'I read this book in excitement and wonder. It's not only a touching and fascinating book, but a sophisticated one as well.' Amos Oz Yoel has always known that his mother escaped the Nazis from Amsterdam. But it is not until after she has died that he finally visits the city of his birth. There, watching an old film clip at the Jewish Historical Museum, he sees a woman with a small child: it is his mother, but the child is not him. So begins a fervent search for the truth that becomes the subject of his magnum opus, revealing Amsterdam's dark wartime history and the underground networks which hid Jewish children away from danger - but at a cost. '[A] jewel box of a novel' - New York Times

Based on previously unexploited primary sources, this is the first comprehensive biography of Yosef Haim Brenner, one of the pioneers of Modern Hebrew literature. Born in 1881 to a poor Jewish family in Russia, Brenner published his first story, "A Loaf of Bread," in 1900. After being drafted into the Russian army, he deserted to England and later immigrated to Palestine where he became an eminent writer, critic and cultural icon of the Jewish and Zionist cultural milieu. His life was tragically ended in the violent 1921 Jaffa riots.
In a nutshell, Brenner's life story encompasses the generation that made "the great leap" from Imperial Russia's Pale of Settlement to the metropolitan centers of modernity, and from traditional Jewish beliefs and way of life to secularism and existentialism. In his writing he experimented with language and form, but always attempting to portray life realistically. A highly acerbic critic of Jewish society, Brenner was relentless in portraying the vices of both Jewish public life and individual Jews. Most of his contemporaries not only accepted his critique, but admired him for his forthrightness and took it as evidence of his honesty and veracity.
Renowned author and historian Anita Shapira's new biography illuminates Brenner's life and times, and his relationships with leading cultural leaders such as Nobel laureate S.Y. Agnon, Hayim Nahman Bialik, Israel's National Poet, and many others. Undermining the accepted myths about his life and his death, his depression, his relations with writers, women, and men--including the question of his homoeroticism--this new biography examines Brenner's life in all its complexity and contradiction.

Over the last seven years Etgar Keret has had plenty of reasons to worry. His son, Lev, was born in the middle of a terrorist attack in Tel Aviv. His father became ill. And he has been constantly tormented by nightmarish visions of the Iranian president Ahmadinejad, anti-Semitic remarks both real and imagined, and, perhaps most worrisome of all, a dogged telemarketer who seems likely to chase him to the grave. Emerging from these darkly absurd circumstances is a series of funny, tender ruminations on everything from his three-year-old son's impending military service to the terrorist mindset behind Angry Birds. Moving deftly between the personal and the political, the playful and the profound, The Seven Good Years takes a life-affirming look at the human need to find good in the least likely places, and the stories we tell ourselves to make sense of our capricious world.

Why do we sleep? How much sleep do we really need? What causes sleep apnea, narcolepsy, and insomnia-and what can be done about these sleep disorders? Why do older people have more trouble sleeping than young people? We have all puzzled over-or been plagued by-the mysteries of sleep. Now a leading researcher on sleep provides an engaging and informative introduction to the subject that answers many of our questions. Peretz Lavie surveys the entire field of sleep research and sleep medicine-from the structure of sleep stages and the brain centers involved in sleep regulation to the reasons for and significance of dreams, the importance of sleep in maintaining good health, and the function of biological rhythms-interweaving facts with fascinating case histories, anecdotes, and personal reflections. We learn, for example, about: *development of sleep patterns from infancy to adulthood and in the aged; *the wide variety of sleep habits in animals; *dreams of Holocaust survivors; *sleep under the threat of Scud missile attacks; *how melatonin influences sleep; *the story of the "Acrobat's Leap" sleep-deprivation experiments in the Israeli army; *how to treat insomnia; *what to do with a baby who refuses to go to sleep; and much more. Originally published in Hebrew to great acclaim, this book will enlighten and entertain everyone interested in how and why we sleep.