This synthetic treatment of Josephus and his times has two aims. The first is to establish Josephus' attitudes to the various Judaean aristocratic groups of the first century - priests, descendants of Herod, certain sectarians - and how these attitudes changed. The second aim is more speculative: to connect these changes with actual changes in Judaean politics and society in the c. 30 years of Josephus' literary activity, a critical period of transformation following the destruction of Jerusalem. The first chapter examines Josephus' life from his detection to Vespasian, and suggests that Josephus always retained an interest in current public affairs, particularly those of Judaea. Chapters 2-4 discuss the changes of attitude within the Josephan corpus and place them in the context of the evidence of the coins, inscriptions, Rabbinic literature and pagan historians. It is argued that these changes allow us to trace the decline of the pre-66 aristocracy groups after 70. Chapter 5 argues that there arose a new aristocracy in the 80s and 90s, a rise which left its mark in Josephus' later work.

Crucial to understanding the situation in the Middle East is a grasp of the nature of the conflict, as well as its historical roots. The Indictment shows how the Arab war against Israel has taken shape as an expertly waged propaganda war, and how latent anti-Semitism contributes to the worlds acceptance of thinly veiled lies. Drawing on documented events and news sources, Auschwitz-survivor Sabina Citron takes a fearless look at the roots of Christian anti-Semitism and how it creates a receptive audience for the Arab propaganda war on Israel.

Contents: Vol. 1. Abaúj-Torna County - Máramaros County. Vol. 2. Maros-Torda County - Zemplén County. Vol. 3. Appendixes. Vol. 1 contains a "Historical Overview" by Braham (pp. xv-xcv). Divided by counties, this encyclopedia gives information on the persecution and fate of the Jews in every village, town, and city in Greater Hungary (including areas which are today part of Romania, Serbia, and Ukraine).

When books survive as long as our biblical collection has survived, a certain discrepancy between intention and comprehension is inevitable.

"Franz Baermann Steiner (1909-52) provided the vital link between the intellectual culture of central Europe and the Oxford Institute of Anthropology in its post-Second World War years. This book demonstrates his quiet influence within anthropology, which has extended from Mary Douglas to David Graeber, and how his remarkable poetry reflected profoundly on the slavery and murder of the Shoah, an event which he escaped from. Steiner's concerns including inter-disciplinarity, genre, refugees and exile, colonialism and violence, and the sources of European anthropology speak to contemporary concerns more directly now than at any time since his early death"--

When Edith Hofmann sat down to write this book, she was a 19-year-old coming to terms with the fact of her own survival. It is a story which describes a struggle; the struggle to come to terms with a haunting past, the struggle to survive, and the struggle to unburden a broken heart. It also embodies a struggle to form, in language, that which at times all but defies linguistic form. When Hofmann started writing this book she had only been speaking English for two years, and yet she wanted to convey her experiences, in English, to those with whom she had made her home. The cruel reality was that no one really wanted to hear. She poured out her soul, only to be told that 'no one was interested in the war any more'. This was 1950. Some fifty years later she revisited the manuscript, wondering whether such a text would have any value. For fifty years her text had lain in her drawer, waiting to be read. Her story is a novel, but it certainly is not a fiction. Scared for her own safety, Hofmann chose to write in the third person rather than pen a memoir. Every page is bound up with the intricate details of her life, those whom she loved, and those whom she lost; the echoes of those terrible years, and the memory they imposed. In compiling this text, she decided neither to change it, by removing discrepancies or updating anything, which Hofmann wrote in the late 1940s, nor to improve her English, but rather to leave it as a raw and indelible testimony not only to her survival but to her bid to survive survival. You will be moved; not only by what she has written, but by the fact that she wrote at all.

Through exploring the particular importance of the fraternal relationship among the dynasties of the Hellenistic world in Thy Brother's Blood, Dr. Benjamin Scolnic demonstrates how adherence to or rejection of the "morality of kinship" literally changed the world. This in-depth book reviews fraternal relationships in the Bible and Greek and Roman mythology to create models for the falls of the Attalids of Pergamon and the Antigonids of Macedonia. The ancient writers from Rome to Jerusalem valued fraternal bonds and used fratricide as the symbol for internal dissension within nations. Using a focalized approach, Dr. Scolnic cautions that historians sometimes were so consumed with the metaphor of fraternity that they ignored the historical realities. He demonstrates this by providing a historical and moral context for the fall of one Judean dynasty, the Zadokite high priests, and for the rise and fall of the Hasmonaean dynasty, known to the world as the Maccabees.

How have American Zionists maintained the delicate balance between their Americanism and their Zionism? How did they, as Americans, support the principle of democracy and at the same time, as Jews, support the creation of a Jewish homeland despite the pre-1948 Arab majority in Palestine? Looking at America-Holy Land relations during the years prior to the establishment of the state of Israel, Medoff explores this crucial question of American Jewish identity. Using original, previously unpublished archival material, this study presents an engaging account of a dilemma that is still very much an issue in today's political climate.

In this comprehensive study Paul Wexler demonstrates that Yiddish is a Slavic language largely relexified to genuine and artificial German and Hebrew, as a cryptic language of trade in the Khazar Empire in the 9-10th centuries for the use of multilingual Jewish merchants, who enjoyed special privileges on the Afro-Eurasian Silk Roads until the 13th century. Other Judaized trade languages (Turkic, Chinese, Arabic) were also coined at this time in the Khazar and Iranian Empires. In both empires, Yiddish absorbed over 5,000 overt influ-ences mainly from Judaized Persian, and secondarily from Judaized Turkic and Chinese. Yiddish mainly has Hebraisms wherever Persian employs Arabisms (but has almost no overt Arabisms) and preserves Asianisms with greater accuracy and volume than most Iranianized non-Jewish target languages. Until c. 1000, almost all Jews in the world resided in the Iranian Empire and were mainly of Iranian and only partly of Palestinian Judaean descent. Conversion to Judaism was common among Iranians, Turks, Slavs and Berbers (because of a desire to participate in the lucrative Silk Road trade dominated by Jews, and to escape the status of slavery often imposed on them); conversion led to the rise of new diverse Jewish "ethnicities" and forms of Judaism. The book also examines the Iranianization of other cryptic Jewish trade languages, of Slavic and German, and the common Hebrew-like lexicon used by all Jewish merchants to overcome varied language backgrounds. Yiddish can help to reconstruct the Iranian speech of mixed Irano-Slavic confederations (such as the Galician White Croats).

"A tribute to Abraham Cahan, founder of a prominent Yiddish language newspaper whose discussion of everything from voting rights to baseball offered crucial guidance to Jewish immigrants"--

Vatican II's Declaration on the Relation of the Church to Non-Christian Religions (Nostra Aetate) transformed the Catholic view of the Jewish people and the Jewish religious tradition. Asserting that the Church discovers her link to the ""stock of Abraham"" when ""searching her own mystery,"" Nostra Aetate intimated that the mystery of Israel is inseparable from the mystery of the Church. As interlocking mysteries, each community requires the other in order to understand itself. In Searching Her Own Mystery, noted Messianic Jewish theologian Mark S. Kinzer argues that the Church has yet to explore adequately the implications of Nostra Aetate for Christian self-understanding. The new Catholic teaching concerning Israel should produce fresh perspectives on the entire range of Christian theology, including Christology, ecclesiology, and the theology of the sacraments. To this end, Kinzer proposes an Israel-ecclesiology rooted in Israel-Christology in which a restored ecclesia ex circumcisione--the ""church from the circumcision""--assumes a crucial role as a sacramental sign of the Church's bond with the Jewish people and genealogical-Israel's irrevocable election. ""The implications of Nostra Aetate lay dormant for a decade or so until the Pontificate of John Paul II. Since then, Catholic thinkers have begun to probe more deeply how the mystery of Israel is related to that of the Church. Mark Kinzer has thought long and hard about these issues and the reader will be the beneficiary of his learning on this important issue."" --Gary A. Anderson, Hesburgh Professor of Catholic Theology, University of Notre Dame, Indiana ""This is another beautifully written and powerful theological work from leading Messianic Jewish theologian Mark Kinzer. Kinzer, who is not a Catholic but whose life has been marked by rich dialogue with Catholics, urges the Catholic Church to open up explicitly Jewish ecclesial environments for Torah-observant Messianic Jews within the Catholic Church. While I differ from him in significant ways, I agree with him that Catholics must attend ever more deeply to the implications of God's covenantal election of the Jewish people and to the enduring spiritual value, in God's plan, of the Jewish people's observance of the Torah."" --Matthew Levering, Perry Family Foundation Professor of Theology, Mundelein Seminary, Mundelein, Illinois ""Mark Kinzer has written a deeply thought-provoking and significant book on furthering the communion between Messianic Jews and the Catholic Church. He presents clearly and creatively his scriptural and theological arguments, and the interweaving of his personal pilgrimage to faith in Jesus. His subsequent journey in that faith adds poignancy and eloquence to his theological project. The theological academy, and especially the Catholic scholars within it, ought seriously to engage this book, and Catholic bishops ought to read it with a sympathetic eye and a discerning spirit."" --Thomas G. Weinandy, Dominican House of Studies, Washington, DC Mark S. Kinzer is Rabbi of Congregation Zera Avraham in Ann Arbor, Michigan, and President Emeritus of Messianic Jewish Theological Institute. He is the author of Postmissionary Messianic Judaism (2005) and Israel's Messiah and the People of God (2011).

""Methods of Teaching Jewish Ethics"" by Julia Richman is a comprehensive guide for educators looking to teach Jewish ethics to students of all ages. The book includes various teaching methods and strategies, such as storytelling, role-playing, and discussion-based activities, to engage students and help them understand the principles of Jewish ethics. It also covers topics such as moral development, character education, and the importance of ethical behavior in Jewish tradition. The author, Julia Richman, draws from her extensive experience as an educator and provides practical advice and examples for teachers to implement in their classrooms. This book is an invaluable resource for anyone looking to teach Jewish ethics in a meaningful and effective way.This scarce antiquarian book is a facsimile reprint of the old original and may contain some imperfections such as library marks and notations. Because we believe this work is culturally important, we have made it available as part of our commitment for protecting, preserving, and promoting the world's literature in affordable, high quality, modern editions, that are true to their original work.

Published in conjunction with a travelling exhibition entitled "A Coat of Many Colours" mounted by the Canadian Museum of Civilization. Pp. 105-111 discuss antisemitism in the late 19th-early 20th centuries, particularly the views of Goldwin Smith of Toronto and his widespread influence on politicians and in the press, and antisemitism in French Catholic Quebec. Ch. 8 (pp. 179-207), "The Dark Years, 1930-1945, " deals with a period in which the country was permeated with antisemitism. Describes discrimination against Jews in universities, employment opportunities, sale of properties, etc. In Quebec, the Catholic Church and French Canadian nationalist movements advocated antisemitic actions, including support for a boycott against Jewish merchants and anti-immigration crusades. Mentions organized Jewish efforts to combat this trend, and the fascist organizations which became active during this period. Pp. 213-220 deal with the successful postwar campaign by Jewish organizations and individuals against the discriminatory practices.

While 'A Traveler Disguised: A Study in the Rise of Modern Yiddish Fiction in the Nineteenth Century' focused on the rhetoric of the speaking voice or the persona in these classics, the nine essays gathered here concentrate on the artistic reconstruction of the "world" conveyed by that persona. As much as the earlier volume put to rest the conventional understanding of "Mendele the Book-Peddler" as a mere representative of the author, Sh. Y. Abramovitsh, this book invalidates the common views of the literary shtetl as a mere mimetic reflection of the historical Jewish shtetl of Eastern Europe and examines its structure as an autonomous aesthetic construct. These essays dwell particularly on the fictional modalities displayed in some of Sholem Aleichem's major works. They also offer innovative insights into the works of both earlier and later masters such as A. M. Dik, Y. Aksenfeld, Y .Y. Linetski and Sh. Y. Abramovitsh, Y. L. Peretz, I. M. Vaysenberg, Sh. Asch, D. Bergelson, and I. B. Singer.

"This is a book of extraordinary quality and importance. In tracing the encounter of Jews (the chosen people) and America (the chosen nation) . . Eisen has given the American Jewish community a new understanding of itself." —American Jewish Archives ". . . one of the most significant books on American Jewish thought written in recent years." —Choice What does it mean to be a Jew in America? What opportunities and what threats does the great melting pot represent for a group that has traditionally defined itself as "a people that must dwell alone"? Although for centuries the notion of "The Chosen People" sustained Jewish identity, America, by offering Jewish immigrants an unprecedented degree of participation in the larger society, threatened to erode their Jewish identity and sense of separateness. Arnold M. Eisen charts the attempts of American Jewish thinkers to adapt the notion of chosenness to an American context. Through an examination of sermons, essays, debates, prayer-book revisions, and theological literature, Eisen traces the ways in which American rabbis and theologians—Reconstructionist, Conservative, and Orthodox thinkers—effected a compromise between exclusivity and participation that allowed Jews to adapt to American life while simultaneously enhancing Jewish tradition and identity.

Following the Jewish Enlightenment, many eighteenth-century Jews chose not to observe the religious laws and customs that had earlier marked them as culturally different from their Christian peers. As the Jewish population became increasingly assimilated, an ultraorthodox movement also emerged, creating a discrete identity for a group within the Jewish community that opted not to move toward the mainstream but instead to embrace the traditional laws .By tracing the evolution of the approach of the Orthodox to their nonpracticing brethren, Adam S. Ferziger sheds new light on the emergence of Orthodoxy as a specific movement within modern Jewish society. In the course of this process, German Orthodoxy in particular articulated a new hierarchical vision of Jewish identity and the structure of modern Jewish society. Viewing Orthodox Judaism as no less a nineteenth-century phenomenon than Reform Judaism or Zionism, Ferziger looks at the ways it defined itself by its relationship to the nonobservant Jewish population. Ferziger argues that as the Orthodox movement emerged, it rejected the stance that the assimilated and nonobservers were deviant outcasts. Instead, they were accepted as legitimate members of a Jewish community, in which Orthodox Jews occupied the pinnacle, as the guardians of its tradition. This book's contribution, however, moves beyond a historical study of Orthodox Judaism. The sociological methodology that Ferziger employs enables the reader to appreciate how other religious groups have sought to carve out their places within the mosaic of modern society.

Was it possible to achieve peace between Jews and Arabs in Palestine in the 1930s? This study discusses the Fifth Avenue muti-millionaires who believed they could bring peace to the Middle East through secret diplomacy and a generous dose of "Baksheesh" (the Arabic word for bribery).