Download or read book The Other Half of Life written by Kim Ablon Whitney and published by Laurel Leaf. This book was released on 2010-05-11 with total page 259 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: A heartbreaking novel based on the true story of a World War II voyage. In May of 1939, the SS St. Francis sets sail from Germany, carrying German Jews and other refugees away from Hitler’s regime. The passengers believe they are bound for freedom in Cuba and eventually the United States, but not all of them are celebrating. Fifteen-year-old Thomas is anxious about his parents and didn’t want to leave Germany: his father, a Jew, has been imprisoned and his mother, a Christian, is left behind, alone. Fourteen-yearold Priska has her family with her, and she’s determined to enjoy the voyage, looking forward to their new lives. Based on the true story of the MS St. Louis, this historical young adult novel imagines two travelers and the lives they may have lived until events, and immigration laws, conspired to change their fates. Kim Ablon Whitney did meticulous research on the voyage of the St. Louis to craft her compelling and moving story about this little-known event in history.
Download or read book The Hebrew Book in Early Modern Italy written by Joseph R. Hacker and published by University of Pennsylvania Press. This book was released on 2011-08-19 with total page 334 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: The rise of printing had major effects on culture and society in the early modern period, and the presence of this new technology—and the relatively rapid embrace of it among early modern Jews—certainly had an effect on many aspects of Jewish culture. One major change that print seems to have brought to the Jewish communities of Christian Europe, particularly in Italy, was greater interaction between Jews and Christians in the production and dissemination of books. Starting in the early sixteenth century, the locus of production for Jewish books in many places in Italy was in Christian-owned print shops, with Jews and Christians collaborating on the editorial and technical processes of book production. As this Jewish-Christian collaboration often took place under conditions of control by Christians (for example, the involvement of Christian typesetters and printers, expurgation and censorship of Hebrew texts, and state control of Hebrew printing), its study opens up an important set of questions about the role that Christians played in shaping Jewish culture. Presenting new research by an international group of scholars, this book represents a step toward a fuller understanding of Jewish book history. Individual essays focus on a range of issues related to the production and dissemination of Hebrew books as well as their audiences. Topics include the activities of scribes and printers, the creation of new types of literature and the transformation of canonical works in the era of print, the external and internal censorship of Hebrew books, and the reading interests of Jews. An introduction summarizes the state of scholarship in the field and offers an overview of the transition from manuscript to print in this period.
Download or read book A People Divided written by Jack Wertheimer and published by Brandeis American Jewish Histo. This book was released on 1997 with total page 292 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: This indipensable road map to the volcanic landscape of contemporary American Judaism reveals the profound effects that changes in the wider society--everything from suburbanization to population growth to feminism--have had on Jewish religious and communal life.
Download or read book The Second Jewish Book of why written by Alfred J. Kolatch and published by Jonathan David Publishers. This book was released on 1985 with total page 440 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: Contains answers to hundreds of questions about Judaism, examining topics within the conduct of everyday life, including milestones of the individual, holidays, and dietary laws; and looking at what Jewish law has to say about complex issues such as abortion, conversion, and Jewish-Christian relations. Includes a cumulative index.
Download or read book Starring Sally J Freedman as Herself written by Judy Blume and published by Simon and Schuster. This book was released on 2024-11-05 with total page 400 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: Sally J. Freedman was ten when she made herself a movie star. She would have been happy to reach stardom in New Jersey, but in 1947 her older brother Douglas became ill, so the Freedman family traveled south to spend eight months in the sunshine of Florida. That’s where Sally met her friends Andrea, Barbara, Shelby, Peter, and Georgia Blue Eyes—and her unsuspecting enemy, Adolf Hitler. Dear Chief of Police: You don’t know me but I am a detective from New Jersey. I have uncovered a very interesting case down here. I have discovered that Adolf Hitler is alive and has come to Miami Beach to retire. He is pretending to be an old Jewish man... While she watches and waits, and keeps a growing file of letters under her bed, Sally’s Hitler will play an important—though not quite starring—role in one of her grandest movie spectaculars.
Download or read book People Love Dead Jews Reports from a Haunted Present written by Dara Horn and published by W. W. Norton & Company. This book was released on 2021-09-07 with total page 272 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: Winner of the 2021 National Jewish Book Award for Contemporary Jewish Life and Practice Finalist for the 2021 Kirkus Prize in Nonfiction A New York Times Notable Book of the Year A Wall Street Journal, Chicago Public Library, Publishers Weekly, and Kirkus Reviews Best Book of the Year A startling and profound exploration of how Jewish history is exploited to comfort the living. Renowned and beloved as a prizewinning novelist, Dara Horn has also been publishing penetrating essays since she was a teenager. Often asked by major publications to write on subjects related to Jewish culture—and increasingly in response to a recent wave of deadly antisemitic attacks—Horn was troubled to realize what all of these assignments had in common: she was being asked to write about dead Jews, never about living ones. In these essays, Horn reflects on subjects as far-flung as the international veneration of Anne Frank, the mythology that Jewish family names were changed at Ellis Island, the blockbuster traveling exhibition Auschwitz, the marketing of the Jewish history of Harbin, China, and the little-known life of the "righteous Gentile" Varian Fry. Throughout, she challenges us to confront the reasons why there might be so much fascination with Jewish deaths, and so little respect for Jewish lives unfolding in the present. Horn draws upon her travels, her research, and also her own family life—trying to explain Shakespeare’s Shylock to a curious ten-year-old, her anger when swastikas are drawn on desks in her children’s school, the profound perspective offered by traditional religious practice and study—to assert the vitality, complexity, and depth of Jewish life against an antisemitism that, far from being disarmed by the mantra of "Never forget," is on the rise. As Horn explores the (not so) shocking attacks on the American Jewish community in recent years, she reveals the subtler dehumanization built into the public piety that surrounds the Jewish past—making the radical argument that the benign reverence we give to past horrors is itself a profound affront to human dignity.
Download or read book Smart Women written by Judy Blume and published by Penguin. This book was released on 2011-12-01 with total page 369 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: Two thirtysomethings try to find their way through the complications of post-marriage love in this beloved novel from #1 New York Times bestselling author Judy Blume. Margo and B.B. are each divorced, and each is trying to reinvent her life in Colorado—while their respective teenage daughters look on with a mixture of humor and horror. But even smart women sometimes have a lot to learn—and they will, when B.B.’s ex-husband moves in next door to Margo... Includes a New Introduction by the Author
Download or read book The People and the Books 18 Classics of Jewish Literature written by Adam Kirsch and published by W. W. Norton & Company. This book was released on 2016-10-04 with total page 335 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: An accessible introduction to the classics of Jewish literature, from the Bible to modern times, by "one of America’s finest literary critics" (Wall Street Journal). Jews have long embraced their identity as “the people of the book.” But outside of the Bible, much of the Jewish literary tradition remains little known to nonspecialist readers. The People and the Books shows how central questions and themes of our history and culture are reflected in the Jewish literary canon: the nature of God, the right way to understand the Bible, the relationship of the Jews to their Promised Land, and the challenges of living as a minority in Diaspora. Adam Kirsch explores eighteen classic texts, including the biblical books of Deuteronomy and Esther, the philosophy of Maimonides, the autobiography of the medieval businesswoman Glückel of Hameln, and the Zionist manifestoes of Theodor Herzl. From the Jews of Roman Egypt to the mystical devotees of Hasidism in Eastern Europe, The People and the Books brings the treasures of Jewish literature to life and offers new ways to think about their enduring power and influence.
Download or read book Wifey written by Judy Blume and published by Penguin. This book was released on 2011-12-01 with total page 340 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: With more than four million copies sold, Wifey is Judy Blume's hilarious, moving tale of a woman who trades in her conventional wifely duties for her wildest fantasies—and learns a lot about life along the way. Sandy Pressman is a nice suburban wife whose boredom is getting the best of her. She could be making friends at the club, like her husband keeps encouraging her to do. Or working on her golf game. Or getting her hair done. But for some reason, these things don't interest her as much as the naked man on the motorcycle...
Download or read book The Israeli Century written by Yossi Shain and published by Wicked Son. This book was released on 2021-11-02 with total page 371 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: “The Israeli Century is one of the most important books of our generation, emphasizing how Israel is becoming the center of the Jewish People’s existence and is laying the solid foundations for its future.” —Isaac Herzog, President of Israel In this important breakthrough work, Yossi Shain takes us on a sweeping and surprising journey through the history of the Jewish people, from the destruction of the First Temple in the sixth century B.C.E. up to the modern era. Over the course of this long history, Jews have moved from a life of Diaspora, which ultimately led to destruction, to a prosperous existence in a thriving, independent nation state. The new power of Jewish sovereignty has echoed around the world and gives Israelis a new and significant role as influential global players. In the Israeli Century, the Jew is reborn, feeling a deep responsibility for his tradition and a natural connection to his homeland. A sense of having a home to return to allows him to travel the wider world and act with ease and confidence. In the Israeli Century, the Israeli Jew can fully express the strengths developed over many generations in the long period of wandering and exile. As a result, Shain argues, the burden of preserving the continuity of the Jewish people and defining its character is no longer the responsibility of Diaspora communities. Instead it now falls squarely on the shoulders of Israelis themselves. The challenges of Israeli sovereignty in turn require farsighted leaders with a clear-eyed understanding of the dangers that confront the Jewish future, as well as the incredible opportunities it offers.
Download or read book The Whole Story of Half a Girl written by Veera Hiranandani and published by Yearling. This book was released on 2013-02-12 with total page 226 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: By the author of the Newbery Honor Book The Night Diary, a thoughtful and relatable story about cultural identity, friendship, and what it means to fit in without losing who you are. After her father loses his job, Sonia Nadhamuni, half Indian and half Jewish American, finds herself yanked out of private school and thrown into the unfamiliar world of public education. For the first time, Sonia's mixed heritage makes her classmates ask questions—questions Sonia doesn't always know how to answer—as she navigates between a group of popular girls who want her to try out for the cheerleading squad and other students who aren't part of the "in" crowd. At the same time that Sonia is trying to make new friends, she's dealing with what it means to have an out-of-work parent—it's hard for her family to adjust to their changed circumstances. And then, one day, Sonia's father goes missing. Now Sonia wonders if she ever really knew him. As she begins to look for answers, she must decide what really matters and who her true friends are—and whether her two halves, no matter how different, can make her a whole. What greater praise than to be compared to Judy Blume!--"Each [Blume and Hiranandani] excels in charting the fluctuating discomfort zones of adolescent identity with affectionate humor."--Kirkus Reviews, Starred
Download or read book Literary Passports written by Shachar Pinsker and published by Stanford University Press. This book was released on 2010-12-13 with total page 666 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: Literary Passports is the first book to explore modernist Hebrew fiction in Europe in the early decades of the twentieth century. It not only serves as an introduction to this important body of literature, but also acts as a major revisionist statement, freeing this literature from a Zionist-nationalist narrative and viewing it through the wider lens of new comparative studies in modernism. The book's central claim is that modernist Hebrew prose-fiction, as it emerged from 1900 to 1930, was shaped by the highly charged encounter of traditionally educated Jews with the revolution of European literature and culture known as modernism. The book deals with modernist Hebrew fiction as an urban phenomenon, explores the ways in which the genre dealt with issues of sexuality and gender, and examines its depictions of the complex relations between tradition, modernity, and religion.
Download or read book The Book of Jewish Values written by Rabbi Joseph Telushkin and published by Harmony. This book was released on 2011-06-01 with total page 546 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: Rabbi Joseph Telushkin combed the Bible, the Talmud, and the whole spectrum of Judaism's sacred writings to give us a manual on how to lead a decent, kind, and honest life in a morally complicated world. "An absolutely superb book: the most practical, most comprehensive guide to Jewish values I know." —Rabbi Harold Kushner, author of When Bad Things Happen to Good People Telushkin speaks to the major ethical issues of our time, issues that have, of course, been around since the beginning. He offers one or two pages a day of pithy, wise, and easily accessible teachings designed to be put into immediate practice. The range of the book is as broad as life itself: • The first trait to seek in a spouse (Day 17) • When, if ever, lying is permitted (Days 71-73) • Why acting cheerfully is a requirement, not a choice (Day 39) • What children don't owe their parents (Day 128) • Whether Jews should donate their organs (Day 290) • An effective but expensive technique for curbing your anger (Day 156) • How to raise truthful children (Day 298) • What purchases are always forbidden (Day 3) In addition, Telushkin raises issues with ethical implications that may surprise you, such as the need to tip those whom you don't see (Day 109), the right thing to do when you hear an ambulance siren (Day 1), and why wasting time is a sin (Day 15). Whether he is telling us what Jewish tradition has to say about insider trading or about the relationship between employers and employees, he provides fresh inspiration and clear guidance for every day of our lives.
Download or read book The Story of the Jews written by Simon Schama and published by Harper Collins. This book was released on 2014-03-18 with total page 513 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: In this magnificently illustrated cultural history—the tie-in to the pbs and bbc series The Story of the Jews—simon schama details the story of the jewish people, tracing their experience across three millennia, from their beginnings as an ancient tribal people to the opening of the new world in 1492 It is a story like no other: an epic of endurance in the face of destruction, of creativity in the face of oppression, joy amidst grief, the affirmation of life despite the steepest of odds. It spans the millennia and the continents—from India to Andalusia and from the bazaars of Cairo to the streets of Oxford. It takes you to unimagined places: to a Jewish kingdom in the mountains of southern Arabia; a Syrian synagogue glowing with radiant wall paintings; the palm groves of the Jewish dead in the Roman catacombs. And its voices ring loud and clear, from the severities and ecstasies of the Bible writers to the love poems of wine bibbers in a garden in Muslim Spain. In The Story of the Jews, the Talmud burns in the streets of Paris, massed gibbets hang over the streets of medieval London, a Majorcan illuminator redraws the world; candles are lit, chants are sung, mules are packed, ships loaded with gems and spices founder at sea. And a great story unfolds. Not—as often imagined—of a culture apart, but of a Jewish world immersed in and imprinted by the peoples among whom they have dwelled, from the Egyptians to the Greeks, from the Arabs to the Christians. Which makes the story of the Jews everyone's story, too.
Download or read book Between Foreigners and Shi is written by Daniel Tsadik and published by Stanford University Press. This book was released on 2007-11-09 with total page 463 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: Based on archival and primary sources in Persian, Hebrew, Judeo-Persian, Arabic, and European languages, Between Foreigners and Shi'is examines the Jews' religious, social, and political status in nineteenth-century Iran. This book, which focuses on Nasir al-Din Shah's reign (1848-1896), is the first comprehensive scholarly attempt to weave all these threads into a single tapestry. This case study of the Jewish minority illuminates broader processes pertaining to other religious minorities and Iranian society in general, and the interaction among intervening foreigners, the Shi'i majority, and local Jews helps us understand Iranian dilemmas that have persisted well beyond the second half of the nineteenth century.
Download or read book The Half Jewish Book written by Daniel M. Klein and published by Villard Books. This book was released on 2000 with total page 338 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: It's happening fast: The population of half-Jews in America is well on its way to surpassing the population of full Jews. And with this population shift has come a revolutionary transformation of what it means to be half-Jewish. Sure, some people say that you are either Jewish or not, that there's nothing in between--but the authors emphatically disagree. They say half-Jews are a unique subculture of people who draw from both sides of their heritage and synthesize their cultural halves into a remarkable new identity. The Half-Jewish Book celebrates this unique identity that until now has been ignored, maligned, and misunderstood. There's half-Jewish humor. Half-Jewish/half-Catholic Bill Maher: "I come from a mixed religious background--when I went to confession, I brought a lawyer with me." And there's half-Jewish beauty--Gwyneth Paltrow, Joan Collins, and Jane Seymour, just for starters. There are half-Jewish writers (Proust, Salinger), and half-Jewish characters in fiction by authors ranging from Philip Roth to Salman Rushdie. There's even that half-Jewish cartoon phenomenon Tommy Pickles, in Rugrats. There are half-Jewish politicians--Fiorello La Guar-dia, Barry Goldwater, Dianne Feinstein. And there are the extraordinary number of people, like General Wesley Clark, who discovered as adults that they were half-Jewish and then embraced their newfound double heritage. This book includes an eye-opening essay on half-Jewish identity and looks into the often misunderstood history of half-Jews in the Holocaust. There are original interviews with half-Jews, as well as holiday cards and menus, poetry and song lyrics, and paintings and photographs. Intelligent, exuberant, entertaining, and thought-provoking, The Half-Jewish Book is a fascinating celebration of a cultural mix that is far greater than the sum of its parts. The premise of The Half-Jewish Book is simple if somewhat controversial: Being half-Jewish is a quality unto itself, sui generis. Half-Jewishness is a cultural, intellectual, and aesthetic mix that is, in a variety of ways, greater than the sum of its parts. To take this position--and to revel in the celebration that follows from it--we stand in clear opposition to those who insist: "You are either Jewish or you are not; there's nothing in between." And we compound this blasphemy by suggesting that there is something unique, remarkable, and downright dazzling about the half-Jewish mind and the half-Jewish face, about the art and wit created by half-Jewish sensibilities, and in the ethical, literary, and political ideas produced from the half-Jewish perspective. Enough already about the "half-Jewish problem" as the tragic product of intermarriage. It is time to explore the unique and fascinating world of the half-Jew. --from the Introduction
Download or read book The Jewish Body written by Melvin Konner and published by Schocken. This book was released on 2009-01-13 with total page 306 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: A history of the Jewish people from bris to burial, from “muscle Jews” to nose jobs. Melvin Konner, a renowned doctor and anthropologist, takes the measure of the “Jewish body,” considering sex, circumcision, menstruation, and even those most elusive and controversial of microscopic markers–Jewish genes. But this is not only a book that examines the human body through the prism of Jewish culture. Konner looks as well at the views of Jewish physiology held by non-Jews, and the way those views seeped into Jewish thought. He describes in detail the origins of the first nose job, and he writes about the Nazi ideology that categorized Jews as a public health menace on par with rats or germs. A work of grand historical and philosophical sweep, The Jewish Body discusses the subtle relationship between the Jewish conception of the physical body and the Jewish conception of a bodiless God. It is a book about the relationship between a land–Israel–and the bodily sense not merely of individuals but of a people. As Konner describes, a renewed focus on the value of physical strength helped generate the creation of a Jewish homeland, and continued in the wake of it. With deep insight and great originality, Konner gives us nothing less than an anatomical history of the Jewish people. Part of the Jewish Encounter series
