Almost ninety children and grandchildren of Holocaust survivors--theologians, scholars, spiritual leaders, authors, artists, political and community leaders and media personalities--from sixteen countries on six continents reflect on how the memories transmitted to them have affected their lives.--Publisher information.

Kosher pork—an oxymoron? Anna Shternshis's fascinating study traces the creation of a Soviet Jewish identity that disassociated Jewishness from Judaism. The cultural transformation of Soviet Jews between 1917 and 1941 was one of the most ambitious experiments in social engineering of the past century. During this period, Russian Jews went from relative isolation to being highly integrated into the new Soviet culture and society, while retaining a strong ethnic and cultural identity. This identity took shape during the 1920s and 1930s, when the government attempted to create a new Jewish culture, "national in form" and "socialist in content." Soviet and Kosher is the first study of key Yiddish documents that brought these Soviet messages to Jews, notably the "Red Haggadah," a Soviet parody of the traditional Passover manual; songs about Lenin and Stalin; scripts from regional theaters; Socialist Realist fiction; and magazines for children and adults. More than 200 interviews conducted by the author in Russia, Germany, and the United States testify to the reception of these cultural products and provide a unique portrait of the cultural life of the average Soviet Jew.

. . . Mr. Itzkoff places most of the blame for America's alleged intellectual decline on what he sees as an economically and intellectually elite cast of misguided liberals. They have isolated themselves from American society, he says, by their paternalistic treatment of the underclass, by discounting the importance of traditional family values and by failing to raise enough bright children to sustain national competence. The New York Times Book Review Few doubt that the United States has slipped from its longstanding eminence as the world's wealthiest and most productive nation. The problem for the past 30 years has been the diagnosis of both the decline and then the cure. Literally trillions of dollars have been expended in futile programs to stanch the hemorrhaging of our economic wealth, jobs, educational achievement, and cultural elan. Itzkoff argues that we will never stop the fall until we understand our real national dilemma. This is the decline in our national intelligence profile: fewer citizens of high intelligence, educational potential, and economic productivity. These ideas are taboo. Itzkoff, however, insists that these are the facts, and they must be examined. In this book, he lays out the available evidence for our social disintegration and suggests a rational program of policy initiatives that would begin to restore us to what we were as recently as 1955--the great hope of the world.