The history of the Holocaust keeps being written and rewritten in ever greater detail, but almost always by Jews. Wolgang Benz's book makes an important contribution by bringing the German perspective to this horrific event. A masterpiece of compression, the books covers all the major topics and issues, from the Wannsee Conference of January 20, 1942, to stripping Jews of their civil rights, from the establishment of ghettos to the creation of killing centers and the development of an efficient system for extermination. The book also includes a chapter on "The Other Genocide: The Persecution of the Sinti and Roma," detailing the crusade against the Gypsies.

From the Foreword by Arthur Hertzberg:

Benz's account is the necessary 'first course' for anyone who wants to know about the Holocaust and to think further about its meaning for humanity. It is of particular importance that the historian who has written this book is a German. This account is trustworthy because its author combines within himself the rare authority of someone who belongs to the past of his nation. He has both understood and transcended its history in this century. The subject of the book, the Holocaust, is somber beyond words, but this account in Benz's words is a cause for hope.

Hertzberg develops his daring thesis that the "modern, secular, anti-Semitism was fashioned not as a reaction to the Enlightenment and the Revolution, but within the Enlightenment and Revolution themselves." He finds that modern anti-Semitism owes less to Christian theological mentality than to doctrinaire libertarianism of figures such as Voltaire, d'Holbach, Diderot, and Marat.

This volume is the twenty-sixth in the Holocaust Studies Series sponsored by the Rosenthal Institute for Holocaust Studies at the Graduate Center of the City University of New York. It contains ten seminal studies the catastrophe that befell the Jews of Europe during the Nazi era. It also reprints two historically crucial documents relating to the so-called Hungarian Gold Train, a freight train that, in 1944, carried stolen or confiscated Jewish valuables from Hungary.

Essays recount the unfolding of the Holocaust in Hungary and the history of the Jews in Europe. They detail the elimination of Jews in Greece, particularly from the large Sephardic community of Salonika, and describe the rescue of Jews in Albania. Nonhistorical essays concern autobiographical narratives in which survivors and their descendents reflect on the return to former shtetls in East Central Europe and the attitudes of victims toward the perpetrators of Holocaust crimes. Taken altogether, this volume formulates a more complete understanding of the Holocaust in Eastern Europe.

"Denying History" takes a bold and in-depth look at those who say the Holocaust never happened and explores the motivations behind such claims. While most commentators have dismissed the Holocaust deniers as antisemitic neo-Nazi thugs who do not deserve a response, historians Michael Shermer and Alex Grobman have immersed themselves in the minds and culture of these Holocaust "revisionists." In the process, they show how we can be certain that the Holocaust happened and, for that matter, how we can confirm any historical event. This edition is expanded with a new chapter and epilogue examining current, shockingly mainstream revisionism.

A brilliant, challenging revisionist history of the Jewish experience in America by Arthur Hertzberg, political leader, rabbi, social historian, and one of America'a most eminent Jewish thinkers.

This is a new release of the original 1962 edition.

This is a new release of the original 1961 edition.

Kessinger Publishing is the place to find hundreds of thousands of rare and hard-to-find books with something of interest for everyone!

Kessinger Publishing is the place to find hundreds of thousands of rare and hard-to-find books with something of interest for everyone!

The first edition of this book, published in 1961, was a classic overview of the Jewish religion. Arthur Hertzberg combined a superbly chosen anthology of the great writings of the Jewish tradition with incisive commentary and explanation. In 1991, Rabbi Hertzberg produced the first revised edition of this famous book, in which he addressed such contemporary issues as the rights of women, medical ethics, the Holocaust, Arabs and Jews, and homosexuality. These new discussions were incorporated into the earlier writings on the key ideas of Judaism: the chosen people, the Law, God, the Holy Land, the cycle of the year, prayer, immortality, sin and atonement, the nature of man, and the purpose of creation.

In his interpretations of the contemporary controversies, Arthur Hertzberg provided moving testimony to the integrity of the Jewish spirit through the ages. Many of the discussions of the first edition were rewritten to take into account the various forms of Judaism in the last two centuries, whether Orthodox, Conservative, or Reform. This revised edition, an integrated whole, provides a readable, contemporary, and authoritative overview of the nature of the Jewish religion.

"The demands of justice and the fear of sin," wrote Rabbi Hertzberg, "have been debated in the last three decades by men and women who care passionately about the issues of our time." This book is the result of a lifetime of study and reflection by one of the most distinguished authorities on Judaism.

An anthology of the key spiritual writings of the Jewish tradition. One of Judaism's foremost rabbis and scholars illuminates modern concerns in the first expanded edition of this 30-year-old classic guide.

The history of the Holocaust keeps being written and rewritten in ever greater detail, but almost always by Jews. Wolgang Benz's book makes an important contribution by bringing the German perspective to this horrific event. A masterpiece of compression, the books covers all the major topics and issues, from the Wannsee Conference of January 20, 1942, to stripping Jews of their civil rights, from the establishment of ghettos to the creation of killing centers and the development of an efficient system for extermination. The book also includes a chapter on "The Other Genocide: The Persecution of the Sinti and Roma," detailing the crusade against the Gypsies.

From the Foreword by Arthur Hertzberg:

Benz's account is the necessary 'first course' for anyone who wants to know about the Holocaust and to think further about its meaning for humanity. It is of particular importance that the historian who has written this book is a German. This account is trustworthy because its author combines within himself the rare authority of someone who belongs to the past of his nation. He has both understood and transcended its history in this century. The subject of the book, the Holocaust, is somber beyond words, but this account in Benz's words is a cause for hope.

A classic since its initial publication in 1959, The Zionist Idea is an anthology of writings by the leading thinkers of the Zionist movement, including Theodor Herzl, Ahad Ha-Am, Martin Buber, Louis Brandeis, Rabbi Abraham Isaac Kook, Judah Magnes, Max Nordau, Mordecai Kaplan, Vladimir Jabotinsky, Chaim Weizmann, and David Ben-Gurion.

The classic overview of the Jewish religion, updated to address such contemporary issues as the rights of women, medical ethics, the Holocaust, Arabs and Jews, homosexuality, and more, integrated with the earlier writings on the key ideas of Judaism: the chosen people, the Law, God, the Holy Land, the cycle of the year, prayer, immortality, sin and atonement, the nature of man, and the purpose of creation. In his interpretations of the contemporary controversies, Arthur Hertzberg provided moving testimony to the integrity of the Jewish spirit through the ages. Many of the discussions of the first edition were rewritten to take account of the various forms of Judaism in the last two centuries, whether Orthodox, Conservative, or Reform. This book was the result of a lifetime of study and reflection by one of the most distinguished authorities on Judaism. Rabbi Hertzberg offered the contemporary reader a coherent and meaningful account of one of the world's great religions.

For nearly two millennia, from the year 70 until the founding of Israel in 1948, the Jewish people were without a homeland. But wherever they wandered in the great Diaspora they continued the tradition of building synagogues as refuge for their beliefs and testament to their strength and accomplishments as a people. And "I Shall Dwell Among Them" considers the spiritual, architectural and cultural significance of these structures. It is the first study to document the synagogues with both scholarly depth and photographic excellence. "Among the phenomena Neil Folberg detected in his search for historic synagogues was that wherever Jews settled--whether in Morocco, Hungary or the American South--the designs of their temples reflected the prevailing style of the environment. But it is the building's power to evoke spirituality that comes across most forcefully in his photographs."
--"New York Magazine"