An authoritative reference guide covers diverse aspects of Jewish life, including Jewish culture, customs, history, rituals, and beliefs.

For over sixty years, Jews have ranked as the most liberal white ethnic group in American politics, figuring prominently in social reform campaigns ranging from the New Deal to the civil rights movement. Today many continue to defy stereotypes that link voting patterns to wealth. What explains this political behavior? Historians have attributed it mainly to religious beliefs, but Marc Dollinger discovered that this explanation fails to account for the entire American Jewish political experience. In this, the first synthetic treatment of Jewish liberalism and U.S. public policy from the 1930s to the mid-1970s, Dollinger identifies the drive for a more tolerant, pluralistic, and egalitarian nation with Jewish desires for inclusion in the larger non-Jewish society. The politics of acculturation, the process by which Jews championed unpopular social causes to ease their adaptation to American life, established them as the guardians of liberal America. But, according to Dollinger, it also erected barriers to Jewish liberal success. Faced with a conflict between liberal politics and their own acculturation, Jews almost always chose the latter. Few Jewish leaders, for example, condemned the wartime internment of Japanese Americans, and most southern Jews refused to join their northern co-religionists in public civil rights protests. When liberals advocated race-based affirmative action programs and busing to desegregate public schools, most Jews dissented. In chronicling the successes, limits, and failures of Jewish liberalism, Dollinger offers a nuanced yet wide-ranging political history, one intended for liberal activists, conservatives curious about the creation of neo-conservatism, and anyone interested in Jewish communal life.

Using an interactive format that includes removable letters, documents, and personal effects, this visual history of the Jews in America follows the successive waves of Jewish immigration to the United States, from the eighteenth century to the present day. 30,000 first printing. Traditions Book Club Main.

Isaias Hellman, a Jewish immigrant, arrived in California in 1859 with little money in his pocket and his brother Herman by his side. By the time he died, he had effectively transformed Los Angeles into the modern metropolis we see today. In Frances Dinkelspeil's groundbreaking history, the early days of California are seen through the life of a man who started out as a simple store owner only to become California's premier money man of the late 19th and early 20th centuries. Growing up as a young immigrant, Hellman quickly learned the use to which capital could be put, founding Los Angeles's Farmers and Merchants Bank, that city's first successful bank, and transforming Wells Fargo into one of the West's biggest financial institutions. He invested money with Henry Huntington to build trolley lines, lent Edward Doheny the funds that led him to discover California's huge oil reserves, and assisted Harrison Gray Otis in acquiring full ownership of the Los Angeles Times. Hellman led the building of Los Angeles's first synagogue, the Wilshire Boulevard Temple, helped start the University of Southern California, and served as Regent of the University of California. His influence, however, was not limited to Los Angeles. He controlled the California wine industry for almost 20 years, and after San Francisco's devastating 1906 earthquake and fire, calmed the financial markets there in order to help that great city rise from the ashes. With all of these accomplishments, Isaias Hellman almost single-handedly brought California into modernity --

A comprehensive examination of Jewish influence and participation in the American popular music business, that weaves together cultural, political, musical and economic history.

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 sparkling debut, a young critic offers an original, passionate, and erudite account of what it means to feel Jewish--even when you're not. Self-hatred. Guilt. Resentment. Paranoia. Hysteria. Overbearing Mother-Love. In this witty, insightful, and poignant book, Devorah Baum delves into fiction, film, memoir, and psychoanalysis to present a dazzlingly original exploration of a series of feelings famously associated with modern Jews. Reflecting on why Jews have so often been depicted, both by others and by themselves, as prone to "negative" feelings, she queries how negative these feelings really are. And as the pace of globalization leaves countless people feeling more marginalized, uprooted, and existentially threatened, she argues that such "Jewish" feelings are becoming increasingly common to us all. Ranging from Franz Kafka to Philip Roth, Sarah Bernhardt to Woody Allen, Anne Frank to Nathan Englander, Feeling Jewish bridges the usual fault lines between left and right, insider and outsider, Jew and Gentile, and even Semite and anti-Semite, to offer an indispensable guide for our divisive times.

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.

"Moscow, February 1953. A week before Stalin's death, his final pogrom, "one that would forever rid the Motherland of the vermin," is in full swing. Three government goons arrive in the middle of the night to arrest Solomon Shimonovich Levinson, an actor from the defunct State Jewish Theater. But Levinson, though an old man, is a veteran of past wars, and his shocking response to the intruders sets in motion a series of events both zany and deadly as he proceeds to assemble a ragtag group to help him enact a mad-brilliant plot: the assassination of a tyrant. Levinson's cast of unlikely heroes includes Aleksandr Kogan, a machine-gunner in Levinson's Red Army band who has since become one of Moscow's premier surgeons; Frederick Lewis, an African American who came to the USSR to build smelters and stayed to work as an engineer, learning Russian, Esperanto, and Yiddish; and Kima Petrova, an enigmatic young woman with a score to settle. While the setting is Soviet Russia, the backdrop is Shakespeare: A mad king has a diabolical plan to exterminate and deport his country's remaining Jews. And wandering through the narrative, like a crazy Soviet Ragtime, are such historical figures as Paul Robeson, Solomon Mikhoels, and Marc Chagall. As hilarious as it is moving, as intellectual as it is violent--with echoes of Inglourious Basterds and Seven Samurai--THE YID is a tragicomic masterpiece of historical fiction"--

"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"--

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."

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

Goodman examines the background of the AD 66 Judean revolt against Rome. He attempts to explain both the rebellion itself and its temporary success by discussing the role of the Jewish ruling class in the sixty years preceding the war and in the independent state that lasted until AD 70. The author shows that the revolt's ultimate cause was a misunderstanding by Rome of the status criteria of Jewish society.

"This is the first systematic study of the Lithuanian yeshivas that flourished from 1802 to 1914 in their social and cultural context; their legacy still dominates orthodox Jewish society. The main focus is the yeshiva of Volozhin, which in its independence of the local community was the model for everything that followed, but chapters are also devoted to the yeshivas of Slobodka and Telz, and to the kollel system." --

What is a homeland? When does it become a national territory? Why have so many people been willing to die for such places throughout the twentieth century? What is the essence of the Promised Land? Following the acclaimed and controversial The Invention of the Jewish People, Shlomo Sand examines the mysterious sacred land that has become the site of the longest-running national struggle of the twentieth and twenty-first centuries. The Invention of the Land of Israel deconstructs the age-old legends surrounding the Holy Land and the prejudices that continue to suffocate it. Sand's account dissects the concept of "historical right" and tracks the creation of the modern concept of the "Land of Israel" by nineteenth-century Evangelical Protestants and Jewish Zionists. This invention, he argues, not only facilitated the colonization of the Middle East and the establishment of the State of Israel, it is also what is threatening the existence of the Jewish state today.--From publisher description.

"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." --

Alexandra, a young Jewish girl from Jerusalem, describes her life and the creation of Hanukkah, more than 2000 years ago.

Describes the bombing of the Temple, Atlanta's oldest synagogue, in October 1958, against the background of anti-Black and anti-Jewish violence prevalent in the South at the time. States that "whites aimed at blacks through the Jews, " and that 10% of the bombs in the South in 1954-59 exploded at synagogues, rabbis' homes, and Jewish community centers. The target of the Atlanta bombing was the Temple's rabbi, Jacob M. Rothschild, a vigorous advocate of racial integration. Describes Rothschild's activities, as well as those of George Michael Bright, a member of the neo-Nazi Columbians and the racist National States' Rights Party, one of five men indicted in the Temple bombing. Describes the trials of the accused, none of whom were convicted; Bright's trial ended in a deadlock and declaration of a mistrial, while the other four were acquitted.

An account of Ulysses S. Grant's hotly contested Civil War decision to expel Jewish citizens from the territory under his command evaluates the reverberations of his decision on his career, the nascent Jewish-American community, and the nation's political process.