A group of mostly Jewish German-speaking writers, the Prague Circle included some of the most significant figures in modern Western literature. Its core members, Franz Kafka, Max Brod, Franz Werfel, Paul Kornfeld, and Egon Erwin Kisch, are renowned for their seminal dramas, lyric poetry, novels, short stories, and essays on aesthetics. The writers of the Prague Circle were bound together not by a common perspective or a particular ideology, but by shared experiences and interests. From their vantage point in the Bohemian capital during the early decades of the twentieth century, they witnessed first-hand the collapse of the familiar and predictable, if not entirely comfortable, monarchical old order and the ascent of an anxious and uncertain modern era that led inexorably to fascism, militarization, and war. In order to deal with their new challenges, they considered strategies as diverse and oppositional as the members of the Prague Circle themselves. Their responses were shaped to various degrees by Catholicism, Zionism, expressionism, activism, anti-activism, international solidarity with the working class, and transcendence. Stephen Shearier explores how these authors aligned themselves on the spectrum of the Activism Debate, which preceded the much studied Expressionist Debate by a generation. This study examines the critical reception of these influential literary figures to determine how their legacies have been shaped.

Studies of eastern European literature have largely confined themselves to a single language, culture, or nationality. In this highly original book, Glaser reveals the rich cultural exchange among writers working in Russian, Ukrainian, and Yiddish in the Ukrainian territories, from Nikolai Gogol's 1829 The Sorochintsy Fair to Isaac Babel's stories about the forced collectivization of the Ukrainian countryside in 1929. The marketplace, which was an important site of interaction among members of these different cultures, emerged in all three languages as a metaphor for the relationship between Ukraine's coexisting communities, as well as for the relationship between the Ukrainian borderlands and the imperial capital. It is commonplace to note the influence of Gogol on Russian literature, but Glaser shows him to have also been a profound influence on Ukrainian and Yiddish writers, such as Hryhorii Kvitka-Osnovianenko and Sholem Aleichem. And she shows how Gogol must be understood not only within the context of his adopted city of St. Petersburg but also that of his native Ukraine.

From the end of the 15th century until the 18th, Spanish Jews carried on Jewish practices in the shadow of the Inquisition. Those caught were forced to recant or be burnt at the stake. Drawing on their confessions and trial documents, this book tells their story.

An absorbing account of how two Jewish brothers devoted themselves to the struggle for racial equality in the United States. In the late nineteenth century, Joel and Arthur Spingarn grew up in New York City as brothers with very different personalities, interests, and professional goals. Joel was impetuous and high-spirited; Arthur was reasoned and studious. Yet together they would become essential leaders in the struggle for racial justice and equality, serving as presidents of the National Association for the Advancement of Colored People, exposing inequities, overseeing key court cases, and lobbying presidents from Theodore Roosevelt to John F. Kennedy. In The Spingarn Brothers, Katherine Reynolds Chaddock sheds new light on the story of these fascinating brothers and explores how their Jewish heritage and experience as second-generation immigrants led to their fight for racial equality. Upon graduating from Columbia University, Arthur joined a top Manhattan law practice, while Joel became a professor of comparative literature. The two soon witnessed growing racial injustices in the city and joined the NAACP in 1909, its founding year. Arthur began to aim his legal practice toward issues of discrimination, while Joel founded the NAACP's New York City branch. Drawing from personal letters, journals, and archives, Chaddock uncovers some of the motivations and influences that guided the Spingarns. Both brothers served in World War I, married, and pursued numerous interests that ranged from running for Congress to collecting rare books and manuscripts by Black authors around the world. In this dual biography, Chaddock illustrates how the Spingarn brothers' unique personalities, Jewish heritage, and family history shaped their personal and professional lives into an ongoing fight for racial justice.

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.

A correspondent who has spent thirty years in Israel presents a rich, wide-ranging portrait of the Israeli people at a critical juncture in their country’s history. Despite Israel’s determined staying power in a hostile environment, its military might, and the innovation it fosters in businesses globally, the country is more divided than ever. The old guard — socialist secular elites and idealists — are a dying breed, and the state’s democratic foundations are being challenged. A dynamic and exuberant country of nine million, Israel now largely comprises native-born Hebrew speakers, and yet any permanent sense of security and normalcy is elusive. In The Land of Hope and Fear, we meet Israelis — Jews and Arabs, religious and secular, Eastern and Western, liberals and zealots — plagued by perennial conflict and existential threats. Its citizens remain deeply polarised politically, socially, and ideologically, even as they undergo generational change and redefine what it is to be an Israeli. Who are these people, and to what do they aspire? In moving narratives and with on-the-ground reporting, Isabel Kershner reveals the core of what holds Israel together and the forces that threaten its future through the lens of real people, laying bare the question, Who is an Israeli?

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..

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.

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.