For almost fifty years, the Zionist labour movement led the Jewish community in Palestine and later, in the State of Israel. Among the close-knit group of its founding fathers, Berl Katznelson was a unique figure. He was an intellectual, a politician, a man of letters, a statesman and the initiator of many of the social and economic institutions THAT shaped the face of the movement and in its wake, the character of the country as a whole. The biography of Berl is more than the biography of an individual: it is the story of a movement. The book traces Berl from a young Russian socialist and romantic pioneer on the shores of the Sea of Galilee, into the propounder of a work ethic and the founder of the central political current of the Israeli labour movement. The development of this movement is depicted against the background of the major political events of the period: Jewish-Arab relations, the European crisis of the thirties as it affected the Jewish people and the successes and failures of Zionist policy. It is required reading for anyone who wants to understand in depth the complexity of Israeli society today.

Jewish A Historical Introduction surveys the history of Jewish philosophy, from the formation of the Hebrew Scriptures to the present time. The book is intended as a text for courses in Jewish philosophy, as well as for more general courses in religious thought, in Judaism, and in philosophy. The author discusses the nature of God, the origin and end of the universe, and the moral value of humanity, all from the distinct perspective of Jewish intellectual history. The texts highlighted include the Hebrew Scriptures, the Midrash, medieval rabbinic commentaries, and modern works of Jewish theology. Among the Jewish philosophers discussed are Judah Ha-Nasi, Saadia Gaon, Judah Ha-Levi, Abraham ibn Daud, Moses Maimonides, Levi Gersonides, Hasdai Crescas, Baruch Spinoza, Hermann Cohen, Martin Buber, and Franz Rosenzweig. The book presupposes no prior background in Judaism, in philosophy, or in Jewish philosophy. Each chapter concludes with sets of key terms and questions as well as recommendations for further reading.

The developments in Judaism which occurred during the Second Temple period (c. 550 BC to 100 AD) were of great importance for the nature of Jewish religion in later centuries, yet few studies have examined the era in full. Now Lester L. Grabbe's lucid and accessible volume provides a much-needed encyclopedic study and holistic interpretation of the period. Topics examined include: * views about God and the spirit world * the temple and priesthood * scripture and synagogue * the main religious sects and revolutionary movements * eschatology and messianism * magic and predicting the future * religion in the Jewish diaspora * converts and 'Godfearers'. With an extensive, up-to-date bibliography, plus numerous helpful cross-references, summaries and syntheses, this book is essential reading for scholars and students of the history of Jewish religion. It will also be of great value as a reference tool.

Erich S. Gruen investigates a remarkable phenomenon in religious and literary history: the freedom with which Jewish writers in antiquity retold and recast, sometimes distorted or bypassed, biblical narratives that ostensibly had the status of sacred texts.

How have modern Jews appropriated traditional aspects of their culture and religion to sustain them in the modern world? Twenty-one distinguished scholars address this question by drawing on a range of disciplines: social and cultural history, ethnography, folklore, sociology, educational theory, and rabbinics. They examine Jewish communities from Russia to North Africa, from Israel to the United States. Among the subjects they explore are Jewish art, holiday practices, feminist ceremonies, adult education, and religious movements in Israel. The Uses of Tradition demonstrates the persistence of tradition and the limits to continuity. It asks: How extensively can tradition be reinterpreted before it is subverted? At what point is creative reinvention an act of betrayal? How effectively can selective borrowing from tradition sustain a religious community?

In this clearly written book, Jacob Neusner answers the central questions about the world of Judaism in which Christianity was born. He gives an overview of the history and religion of Israel and an analysis of the Judaic legacy as it endured among those who did not become Christians. He also discusses the troubling issue of the Pharisees and investigates the identity of the "historical Hillel." This accessible book aims to speak directly to every student who is concerned with both the early and contemporary meanings of the Jewish and Christian faiths.

Every work on Jewish thought and law since the twelfth century bears the imprint of Maimonides. A. N. Whitehead's famous dictum that the entire European philosophical tradition 'consists of a series of footnotes to Plato' could equally characterize Maimonides' place in the Jewish tradition. The critical studies in this volume explore how Orthodox rabbis of different orientations--Shlomo Aviner, Naftali Zvi Yehudah Berlin (Netziv), Kalonymus Kalman Shapira, Joseph Kafih, Abraham Isaac Kook, Aaron Kotler, Joseph Soloveitchik, and Elhanan Wasserman--have read and provided footnotes to Maimonides in the long twentieth century. How well did they really understand Maimonides? And where do their arguments fit in the mainstream debates about him and his works? Each of the seven core chapters examines a particular approach. Some rabbis have tried to liberate themselves from the influence of his ideas. Others have sought to build on those ideas or expand them in ways which Maimonides himself did not pursue, and which he may well not have agreed with. Still others advance patently non-Maimonidean positions, while attributing them to none other than Maimonides. Above all, the essays published here demonstrate that his legacy remains vibrantly alive today.

The rise and fall of the Jews is compressed into the enigmatic character of Ebenezer Schneerson, who has somehow become the final repository of all Jewish culture following the ravages of World War II.

The agendas of three European men with dubious political histories converge in the aftermath of an 1989 death linked to the fates of myriad Hungarians, Jews, Germans and Gypsies across the treacherous years of the mid-twentieth century.

Theodor Herzl, Architect of a Nation , is the compelling account of a complex individual who sacrificed his health and family in pursuit of an ideal: the establishment of a homeland where Jews throughout the world could go to escape anti-Semitism. "If you will it, it is no dream," he said. This book sheds valuable light on a man whose short, eventful life helped create and shape the modern State of Israel. Norman H. Finkelstein focuses on the ideas that Herzl gave to the Zionist movement and on the grand diplomacy and political maneuvering to which he devoted his life.

A combination of autobiography and religious thought.

Mention 1492 and most people conjure up images of three stout ships making their way west. But 1492 was the year in which the vibrant Jewish community of Spain came to an abrupt and tragic end. This book details the expulsion of the Jews from Spain and Portugal and their early immigration to the New World. European anti-Semitism followed the Jews but the newcomers persevered and made a home for themselves in the New World. Starred Review and Editor’s Choice, Booklist, NCCS/CBC Notable Children’s Trade Book and American Bookseller Pick of the Lists, 1990.

This fiftieth anniversary edition of W. Gunther Plaut's classic volume on the beginnings of the Jewish Reform Movement is updated with a new introduction by Howard A. Berman. The Rise of Reform Judaism covers the first one hundred years of the movement, from the time of the eighteenth-century Jewish Enlightenment leader Moses Mendelssohn to the conclusion of the Augsburg synod in 1871.In these pages the founders who established liberal Judaism speak for themselves through their journals and pamphlets, books and sermons, petitions and resolutions, and public arguments and disputations. Each selection includes Plaut's brief introduction and sketch of the reformer. Important topics within Judaism are addressed in these writings: philosophy and theology, religious practice, synagogue services, and personal life, as well as controversies on the permissibility of organ music, the introduction of the sermon, the nature of circumcision, the observance of the Sabbath, the rights of women, and the authenticity of the Bible.

These strikingly lucid and accessible essays, ranging over nearly a century of Jewish communal life, examine the ways in which immigrant Jews grappled with issues of group survival in an open and accepting American society. Ten case studies focus on Jewish strategies for maintaining a collective identity while participating fully in American society and public life. Readers will find that these essays provide a fresh, provocative, and compelling look at the fundamental question facing American Jewry at the end of the 20th century, as at its start: how to assure Jewish survival in the benign conditions of American freedom.

"The relationship between Jewish studies and religious studies is a long and complicated one, full of tensions and possibilities. Whereas the majority of scholars working within Jewish studies contend that the discipline is in a very healthy state, many who work in theory and method in religious studies disagree. For them, Jewish studies represents all that is wrong with the modern academic study of religion: too introspective, too ethnic, too navel-gazing, and too willing to reify or essentialize data that it constructs in its own image. In this book, Aaron W. Hughes explores the unique situation of Jewish studies and how it intersects with religious studies, noting particular areas of concern for those interested in the field's intellectual health and future flourishing. Hughes provides a detailed study of origins, principles, and assumptions, documenting the rise of Jewish studies in Germany and its migration to Israel and the United States. Current issues facing the academic study of Judaism are discussed, including the role of private foundations that seek inroads into the academy"--back cover.