The purpose of the author is to correct, with the aid of all available evidence, current beliefs regarding the activities of the Jews in medieval England. Their relations with the Gentile community in which they lived are described, not as is conventionally imagined, but as these relations are disclosed on a dispassionate examination of surviving documents--for example, the close association of Jews and monasteries, of nearly every religious order, in the acquisition of landed estates.

A] welcome complement to historians' accounts of Jewish reactions to Nazi persecution before 1939. It richly maps the spatial, emotional and psychological effects of social abandonment, propaganda and the atomization of everyday life that made many Jews come to feel what National Socialist policy had always intended-that they were Germans no more. H-German

In 1940, Harvard University sent out a call to all German-Jewish refugees to describe their experiences both before and after 1933. These invaluable documents were only discovered in the University archives some fifty years later by the editors of this volume. The memoirs, written so soon after the emigration when impressions were still vivid, movingly and tellingly describe the gradual deterioration of the living conditions for Jews in Germany in the time period leading up to the war-the daily humiliations they had to suffer, and their desperate attempts to leave Germany.

A great deal is written about Nazi Germany during war time, yet little is known about the years that preceded the war. Based on these collected eyewitness accounts, and with an informative introduction that places these experiences within a wider historical framework, this important book sheds new light on this time period. As this collection powerfully illustrates, these preceding years provide important clues and insights to the events that took place after November 1938, culminating in the Holocaust. Any attempt to come to grips with this dark period in history must take the revelations provided in this book into account.

Margarete Limberg studied political science at the universities of Hamburg and Berlin. She is working as a broadcaster for German radio in Berlin. Her special areas of interest are contemporary history and policies in the arts and education.

Hubert Rubsaat studies history, sociology, philosophy, and education at the University of Cologne. He works as broadcaster for North German radio where he heads the section on contemporary history and policies in education.

Alan Nothnagle has taught history at the University of Iowa and the Europa- Universitat Viadrina in Frankfurt/Oder. He currently lives and works as a freelance writer and translator in Berlin."

This volume interweaves concepts and methods from psychology and other social sciences with Jewish ideas and practices in order to address contemporary social issues. This volume brings together pioneering research from scholars in such fields as psychology, education, and religious studies. The authors integrate insights from Jewish texts and practices with the methods and concepts of the social sciences to create interventions that promote the well-being of children, adults, families, communities, and society. Divided into three sections - Education, Psychological Well-Being, Society and Beyond- this book shows how this integrationist approach can deepen our understanding and generate new insights around pressing social challenges to impact positive change in the lives of people and communities.

This volume concludes the edition, translation, and commentary of the first order of the "Jerusalem Talmud". It contains four small but important tractates. The first, Ma'aser Seni, deals with Second Tithe (Deut. 14:22-27) and the fourth-year fruit of a newly planted tree (Lev. 19:24). This is sanctified food, to be consumed by the laity at the holy precinct, for which redemption is expressly authorized. The tractate deals in large part with the problems of redemption of dedicated food. In addition, there is a long section on the interpretation of dreams, and a detailed description of the ceremony of presentation of the tithe in the Temple. The second tractate, Hallah, details the application of the general rules of heave to the Cohen's part of any bread dough. The third tractate, 'Orlah, the fruit of a newly planted tree during the first three years (Lev. 19:23), treats this as paradigm for all food whose usufruct is forbidden, and most of the tractate discusses the problems that may arise if any such food is not immediately disposed of. The last tractate, Bikkurim, describes the rules for selection and presentation of First Fruits in the Temple on or after Pentecost. The rite is given in detail, with an excursus on the honor due elders. A first appendix shows the position of the Tosephta as intermediary between Yerushalmi and Babli tradition, with a distinct slant towards Babylonian positions. A second appendix tries to identify the main authors of the tractates of this first order.

This book traces the development of the Jewish calendar from its origin until it reached, in the tenth century CE, its present form. Drawing on a wide range of sources - literary, documentary and epigraphic; Jewish, Graeco-Roman and Christian - this is the first comprehensive book to have been written on this subject. The unification of the calendar is seen as an element in the unification of Jewish identity.

Combining cultural history and literary analysis, this study proposes a new and thought-provoking reading of the changing relationship between Germans and Jews following the Holocaust. Two Holocaust survivors whose work became uniquely successful in the Germany of the 1980s and 1990s, Grete Weil and Ruth Kluger, emerge as exemplary in their contributions to a postwar German discussion about the Nazi legacy that had largely excluded living Jews. While acknowledging that the German audience for the works of Holocaust survivors began to change in the 1980s, this study disputes the common tendency to interpret this as a sign of greater willingness to confront the Holocaust, arguing instead that it resulted from a continued German misreading of Jews' criticisms. By tracing the particular cultural-political impact that Weil's and Kluger's works had on their German audience, it investigates the paradox of Germany's confronting the Holocaust without necessarily confronting the Jews as Germans. Furthermore, for the authors this literature also had a psychological impact: their 'return' to the German language and to Germany is read not as an act of mourning or nostalgia, but rather as a public call to Germans for a dialogue about the Nazi past, as a way to move into the public realm the private emotional and psychological battles resulting from German Jews' exclusion from and persecution by their own national community.

Since the 9/11/01 attacks on America, anti-Semitism has been on the rise, its roots firmly anchored in centuries-old prejudices. Schweitzer and Perry analyze the lies, misperceptions, and myths about Jews and Judaism that have been spread throughout the centuries. Beginning in antiquity and continuing into the present day, the authors explore major anti-Semitic themes: Jews as murderers of Christ; Jews as both evil capitalists and evil communists; the “myth” of the Holocaust; and the Nation of Islam’s hatred of the Jews. This is an eye-opening piece of work that, sadly, is still needed today.

One of the most common assumptions about World War II is that the Jews did not actively or effectively resist their own extermination at the hands of the Nazis. In this powerful book, Benjamin Ginsberg convincingly argues that the Jews not only resisted the Germans but actually played a major role in the defeat of Nazi Germany. The question, he contends, is not whether the Jews fought but where and by what means. True, many Jews were poorly armed, outnumbered, and without resources, but Ginsberg shows persuasively that this myth of passivity is solely that-a myth. The author describes how Jews resisted Nazism strongly in four major venues. First, they served as members of the Soviet military and as engineers who designed and built many pivotal Soviet weapons, including the T-34 tank. Second, a number were soldiers in the U.S. armed forces, and many also played key roles in discrediting American isolationism, in providing the Roosevelt administration with the support it needed for preparing for war, and in building the atomic bomb. Third, they made vital contributions to the Allies-the Soviet Union, the United States, and Britain-in espionage and intelligence (especially cryptanalysis), and fourth, they assumed important roles in several European anti-Nazi resistance movements that often disrupted Germany's fragile military supply lines. In this compelling, cogent history, we discover that the Jews were an important factor in Hitler's defeat.

In The Intellectual History and Rabbinic Culture of Medieval Ashkenaz, author Ephraim Kanarfogel challenges the dominant perception that medieval Ashkenazic rabbinic scholarship was lacking in intellectualism or broad scholarly interests. While cultural interaction between Jews and Christians in western Europe was less than that of Sephardic Jews, Kanarfogel's study shows that the intellectual interests of Ashkenazic rabbinic figures were much broader than Talmudic studies alone. Kanarfogel begins by highlighting several factors that have contributed to relatively narrow perceptions of Ashkenazic rabbinic culture and argues that the Tosafists, and Ashkenazic rabbinic scholarship more generally, advocated a wide definition of the truths that could be discovered through Torah study. He explores differences in talmudic and halakhic studies between the Tosafist centers of northern France and Germany, delves into aspects of biblical interpretation in each region, and identifies important Tosafists and rabbinic figures. Kanarfogel also examines the composition of liturgical poetry (piyyut) by Tosafists, interest in forms of (white) magic and mysticism on the part of a number of northern French Tosafists, and a spectrum of views on the question of anthropomorphism and messianism. Overall, Kanarfogel demonstrates that the approach taken by Tosafists was broader, more open, and more multi-disciplinary than previously considered. Medieval and Jewish history scholars will appreciate Kanarfogel's volume, which is the culmination of several decades of research on the subject.

Deportations by train were critical in the Nazis' genocidal vision of the "Final Solution of the Jewish Question." Historians have estimated that between 1941 and 1944 up to three million Jews were transported to their deaths in concentration and extermination camps. In his writings on the "Final Solution," Raul Hilberg pondered the role of trains: "How can railways be regarded as anything more than physical equipment that was used, when the time came, to transport the Jews from various cities to shooting grounds and gas chambers in Eastern Europe?" This book explores the question by analyzing the victims' experiences at each stage of forced relocation: the round-ups and departures from the ghettos, the captivity in trains, and finally, the arrival at the camps. Utilizing a variety of published memoirs and unpublished testimonies, the book argues that victims experienced the train journeys as mobile chambers, comparable in importance to the more studied, fixed locations of persecution, such as ghettos and camps.

This is the first history of the Jewish agricultural colonies that were established in Crimea and Southern Ukraine in 1924 and that, fewer than 20 years later, ended in tragedy. Jonathan Dekel-Chen opens an extraordinary window on Soviet rural life during these turbulent years, and he documents the remarkable relations that developed among the American-Jewish sponsors of the ambitious project, the Soviet authorities, and the colonists themselves.
Drawing on extensive and largely untouched archives and a wealth of previously unpublished oral histories, the book revises what has been understood about these agricultural settlements. Dekel-Chen offers new conclusions about integration and separation among Soviet Jews, the contours of international relations, and the balance of political forces within the Jewish world during this volatile period.

The behavior of many Poles towards the Jewish population during the Nazi occupation of Poland has always been a controversial issue. Although the Poles are supposed not to have collaborated with the invaders, there is evidence to show that in respect of the Jewish population, the behavior of many Poles, including members of the underground, was far from exemplary. Poland is also the only European country where Jews were being murdered after the end of the war and where strong anti-Semitic tendencies are still present. This book analyzes this question in an historical context and attempts to offer an explanation for the phenomenon of Polish anti-Semitism during and after the end of the war. The work is based on recently uncovered documents as well as on personal accounts of witnesses to the events during the war.

On the eve of the establishment of the state of Israel, the governments of Iraq, Egypt, Syria, and Lebanon, among others, began persecuting the Jews who had lived in these countries for generations. In most cases the persecution focused on economic measures, aimed at destroying the basis for the very existence of these Jewish communities. The measures became increasingly brutal during the Israeli-Arab conflicts and were also influenced by the claims of displaced Palestinians and internal political strife. Now, for the first time, Itamar Levin tells the full story of this ignored aspect of the Middle Eastern tragedy.

As Itamar Levin shows in this ground-breaking survey, in the Jews of Iraq were first forced to give up their citizenship in order to obtain permission to leave and then their property was seized. The Jews of Egypt were deported after the Sinai Crisis, leaving their property behind. The Jews of Syria were stripped of their property gradually through the years. Levin estimates that the total value of the Jewish property lost in Arab countries is some $6 to $10 billion. No compensation was ever paid to the tens of thousands of Jews who lost their homes, jobs, savings, and property--often overnight--just because they were Jews. Must reading for anyone interested in the modern Middle East and negotiations for a final settlement between the Arabs and Israelis.

Illegal Jewish immigration to Palestine prior to the founding of the State of Israel forms one of the most fascinating chapters in the history of Zionism and modern Jewish history. Bringing Jews from Europe to Palestine by land and by sea in defiance of restrictive British immigration policies was partly an undertaking of national rescue and partly a calculated strategy of political brinksmanship. In this compelling analysis, Ofer examines various illegal immigration and rescue efforts organized by the Palestinian Jewish community in both the beginning and latter phases of the war. Making exhaustive use of archival sources, Ofer provides invaluable insight into the struggles of the immigrants, the activists and supporters of the movement, the logistical obstacles, and the political forces working to halt or exploit the flow of refugees.

"A Partisan from Vilna" is the memoir of Rachel Margolis, the sole survivor of her family, who escaped from the Vilna Ghetto with other members of the resistance movement, the FPO (United Partisan Organization), and joined the Soviet partisans in the forests of Lithuania to sabotage the Nazis. Beginning with an account of Rachel's life as a precocious, privileged girl in pre-war Vilna, it goes on to detail life in the Vilna Ghetto, including the development and struggles of the FPO against the Nazis. Finally, the book chronicles the escape of a group of FPO members into the forest of Belorussia, where Rachel became a partisan fighter. Rachel Margolis received a Ph.D. in biology in and taught until the late 1980's. She then co-founded Lithuania's only real Holocaust museum, the Green House in Vilnius. She is also responsible for the discovery and transcription of the Kazimierz Sakowicz diary, published here in the US under the title, "Ponary Diary: A Bystander's Account of Mass Murder" (Yale University Press, 2004). The book opens with an introductory essay by renowned Polish historian, Antony Polonsky.

Expanding the perspective initiated by British Romanticism and the Jews: History, Culture, Literature (0-312-29522-7), this volume explores more deeply the complexities inherent in the relationship between the British and Jewish cultures as initiated in the Romantic Period in England, though extending to the present in the Middle East.

Step inside a fascinating world of Jews who relate to their Jewishness through the vehicle of punk-from prominent figures in the history of punk to musicians who proudly put their Jewish identity front and center. Why did punk-a subculture and music style characterized by a rejection of established norms-appeal to Jews? How did Jews who were genuinely struggling with their Jewish identity find ways to express it through punk rock? Oy Oy Oy Gevalt! Jews and Punk explores the cultural connections between Jews and punk in music and beyond, documenting how Jews were involved in the punk movement in its origins in the 1970s through the present day. Author Michael Croland begins by broadly defining what the terms "Jewish" and "punk" mean. This introduction is followed by an exploration of the various ways these ostensibly incompatible identities can gel together, addressing topics such as Jewish humor, New York City, the Holocaust, individualism, "tough Jews," outsider identity, tikkun olam ("healing the world"), and radicalism. The following chapters discuss prominent Jews in punk, punk rock bands that overtly put their Jewishness on display, and punk influences on other types of Jewish music-for example, klezmer and Hasidic simcha (celebration) music. The book also explores ways that Jewish and punk culture intersect beyond music, including documentaries, young adult novels, zines, cooking, and rabbis. Provides a fascinating exploration of alternative, against-the-grain expressions of Jewish identity in the contemporary United States as seen in music, documentaries, young adult novels, zines, and more Shows the prominent role of Jewish individuals in the history of punk, including such major bands as the Ramones, the Dictators, the Clash, Bad Religion, and NOFX as well as Malcolm McLaren, the manager of the Sex Pistols Documents the significant role that punk has played in shaping key contemporary Jewish music, including klezmer and Radical Jewish Culture

A unique analysis of the intensive interest in Jewish culture of early modern Christian Humanists as a part of their comprehensive program of study of Greek, Latin, and Hebrew. The book focuses on how that interest was particularly manifested in a score of treatises on Sixteenth and Seventeenth Century Yiddish language and literature.

A Black-Jewish dialogue lifts a veil on these groups' unspoken history, shedding light on the challenges and promises facing American democracy from its inception to the present In this uniquely structured conversational work, two scholars-one of African American politics and religion, and one of contemporary American Jewish culture-explore a mystery: Why aren't Blacks and Jews presently united in their efforts to combat white supremacy? As alt-right rhetoric becomes increasingly normalized in public life, the time seems right for these one-time allies to rekindle the fires of the civil rights movement. Blacks and Jews in America investigates why these two groups do not presently see each other as sharing a common enemy, let alone a political alliance. Authors Terrence L. Johnson and Jacques Berlinerblau consider a number of angles, including the disintegration of the "Grand Alliance" between Blacks and Jews during the civil rights era, the perspective of Black and Jewish millennials, the debate over Louis Farrakhan and the Nation of Islam, and the Israel-Palestine conflict. Ultimately, this book shows how the deep roots of the Black-Jewish relationship began long before the mid-twentieth century, changing a narrative dominated by the Grand Alliance and its subsequent fracturing. By engaging this history from our country's origins to its present moment, this dialogue models the honest and searching conversation needed for Blacks and Jews to forge a new understanding.

Zionism is an international political movement that was originally dedicated to the resettlement of Jewish people in the Promised Land, and is now synonymous with support for the modern state of Israel. This addition to the Short Histories of Big Ideas series looks at the controversial and topical notion of Zionism from a balanced viewpoint, concentrating on where it came from, how it accomplished its goals, and why it affected so many people.