15 results for "Jewish History"

Plunder A Memoir of Family Property and Nazi Treasure

Menachem Kaiser
From a gifted young writer, the story of his quest to reclaim his family's apartment building in Poland--and of the astonishing entanglement with Nazi treasure hunters that follows Menachem Kaiser's brilliantly told story, woven from improbable events and profound revelations, is set in motion when the author takes up his Holocaust-survivor grandfather's former battle to reclaim the family's apartment building in Sosnowiec, Poland. Soon, he is on a circuitous path to encounters with the long-time residents of the building, and with a Polish lawyer known as "The Killer." A surprise discovery--that his grandfather's cousin not only survived the war, but wrote a secret memoir while a slave laborer in a vast, secret Nazi tunnel complex--leads to Kaiser being adopted as a virtual celebrity by a band of Silesian treasure seekers who revere the memoir as the indispensable guidebook to Nazi plunder. Propelled by rich original research, Kaiser immerses readers in profound questions that reach far beyond his personal quest. What does it mean to seize your own legacy? Can reclaimed property repair rifts among the living? Plunder is both a deeply immersive adventure story and an irreverent, daring interrogation of inheritance--material, spiritual, familial, and emotional.
HarperCollins Publishers 2022-03-15 288 pages

Crusaders in the courts: how a dedicated band of lawyers fought for the civil rights revolution

Greenberg, Jack
This book is both a powerful personal memoir and the definitive history of an organization that helped change American society. Jack Greenberg was a key figure at the NAACP Legal Defense and Educational Fund (LDF) for some thirty-five years. Most of the cases we associate from that period--school integration, equal employment, fair housing, voter registration--were LDF cases, either argued by Greenberg himself or litigated under his direction. Greenberg represented Martin Luther King, Jr., in Birmingham and won for him the right to march from Selma to Montgomery. Under Greenberg's leadership, the LDF forced the University of Mississippi to admit James Meredith and integrated the University of Alabama when George Wallace stood in the schoolhouse door. Greenberg won the cases in which the Supreme Court repudiated the "all deliberate speed" doctrine, which had made school desegregation intolerably slow. Through the 1970s and 1980s, LDF tackled most of the important cases that enforced the new civil rights legislation of the 1960s involving public accommodations, employment, education, and health care, and started the campaigns for prisoners' rights and against capital punishment. More than a history of the litigation that made the LDF so important, the book offers unique insights into its strategies, courtroom techniques, values, and personal relationships. Filled with stories only Greenberg could tell of his experiences with Thurgood Marshall, Martin Luther King, Jr., Marian Wright Edelman, Lani Guinier, Roy Wilkins, Vernon Jordan, Charlayne Hunter-Gault, Lyndon Johnson, and scores of others, Crusaders in the Courts is an epic saga of a critical period in American history as well as the poignant personal story of the evolution of a white Jewish lawyer into a major civil rights advocate.
BasicBooks 1994 634 pages

Rooted cosmopolitans: Jews and human rights in the twentieth century

Loeffler, James Benjamin
"A stunningly original look at the forgotten Jewish political roots of contemporary international human rights, told through the moving stories of five key activists The year 2018 marks the seventieth anniversary of two momentous events in twentieth-century history: the birth of the State of Israel and the creation of the Universal Declaration of Human Rights. Both remained tied together in the ongoing debates about the Israeli-Palestinian conflict. Yet the surprising connections between Zionism and the origins of international human rights are completely unknown today. In this riveting account, James Loeffler explores this controversial history through the stories of five remarkable Jewish founders of international human rights, following them from the prewar shtetls of eastern Europe to the postwar United Nations, a journey that includes the Nuremberg and Eichmann trials, the founding of Amnesty International, and the UN resolution of 1975 labeling Zionism as racism. The result is a book that challenges long-held assumptions about the history of human rights and offers a startlingly new perspective on the roots of the Israeli-Palestinian conflict." --
Yale University Press 2018-01-01 362 pages

Islamic Law in Palestine and Israel A History of the Survival of Tazimat and Sharia in the British Mandate and the Jewish State

Robert Eisenman
Robert Eisenman's classic work, Islamic Law in Palestine and Israel: A History of the Survival of Tanzimat and Sharia, examines how Islamic law, such as Shari law, survived in Palestine and Israel in a pure form perhaps longer than in any other Ottoman successor state. It did this for a variety of reasons, chief among which are the innate conservatism of the British and the inability of the Israelis, particularly in the country's early days, to do much about it. Besides Lebanon and Gaza, only in Israel did those three great monuments of Islamic and Ottoman modernism: the Ottoman Law of Family Rights, the Ottoman Land Code, and the Mecelle-i Akham-i Adliye, survive simultaneously. Author, Robert Eisenman, traces this continuity from Ottoman times in terms understandable to both specialists, lawyers, and laypersons. The anomaly of Islamic laws', such as Sharia law, survival against the backdrop of British legal concepts and renascent Jewish nationalism is delineated completely. Detailed attention is also given to the effect, or non-effect, of such Israeli reforms in Women's Equal Rights Law on the Muslim community and on Islamic law, as well as to the creation of Israeli hybrid laws, such as the Land Law of 1969, and a new Israeli modernism. The situation in Israel today remains more or less the same. In some areas beyond the 1967 Green Lines, where Israeli Law has been applied, it is as described in this book. In others, which have not been annexed or where it has not, Jordanian Law for the most part still obtains.
Grave Distractions Publications 2015-06-02 366 pages

Totally unofficial: the autobiography of Raphael Lemkin

Lemkin, Raphael
"Among the greatest intellectual heroes of modern times, Raphael Lemkin lived an extraordinary life of struggle and hardship, yet altered international law and redefined the world's understanding of group rights. He invented the concept and word "genocide" and propelled the idea into international legal status. An uncommonly creative pioneer in ethical thought, he twice was nominated for the Nobel Peace Prize. Although Lemkin died alone and in poverty, he left behind a model for a life of activism, a legacy of major contributions to international law, and--not least--an unpublished autobiography. Presented here for the first time is his own account of his life, from his boyhood on a small farm in Poland with his Jewish parents, to his perilous escape from Nazi Europe, through his arrival in the United States and rise to influence as an academic, thinker, and revered lawyer of international criminal law"--
Yale University Press 2013-06-24 293 pages

Exile and Return Predicaments of Palestinians and Jews

Ann M. Lesch,Ian S. Lustick
Exile and Return: Predicaments of Palestinians and Jews is a bold attempt to understand constructively and build upon the terrible irony of two peoples, each with a searing memory of displacement and exile, struggling for a return to a land each remembers, each claims, and from which each has sought to exclude the other. The Israeli, Palestinian, and American contributors to this volume consider the catastrophic failure of the Oslo peace process, the years of bloody violence that ensued, and a renewed awareness of the centrality of the Palestinian refugee question and the issues of demography and justice it raises with respect to any peace settlement. They explore the political meaning of the past delivered into the present by Palestinians whose personal and collective lives were forever transformed by the Nakba (catastrophe) of 1948, and by Israeli Jews whose sense of their own security and identity has been inseparably bound to centuries of persecution, culminating in the Holocaust, and a vividly constructed image as a people whose suffering arose from its exile from the Land of Israel twenty centuries ago. The contributors' work is honest and often as inspiring as it is provocative. This volume stands as a major contribution to the construction of a new intellectual infrastructure for decisive thinking about the refugee question, about the entire notion of the right of return (whether in Zionism or in Palestinian nationalism), and about the unavoidable obstacles and unappreciated opportunities that confront peacemakers. It offers formulas, categories, and approaches that can be used by both Palestinian and Israeli leaders to convince their peoples that the agreement being sought will destroy neither the state that Israeli Jews have built nor the deep yearnings for vindication and return that lie at the emotional core of the Palestinian struggle. The authors are leading scholars able to take full advantage of the flood of new work on these issues that the opening of various key archives has made possible. Their contributions here signal a shift toward a kind of reconciliation that is informed by the past, present, and future. Contributors : Elazar Barkan, Michael R. Fischbach, Sari Hanafi, Amal Jamal, Laleh Khalili, Ze'ev Khanin, Ann M. Lesch, Ian S. Lustick, Ilan Pappé, Elie Podeh, Nadim N. Rouhana, Gershon Shafir, Yehouda Shenhav, Salim Tamari.
University of Pennsylvania Press 2008-10-28 368 pages

Remembering in vain: the Klaus Barbie trial and crimes against humanity

Finkielkraut, Alain
In 1988, in what was probably one of the last trials of a Nazi war criminal and the first of such trials to take place in France, Klaus Barbie, the notorious "Butcher of Lyon", was found guilty of crimes against humanity and sentenced to life in prison. Yet despite the memories stirred, despite the verdict, to Alain Finkielkraut the trial was a moral failure. In Remembering in Vain, Finkielkraut maintains that the Barbie trial attests to the failure of international society to take responsibility for criminals of state. Trying Barbie not only for actions against Jews but also for actions against the Resistance―actions heretofore considered war crimes, on which the statute of limitations had run out―blurred the definition of crimes against humanity. Finkielkraut finds most disturbing how seriously taken were the arguments of the defence. By manipulating the guilty conscience of the West, Barbie's Vietnamese-French, Congolese, and Algerian lawyers became accusers, disputing the special significance of the Holocaust and portraying nearly everyone as a Nazi―except the former Nazi himself. Finkielkraut points to the ultimate irony of this Third World defense of a Nazi.
Columbia University Press 1992-04-15 102 pages

Rabbis and Lawyers The Journey from Torah to Constitution

Jerold S. Auerbach
Renowned legal historian Jerold S. Auerbach examines the special contributions of rabbis and lawyers to American Jewish acculturation. Based on extensive reading and research in American and Israeli archives, his analysis of how lawyers displaced rabbis as community leaders at the beginning of this century illuminates a decisive moment in American Jewish history. The author of Unequal Justice (1976), the landmark study of the legal profession in history, turns to the more specific issue of the development of the lawyer class in the U.S. and its role in changing the way Jewish Americans assimilated and were perceived by others.
Quid Pro, LLC 2010-08-29 334 pages

Trial of Oscar Slater;

William Roughead,Oscar Slater
This true crime classic tells the story of Oscar Slater, a Jewish immigrant who was wrongfully convicted of murder in Scotland in 1908. Based on extensive research and firsthand accounts, it exposes the corruption and prejudice that led to Slater's arrest and conviction, and is a powerful indictment of the Scottish legal system at the time. This work has been selected by scholars as being culturally important, and is part of the knowledge base of civilization as we know it. This work is in the "public domain in the United States of America, and possibly other nations. Within the United States, you may freely copy and distribute this work, as no entity (individual or corporate) has a copyright on the body of the work. Scholars believe, and we concur, that this work is important enough to be preserved, reproduced, and made generally available to the public. We appreciate your support of the preservation process, and thank you for being an important part of keeping this knowledge alive and relevant.
Creative Media Partners, LLC 2023-07-18 436 pages

Genetics, Mass Media and Identity: A Case Study of the Genetic Research on the Lemba

Parfitt, Tudor
This is the first book to explore the effect of genetic research on the Lemba Judaising community of Southern Africa and the phenomenon of Israelite identity. The science of genetics as relayed by the media is perceived by laymen as being irreproachably objective 'hard science': its disinterested 'scientific' findings appear immensely impressive and may therefore act as a powerful catalyst for change. In this case, an oral tradition cherished by many of the Lemba that they are of Jewish origin appears to be supported by recent DNA testing, which has deeply affected the narrative and religious identity of the group and the way the tribe is perceived in the Western world. International in appeal, this topical text brings together cutting-edge research on the social, cultural and ethical implications of genetics and the study of Judaising movements across the world. This book will be of interest to researchers and students of Jewish history, genetic anthropology, race and ethnicity studies, and religious and cultural studies.
Routledge 2014-04-09 176 pages

Islamic Law in Palestine and Israel:: A History of the Survival of Tanzimat and Sharia in the British Mandate and the Jewish State

Eisenman, Robert
Robert Eisenman’s classic work, Islamic Law in Palestine and Israel: A History of the Survival of Tanzimat and Sharia, examines how Islamic law, such as Shari law, survived in Palestine and Israel in a pure form perhaps longer than in any other Ottoman successor state. It did this for a variety of reasons, chief among which are the innate conservatism of the British and the inability of the Israelis, particularly in the country’s early days, to do much about it. Besides Lebanon and Gaza, only in Israel did those three great monuments of Islamic and Ottoman modernism: the Ottoman Law of Family Rights, the Ottoman Land Code, and the Mecelle-i Akham-i Adliye, survive simultaneously.Author, Robert Eisenman, traces this continuity from Ottoman times in terms understandable to both specialists, lawyers, and laypersons. The anomaly of Islamic laws', such as Sharia law, survival against the backdrop of British legal concepts and renascent Jewish nationalism is delineated completely. Detailed attention is also given to the effect, or non-effect, of such Israeli reforms in Women’s Equal Rights Law on the Muslim community and on Islamic law, as well as to the creation of Israeli hybrid laws, such as the Land Law of 1969, and a new Israeli modernism.The situation in Israel today remains more or less the same. In some areas beyond the 1967 Green Lines, where Israeli Law has been applied, it is as described in this book. In others, which have not been annexed or where it has not, Jordanian Law for the most part still obtains - - -This work was originally carried out at the suggestion of Prof. Joseph Schacht. If it overstresses Islamic law in Palestine and Israel as a civil law for all persons (i.e., the Mecelle), it does so because he was particularly interested in this aspect of the problem. He himself had already done considerable work on other similar hybrids, that is the development of Anglo-Muhammadan Law in India and the various developments of Islamic law in Nigeria. That Palestine, and later Israel, turned out to be one of the last places where some of the great monuments of Islamic legislation of the Tanzimat and the Young Turk period survived, even after they had already been replaced in Turkey itself and other Ottoman successor states of the region, made the study all the more compelling.In the course of the research, it turned out that some of the most interesting developments took place in the areas of land law and personal status, outside the ongoing situation in civil law. Though Schacht would not have thought of the Land Code as an original piece of Islamic legislation, still one finds in it so much material of clear Islamic inspiration, that it would be difficult not to consider it. Besides, it contains some of the most fascinating material in the whole discussion and to have ignored it would have detracted from the work as a whole. The section on the code itself in Part One makes an attempt to separate out some of its more Islamic aspects from its Turkish customary ones. For this reason, too, in the first part, it was felt necessary to go into at some length the Islamic aspects of these Ottoman codification attempts generally, as no such similar study exists. For the discriminating reader, who cares about these fine-points, it is hoped this will suffice.
Independently published 2019-02-05 364 pages

Studies in the Aramaic legal papyri from Elephantine

Muffs, Yochanan
Long recognized as a brilliant cross-cultural study, Yochanan Muffs work analyzes the legal formulary of the Aramaic papyri from Elephantine, at the first cataract of the Nile, where a Persian garrison comprised of Jewish soldiers and their families lived throughout most of the 5th century B.C.E. These documents are of exceptional importance for the study of ancient Near Eastern law, and Muffs has investigated their formative background through extensive references to cuneiform law, by a method he calls the Assyriological approach . Virtually every aspect of law-sale of land, marriage and family law, loans and credit, the taking of oaths, and the granting of bequests is studied in great depth and with unusual clarity. Muffs work has enjoyed renewed interest in the light of more recent discoveries of Aramaic legal documents from later periods, as in the Judean Desert.
Brill 2003 311 pages

The Criminal Jurisprudence Of The Ancient Hebrews...

Mendelsohn, Samuel
This is a reproduction of a book published before 1923. This book may have occasional imperfections such as missing or blurred pages, poor pictures, errant marks, etc. that were either part of the original artifact, or were introduced by the scanning process. We believe this work is culturally important, and despite the imperfections, have elected to bring it back into print as part of our continuing commitment to the preservation of printed works worldwide. We appreciate your understanding of the imperfections in the preservation process, and hope you enjoy this valuable book. ++++ The below data was compiled from various identification fields in the bibliographic record of this title. This data is provided as an additional tool in helping to ensure edition identification: ++++ The Criminal Jurisprudence Of The Ancient Hebrews Samuel Mendelsohn M. Curlander, 1891 Law; Criminal Law; General; Criminal law; Criminal law (Jewish law); Criminal law (Roman law); Jewish law; Law / Criminal Law / General; Religion / Judaism / General; Religion / Judaism / Rituals & Practice; Talmud
Nabu Press 2012-02-29 280 pages