Random House New Releases - Religion - Judaism - History

The Jewish Festivals by Hayyim Schauss

2012-04-04T00:30:00-05:00

The Jewish Festivals A Guide to Their History and Observance
Written by Hayyim Schauss

eBook, 336 pages | Schocken | Religion - Holidays - Jewish; Religion - Judaism - Beliefs, Practices, Rituals; Religion - Judaism - History | $13.99 | 978-0-307-81748-8 (0-307-81748-2)

Why is the Jewish New Year designated on the Jewish calendar as the first day of the seventh month, and not of the first month? Why do women cover their eyes when reciting the blessing over the Sabbath candles? How did the Seder originate? Does the Book of Esther, read on Purim, mirror any real historical events?

Long considered a classic, The Jewish Festivals provides a rich and charming account of the origins, development, and symbolism of the Jewish holidays, and of the diverse rituals, prayers, ceremonial objects, and special foods that have been used throughout history and around the world to celebrate them. Drawing upon a wealth of knowledge of Jewish folkways and customs, Hayyim Schauss shows how these holidays evolved in meaning and importance, depending on the contemporary needs of those who observed them. Written with passion and warmth, this book will infuse your own experience of the holidays with extra meaning and delight.

From the Trade Paperback edition.

The Messianic Idea in Judaism by Gershom Scholem

2011-11-23T00:30:00-05:00

The Messianic Idea in Judaism And Other Essays on Jewish Spirituality
Written by Gershom Scholem

eBook, 408 pages | Schocken | Religion - Judaism - History | $17.99 | 978-0-307-78908-2 (0-307-78908-X)

Gershom Scholem was the master builder of historical studies of the Kabbalah. When he began to work on this neglected field, the few who studied these texts were either amateurs who were looking for occult wisdom, or old-style Kabbalists who were seeking guidance on their spiritual journeys. His work broke with the outlook of the scholars of the previous century in Judaica—die Wissenschaft des Judentums, the Science of Judaism—whose orientation he rejected, calling their “disregard for the most vital aspects of the Jewish people as a collective entity: a form of “censorship of the Jewish past.” The major founders of modern Jewish historical studies in the nineteenth century, Leopold Zunz and Abraham Geiger, had ignored the Kabbalah; it did not fit into their account of the Jewish religion as rational and worthy of respect by “enlightened” minds. The only exception was the historian Heinrich Graetz. He had paid substantial attention to its texts and to their most explosive exponent, the false Messiah Sabbatai Zevi, but Graetz had depicted the Kabbalah and all that flowed from it as an unworthy revolt from the underground of Jewish life against its reasonable, law-abiding, and learned mainstream. Scholem conducted a continuing polemic with Zunz, Geiger, and Graetz by bringing into view a Jewish past more varied, more vital, and more interesting than any idealized portrait could reveal.
—from the Foreword by Arthur Hertzberg, 1995

Somewhere a Master by Elie Wiesel

2011-10-12T00:30:00-05:00

Somewhere a Master Hasidic Portraits and Legends
Written by Elie Wiesel

eBook, 224 pages | Schocken | Religion - Judaism - History; Religion - Judaism | $11.99 | 978-0-307-80640-6 (0-307-80640-5)

The compassion of Reb Moshe-Leib, the vision of the Seer of Lublin, the wisdom of Reb Pinhas, the warmth of the Ba’al Shem Tov, the humor of Reb Naphtali–to their followers these sages appeared as kings, judges, and prophets. They communicated joy and wonder and fervor to the men and women who came to them in the depths of despair. They brought love and compassion to the persecuted Jews of Russia, Ukraine, Poland, and Lithuania. For Jews who felt abandoned and forsaken by God, these Hasidic masters incarnated an irresistible call to help and salvation. The Rebbe combats sorrow with exuberance. He defeats resignation by exalting belief. He creates happiness so as not to yield to the sadness around him. He tells stories to escape the temptations of irreducible silence.

It is Elie Wiesel’s unique gift to make the lives and tales of these great teachers as compelling now as they were in a different time and place. In the tradition of Hasidism itself, he leaves others to struggle with questions of justice, mercy, and vengeance, providing us instead with eternal truths and unshakable faith.

From the Trade Paperback edition.

Beginnings by Meir Shalev

2011-03-01T00:30:00-05:00

Beginnings Reflections on the Bible's Intriguing Firsts
Written by Meir Shalev

eBook, 304 pages | Harmony | Religion - Judaism - History; History - Jewish; Religion - Bible - Criticism, Interpretation - Old Testament | $12.99 | 978-0-307-71719-1 (0-307-71719-4)

The bestselling and prize-winning Israeli author Meir Shalev describes the many "firsts" of the Bible – the first love and the first death, to the first laugh and the first dream – providing a fresh, secular and surprising look at the stories we think we know.

The first kiss in the Bible is not a kiss of love. The first love in the Bible is not the love of a man and a woman. The first hatred in the Bible is the hatred of a man toward his wife. The first laugh in the Bible is also the last. In Beginnings, Meir Shalev reintroduces us to the heroes and heroines of the Old Testament, exploring these and many more of the Bible’s unexpected "firsts." Combining penetrating wit, deep empathy, and impressive knowledge of the Bible, he probes each episode to uncover nuances and implications that a lesser writer would overlook, and his nontraditional, nonreligious interpretations of the famous stories of the Bible take them beyond platitudes and assumptions to the love, fear, tragedy, and inspiration at their heart. Literary, inquisitive, and honest, Shalev makes these stories come alive in all their complicated beauty, and though these stories are ancient, their resonance remains intensely contemporary.

From the Hardcover edition.

A Little Too Close to God by David Horovitz

2009-12-30T00:30:00-05:00

A Little Too Close to God The Thrills and Panic of a Life in Israel
Written by David Horovitz

eBook, 320 pages | Knopf Group E-Books | Social Science; Biography & Autobiography; Religion - Judaism - History | $15.99 | 978-0-307-57575-3 (0-307-57575-6)

When David Horovitz emigrated from England to Israel in 1983, it was the fulfillment of a dream. But today, a husband and a father, he is torn between hope and despair, between the desire to make a difference and fear for his family's safety, between staying and going. In this candid and powerful book, Horovitz confronts the heart-wrenching question of whether to continue raising his three children amid the uncertainty and danger that is Israeli daily life. In answering that question he provides us with an often surprising, myth-shattering, and shockingly immediate view of a country perpetually at a crossroads, yet fundamentally different than it was a generation ago.

The Israel that Horovitz describes is at once supremely satisfying and unremittingly harsh. It is a land of beauty and spirit, where the Jewish nation has undergone remarkable renewal and a vibrant society is constantly being reshaped. But Horovitz also describes how the unrelenting tension has produced a people that smokes too much, drives too fast, and spends far too much of its time arguing with itself.

He makes clear the lasting effects of Yitzhak Rabin's assassination; the increasing incursions by the ultra-Orthodox into the domain of daily life; the anxieties that beset parents as their children approach the age of mandatory military service; and the constant fear of violent attack by fundamentalist extremists. (The book in fact opens, hauntingly, with a description of the aftermath of a bombing just outside a Jerusalem restaurant -- the very place where Horovitz had eaten lunch the day before.)

As Americans wrestle with their feelings toward Israel, and as Israel struggles with the question of whether a Jewish state and the principles of democracy are truly compatible, Horovitz illuminates the myriad quotidian experiences -- both good and bad -- that define the country at this volatile time.

Here is the moving, mordantly funny, and uncompromising account of one Israeli's life.

From the Hardcover edition.

Moses by Jonathan Kirsch

2009-10-07T00:30:00-05:00

Moses A Life
Written by Jonathan Kirsch

eBook, 448 pages | Ballantine Books | Biography & Autobiography - Religious; Religion - Judaism - History; Religion - Leadership | $15.99 | 978-0-307-56792-5 (0-307-56792-3)

Lawgiver and liberator. Seer and prophet. The only human permitted to converse with God "face-to-face." Moses is the most commanding presence in the Old Testament. Yet as Jonathan Kirsch shows in this brilliant, stunningly original volume, Moses was also an enigmatic and mysterious figure--at once a good shepherd and a ruthless warrior, a spiritual leader and a magician, a lawgiver who broke his own laws, God's chosen friend and hounded victim. Now, in Moses: A Life, Kirsch accomplishes the wondrous feat of revealing the real Moses, a strikingly modern figure who steps out from behind the facade of Sunday school lessons and movie matinees.

Drawing on the biblical text and a treasury of both scholarship and storytelling, Kirsch examines all that is known and all that has been imagined of Moses. In these vivid pages, we see the marvels and mysteries of Moses's life in a new light--his rescue in infancy and adoption by an Egyptian princess; his reluctant assumption of the role of liberator; his struggles to wrest his people from the pharaoh's dominion; his desperate vigil on Mount Sinai. Here too is the darker, more ominous Moses--the sorcerer, the husband of a pagan woman, the military commander who cold-bloodedly ordered the slaying of innocent people; the beloved of God whom God sought twice to murder.

Jonathan Kirsch brings both prodigious knowledge and a keen imagination to one of the most compelling stories of the Bible, and the results are fascinating. A figure of mystery, passion, and contradiction, Moses emerges from this book very much a hero for our time.

From the Hardcover edition.

Harlot by the Side of the Road by Jonathan Kirsch

2009-09-23T00:30:00-05:00

Harlot by the Side of the Road
Written by Jonathan Kirsch

eBook, 416 pages | Ballantine Books | Religion - Judaism - History; Religion - Judaism - Sacred Writings; Religion - Bible - Criticism, Interpretation | $12.99 | 978-0-307-56763-5 (0-307-56763-X)

Sex. Violence. Scandal. These are words we rarely associate with the sacred text of the Bible. Yet in this brilliant new book, Jonathan Kirsch shows that the Old Testament is filled with some of the most startling and explicit stories in all of Western literature. These tales of seduction and rape, voyeurism and exhibitionism, intermarriage and illegitimacy, assassination and murder have been suppressed by religious authorities throughout history precisely because they are so shocking. "You mean that's in the Bible?" is the common reaction of the contemporary reader to the stories that Kirsch retells and explores.

In The Harlot by the Side of the Road, Kirsch recounts these suppressed and mistranslated tales in the grand storytelling tradition. Here is the tale of Dinah, the young Israelite daughter raped by a princely suitor. The price for her hand in marriage? The circumcision of every man in his kingdom. Here, too, is the story of Lot's daughters, who, when faced with the possibility that they are the last survivors on earth, must copulate with their drunken father to continue their race. And the story of Tamar, the harlot by the side of the road, who must disguise herself as a prostitute and seduce her father-in-law in order to bear the child who has been promised her.

Kirsch places each story within the political and social context of its time, and delves into the latest biblical scholarship to explain why each story was originally censored. He also brings to light when and where each story was first written down, and how it found its way into the Bible. And he shows how these stories have something important to say to contemporary readers who might never pick up a Bible.

Kirsch reveals that the Bible's real power lies in its unflinching lessons in human nature. And he illuminates the surprising modernity of the Bible's characters: these were, like us, people delicately balanced between their destructive and generous natures. Certain to excite controversy and ignite intellectual debate, The Harlot by the Side of the Road will undoubtedly be one of the year's most talked-about books.

From the Hardcover edition.

The Wicked Son by David Mamet

2009-09-15T00:30:00-05:00

The Wicked Son Anti-Semitism, Self-hatred, and the Jews
Written by David Mamet

Trade Paperback, 208 pages | Schocken | History - Jewish; Social Science - Discrimination & Race Relations; Religion - Judaism - History | $12.95 | 978-0-8052-1157-3 (0-8052-1157-8)

David Mamet's interest in anti-Semitism is not limited to the modern face of an ancient hatred but encompasses as well the ways in which many Jews have internalized that hatred. Using the metaphor of the Wicked Son at the Passover seder (the child who asks, "What does this story mean to you?") Mamet confronts what he sees as an insidious predilection among some Jews to exclude themselves from the equation and to seek truth and meaning anywhere--in other religions, political movements, mindless entertainment--but in Judaism itself. He also explores the ways in which the Jewish tradition has long been and still remains the Wicked Son in the eyes of the world. Written with the searing honesty and verbal brilliance that is the hallmark of Mamet's work, The Wicked Son is a powerfully thought-provoking look at one of the most destructive and tenacious forces in contemporary life.

Barney Ross by Douglas Century

2009-08-11T00:30:00-05:00

Barney Ross The Life of a Jewish Fighter
Written by Douglas Century

Trade Paperback, 240 pages | Schocken | Biography & Autobiography - Sports; Religion - Judaism - History; Sports & Recreation - Boxing | $12.95 | 978-0-8052-1173-3 (0-8052-1173-X)

Part of the Jewish Encounter series

Born Dov-Ber Rasofsky to Eastern European immigrant parents, Barney Ross grew up in a tough Chicago neighborhood and witnessed his father’s murder, his mother’s nervous breakdown, and the dispatching of his three younger siblings to an orphanage, all before he turned fourteen. To make enough money to reunite the family, Ross became a petty thief, a gambler, a messenger boy for Al Capone, and, eventually, an amateur boxer. Turning professional at nineteen, he would capture the lightweight, junior welterweight, and welterweight titles over the course of a ten-year career.

Ross began his career as the scrappy “Jew kid,” ended it as an American sports icon, and went on to become a hero during World War II, earning a Silver Star for his heroic actions at Guadalcanal. While recovering from war wounds and malaria he became addicted to morphine, but with fierce effort he ultimately kicked his habit and then campaigned fervently against drug abuse. And the fighter who brought his father’s religious books to training camp also retained powerful ties to the world from which he came. Ross worked for the creation of a Jewish state, running guns to Palestine and offering to lead a brigade of Jewish American war veterans.

This first biography of one of the most colorful boxers of the twentieth century is a galvanizing account of an emblematic life: a revelation of both an extraordinary athlete and a remarkable man.

From the Hardcover edition.

Barney Ross by Douglas Century

2009-08-11T00:30:00-05:00

Barney Ross The Life of a Jewish Fighter
Written by Douglas Century

eBook | Schocken | Biography & Autobiography - Sports; Religion - Judaism - History; Sports & Recreation - Boxing | $7.99 | 978-0-8052-4272-0 (0-8052-4272-4)

Marc Chagall by Jonathan Wilson

2009-04-22T00:30:00-05:00

Marc Chagall
Written by Jonathan Wilson

eBook, 256 pages | Schocken | Biography & Autobiography - Artist, Architect, Photographer; Religion - Judaism - History; Art - Individual Artist | $11.99 | 978-0-307-53819-2 (0-307-53819-2)

Part of the Jewish Encounter series

Novelist and critic Jonathan Wilson clears away the sentimental mists surrounding an artist whose career spanned two world wars, the Russian Revolution, the Holocaust, and the birth of the State of Israel. Marc Chagall’s work addresses these transforming events, but his ambivalence about his role as a Jewish artist adds an intriguing wrinkle to common assumptions about his life. Drawn to sacred subject matter, Chagall remains defiantly secular in outlook; determined to “narrate” the miraculous and tragic events of the Jewish past, he frequently chooses Jesus as a symbol of martyrdom and sacrifice.

Wilson brilliantly demonstrates how Marc Chagall’s life constitutes a grand canvas on which much of twentieth-century Jewish history is vividly portrayed. Chagall left Belorussia for Paris in 1910, at the dawn of modernism, looking back dreamily on the world he abandoned. After his marriage to Bella Rosenfeld in 1915, he moved to Petrograd, but eventually returned to Paris after a stint as a Soviet commissar for art. Fleeing Paris steps ahead of the Nazis, Chagall arrived in New York in 1941. Drawn to Israel, but not enough to live there, Chagall grappled endlessly with both a nostalgic attachment to a vanished past and the magnetic pull of an uninhibited secular present.

Wilson’s portrait of Chagall is altogether more historical, more political, and edgier than conventional wisdom would have us believe–showing us how Chagall is the emblematic Jewish artist of the twentieth century.

Visit nextbook.org/chagall for a virtual museum of Chagall images.

From the Hardcover edition.

The Jewish Writings by Hannah Arendt

2009-03-12T00:30:00-05:00

The Jewish Writings
Written by Hannah Arendt

eBook, 640 pages | Schocken | Religion - Judaism - History; Philosophy - Religious | $18.99 | 978-0-307-49628-7 (0-307-49628-7)

Although Hannah Arendt is not primarily known as a Jewish thinker, she probably wrote more about Jewish issues than any other topic. When she was in her mid-twenties and still living in Germany, Arendt wrote about the history of German Jews as a people living in a land that was not their own. In 1933, at the age of twenty-six, she fled to France, where she helped to arrange for German and eastern European Jewish youth to quit Europe and become pioneers in Palestine.
During her years in Paris, Arendt’s principal concern was with the transformation of antisemitism from a social prejudice to a political policy, which would culminate in the Nazi “final solution” to the Jewish question–the physical destruction of European Jewry. After France fell at the beginning of World War II, Arendt escaped from an internment camp in Gurs and made her way to the United States. Almost immediately upon her arrival in New York she wrote one article after another calling for a Jewish army to fight the Nazis, and for a new approach to Jewish political thinking. After the war, her attention was focused on the creation of a Jewish homeland in a binational (Arab-Jewish) state of Israel.
Although Arendt’s thoughts eventually turned more to the meaning of human freedom and its inseparability from political life, her original conception of political freedom cannot be fully grasped apart from her experience as a Jew. In 1961 she attended Adolf Eichmann’s trial in Jerusalem. Her report on that trial, Eichmann in Jerusalem, provoked an immense controversy, which culminated in her virtual excommunication from the worldwide Jewish community. Today that controversy is the subject of serious re-evaluation, especially among younger people in America, Europe, and Israel.
The publication of The Jewish Writings–much of which has never appeared before–traces Arendt’s life and thought as a Jew. It will put an end to any doubts about the centrality, from beginning to end, of Arendt’s Jewish experience.

From the Hardcover edition.

Wise Men and Their Tales by Elie Wiesel

2009-01-16T00:30:00-05:00

Wise Men and Their Tales Portraits of Biblical, Talmudic, and Hasidic Masters
Written by Elie Wiesel

eBook, 368 pages | Schocken | Religion - Judaism - History; Religion - Bible - Biography - Old Testament; Religion - Talmud | $14.99 | 978-0-307-56124-4 (0-307-56124-0)

In Wise Men and Their Tales, a master teacher gives us his fascinating insights into the lives of a wide range of biblical figures, Talmudic scholars, and Hasidic rabbis.

The matriarch Sarah, fiercely guarding her son, Isaac, against the negative influence of his half-brother Ishmael; Samson, the solitary hero and protector of his people, whose singular weakness brought about his tragic end; Isaiah, caught in the middle of the struggle between God and man, his messages of anger and sorrow counterbalanced by his timeless, eloquent vision of a world at peace; the saintly Rabbi Yehoshua ben Levi, who by virtue of a lifetime of good deeds was permitted to enter heaven while still alive and who tried to ensure a similar fate for all humanity by stealing the sword of the Angel of Death.

Elie Wiesel tells the stories of these and other men and women who have been sent by God to help us find the godliness within our own lives. And what interests him most about these people is their humanity, in all its glorious complexity. They get angry—at God for demanding so much, and at people, for doing so little. They make mistakes. They get frustrated. But through it all one constant remains—their love for the people they have been charged to teach and their devotion to the Supreme Being who has sent them. In these tales of battles won and lost, of exile and redemption, of despair and renewal, we learn not only by listening to what they have come to tell us, but by watching as they live lives that are both grounded in earthly reality and that soar upward to the heavens.

From the Hardcover edition.

Jews and Power by Ruth R. Wisse

2008-12-24T00:30:00-05:00

Jews and Power
Written by Ruth R. Wisse

eBook, 256 pages | Schocken | Religion - Judaism - History; History - Jewish; Political Science - History & Theory | $10.99 | 978-0-307-53313-5 (0-307-53313-1)

Part of the Jewish Encounter series

Taking in everything from the Kingdom of David to the Oslo Accords, Ruth Wisse offers a radical new way to think about the Jewish relationship to power. Traditional Jews believed that upholding the covenant with God constituted a treaty with the most powerful force in the universe; this later transformed itself into a belief that, unburdened by a military, Jews could pursue their religious mission on a purely moral plain. Wisse, an eminent professor of comparative literature at Harvard, demonstrates how Jewish political weakness both increased Jewish vulnerability to scapegoating and violence, and unwittingly goaded power-seeking nations to cast Jews as perpetual targets.

Although she sees hope in the State of Israel, Wisse questions the way the strategies of the Diaspora continue to drive the Jewish state, echoing Abba Eban's observation that Israel was the only nation to win a war and then sue for peace. And then she draws a persuasive parallel to the United States today, as it struggles to figure out how a liberal democracy can face off against enemies who view Western morality as weakness. This deeply provocative book is sure to stir debate both inside and outside the Jewish world. Wisse's narrative offers a compelling argument that is rich with history and bristling with contemporary urgency.

From the Hardcover edition.

The Wicked Son by David Mamet

2008-10-24T00:30:00-05:00

The Wicked Son Anti-Semitism, Self-hatred, and the Jews
Written by David Mamet

eBook, 224 pages | Schocken | History - Jewish; Social Science - Discrimination & Race Relations; Religion - Judaism - History | $9.99 | 978-0-8052-4274-4 (0-8052-4274-0)

Part of the Jewish Encounter series

As might be expected from this fiercely provocative writer, David Mamet’s interest in anti-Semitism is not limited to the modern face of an ancient hatred but encompasses as well the ways in which many Jews have themselves internalized that hatred. Using the metaphor of the Wicked Son at the Passover seder—the child who asks, “What does this story mean to you?”—Mamet confronts what he sees as an insidious predilection among some Jews to seek truth and meaning anywhere—in other religions, in political movements, in mindless entertainment—but in Judaism itself. At the same time, he explores the ways in which the Jewish tradition has long been and still remains the Wicked Son in the eyes of the world.

Written with the searing honesty and verbal brilliance that is the hallmark of Mamet’s work, The Wicked Son is a scathing look at one of the most destructive and tenacious forces in contemporary life, a powerfully thought-provoking and important book.

From the Hardcover edition.

The Life of David by Robert Pinsky

2008-08-26T00:30:00-05:00

The Life of David
Written by Robert Pinsky

Trade Paperback, 240 pages | Schocken | Biography & Autobiography - Religious; Religion - Judaism - History | $12.95 | 978-0-8052-1153-5 (0-8052-1153-5)

Part of the Jewish Encounter series

Poet, warrior, and king, David has loomed large in myth and legend through the centuries, and he continues to haunt our collective imagination, his flaws and inconsistencies making him the most approachable of biblical heroes. Robert Pinsky, former poet laureate of the United States, plumbs the depths of David’s life: his triumphs and his failures, his charm and his cruelty, his divine destiny and his human humiliations. Drawing on the biblical chronicle of David’s life as well as on the later commentaries and the Psalms—traditionally considered to be David’s own words—Pinsky teases apart the many strands of David’s story and reweaves them into a glorious narrative.

Under the clarifying and captivating light of Pinsky’s erudition and imagination, and his mastery of image and expression, King David—both the man and the idea of the man—is brought brilliantly to life.

From the Hardcover edition.

Maimonides by Sherwin B. Nuland

2008-08-26T00:30:00-05:00

Maimonides
Written by Sherwin B. Nuland

Trade Paperback, 256 pages | Schocken | Biography & Autobiography - Religious; Biography & Autobiography - Medical; Religion - Judaism - History | $16.00 | 978-0-8052-1150-4 (0-8052-1150-0)

Sherwin B. Nuland—best-selling author of How We Die—focuses his surgeon’s eye and writer’s pen on this greatest of rabbis, most intriguing of Jewish philosophers, and most honored of Jewish doctors.

Moses Maimonides was a Renaissance man before there was a Renaissance: a great physician, a dazzling Torah scholar, a daring philosopher. Eight hundred years after his death, his notions about God, faith, the afterlife, and the Messiah still stir debate; his life as a physician still inspires; and the enigmas of his character still fascinate. Nuland's portrait of Maimonides that makes his life, his times, and his thought accessible to the general reader as they have never been before.

Maimonides by Sherwin B. Nuland

2008-08-26T00:30:00-05:00

Maimonides
Written by Sherwin B. Nuland

eBook | Schocken | Biography & Autobiography - Religious; Biography & Autobiography - Medical; Religion - Judaism - History | $11.99 | 978-0-8052-1227-3 (0-8052-1227-2)

Part of the Jewish Encounter series

Moses Maimonides was a Renaissance man before there was a Renaissance: a great physician who served a sultan, a dazzling Torah scholar, a community leader, a daring philosopher whose greatest work—The Guide for the Perplexed—attempted to reconcile scientific knowledge with faith in God. He was a Jew living in a Muslim world, a rationalist living in a time of superstition. Eight hundred years after his death, his notions about God, faith, the afterlife, and the Messiah still stir debate; his life as a physician still inspires; and the enigmas of his character still fascinate.

Sherwin B. Nuland—best-selling author of How We Die—focuses his surgeon’s eye and writer’s pen on this greatest of rabbis, most intriguing of Jewish philosophers, and most honored of Jewish doctors. He gives us a portrait of Maimonides that makes his life, his times, and his thought accessible to the general reader as they have never been before.

From the Hardcover edition.

The Jewish Writings by Hannah Arendt

2008-02-26T00:30:00-05:00

The Jewish Writings
Written by Hannah Arendt

Trade Paperback, 640 pages | Schocken | Religion - Judaism - History; Philosophy - Religious | $22.50 | 978-0-8052-1194-8 (0-8052-1194-2)

Although Hannah Arendt is not primarily known as a Jewish thinker, she probably wrote more about Jewish issues than any other topic. As a young adult in Germany, she wrote about German Jewish history. After moving to France in 1933, she helped Jewish youth immigrate to Palestine. During her years in Paris, her principle concern was the transformation of antinomianism from prejudice to policy, which would culminate in the Nazi "final solution." After France fell, Arendt escaped from an internment camp and made her way to America. There she wrote articles calling for a Jewish army to fight the Nazis. After the war, she supported the creation of a Jewish homeland in a binational (Arab-Jewish) state of Israel.

Arendt's original conception of political freedom cannot be fully grasped apart from her experience as a Jew. In 1961 she attended Adolf Eichmann's trial in Jerusalem. Her report, Eichmann in Jerusalem, provoked an immense controversy, which culminated in her virtual excommunication from the worldwide Jewish community. Today that controversy is the subject of serious re-evaluation, especially among younger people in the United States, Europe, and Israel.

The publication of The Jewish Writings–much of which has never appeared before–traces Arendt’s life and thought as a Jew. It will put an end to any doubts about the centrality, from beginning to end, of Arendt’s Jewish experience.

The Popes Against the Jews by David I. Kertzer

2007-12-18T00:30:00-05:00

The Popes Against the Jews The Vatican's Role in the Rise of Modern Anti-Semitism
Written by David I. Kertzer

eBook, 368 pages | Vintage | History; Religion - History; Religion - Judaism - History | $13.99 | 978-0-307-42921-6 (0-307-42921-0)

In this meticulously researched, unflinching, and reasoned study, National Book Award finalist David I. Kertzer presents shocking revelations about the role played by the Vatican in the development of modern anti-Semitism. Working in long-sealed Vatican archives, Kertzer unearths startling evidence to undermine the Church’s argument that it played no direct role in the spread of modern anti-Semitism. In doing so, he challenges the Vatican’s recent official statement on the subject, We Remember. Kertzer tells an unsettling story that has stirred up controversy around the world and sheds a much-needed light on the past.

From the Trade Paperback edition.

Random House New Releases - Religion - Judaism - History

The Jewish Festivals by Hayyim Schauss

The Jewish Festivals A Guide to Their History and ObservanceWritten by Hayyim Schauss

The Messianic Idea in Judaism by Gershom Scholem

The Messianic Idea in Judaism And Other Essays on Jewish SpiritualityWritten by Gershom Scholem

Somewhere a Master by Elie Wiesel

Somewhere a Master Hasidic Portraits and LegendsWritten by Elie Wiesel

Beginnings by Meir Shalev

Beginnings Reflections on the Bible's Intriguing FirstsWritten by Meir Shalev

A Little Too Close to God by David Horovitz

A Little Too Close to God The Thrills and Panic of a Life in IsraelWritten by David Horovitz

Moses by Jonathan Kirsch

Moses A LifeWritten by Jonathan Kirsch

Harlot by the Side of the Road by Jonathan Kirsch

Harlot by the Side of the Road Written by Jonathan Kirsch

The Wicked Son by David Mamet

The Wicked Son Anti-Semitism, Self-hatred, and the JewsWritten by David Mamet

Barney Ross by Douglas Century

Barney Ross The Life of a Jewish FighterWritten by Douglas Century

Barney Ross by Douglas Century

Barney Ross The Life of a Jewish FighterWritten by Douglas Century

Marc Chagall by Jonathan Wilson

Marc Chagall Written by Jonathan Wilson

The Jewish Writings by Hannah Arendt

The Jewish Writings Written by Hannah Arendt

Wise Men and Their Tales by Elie Wiesel

Wise Men and Their Tales Portraits of Biblical, Talmudic, and Hasidic MastersWritten by Elie Wiesel

Jews and Power by Ruth R. Wisse

Jews and Power Written by Ruth R. Wisse

The Wicked Son by David Mamet

The Wicked Son Anti-Semitism, Self-hatred, and the JewsWritten by David Mamet

The Life of David by Robert Pinsky

The Life of David Written by Robert Pinsky

Maimonides by Sherwin B. Nuland

Maimonides Written by Sherwin B. Nuland

Maimonides by Sherwin B. Nuland

Maimonides Written by Sherwin B. Nuland

The Jewish Writings by Hannah Arendt

The Jewish Writings Written by Hannah Arendt

The Popes Against the Jews by David I. Kertzer

The Popes Against the Jews The Vatican's Role in the Rise of Modern Anti-SemitismWritten by David I. Kertzer

The Jewish Festivals A Guide to Their History and Observance
Written by Hayyim Schauss

The Messianic Idea in Judaism And Other Essays on Jewish Spirituality
Written by Gershom Scholem

Somewhere a Master Hasidic Portraits and Legends
Written by Elie Wiesel

Beginnings Reflections on the Bible's Intriguing Firsts
Written by Meir Shalev

A Little Too Close to God The Thrills and Panic of a Life in Israel
Written by David Horovitz

Moses A Life
Written by Jonathan Kirsch

Harlot by the Side of the Road
Written by Jonathan Kirsch

The Wicked Son Anti-Semitism, Self-hatred, and the Jews
Written by David Mamet

Barney Ross The Life of a Jewish Fighter
Written by Douglas Century

Barney Ross The Life of a Jewish Fighter
Written by Douglas Century

Marc Chagall
Written by Jonathan Wilson

The Jewish Writings
Written by Hannah Arendt

Wise Men and Their Tales Portraits of Biblical, Talmudic, and Hasidic Masters
Written by Elie Wiesel

Jews and Power
Written by Ruth R. Wisse

The Wicked Son Anti-Semitism, Self-hatred, and the Jews
Written by David Mamet

The Life of David
Written by Robert Pinsky

Maimonides
Written by Sherwin B. Nuland

Maimonides
Written by Sherwin B. Nuland

The Jewish Writings
Written by Hannah Arendt

The Popes Against the Jews The Vatican's Role in the Rise of Modern Anti-Semitism
Written by David I. Kertzer