Jewish Self-Defense in South America charts the ways in which Jewish youth in Argentina and Uruguay organized self-defense groups in the wake of an anti-Semitic wave that swept the Southern Cone in the 1960s. The kidnapping of Nazi war criminal Adolf Eichmann in Buenos Aires in 1960 and his trial and execution in Israel in 1962, as well as the assassination of the Latvian war criminal Herberts Cukurs in Montevideo in 1965, provoked violent attacks by right-wing nationalist organizations against Jewish lives and property. Thousands of Jews decided to teach the anti-Semitic bullies a lesson and make it very clear that shedding Jewish blood would not go unpunished, that Jews were no longer passive victims. The central role that the State of Israel and its envoys played in organizing, instructing, and training self-defense activists highlights the special ties between Israel and the Jewish Diaspora. Based on more than 120 interviews with former activists of self-defense, ex-Mossad officers and veteran Israeli diplomats, as well as on archival research, this is a pioneering study on ethnicity and diaspora in a time of growing political violence in South America. This book is a valuable study for scholars and students researching Jewish history and Latin American history.

Reading Shakespeare in Jewish Theological Frameworks: Shylock Beyond the Holocaust uses Jewish theology to mount a courageous new reading of a four-hundred-year-old play, The Merchant of Venice. While victimhood and antisemitism have been the understandable focus of the Merchant critical history for decades, Lion urges scholars, performers, and readers to see beyond the racism in Shakespeare's plays by recovering Shakespearean themes of potentiality and human flourishing as they emerge within the Jewish tradition itself. Lion joins the race conversation in Shakespeare studies today by drawing on the intellectual history and oppression of the Jewish people, borrowing from thinkers Franz Rosenzweig and Abraham Joshua Heschel as well as Hannah Arendt, Walter Benjamin, Jacques Derrida, Emmanuel Levinas, and rabbis from the Talmud to today. This volume interweaves post-confessional, Protestant, Catholic, Muslim, Jewish, and mystical ideas with Shakespeare's poetry and opens conversations of prophecy, love, spirituality, care, and community. It concludes with brief critical sketches of Antony and Cleopatra, Hamlet, and Macbeth to demonstrate that Shakespeare when interpreted through Jewish theological frameworks can point to post-credal solutions and transformed societal paradigms of repair that encourage action and the shaping of a finer world.

Jewish Lesbian Scholarship in a Time of Change is the first major work in Jewish lesbian studies in more than a decade. Once a vibrant field, few works in Jewish queer studies in recent years have looked at the experiences of, and scholarship on, Jewish women, feminists, and those identified as lesbians. Correcting a twenty-first century shift away from explicitly feminist investigations in Jewish queer and LBGTQ studies, this work signals a new trend of scholarly works in the field. The chapters span an array of genres, presenting the rich diversity of Jewish lesbians as they are, as well as of Jewish lesbian scholarship today. This collection makes an innovative contribution to Jewish studies, lesbian and queer studies, gender studies, as well as to racial and cultural diversity studies. This book was originally published as a special issue of the Journal of Lesbian Studies.

Exploring the fascinating history behind Iranian-Jewish immigration to Israel, this book offers a rare and untold history of one of Israel's Middle Eastern Jewish populations. Over the 20th century, thousands among Iran's Jewish community left their ancestral homes and immigrated to the Jewish State, while thousands of others remained in Iran, even after the birth of the Islamic Republic of Iran. Using firsthand narratives, the evolution of Zionist activities and recruitment in Iran over the last century is covered, alongside an Iranian-Jewish population that, unlike other Middle Eastern Jewish communities, did not ultimately arrive in the Holy Land as a majority of their community. For those that did arrive (or, make aliyah) the Israeli nation-building process had unique ramifications. The integrative process and current status of the Iranian community in Israel is also examined, providing an intimate picture of Iranian life in Israel, nearly 75 years after Israel's establishment. A natural addition to any collection on Jewish or Israeli history and essential reading for a full understanding of Iran-Israel relations, enthusiasts of Israeli nation-building and affairs, as well as Iranian history, demographics, and politics will find this book invaluable.

Provides an in-depth analysis of social ideology and social relationships in late Second Temple Judaea, studying a range of archaeological material and sites to better understand both communal and individual trends in Jerusalem and its environs.

1) explores Judeo-Spanish folksong repertoire in a group of case studies, 2) surveys the basics of Judeo-Spanish (Sephardic) history and culture, the historiography of the folksong in Ladino 3) illustrates a methodology of combining archival research and ethnography and assembling the information bits to constitute the song's "sonic ruin"

This book debunks the conventional stereotype that Jews and sports are somehow anathema and clearly demonstrates that sports have long been a significant institution in Jewish American life. Jews were among the very first professional baseball players and the most outstanding early American track stars. In the 1920s and 1930s they dominated inner-city sports such as basketball and boxing and produced star athletes in virtually all sports. Many Jews were also prominent in the business, communication, and literary aspects of sport. These essays, written by leading contemporary sports historians, examine the contributions of Jewish men and women to American sports. Steven A. Riess's article on this topic is the most comprehensive overview ever written and will doubtless become a standard reference for years to come.

Nearly seventy-five years after World War II, a contentious debate lingers over whether Franklin Delano Roosevelt turned his back on the Jews of Hitler's Europe. Defenders claim that FDR saved millions of potential victims by defeating Nazi Germany. Others revile him as morally indifferent and indict him for keeping America's gates closed to Jewish refugees and failing to bomb Auschwitz's gas chambers.

In an extensive examination of this impassioned debate, Richard Breitman and Allan J. Lichtman find that the president was neither savior nor bystander. In "FDR and the Jews," they draw upon many new primary sources to offer an intriguing portrait of a consummate politician-compassionate but also pragmatic-struggling with opposing priorities under perilous conditions. For most of his presidency Roosevelt indeed did little to aid the imperiled Jews of Europe. He put domestic policy priorities ahead of helping Jews and deferred to others' fears of an anti-Semitic backlash. Yet he also acted decisively at times to rescue Jews, often withstanding contrary pressures from his advisers and the American public. Even Jewish citizens who petitioned the president could not agree on how best to aid their co-religionists abroad.

Though his actions may seem inadequate in retrospect, the authors bring to light a concerned leader whose efforts on behalf of Jews were far greater than those of any other world figure. His moral position was tempered by the political realities of depression and war, a conflict all too familiar to American politicians in the twenty-first century.

Introducing Judeo-Persian writings, this original collection gives parallel samples in Judeo-Persian and Perso-Arabic script and translations in English. Judeo-Persian writings not only reflect the twenty-seven centuries of Jewish life in Iran, but they are also a testament to their intellectual, cultural, and socioeconomic conditions. Such writings, found in the forms of verse or prose, are flavored with Judaic, Iranian and Islamic elements. The significant value of Judeo-Persian writing is found in the areas of linguistics, history and sociocultural and literary issues. The rhetorical forms and literary genres of epic, didactic, lyric and satirical poetry can be a valuable addition to the rich Iranian literary tradition and poetical arts. Also, as a Judaic literary contribution, the work is a representation of the literary activity of Middle Eastern Jews not so well recognized in Judaic global literature. This book is a comprehensive introduction to the rich literary tradition of works written in Judeo-Persian and also serves as a guide to transliterate many other significant Judeo-Persian works that have not yet been transliterated into Perso-Arabic script. The collection will be of value to students and researchers interested in history, sociology and Iranian and Jewish studies.

The Complete Black Book of Russian Jewryis a collection of eyewitness testimonies, letters, diaries, affidavits, and other documents on the activities of the Nazis against Jews in the camps, ghettoes, and towns of Eastern Europe. Arguably, the only apt comparism is to The Gulag Archipelago of Alexander Solzhenitsyn. This definitive edition of The Black Book, including for the first time materials omitted from previous editions, is a major addition to the literature on the Holocaust. It will be of particular interest to students, teachers, and scholars of the Holocaust and those interested in the history of Europe.

By the end of 1942, 1.4 million Jews had been killed by the Einsatzgruppen that followed the German army eastward; by the end of the war, nearly two million had been murdered in Russia and Eastern Europe. Of the six million Jews who perished in the Holocaust, about one-third fell in the territories of the USSR. The single most important text documenting that slaughter is The Black Book, compiled by two renowned Russian authors Ilya Ehrenburg and Vasily Grossman. Until now, The Black Book was only available in English in truncated editions. Because of its profound significance, this new and definitive English translation of The Complete Black Book of Russian Jewry is a major literary and intellectual event.

From the time of the outbreak of the war, Ehrenburg and Grossman collected the eyewitness testimonies that went into The Black Book. As early as 1943 they were planning its publication; the first edition appeared in 1944. During the years immediately after the war, Grossman assisted Ehrenburg in compiling additional materials for a second edition, which appeared in 1946 (in English as well as Russian).

Since the fall of the Soviet regime, Irina Ehrenburg, the daughter of Ilya Ehrenburg, has recovered the lost portions of the manuscript sent to Yad Vashem. The texts recovered by Ms. Ehrenburg include numerous documents that had been censored from the original manuscript, as well as items that had been hidden by the Grossman family. In addition, she verified and, where appropriate, corrected the accuracy of documents that had already appeared in earlier editions of The Black Book.

Anti-Semitism remains a pernicious form of ethnic and religious intolerance and an assault on the fundamentals of human dignity and human rights. Exploring the history of anti-Semitism and providing the first comprehensive examination of the new rampant anti-Jewish sentiment worldwide, Abraham Foxman, national director of the Anti-Defamation League, offers a crucial discussion of the steps that must be taken to prevent this century from witnessing a replay of the horrors of the last.

Shortlisted for the Folklore Society's Katharine Briggs Award 2021 Jews have been active participants in shaping the healing practices of the communities of eastern Europe. Their approach largely combined the ideas of traditional Ashkenazi culture with the heritage of medieval and early modern medicine. Holy rabbis and faith healers, as well as Jewish barbers, innkeepers, and pedlars, all dispensed cures, purveyed folk remedies for different ailments, and gave hope to the sick and their families based on kabbalah, numerology, prayer, and magical Hebrew formulas. Nevertheless, as new sources of knowledge penetrated the traditional world, modern medical ideas gained widespread support. Jews became court physicians to the nobility, and when the universities were opened up to them many also qualified as doctors. At every stage, medicine proved an important field for cross-cultural contacts. Jewish historians and scholars of folk medicine alike will discover here fascinating sources never previously explored-manuscripts, printed publications, and memoirs in Yiddish and Hebrew but also in Polish, English, German, Russian, and Ukrainian. Marek Tuszewicki's careful study of these documents has teased out therapeutic advice, recipes, magical incantations, kabbalistic methods, and practical techniques, together with the ethical considerations that such approaches entailed. His research fills a gap in the study of folk medicine in eastern Europe, shedding light on little-known aspects of Ashkenazi culture, and on how the need to treat sickness brought Jews and their neighbours together.

The book presents new approaches on such essential issues as ghettoization, antisemitism, the Inquisition, the history of conversion and Jewish-Christian relations / This book sheds light on the autonomous culture of the Jews in Italy, focusing on case studies of intellectual and cultural life using a micro-historical perspective / This book will appeal to students and scholars alike studying and researching Jewish History, Early Modern Italy, Early Modern Jewish and Italian culture, and Early Modern society.

By integrating evidence of the form and function of religiosities in contexts of mobility and migration, this volume reconstructs mobility-informed aspects of civic and household religiosities in Israel and its world. Readers will find a robust theoretical framework for studying cultures of mobility and religiosities in the ancient past, as well as a fresh understanding of the scope and texture of mobility-informed religious identities that composed broader Yahwistic religious heritage. This book will be of use to both specialists and informed readers interested in the history of mobilities and migrations in the ancient Near East, as well as those interested in the development of Yahwism in its biblical and extra-biblical forms.

Jewish Languages from A to Z provides an engaging and enjoyable overview of the rich variety of languages spoken and written by Jews over the past three thousand years. The book covers more than 50 different languages and language varieties. These include not only well-known Jewish languages like Hebrew, Yiddish, and Ladino, but also more exotic languages like Chinese, Esperanto, Malayalam, and Zulu, all of which have a fascinating Jewish story to be told. Each chapter presents the special features of the language variety in question, a discussion of the history of the associated Jewish community, and some examples of literature and other texts produced in it. The book thus takes readers on a stimulating voyage around the Jewish world, from ancient Babylonia to 21st-century New York, via such diverse locations as Tajikistan, South Africa, and the Caribbean. The chapters are accompanied by numerous full-colour photographs of the literary treasures produced by Jewish language-speaking communities, from ancient stone inscriptions to medieval illuminated manuscripts to contemporary novels and newspapers. This comprehensive survey of Jewish languages is designed to be accessible to all readers with an interest in languages or history, regardless of their background-no prior knowledge of linguistics or Jewish history is assumed.

This book provides a social and cultural history of Jewish art in Nazi Germany, with a focus on the Jewish artists, art critics, and audiences in Nazi Bavaria. From the time of its conceptualization in the autumn of 1933 until its final curtain call in November 1938, the Jewish Cultural League in Bavaria sustained three departments: music, visual arts, and adult education. The Bavarian example steps outside the highly professional cultural milieu of Jewish Berlin, and instead looks at relatively unknown efforts of Bavarian Jewish artists as they used art to define what it now meant, to them, to be Jewish under Nazism. Insightful and engaging, this book is ideal for advanced undergraduate students, graduate students, and scholars interested in social and cultural histories of Jews in Germany.

Originally published in 1930, this book was intended to be an effective inspiration to faith and duty and emphasizes the importance of Judaism as a living creed. Although inevitably a product of the time in which it was originally published, the author's experience and wisdom from many years of preaching means that book has enduring relevance for many aspects of Jewish life: Family, Leadership, Anti-Semitism, Morality, Faith, Reason and the Nation of Israel are all topics which are covered.

Originally published in its sixth edition in 1929, this volume was one of the first to have appeared in England which was written from a liberal standpoint. It gives a comprehensive account of Jewish belief and practice as conceived by those of moderate views. A significant part of the book covers Jewish ethics, and specifically their practical aspects as well as advice for Jewish teenagers of Confirmation age.

Originally published in 1987, this collection of essays is a major contribution toward developing a realistic picture of the Latin American Jewish communities in the late 20th Century. The book will be of interest to students of comparative studies, Jewish studies and Latin American studies and responds to the need to learn more about the Jewish communities of Latin America, both as a fragment of the Jewish diaspora and as an element in the economic and social life of the continent.

Originally published in 1964, this volume aims to convey global perspectives on the Jewish situation in the late 20th Century by discussing research in Jewish social structure and social problems. Historians and social scientists from around the world contributed to the volume to discuss subjects as diverse as oral history, communal organizing and Jewish education.

Originally published in 1951, this book explores the development in England of the Sephardi branch of the Jewish community, the co-heirs, with their kinsmen in Holland, in Italy, in North America and in the Middle East, of the Golden Age of Jewish history in Spain. Based on archival history from within the community, it was the first full-length history of the Sephardi community in England and describes how this little Jewish community, the first in England since the Middle Ages, grew, prospered and contributed the wealth and influence of London, and eventually producing in Disraeli one of England's greatest Prime Ministers.

From the 1880s, when systematic pogroms in Russia led to massive emigration, there have been two themes in Jewish history - persecution, culminating in the holocaust, and the corresponding search for a place in the world, which led to emigration to America, the rise of Zionism and the emergence of the State of Israel. In spite of these factors, Jews throughout the world have maintained their sense of identity and their cohesion as a people. One factor which has enabled them to do this has been the formation of an ideological vision of themselves - a sense of Jewishness - and one major way in which this ideology expresses itself is through the contributions by Jews to literature and thought. This book, originally published in 1982 by an established authority on Hebrew and Israeli literature, analyses the characteristics of the Jewish sense of identity as it appears in twentieth-century Jewish literature. It considers the work of a variety of authors who wrote in different periods and countries, and shows how their Jewish background pervades their writing. Some of the authors discussed are Franz Kafka, Osip Mandelstam, Henry Roth, Giorgio Bassani, S.Y. Agnon, Saul Bellow and Norman Mailer. This book will be particularly useful since a complete understanding of the Jews in the twentieth century can only be gained by appreciating their literary and intellectual achievements.