Download or read book Orphan 8 written by Kim van Alkemade and published by William Morrow Paperbacks. This book was released on 2015-08-04 with total page 0 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: New York Times and USA Today Bestseller In this stunning new historical novel inspired by true events, Kim van Alkemade tells the fascinating story of a woman who must choose between revenge and mercy when she encounters the doctor who subjected her to dangerous medical experiments in a New York City Jewish orphanage years before. In 1919, Rachel Rabinowitz is a vivacious four-year-old living with her family in a crowded tenement on New York City’s Lower Eastside. When tragedy strikes, Rachel is separated from her brother Sam and sent to a Jewish orphanage where Dr. Mildred Solomon is conducting medical research. Subjected to X-ray treatments that leave her disfigured, Rachel suffers years of cruel harassment from the other orphans. But when she turns fifteen, she runs away to Colorado hoping to find the brother she lost and discovers a family she never knew she had. Though Rachel believes she’s shut out her painful childhood memories, years later she is confronted with her dark past when she becomes a nurse at Manhattan’s Old Hebrews Home and her patient is none other than the elderly, cancer-stricken Dr. Solomon. Rachel becomes obsessed with making Dr. Solomon acknowledge, and pay for, her wrongdoing. But each passing hour Rachel spends with the old doctor reveal to Rachel the complexities of her own nature. She realizes that a person’s fate—to be one who inflicts harm or one who heals—is not always set in stone. Lush in historical detail, rich in atmosphere and based on true events, Orphan #8 is a powerful, affecting novel of the unexpected choices we are compelled to make that can shape our destinies.

Download or read book These are Our Children written by Reena Sigman Friedman and published by Brandeis University Press. This book was released on 1994 with total page 328 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: Based on author's thesis (Ph. D.)--Columbia University.

Download or read book Inside Looking Out written by Gary Edward Polster and published by Kent State University Press. This book was released on 1990 with total page 268 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: The Cleveland Jewish Orphan Asylum was for fifty years (1868-1918) the home for some 3,500 boys and girls, most of them immigrants from Eastern Europe. Gary Polster's study examines the efforts of the more acculturated German Jews of Cleveland to "Americanize" and make good workers of the newcomers, and to teach a Judaism quite removed from the Yiddish culture and religious orthodoxy of Eastern Europe. The dominant figure at the asylum during the formative years was Samuel Wofenstein (1841-1921), a native of Moravia who by the age of 22 had earned both a rabbinical degree and a Ph.D in philosophy. He became a trustee of the JOA in 1875 and its superintendent in 1878. For a man who gained a reputation as an authoritarian, his first wish was to free the children from a lock step regimentation, which produced an "institutional type..marked by repression if not atrophy of the impulse to act independent." Wolfenstein stressed obedience through persuasion, through religion (Reform Judaism), and moral exhortations. Students were to be imbued with respect for work through performing useful tasks--the boys in the stables and on the grounds, the girls in the kitchen, the laundry, and the sewing room. The idea of "assimilation" was necessarily paternalistic but many of the German Jews believed that by becoming more "American" and less obviously "Jewish" they would deflect the always present nativism and anti-Semitism. As for the children, they remained for the most part ambivalent about the orphanage and about Wolfenstein and his successors. They were taught some useful skills; they were fed and clothed. Their chief deprivation was of the spirit. Professor Polster brings to his study a sensitivity that complements his grasp of the literature of "asylum" and the social history of turn-of-the-century America. He has listened well to the aging men and women who once were the children "inside looking out."

Download or read book The Luckiest Orphans written by Hyman Bogen and published by University of Illinois Press. This book was released on 1992 with total page 322 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: Founded in 1860, the Hebrew Orphan Asylum of New York was the oldest, largest, and best-known Jewish orphanage in the United States until its closing in 1941. This book, the first history of an orphanage ever published, tells the story of the HOA's development from a nineteenth-century institution into a model twentieth-century child-care facility. Because of the humane and benevolent attitude of the New York Jewish community toward its orphans, the harsh authoritarianism and Dickensian conditions typical of contemporary orphanages were gradually replaced there by a nurturing approach that looked after the religious, social, and personal needs of the children. Though primarily an instrument of social control, the HOA was also an expression of Jewish ethnicity. Its history is set in a larger context that includes the life and character of the New York Jewish community, the city's immigrant population, the social and economic conditions of the time, the child-saving efforts of other groups, and the debate over institutional versus foster care. Drawing from HOA archives, published sources, and his personal experience as a resident from 1932 to 1941, Hyman Bogen brings a unique perspective to child-saving efforts in the late nineteenth and early twentieth centuries. His compelling tale portrays daily life for those who lived and worked in such institutions. He illustrates how an enlightened orphanage, rather than crushing the spirit of its young residents, can help children to gain self-esteem and become secure adults. Bogen's tale will be of particular interest to urban and social historians, to city and government officials, and to social workers, as well as to anyone concerned with thegrowing crisis in child-care options.

Download or read book Jewish Girls Coming of Age in America 1860 1920 written by Melissa R. Klapper and published by NYU Press. This book was released on 2007-10-01 with total page 321 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: Jewish Girls Coming of Age in America, 1860—1920 draws on a wealth of archival material, much of which has never been published—or even read—to illuminate the ways in which Jewish girls’ adolescent experiences reflected larger issues relating to gender, ethnicity, religion, and education. Klapper explores the dual roles girls played as agents of acculturation and guardians of tradition. Their search for an identity as American girls that would not require the abandonment of Jewish tradition and culture mirrored the struggle of their families and communities for integration into American society. While focusing on their lives as girls, not the adults they would later become, Klapper draws on the papers of such figures as Henrietta Szold, founder of Hadassah; Edna Ferber, Pulitzer Prize-winning author of Showboat; and Marie Syrkin, literary critic and Zionist. Klapper also analyzes the diaries, memoirs, and letters of hundreds of other girls whose later lives and experiences have been lost to history. Told in an engaging style and filled with colorful quotes, the book brings to life a neglected group of fascinating historical figures during a pivotal moment in the development of gender roles, adolescence, and the modern American Jewish community.

Download or read book Rethinking Jewish Latin Americans written by Jeff Lesser and published by UNM Press. This book was released on 2008 with total page 305 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: These essays by noted scholars place Latin America's Jews squarely within the context of both Latin American and ethnic studies, a significant departure from traditional approaches that have treated Latin American Jewry as a subset of Jewish Studies.

Download or read book Jewish Voices of the California Gold Rush written by Ava Fran Kahn and published by Wayne State University Press. This book was released on 2002 with total page 564 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: In 1848, news of the California Gold Rush swept the nation and the world. Aspiring miners, merchants, and entrepreneurs from all corners of the globe flooded California looking for gold. The cry of instant wealth was also heard and answered by Jewish communities in Europe and the eastern United States. While all Jewish immigrants arriving in the mid-nineteenth century were looking for religious freedoms and economic stability, there were preexisting Jewish social and religious structures on the East Coast. California's Jewish immigrants become founders of their own social, cultural, and religious institutions. Jewish Voices of the California Gold Rush examines the life of California's Jewish community through letters, diaries, memoirs, court and news reports, and photographs, as well as institutional, synagogue, and organizational records. By gathering a wealth of primary source materials-both public and private documents-and placing them in proper historical context, Ava F. Kahn re-creates the lives within California's Jewish community. Kahn takes the reader from Europe to California, from the goldfields to the developing towns and their religious and business communities, and from the founding of Jewish communities to their maturing years-most notably the instant city of San Francisco. By providing exhaustive documentation, Kahn offers an intimate portrait of Jewish life at a critical period in the history of California and the nation. Scholars and students of Jewish history and immigration studies, and readers interested in Gold Rush history, will enjoy this look at the development of California's Jewish community.

Download or read book Jewish Women Pioneering the Frontier Trail written by Jeanne E Abrams and published by NYU Press. This book was released on 2006-09-29 with total page 289 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: Jeanne E. Abrams “has written a sweeping, challenging, and provocative history of Jewish women in the American West . . . a pathbreaking work.”* The image of the West looms large in the American imagination. Yet the history of American Jewry and particularly of American Jewish women—has been heavily weighted toward the East. Jewish Women Pioneering the Frontier Trailrectifies this omission as the first full book to trace the history and contributions of Jewish women in the American West. In many ways, the Jewish experience in the West was distinct. Given the still-forming social landscape, beginning with the 1848 Gold Rush, Jews were able to integrate more fully into local communities than they had in the East. Jewish women in the West took advantage of the unsettled nature of the region to “open new doors” for themselves in the public sphere in ways often not yet possible elsewhere in the country. Women were crucial to the survival of early communities, making distinct contributions not only in shaping Jewish communal life but outside the Jewish community as well. Western Jewish women's level of involvement at the vanguard of social welfare and progressive reform, commerce, politics, and higher education and the professions is striking given their relatively small numbers. This engaging work—full of stories from the memoirs and records of Jewish pioneer women—illuminates the pivotal role they played in settling America's Western frontier. “Fast and engrossing. As a piece of scholarly writing it should be required reading in any course on the American West that seeks to broaden the definition of what it means to be a Westerner.” —*Colorado Book Review Center

Download or read book No Biking in the House Without a Helmet written by Melissa Fay Greene and published by Sarah Crichton Books. This book was released on 2011-04-12 with total page 368 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: Dispatches from the new front lines of parenthood When the two-time National Book Award finalist Melissa Fay Greene confided to friends that she and her husband planned to adopt a four-year-old boy from Bulgaria to add to their four children at home, the news threatened to place her, she writes, "among the greats: the Kennedys, the McCaughey septuplets, the von Trapp family singers, and perhaps even Mrs. Feodor Vassilyev, who, according to the Guinness Book of World Records, gave birth to sixty-nine children in eighteenth-century Russia." Greene is best known for her books on the civil rights movement and the African HIV/AIDS pandemic. She's been praised for her "historian's urge for accuracy," her "sociologist's sense of social nuance," and her "writerly passion for the beauty of language." But Melissa and her husband have also pursued a more private vocation: parenthood. "We so loved raising our four children by birth, we didn't want to stop. When the clock started to run down on the home team, we brought in ringers." When the number of children hit nine, Greene took a break from reporting. She trained her journalist's eye upon events at home. Fisseha was riding a bike down the basement stairs; out on the porch, a squirrel was sitting on Jesse's head; vulgar posters had erupted on bedroom walls; the insult niftam (the Amharic word for "snot") had led to fistfights; and four non-native-English-speaking teenage boys were researching, on Mom's computer, the subject of "saxing." "At first I thought one of our trombone players was considering a change of instrument," writes Greene. "Then I remembered: they can't spell." Using the tools of her trade, she uncovered the true subject of the "saxing" investigation, inspiring the chapter "Everything You Always Wanted to Know About Sex, but Couldn't Spell." A celebration of parenthood; an ingathering of children, through birth and out of loss and bereavement; a relishing of moments hilarious and enlightening—No Biking in the House Without a Helmet is a loving portrait of a unique twenty first-century family as it wobbles between disaster and joy.

Download or read book The Orphan s Tale written by Pam Jenoff and published by MIRA. This book was released on 2017-02-21 with total page 367 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: Look for Pam Jenoff’s new novel, The Woman with the Blue Star, an unforgettable story of courage and friendship during wartime. A New York Times bestseller! “Readers who enjoyed Kristin Hannah’s The Nightingale and Sara Gruen’s Water for Elephants will embrace this novel. “ —Library Journal “Secrets, lies, treachery, and passion…. I read this novel in a headlong rush.” —Christina Baker Kline, #1 New York Times bestselling author of Orphan Train A powerful novel of friendship set in a traveling circus during World War II, The Orphan’s Tale introduces two extraordinary women and their harrowing stories of sacrifice and survival. Sixteen-year-old Noa has been cast out in disgrace after becoming pregnant by a Nazi soldier and being forced to give up her baby. She lives above a small rail station, which she cleans in order to earn her keep… When Noa discovers a boxcar containing dozens of Jewish infants bound for a concentration camp, she is reminded of the child that was taken from her. And in a moment that will change the course of her life, she snatches one of the babies and flees into the snowy night. Noa finds refuge with a German circus, but she must learn the flying trapeze act so she can blend in undetected, spurning the resentment of the lead aerialist, Astrid. At first rivals, Noa and Astrid soon forge a powerful bond. But as the facade that protects them proves increasingly tenuous, Noa and Astrid must decide whether their friendship is enough to save one another—or if the secrets that burn between them will destroy everything. Don’t miss Pam Jenoff’s new novel, Code Name Sapphire, a riveting tale of bravery and resistance during World War II. Read these other sweeping epics from New York Times bestselling author Pam Jenoff: The Woman with the Blue Star The Lost Girls of Paris The Ambassador’s Daughter The Diplomat’s Wife The Last Summer at Chelsea Beach The Kommandant’s Girl The Winter Guest

Download or read book Jewish Charities written by and published by . This book was released on 1910 with total page 768 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt:

Download or read book Annual Report of the Hebrew Sheltering Guardian Society of New York Orphan Asylum written by Hebrew Sheltering Guardian Society of New York and published by . This book was released on 1900 with total page 734 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt:

Download or read book Report of the Annual Meeting of the Hebrew Orphan Asylum of the City of New York written by Hebrew Orphan Asylum of New York and published by . This book was released on 1906 with total page 160 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt:

Download or read book Biennial Session of the National Conference of Jewish Charities in the United States written by National Conference of Jewish Charities (U.S.) and published by . This book was released on 1910 with total page 336 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt:

Download or read book Proceedings of the National Conference of Jewish Communal Service at the annual session written by National Conference of Jewish Communal Service (U.S.) and published by . This book was released on 1910 with total page 338 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt:

Download or read book Biennial session of the National Conference of Jewish Charities in the United States written by and published by . This book was released on 1910 with total page 332 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt:

Download or read book The World Jewish Congress during the Holocaust written by Zohar Segev and published by Walter de Gruyter GmbH & Co KG. This book was released on 2014-07-14 with total page 338 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: Drawing on hitherto neglected archival materials, Zohar Segev sheds new light on the policy of the World Jewish Congress (WJC) during the Holocaust. Contrary to popular belief, he can show that there was an impressive system of previously unknown rescue efforts. Even more so, there is evidence for an alternative pattern for modern Jewish existence in the thinking and policy of the World Jewish Congress. WJC leaders supported the establishment of a Jewish state in Palestine but did not see it as an end in itself. They strove to establish a Jewish state and to rehabilitate Diaspora Jewish life, two goals they saw as mutually complementary. The efforts of the WJC are put into the context of the serious difficulties facing the American Jewish community and its representative institutions during and after the war, as they tried to act as an ethnic minority within American society.