Examining a wide range of comics and graphic novels - including works by creators such as Will Eisner, Leela Corman, Neil Gaiman, Art Spiegelman, Sarah Glidden and Joe Sacco - this book explores how comics writers and artists have tackled major issues of Jewish identity and culture. With chapters written by leading and emerging scholars in contemporary comic book studies, Visualizing Jewish Narrative highlights the ways in which Jewish comics have handled such topics as: *Biography, autobiography, and Jewish identity *Gender and sexuality *Genre - from superheroes to comedy *The Holocaust *The Israel-Palestine conflict *Sources in the Hebrew Bible and Jewish myth Visualizing Jewish Narrative also includes a foreword by Danny Fingeroth, former editor of the Spider-Man line and author of Superman on the Couch and Disguised as Clark Kent..

In the early hours of November 10, 1938, Nazi storm troopers and Hitler Youth rampaged through Jewish neighborhoods across Germany, leaving behind them a horrifying trail of terror and destruction. More than a thousand synagogues and many thousands of Jewish shops were destroyed, while thirty thousand Jews were rounded up and sent to concentration camps. Kristallnacht--the Night of Broken Glass--was a decisive stage in the systematic eradication of a people who traced their origins in Germany to Roman times and was a sinister forewarning of the Holocaust.

With rare insight and acumen, Martin Gilbert examines this night and day of terror, presenting readers with a meticulously researched, masterfully written, and eye-opening study of one of the darkest chapters in human history.

Dzailoszyce in Polish is also known as Zaloshitz in Yiddish, Dzyaloshitse in Russian, and Dzialoshitz, Zalazhtsy, Zaleshits, Zaloshits and Salshits. Dzia oszyce is a small town in southeastern Poland, 27 miles northeast of Krakow, that sits on a fertile plain surrounded by mountains. The first Jews arrived there in the 16th century, attracted perhaps by the fact that Dzia oszyce was on the trade route from Krakow to the north. By 1820, 75 percent of the town's 1700 residents were Jews; in the late 1930s, more than 80 percent of its 8,000 residents were Jewish. Most Jews in Dzia oszyce made their living through trade or crafts. The town was surrounded by small villages inhabited by peasants. Jewish peddlers went from village to village selling merchandise and purchasing agricultural products. While most Jews in Dzia oszyce were not very prosperous, some owned large estates in the surrounding areas, and the proprietors of most flour and barley mills, the oil refinery, and the town power plant were Jews. Religious life centered around the beautiful town synagogue and the small Hasidic houses of prayer. Communal life was organized through the kahal community council] and khevres societies] with various functions. In the interwar period, theater productions and sports events were popular. Zionist organizations sprang up and trained young people to be pioneers; a sizeable number emigrated to Palestine. During the war, mass killings and deportations virtually destroyed the Jewish community. Some were sent to their deaths at the Be ec camp, others to the Krakow ghetto and then to P aszow. Today, the formerly Jewish town has no Jews and only 1200 inhabitants. This Yizkor book, written originally in Yiddish and Hebrew by former residents as a memorial to their beloved town, provides a vivid portrayal of what Jewish life was like in Dzia oszyce before and during the war.

Living continuously in Iran for over 2700 years, Jews have played an integral role in the history of the country. Frequently understood as a passive minority group, and often marginalized by the Zoroastrian and succeeding Muslim hegemony,, the Jews of Iran are instead portrayed in this book as having had an active role in the development of Iranian history, society, and culture. Examining ancient texts, objects, and art from a wide range of times and places throughout Iranian history, as well as the medieval trade routes along which these would have travelled, The Jews of Iran offers in-depth analysis of the material and visual culture of this community. Additionally, an exploration of modern novels and accounts of Jewish-Iranian women's experiences sheds light on the social history and transformations of the Jews of Iran from the rule of Cyrus the Great (c. 600-530 BCE) to the Iranian Revolution of 1978/9 and onto the present day. By using the examples of women writers such as Gina Barkhordar Nahai and Dalia Sofer, the implications of fictional representation of the history of the Jews of Iran and the vital importance of communal memory and tradition to this community are drawn out. By examining the representation of identity construction through lenses of religion, gender, and ethnicity, the analysis of these writers' work highlights how the writers undermine the popular imagining and imaging of the Jewish 'other' in an attempt to create a new narrative integrating the Jews of Iran into the idea of what it means to be Iranian. This long view of the Jewish cultural influence on Iran's social, economic, political, and cultural development makes this book a unique contribution to the field of Judeo-Iranian studies and to the study of Iranian history more broadly.

This book is a translation of the Ruzhany Memorial (Yizkor) Book that was published in 1957 in Hebrew and Yiddish; it is based upon the memoirs of former Jewish residents of the town who had left before the war. Ruzhany, called Rozana in Polish and Ruzhnoy in Yiddish, is now a small town in Belarus. It was part of Russia at the time of World War I and Poland afterwards for a short period, and then the Soviet Union. In 1939, the Jewish population was at its peak 3,500, comprising 78% of the town's population. In November 1942, every Jewish resident was murdered by the Nazis and their collaborators. Founded in the mid-1500s, Jews were welcomed by the private owner, the Grand Chancellor, Duke Leu Sapeiha. He valued Jewish settlers who would create a variety of businesses that would produce profits and generate collectable taxes. They opened schools, built many small synagogues, and the Great Synagogue in the main square. In addition they established many social institutions. The market town thrived. Starting in the early 1900s, many young Jews immigrated to the United States so that the young men could avoid prolonged conscription into the Czar's army.

In this unparalleled study of the forms of Hebrew poetry, preeminent authority Benjamin Harshav examines Hebrew verse during three millennia of changing historical and cultural contexts. He takes us around the world of the Jewish Diaspora, comparing the changes in Hebrew verse as it came into contact with the Canaanite, Greek, Arabic, Italian, German, Russian, Yiddish, and English poetic forms. Harshav explores the types and constraints of free rhythms, the meanings of sound patterns, the historical and linguistic frameworks that produced the first accentual iambs in English, German, Russian, and Hebrew, and the discovery of these iambs in a Yiddish romance written in Venice in 1508/09. In each chapter, the author presents an innovative analytical theory on a particular poetic domain, drawing on his close study of thousands of Hebrew poems.

Arguments over the relationship between Canaanite and Israelite religion often derive from fundamental differences in presupposition, methodology and definition, yet debate typically focuses in on details and encourages polarization between opposing views, inhibiting progress. This volume seeks to initiate a cultural change in scholarly practice by setting up dialogues between pairs of experts in the field who hold contrasting views. Each pair discusses a clearly defined issue through the lens of a particular biblical passage, responding to each other's arguments and offering their reflections on the process. Topics range from the apparent application of 'chaos' and 'divine warrior' symbolism to Yahweh in Habakkuk 3, the evidence for 'monotheism' in pre-Exilic Judah in 2 Kings 22-23, and the possible presence of 'chaos' or creatio ex nihilo in Genesis 1 and Psalm 74. This approach encourages the recognition of points of agreement as well as differences and exposes some of the underlying issues that inhibit consensus. In doing so, it consolidates much that has been achieved in the past, offers fresh ideas and perspective and, through intense debate, subjects new ideas to thorough critique and suggests avenues for further research.

Addressing the pleasures and dangers of cultural identity in the age of mass media and global migration, these essays range from a commentary on the redrawing of the boundaries of contemporary art to a mapping of the controversial theory of hybridity.

From stories of biblical patriarchs and matriarchs and their children, through the Gospel's Holy Family of Jesus, Mary, and Joseph, and to modern Jewish families in fiction, film, and everyday life, the family has been considered key to transmitting Jewish identity. Current discussions about the Jewish family's supposed traditional character and its alleged contemporary crisis tend to assume that the dynamics of Jewish family life have remained constant from the days of Abraham and Sarah to those of Tevye and Golde in Fiddler on the Roof and on to Philip Roth's Portnoy's Complaint. Jonathan Boyarin explores a wide range of scholarship in Jewish studies to argue instead that Jewish family forms and ideologies have varied greatly throughout the times and places where Jewish families have found themselves. He considers a range of family configurations from biblical times to the twenty-first century, including strictly Orthodox communities and new forms of family, including same-sex parents. The book shows the vast canvas of history and culture as well as the social pressures and strategies that have helped shape Jewish families, and suggests productive ways to think about possible futures for Jewish family forms.

Jewish Feeling brings together affect theory and Jewish Studies to trace Jewish difference in literary works by nineteenth-century Anglo-Jewish authors. Dwor argues that midrash, a classical rabbinic interpretive form, is a site of Jewish feeling and that literary works underpinned by midrashic concepts engage affect in a distinctly Jewish way. The book thus emphasises the theological function of literature and also the new opportunities afforded by nineteenth-century literary forms for Jewish women's theological expression. For authors such as Grace Aguilar (1816-1847) and Amy Levy (1861-1889), feeling is a complex and overlapping category that facilitates the transmission of Jewish ways of thinking into English literary forms. Dwor reads them alongside George Eliot, herself deeply engaged with issues of contemporary Jewish identity. This sheds new light on Eliot by positioning her works in a nexus of Jewish forms and concerns. Ultimately, and despite considerable differences in style and outlook, Aguilar and Levy are shown to deploy Jewish feeling in their ethics of futurity, resistance to conversion and closure, and in their foregrounding of a model of reading with feeling.

Jewish Partisans of the Soviet Union during World War II compiled by Jack Nusan Porter with the assistance of Yehuda Merin, is a classic compilation of original Russian and Jewish sources on the anti-Nazi resistance in Eastern Europe. After thirty years, Dr. Porter has compressed two volumes into one, added a new preface, an updated bibliography and filmography, over 100 new photos plus 12 new maps. This new volume is essential for scholars, teachers, and students of the Shoah, Russian history, and World War II.

In the past thirty years, the Sino-Jewish encounter in modern China has increasingly garnered scholarly and popular attention. This volume will be the first to focus on the transcultural exchange between Ashkenazic Jewry and China. The essays here investigate how this exchange of texts and translations, images and ideas, has enriched both Jewish and Chinese cultures and prepared for a global, inclusive world literature. The book breaks new ground in the field, covering such new topics as the images of China in Yiddish and German Jewish letters, the intersectionality of the Jewish and Chinese literature in illuminating the implications for a truly global and inclusive world literature, the biographies of prominent figures in Chinese-Jewish connections, the Chabad engagement in contemporary China. Some of the fundamental debates in the current scholarship will also be addressed, with a special emphasis on how many Jewish refugees arrived in Shanghai and how much interaction occurred between the Jewish refugees and the resident Chinese population during the wartime and its aftermath.

Just as Hitler wanted a New World Order, we now have a new world order, also called Globalism taking shape. We must all face the challenges of giving up our national sovereignty, many of our constitutionally guaranteed freedoms, peace, and prospertity. We must consider the reality of One World Government and One World Religion. We must consider The European Union, The North American Free Trade Agreement, The World Trade Organization Agreement, and numerous other such little discussed Agreements. We must consider The United Nations Report of the Commission on Global Governance, along with its Agenda 21, sustainablility and population reduction because it is easier for the powers that be, like the Trilateral Commission and their associates, to control a population of 1.5 billion rather than 8 or more billion people. The Global 2000 Report, The Charter of Economic Right and Freedoms, are largely being dismissed. Why? Herein we discuss the almost inexplicable ethical and philosophical reasons much of the world has long hated the Jewish peoples, the Gypsy peoples, the Aboriginals, and the disabled, of any and all nations. This book is a thought provoking attempt to reveal how money and power become concentrated in the hands of a few well known, well respected, evil beings, their families, their secret societies, and often their religious organizations. These same families and organizations, have through psychological conditioning of populations, through the centuries maintained control of societies, policies, and history.

Drawing on a broad cultural and historical canvas, and weaving in the author's personal and professional experience, The Israeli Mind presents a compelling, if disturbing, portrait of the Israeli national character. Emerging from the depth of Jewish history and the drama of the Zionist rebellion against it, lsraelis are struggling to forge an identity. They are grand and grandiose, visionary and delusional, generous and self-centered. Deeply caring because of the history of Jewish victimization, they also demonstrate a shocking indifference to the sufferings of others. Saying no is their first, second and third line of defense, even as they are totally capable of complete and sudden capitulation. They are willing to sacrifice themselves for the collective but also to sacrifice that very collective for a higher, and likely unattainable ideal. Dr. Alon Gratch draws a vivid, provocative portrait of the conflicts embedded in the Israeli mind. Annihilation anxiety, narcissism, a failure to fully process the Holocaust, hyper-masculinity, post-traumatic stress, and an often unexamined narrative of self-sacrifice, all clash with the nation's aspiration for normalcy or even greatness. Failure to resolve these conflicts, Gratch argues, will threaten Israel's very existence and the stability of the Western world.