World Religions Judaism

The Counterlife is about people enacting their dreams of renewal and escape, some of them going so far as to risk their lives to alter seemingly irreversible destinies. Wherever they may find themselves, the characters of The Counterlife are tempted unceasingly by the prospect of an alternative existence that can reverse their fate. Illuminating these lives in transition and guiding us through the book's evocative landscapes, familiar and foreign, is the mind of the novelist Nathan Zuckerman.

“There is no human being on the face of this earth exempt from the Jewish influence. For as long as there has been history, the Jew has wandered through it, shaping it at times, riding the current silently at other times, but always leaving his mark. History without the Jew? It is inconceivable.”—Howard Fast. His popular history brings the history of the Jewish people into focus, from Genesis to contemporary times.

Norman Lebrecht has devoted half of his life to pondering and researching the mindset of the Jewish intellectuals, writers, scientists, and thinkers who turned the tides of history and shaped the world today as we know it. In Genius & Anxiety, Lebrecht begins with the Communist Manifesto in 1847 and ends in 1947, when Israel was founded. This robust, magnificent volume, beautifully designed, is an urgent and necessary celebration of Jewish genius and contribution.

In 1945, at the end of World War II, Adolf Eichmann, the head of operations for the Final Solution, walked into the mountains of Germany and vanished from view. Sixteen years later an elite team of spies captured him at a bus stop in Argentina and smuggled him to Israel, resulting in one of the century's most important trials - one that cemented the Holocaust in the public imagination.

Tracing Yiddish civilization from its roots in the Diaspora to the present, Paul Kriwaczek combines intimate family anecdote, travelogue, historical research, and interviews with scholars to give us a rich portrait of a nearly extinguished culture as it survived across the centuries. He begins his chronicle in Jerusalem, with the destruction of the Jewish temple at the hands of the Romans in the year 70. We see the burgeoning exile population disperse, moving outward and northward throughout the following centuries, making their mark in more far flung cities under Roman rule.

In examining one of the defining events of the twentieth century, Doris L. Bergen situates the Holocaust in its historical, political, social, cultural, and military contexts. Unlike many other treatments of the Holocaust, this revised, third edition discusses not only the persecution of the Jews, but also other segments of society victimized by the Nazis: Roma, homosexuals, Poles, Soviet POWs, the disabled, and other groups deemed undesirable.

Part biography, part memoir, part manual for great leadership, My Rebbe explores the evolution of Chabad's global success, its central beliefs and practices, the Rebbe's personal history, and his vision to inspire change. This moving narrative, written by one of today's most influential Jewish thinkers, will motivate listeners to contemplate their own mission in the world and aspire toward meaningful living.

In this fascinating account, cultural historian Kathy Peiss reveals how book and document collecting became part of the new apparatus of intelligence and national security, military planning, and postwar reconstruction. Focusing on the ordinary Americans who carried out these missions, she shows how they made decisions on the ground to acquire sources that would be useful in the war zone as well as on the home front.

When Christians learn about Jewish tradition and history, they see the Bible and the life of Jesus with a new and enriched perspective. Knowing more about Judaism brings them closer to Jesus because Jesus lived and died as a Jew and consistently quoted the Jewish scripture and stories. In this book Evan Moffic, popular rabbi, author, and guide to Jewish wisdom for people of all faiths, continues the What Every Christian Needs to Know About series with an exploration of the wisdom and traditions of Judaism.

From a multitude of sources, Elie Wiesel culls facts, legends, and anecdotes to give us fascinating portraits of notable figures throughout Jewish history. Here is the prophet Elisha, wonder-worker and adviser to kings, whose compassion for those in need is matched only by his fiery temper. Here is the renowned scholar Rabbi Yohanan ben Zakkai, whose ingenuity in escaping from a besieged Jerusalem on the eve of its destruction by Roman legions in 70 CE laid the foundation for the rab­binic teachings and commentaries that revolutionized the practice and study of Judaism.

Kathie Lee Gifford and Rabbi Jason Sobel the authors of the New York Times best seller The Rock, the Road, and the Rabbi bring you an exciting new life-changing message that will help you read the Bible with new eyes and take you into the heart of God's people in Scripture – from Abraham to Ruth to Jesus and His early followers.

In The Bible’s Cutting Room Floor, acclaimed author and translator Dr. Joel M. Hoffman gives us the stories and other texts that didn’t make it into the Bible even though they offer penetrating insight into the Bible and its teachings. The Book of Genesis tells us about Adam and Eve’s time in the Garden of Eden, but not their saga after they get kicked out or the lessons they have for us about good and evil.

Winner of the National Jewish Book Award for History. This book discusses the troubling and possibly irreconcilable split between Jewish memory and Jewish historiography.

Since they were first discovered in the caves at Qumran, in 1947, the Dead Sea Scrolls have aroused more fascination - and more controversy - than perhaps any other archaeological find. They appear to have been hidden in the Judean desert by the Essenes, a Jewish sect that existed around the time of Jesus, and they continue to inspire veneration and conspiracy theories to this day. John Collins tells the story of the bitter conflicts that have swirled around the scrolls since their startling discovery, and sheds light on their true significance for Jewish and Christian history.

Eva and her identical twin sister, Miriam, had a mostly happy childhood. Theirs was the only Jewish family in their small village in the Transylvanian mountains, but they didn't think much of it until anti-Semitism reared its ugly head in their school. Then, in 1944, ten-year-old Eva and her family were deported to Auschwitz. At its gates, Eva and Miriam were separated from their parents and other siblings, selected as subjects for Dr. Mengele's infamous medical experiments.

Poland, 1940. Moshe and his family flee their hometown of Warsaw in a desperate bid for survival as Nazi forces advance on the city. Hiding under false identities, they hope to wait out the end of the war, which must surely be near. But nowhere is truly safe for Poland’s Jews, and soon Moshe and his brother find themselves en route to Auschwitz, from where no one returns. Separated from the rest of their family, they hold on to each other with everything they have.

As the main spoken language of the Jews for more than a thousand years, Yiddish has had plenty to lament, plenty to conceal. Its phrases and expressions paint a comprehensive picture of the mind-set that enabled the Jews of Europe to survive persecution: they never stopped kvetching about God, gentiles, children, and everything else.

Set against the backdrop of the turbulent late 1960s and early 1970s, this compelling audiobook provides the first comprehensive history of the 1972 Munich Olympic Games, notorious for the abduction of Israeli Olympians by Palestinian terrorists and the hostages' tragic deaths after a botched rescue mission by the German police. Drawing on a wealth of newly available sources from the time, eminent historian David Clay Large explores the 1972 festival in all its ramifications.

After enjoying decades of acclaim in the pages of the acclaimed weekly newspaper The Jewish Press, the lovable, side-splitting tales from the legendary town of Chelm have been collected in the world's first encyclopedia of Chelm stories. This new treasury of Jewish wit and whimsy brims with more than 150 stories straight out of the fabled town of Chelm - the place where solving life's practical problems was never a straightforward affair, but rather a rollicking journey into the inane.

Prayer itself has taken on countless forms, from offerings to song, words to whispers, tearful supplication to sublime silence. At times, prayer is as primitive and raw as a cry for help; at times, prayer is a formulaic equation intended to effect change - but always, flowing from a place deep within, and forever with a hope for a better future.