Jewish Studies

The Ba'al Shem Tov is an elusive subject for historians because documentary evidence about his life is scanty and equivocal. Until now, much of what was known about him was based on stories compiled more than a generation after his death, many of which...

Kosher pork-an oxymoron? Anna Shternshis's fascinating study traces the creation of a Soviet Jewish identity that disassociated Jewishness from Judaism. The cultural transformation of Soviet Jews between 1917 and 1941 was one of the most ambitious...

Mordecai Kaplan, the co-founder of the Reconstructionist movement, defines that movement for the reader in this classic volume, which can serve as a contemporary account of the beginning of the Reconstructionist movement.About the AuthorMordecai Kaplan...

These essays address Jewish identity, Jewish survival, and Jewish continuity. The authors account for and analyze trends in Jewish identification and the reciprocal effects of the relationship between the Diaspora and Israel at the end of the twentieth...

Edward Alexander launches a counterattack in the war of ideas over Zionism, very much a warrior using words and ideas as his weapons. This book begins with a dissection of the first (1987) Intifada and deals with people and events through 1994, when...

The first comprehensive history of American Jewish philanthropy and its influence on democracy and capitalismFor years, American Jewish philanthropy has been celebrated as the proudest product of Jewish endeavors in the United States, its virtues...

Filled with vivid, often dreamlike pictures from the natural world, the poems of Zelda Schneurson Mishkovsky, known to her Hebrew readers simply as Zelda, are unlike anything else in Hebrew literature. Zelda was the daughter and granddaughter of...

Well aware of Jews having once been the victims of Nazi eugenics policies, many Jews today have an ambivalent attitude toward new genetics and are understandably wary of genetic forms of identity and intervention. At the same time, the Jewish tradition...

Thanks to these generous donors for making the publication of this book possible: Kinney Zalesne and Scott Siff. Every commentator, from the classical rabbi to the modern-day scholar, has brought his or her own worldview, with all of its assumptions, to...

"An engaging and thought-provoking analysis, . . . a pioneering foray into a new field of study, 'Jews and Empires in History.'" -Slavic ReviewOn the eve of the 20th century, Jews in the Russian and Ottoman empires were caught up in the major cultural...

A touching photographic journey, captured in over 500 stereoscopic glass plates by the doctor and photographer Nissim Levis, a member of a prominent family in the Romaniote Jewish community of Ioannina, a city in north-western Greece. They were found by...

Gersonides (1288-1344), known also as Ralbag, was a philosopher of the first rank as well as an astronomer and biblical exegete, yet this is the first English-language study of the significance of his work for Jewish thought. Seymour Feldman, the...

Despite their common heritage, Jews born and raised on opposite sides of the Polish-Soviet border during the interwar period acquired distinct beliefs, values, and attitudes. Variances in civic commitment, school lessons, youth activities, religious...

Women and Gender in Jewish Philosophy is the first systematic attempt to interpret the Jewish philosophical tradition in light of feminist philosophy and to engage feminist philosophy from the perspective of Jewish philosophy. Written by Jewish women who...

This consolidated index to the first twelve volumes of Polin will be a vital tool for scholars and students interested in any area of Polish Jewish studies. * Table of contents by volume-each volume at a glance * Chronological table of contents-each...

In many modern armies the religious soldier is suspect. Civilians and officers alike wonder if such a soldier might represent a potential fifth column. This concern is especially prominent in the public discourse over the presence of religious Orthodox...

The historical consciousness of medieval Jewry has engendered lively debate in the scholarly world. The focus in this book is on the historical consciousness of the Jews of Spain and southern France in the late Middle Ages, and specifically on their...

The Jewish Cultural Studies series offers a contemporary view of Jewish culture around the globe. Multidisciplinary, multi-focused, and eclectic, it covers the cultural practices of secular Jews as well as of religious Jews of all persuasions, and from...

Drawing on sociolinguistics and cultural studies, this book examines transnational critical debates about teaching Yiddish over the last hundred years. It looks at the ways a contested pedagogical terrain comes to define a minority language's on-going...

No-one doubts that Gustav Mahler's tenure at the Vienna Court Opera from 1897-1907 was made extremely unpleasant by the antisemitic press. The great biographer, Henry-Louis de La Grange, acknowledges that 'it must be said that antisemitism was a...

Continuing his contribution to medieval Jewish intellectual history, Haym Soloveitchik focuses here on the radical pietist movement of Hasidei Ashkenaz and its main literary work, Sefer Hasidim, and on the writings and personality of the Provencal...

The dog has captured the Jewish imagination from antiquity to the contemporary period, with the image of the dog often used to characterise and demean Jewish populations in medieval Christendom. In the interwar period, dogs were still considered goyishe...

Orthodox Jewish women are increasingly seeking new ways to express themselves religiously, and important changes have occurred in consequence in their self-definition and the part they play in the religious life of their communities. Drawing on surveys...

What do Joyce Brothers and Sigmund Freud, Rabbi Harold Kushner and philosopher Martin Buber have in common? They belong to a group of pivotal and highly influential Jewish thinkers who altered the face of modern America in ways few people recognize. So...

About 350,000 Jewish children are currently enrolled in Jewish day schools, in every continent other than Antarctica. This is the first book-length consideration of life in such schools and of their relationship both to the Jewish community and to...

Few features have shaped east European Jewish history as much as the extent and continuity of Jewish self-rule. Offering a broad perspective, this volume explores the traditions, scope, limitations, and evolution of Jewish self-government in the Polish...

Written at different times and for different audiences - some for scholars of rabbinic literature, some for laymen or for scholars not necessarily Jewish - the essays gathered together in this volume nevertheless have an inner coherence. They reflect the...

Sephardi identity has meant different things at different times, but has always entailed a connection with Spain, from which the Jews were expelled in 1492. While Sephardi Jews have lived in numerous cities and towns throughout history, certain cities...

Semitism is a human story of distinctive intimacy with a God, believed to belong with birth, sealed in history and homed in given territory. These three denominators of tribe, territory and remembered time belong to all human identities, understood as...

Giorgio Bassani (1916-2000) was a Jewish Italian novelist, poet, essayist, editor, and intellectual. A cosmopolitan writer concerned with the problems of Jewish identity and history, Bassani was deeply affected by the persecution and deportation of...

The writings of Jacqueline Shohet Kahanoff (1917-1979) offer a refreshing reassessment of Arab-Jewish relations in the Middle East. A member of the bourgeois Jewish community in Cairo, Kahanoff grew up in a time of coexistence. She spent the years of...

Hatred, Lies, and Violence in the World of Islam examines the torrential flood of anti-Israeli, anti-Jewish, and anti-Zionist propaganda that permeates many Muslim societies. Raphael Israeli locates the source of this anti-Semitic sentiment in the...

Apologies but we at Booksplease don't have a full description for this book.Book InformationISBN 9781400071074Author Grant JeffreyFormat PaperbackPage Count 224Imprint Waterbrook Press (A Division of Random House Inc)Publisher Waterbrook Press (A...

"My dear children, I write this for you in case your dear children or grandchildren come to you one of these days, knowing nothing of their family. For this reason I have set this down for you here in brief, so that you might know what kind of people you...

Apologies but we at Booksplease don't have a full description for this book.Book InformationISBN 9781580132305Author Sylvia A RoussFormat PaperbackPage Count 32Imprint Kar-Ben Copies LtdPublisher Kar-Ben Copies Ltd

The life and politics of an American Jewish activist who preached radical and violent means to Jewish survivalMeir Kahane came of age amid the radical politics of the counterculture, becoming a militant voice of protest against Jewish liberalism. Kahane...

In a work of scholarship both erudite and funny, Jeremy Dauber traces the origins of Jewish comedy and its development from biblical times to the age of Twitter. Organising his book thematically into what he calls the seven strands of Jewish comedy...

Apologies but we at Booksplease don't have a full description for this book.Book InformationISBN 9781956887228Author Maurice SamuelFormat PaperbackPage Count 152Imprint Antelope Hill PublishingPublisher Antelope Hill PublishingWeight(grams)...

You are invited to enter the new-old pathway of Neo-Hasidism-a movement that uplifts key elements of Hasidism's Jewish revival of two centuries ago to reexamine the meaning of existence, see everything anew, and bring the world as it is and as it can be...

Apologies but we at Booksplease don't have a full description for this book.Book InformationISBN 9780805212211Author Anita DiamantFormat PaperbackPage Count 320Imprint Schocken BooksPublisher Schocken BooksWeight(grams) 134g