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Book The Golems of Gotham

    Book Details:
  • Author : Thane Rosenbaum
  • Publisher : Harper Collins
  • Release : 2011-08-23
  • ISBN : 0062119850
  • Pages : 341 pages

Download or read book The Golems of Gotham written by Thane Rosenbaum and published by Harper Collins. This book was released on 2011-08-23 with total page 341 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: Many years have passed since Oliver Levin -- a bestselling mystery writer and a lifetime sufferer from blocked emotions -- has given any thought to his parents, Holocaust survivors who committed suicide. But now, after years of uninterrupted literary output, Oliver Levin finds himself blocked as a writer, too. Oliver's fourteen-year-old daughter, Ariel, sets out to free her father from his demons by summoning the ghosts of his parents, but, along the way, the ghosts of Primo Levi, Jerzy Kosinski, and Paul Celan, among others, also materialize in this novel of moral philosophy and unforgettable enchantment.

Book Elijah Visible

    Book Details:
  • Author : Thane Rosenbaum
  • Publisher : Macmillan
  • Release : 1996-03-15
  • ISBN : 0312143257
  • Pages : 226 pages

Download or read book Elijah Visible written by Thane Rosenbaum and published by Macmillan. This book was released on 1996-03-15 with total page 226 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: A collection of stories juxtaposing the jaded, materialistic lives of America's affluent Jews with those of their tormented ancestors. A portrait of two generations, suggesting the Holocaust was a prologue to the disintegration of the Jewish family.

Book Breath of Bones

Download or read book Breath of Bones written by Steve Niles and published by Dark Horse Books. This book was released on 2014 with total page 82 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: "Reprints the comic-book series Breath of bones: a tale of the Golem #1-#3 from Dark Horse Comics"--Title page verso.

Book The Golem Redux

    Book Details:
  • Author : Elizabeth R. Baer
  • Publisher : Wayne State University Press
  • Release : 2012-04-15
  • ISBN : 0814336272
  • Pages : 242 pages

Download or read book The Golem Redux written by Elizabeth R. Baer and published by Wayne State University Press. This book was released on 2012-04-15 with total page 242 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: Traces the history of the golem legend and its appropriations in German texts and film as well as in post-Holocaust Jewish-American fiction, comics, graphic novels, and television. First mentioned in the Book of Psalms in the Hebrew Bible, the golem is a character in an astonishing number of post-Holocaust Jewish-American novels and has served as inspiration for such varied figures as Mary Shelley’s monster in her novel Frankenstein, a frightening character in the television series The X-Files, and comic book figures such as Superman and the Hulk. In The Golem Redux: From Prague to Post-Holocaust Fiction, author Elizabeth R. Baer introduces readers to these varied representations of the golem and traces the history of the golem legend across modern pre- and post-Holocaust culture. In five chapters, The Golem Redux examines the different purposes for which the golem has been used in literature and what makes the golem the ultimate text and intertext for modern Jewish writers. Baer begins by introducing several early manifestations of the golem legend, including texts from the third and fourth centuries and from the medieval period; Prague’s golem legend, which is attributed to the Maharal, Rabbi Judah Loew; the history of the Josefov, the Jewish ghetto in Prague, the site of the golem legend; and versions of the legend by Yudl Rosenberg and Chayim Bloch, which informed and influenced modern intertexts. In the chapters that follow, Baer traces the golem first in pre-Holocaust Austrian and German literature and film and later in post-Holocaust American literature and popular culture, arguing that the golem has been deployed very differently in these two contexts. Where prewar German and Austrian contexts used the golem as a signifier of Jewish otherness to underscore growing anti-Semitic cultural feelings, post-Holocaust American texts use the golem to depict the historical tragedy of the Holocaust and to imagine alternatives to it. In this section, Baer explores traditional retellings by Isaac Bashevis Singer and Elie Wiesel, the considerable legacy of the golem in comics, Michael Chabon’s The Amazing Adventures of Kavalier and Clay, and, finally, "Golems to the Rescue" in twentieth- and twenty-first-century works of film and literature, including those by Cynthia Ozick, Thane Rosenbaum, and Daniel Handler. By placing the Holocaust at the center of her discussion, Baer illustrates how the golem works as a self-conscious intertextual character who affirms the value of imagination and story in Jewish tradition. Students and teachers of Jewish literature and cultural history, film studies, and graphic novels will appreciate Baer’s pioneering and thought-provoking volume.

Book The Golem in Jewish American Literature

Download or read book The Golem in Jewish American Literature written by Nicola Morris and published by Peter Lang. This book was released on 2007 with total page 162 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: The Golem in Jewish American Literature explores the golem in the fiction of Thane Rosenbaum, Nomi Eve and Steve Stern as well as writers such as Michael Chabon. Nicola Morris sees this clay humanoid, created in Jewish legend for practical and spiritual purposes, as a metaphor for power and powerlessness and for the complexities and responsibilities surrounding the act of creation. Further, she employs the golem figure as a device to examine the problematic Holocaust representation in the second generation, the uncertain boundaries between fiction and historiography, the ethics of intertextuality and the writer's responsibility to literary, folkloric and oral sources. Morris concludes with an impassioned plea for the responsible uses of power, technology and language.

Book Payback

    Book Details:
  • Author : Thane Rosenbaum
  • Publisher : University of Chicago Press
  • Release : 2013-04-10
  • ISBN : 0226726614
  • Pages : 325 pages

Download or read book Payback written by Thane Rosenbaum and published by University of Chicago Press. This book was released on 2013-04-10 with total page 325 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: We call it justice—the assassination of Osama bin Laden, the incarceration of corrupt politicians or financiers like Rod Blagojevich and Bernard Madoff, and the climactic slaying of cinema-screen villains by superheroes. But could we not also call it revenge? We are told that revenge is uncivilized and immoral, an impulse that individuals and societies should actively repress and replace with the order and codes of courtroom justice. What, if anything, distinguishes punishment at the hands of the government from a victim’s individual desire for retribution? Are vengeance and justice really so very different? No, answers legal scholar and novelist Thane Rosenbaum in Payback: The Case for Revenge—revenge is, in fact, indistinguishable from justice. Revenge, Rosenbaum argues, is not the problem. It is, in fact, a perfectly healthy emotion. Instead, the problem is the inadequacy of lawful outlets through which to express it. He mounts a case for legal systems to punish the guilty commensurate with their crimes as part of a societal moral duty to satisfy the needs of victims to feel avenged. Indeed, the legal system would better serve the public if it gave victims the sense that vengeance was being done on their behalf. Drawing on a wide range of support, from recent studies in behavioral psychology and neuroeconomics, to stories of vengeance and justice denied, to revenge practices from around the world, to the way in which revenge tales have permeated popular culture—including Hamlet, The Godfather, and Braveheart—Rosenbaum demonstrates that vengeance needs to be more openly and honestly discussed and lawfully practiced. Fiercely argued and highly engaging, Payback is a provocative and eye-opening cultural tour of revenge and its rewards—from Shakespeare to The Sopranos. It liberates revenge from its social stigma and proves that vengeance is indeed ours, a perfectly human and acceptable response to moral injury. Rosenbaum deftly persuades us to reconsider a misunderstood subject and, along the way, reinvigorates the debate on the shape of justice in the modern world.

Book The Puttermesser Papers

Download or read book The Puttermesser Papers written by Cynthia Ozick and published by Vintage. This book was released on 1998-06-30 with total page 260 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: With dashing originality and in prose that sings like an entire choir of sirens, Cynthia Ozick relates the life and times of her most compelling fictional creation. Ruth Puttermesser lives in New York City. Her learning is monumental. Her love life is minimal (she prefers pouring through Plato to romping with married Morris Rappoport). And her fantasies have a disconcerting tendency to come true - with disastrous consequences for what we laughably call "reality." Puttermesser yearns for a daughter and promptly creates one, unassisted, in the form of the first recorded female golem. Laboring in the dusty crevices of the civil service, she dreams of reforming the city - and manages to get herself elected mayor. Puttermesser contemplates the afterlife and is hurtled into it headlong, only to discover that a paradise found is also paradise lost. Overflowing with ideas, lambent with wit, The Puttermesser Papers is a tour de force by one of our most visionary novelists. "The finest achievement of Ozick's career... It has all the buoyant integrity of a Chagall painting." -San Francisco Chronicle "Fanciful, poignant... so intelligent, so finely expressed that, like its main character, it remains endearing, edifying, a spark of light in the gloom." -The New York Times "A crazy delight." -The New York Time Book Review

Book Archibald Finch and the Lost Witches

Download or read book Archibald Finch and the Lost Witches written by Michel Guyon and published by Andrews McMeel Publishing. This book was released on 2021-10-19 with total page 352 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: History, magic, and adventure collide in this riveting middle-grade fantasy novel about an unusual boy who unlocks an ancient relic—and with it, a forgotten world. Befriended by a band of young witches, Archibald Finch must quickly adapt to survive in Lemurea, where a battle born in the Middle Ages is still unfolding . . . Archibald is a risk-averse boy with quirks that earn him plenty of eye-rolls, especially from his older sister, Hailee. Things get worse when his parents move the family from London to his grandmother’s creepy manor in the English countryside. Now he has to deal with hairless dolls in the library, weird stone creatures on the roof, and a spooky forest at the edge of the backyard. But these turn out to be the least of Archibald's problems . . . One day, as he's exploring the cavernous house, he finds a curious globe that whisks him away to a secret world, hidden for 500 years. Archibald finds himself on a thrilling adventure full of medieval magic, mysterious symbols, and the strangest beasts, while Hailee—who witnessed her brother’s disappearance—embarks on a daring quest to find him.

Book Nothing Makes You Free  Writings by Descendants of Jewish Holocaust Survivors

Download or read book Nothing Makes You Free Writings by Descendants of Jewish Holocaust Survivors written by Melvin Jules Bukiet and published by W. W. Norton & Company. This book was released on 2003-04-17 with total page 397 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: A groundbreaking collection of Holocaust literature by the heirs to the greatest evil of our time. History is preserved in the memories of the survivors of the Holocaust and the imaginations of their children, the so-called Second Generation. Nothing Makes You Free considers the heritage of the descendants of those who faced the horrific lie that adorned the gates of many German concentration camps: "Arbeit Macht Frei" ("Work Makes You Free"). In the words of this groundbreaking anthology's introduction: "Other kids' parents didn't have numbers on their arms. Other kids' parents didn't talk about massacres as easily as baseball. Other kids' parents loved them, but never gazed at their offspring as miracles in the flesh....How do you deal with this responsibility? Well, if you were a writer, you wrote." Gathered here are writings of both fiction and nonfiction, ranging from farce to fantasy to brutal realism, from an international selection of writers, including Art Spiegelman, Eva Hoffman, Peter Singer, and Carl Friedman. Contributors: Lea Aini, David Albahari, Tammie Bob, Lilly Brett, Melvin Jules Bukiet, Leon De Winter, Esther Dischereit, Barbara Finkelstein, Alain Finkielkraut, Carl Friedman, Eva Hoffman, Helena Janaczek, Anne Karpf, Alan Kaufman, Ruth Knafo Setton, Mihaly Kornis, Savyon Liebrecht, Alcina Lubitch Domecq, Gila Lustiger, Sonia Pilcer, Doron Rabinovici, Henri Raczymov, Victoria Redel, Thane Rosenbaum, Goran Rosenberg, Peter Singer, Joseph Skibell, Art Spiegelman, J. J. Steinfeld, Val Vinokurov "Nothing Makes You Free is a wide-ranging, exuberant, and altogether powerful collection. A necessary reminder of the lingering effects of the Holocaust and of all the embers—in each generation—saved from the fire."—Aryeh Lev Stollman, author of The Far Euphrates and The Illuminated Soul "What happens to a generation of writers born after but indelibly shaped by the Holocaust? From the bitterly sardonic title of Bukiet's clear-eyed and refreshingly unsentimental collection to its last words, this volume will cause all to see this past in startlingly new and unexpected ways. This is certainly not their parent's Holocaust. But in all their immense variety, dexterity, oppressed imaginativeness, pain, and wonder, these writings show how even as a 'vicarious past,' the Holocaust continues to shape both inner and outer worlds of the survivors' offspring and now, by extension, our own as well."—James E. Young, author of At Memory's Edge and The Texture of Memory "A superb anthology...tenderness mixes with rage, sorrow with bitterness, in this first-rate gathering of pieces by those who refuse to forget."—Kirkus Reviews, starred review "A trenchant array...convincingly demonstrate[s] that the Second-Generation experience and the artistic vision growing from it is not merely a diluted version of the survivors' experience, but a distinct phenomenon and ethos of its own."—Miami Herald "An important book."—Booklist

Book The Takeaway Men

    Book Details:
  • Author : Meryl Ain
  • Publisher : Simon and Schuster
  • Release : 2020-07-31
  • ISBN : 1684630487
  • Pages : 278 pages

Download or read book The Takeaway Men written by Meryl Ain and published by Simon and Schuster. This book was released on 2020-07-31 with total page 278 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: With the cloud of the Holocaust still looming over them, twin sisters Bronka and Johanna Lubinski and their parents arrive in the US from a Displaced Persons Camp. In the years after World War II, they experience the difficulties of adjusting to American culture as well as the burgeoning fear of the Cold War. Years later, the discovery of a former Nazi hiding in their community brings the Holocaust out of the shadows. As the girls get older, they start to wonder about their parents’ pasts, and they begin to demand answers. But it soon becomes clear that those memories will be more difficult and painful to uncover than they could have anticipated. Poignant and haunting, The Takeaway Men explores the impact of immigration, identity, prejudice, secrets, and lies on parents and children in mid-twentieth-century America.

Book A Life in Pieces

    Book Details:
  • Author : Blake Eskin
  • Publisher : W. W. Norton & Company
  • Release : 2003-05-27
  • ISBN : 9780393324457
  • Pages : 260 pages

Download or read book A Life in Pieces written by Blake Eskin and published by W. W. Norton & Company. This book was released on 2003-05-27 with total page 260 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: An account of the rise and fall of the author of Fragments.

Book Golem

    Book Details:
  • Author : Maya Barzilai
  • Publisher : NYU Press
  • Release : 2016-10-18
  • ISBN : 1479889652
  • Pages : 323 pages

Download or read book Golem written by Maya Barzilai and published by NYU Press. This book was released on 2016-10-18 with total page 323 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: Introduction: The Golem condition -- 1. The face of destruction: Paul Wegener's World War I Golem films -- 2. The Golem cult of 1921 New York: between redemption and expulsion -- 3. Our enemies, ourselves: Israel's monsters of 1948 -- 4. Supergolem: revenge after the Holocaust -- 5. Pacifist computers and Jewish cyborgs: fighting for the future

Book Saving Free Speech   from Itself

Download or read book Saving Free Speech from Itself written by Thane Rosenbaum and published by Fig Tree Books LLC. This book was released on 2020-03-17 with total page 318 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: In an era of political correctness, race-baiting, terrorist incitement, the ‘Danish’ cartoons, the shouting down of speakers, and, of course, ‘fake news,’ liberals and conservatives are up in arms both about speech and its excesses, and what the First Amendment means. Speech has been weaponized. Everyone knows it, but no one seems to know how to make sense of the current confusion, and what to do about it. Thane Rosenbaum’s provocative and compelling book is what is needed to understand this important issue at the heart of our society and politics. Our nation’s founders did not envision speech as a license to trample on the rights of others. And the Supreme Court has decided cases where certain categories of speech are already prohibited without violating the Constitution. Laws banning hate speech are prevalent in other democratic, liberal societies, where speech is not valued above human dignity, and yet in Germany, France, the UK and elsewhere, life continues, freedoms have not rolled to the bottom of the bogeyman of a ‘slippery slope,’ and democracies remain vibrant. There is already a great deal of second guessing about the limits of free speech. In 1977, courts permitted neo-Nazis to march in a Chicago suburb populated by Holocaust survivors. Today, many wonder whether the alt-right should have been prevented from marching in Charlottesville in 2017. Even the ACLU, which represented both groups, is having doubts as to whether the First Amendment should override basic notions of equality and citizenship.

Book Our Holocaust

Download or read book Our Holocaust written by Amir Gutfreund and published by AmazonCrossing. This book was released on 2012-02-03 with total page 0 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: Amir and Effi collected relatives. With Holocaust survivors for parents and few other "real" relatives alive, relationships operated under a "Law of Compression" in which tenuous connections turned friends into uncles, cousins, and grandparents. Life was framed by Grandpa Lolek, the parsimonious and eccentric old rogue who put his tea bags through Selektion, and Grandpa Yosef, the neighborhood saint, who knew everything about everything, but refused to talk of his own past. Amir and Effi also collected information about what happened Over There. This was more difficult than collecting relatives; nobody would tell them any details because they weren't yet Old Enough. The intrepid pair won't let this stop them, and their quest for knowledge results in adventures both funny and alarming, as they try to unearth their neighbors' stories. As Amir grows up, his obsession with understanding the Holocaust remains with him, and finally Old Enough to know, the unforgettable cast of characters that populate his world open their hearts, souls, and pasts to him. Translated by Jessica Cohen from the Hebrew Shoah Shelanu.

Book Seven Blessings

    Book Details:
  • Author : Ruchama King
  • Publisher : Macmillan + ORM
  • Release : 2004-11-01
  • ISBN : 1466835281
  • Pages : 288 pages

Download or read book Seven Blessings written by Ruchama King and published by Macmillan + ORM. This book was released on 2004-11-01 with total page 288 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: The closed, secret world of matchmaking in contemporary Israel provides the titillating pivot for a story of uncommon proportions. In Ruchama King's skillful hands, Seven Blessings maps out the complicated lives of five expatriate women and men whose search for a soul mate, in many ways, mirrors their search for God. At the center of this fascinating novel is Beth, who at age thirty-nine longs to be married but despairs she ever will be. When she finally meets the man of her dreams, he has what she believes to be an insurmountable flaw. Can she overcome her repugnance in order to forge a new life? Binyamin, a talented painter and student, lacks the humility to identify a worthy wife. He strains the matchmakers' patience until his search for perfect love finally becomes ridiculous, even to himself. Tsippi and Judith, the matchmakers, are stumbling themselves, with marriages that need propping up. In this land of miracles, seeking the right match, whether between singles, husband and wife, student and teacher, or man and God, becomes a quest that opens the Bible to us in a new way. Rich characters, an intriguing setting, writing that offers unique nuances, and ultimately a story that keeps you turning the pages all combine to introduce a remarkable newcomer. Seven Blessings redefines the Jewish experience, with a story that will ring with truth for anyone who's ever considered getting married.

Book Batman Vs  Ra s Al Ghul

Download or read book Batman Vs Ra s Al Ghul written by Neal Adams and published by DC Comics. This book was released on 2022-01-11 with total page 164 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: Ra’s al Ghul has begun to take over Gotham! With Batman gone, only his protégés stand against the League of Assassins-at least until the trials determine who will take the hero’s mantle! Neal Adams triumphantly returns to his most popular battles in Batman Vs. Ra’s al Ghul #1-6.

Book Second Hand Smoke

    Book Details:
  • Author : Thane Rosenbaum
  • Publisher : Macmillan + ORM
  • Release : 2000-02-22
  • ISBN : 1466807326
  • Pages : 432 pages

Download or read book Second Hand Smoke written by Thane Rosenbaum and published by Macmillan + ORM. This book was released on 2000-02-22 with total page 432 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: In the seamy atmosphere of Miami Beach's Collins Avenue, Mila Katz, a streaky card shark and confidante of mobsters, lives by the wits with which she has survived the Holocaust. Second Hand Smoke is the story of Mila's sons, Issac and Duncan, the one secretly abandoned in Poland, and the other, American-born, raised as an avenging Nazi hunter, poisoned with rage. Told in bursts of fractured realism and dark comedy, Second Hand Smoke is a postmodern mystery of great lyrical power, deep insight, and emotional resonance.