The Messy Self challenges the idea?and the ideal?of a coherent, harmonious self. The essays and poems illustrate how a flourishing self is inevitably divided, ambivalent, fractured?messy?and how the self triumphs through disorder. Written in accessible language by award-winning writers and scholars, the book offers a diversity of perspectives on the complexities of the self. With chapters on creativity, love, self-understanding, self-deception, identity, responsibility, and well-being, The Messy Self gives a range of voices to the ordinary and extraordinary divisions, fragmentations, and uncertainties that mark our everyday experience. Contributors include Martha Nussbaum, Steven Pinker, Jennifer Rosner, Oliver Sacks, Wendy Wasserstein, Robin West, C.K. Williams, and others.

The Messy Self challenges the idea -- and the ideal -- of a coherent, harmonious self. Taken together, the essays illustrate how a flourishing self is inevitably divided, ambivalent, fractured, messy -- and how the self triumphs through disorder. Written in accessible language by award-winning writers and scholars, the book offers a diversity of perspectives on the complexities of the self. With chapters on creativity, love, self-understanding, self-deception, identity, responsibility, and well-being, The Messy Self gives a range of voices to the ordinary and extraordinary divisions, fragmentations, and uncertainties that mark our everyday experience.

"This forgotten history of displaced WWII children and the return to their roots [is] captivating, thought-provoking, enlightening, and bittersweet." ―Alka Joshi, New York Times bestselling author of The Henna Artist "Rosner is one of my favorite authors." ―Lisa Scottoline, #1 bestselling author of Eternal From Jennifer Rosner, National Jewish Book Award Finalist and author of The Yellow Bird Sings, comes a novel based on the true stories of children stolen in the wake of World War II. When your past is stolen, where do you belong? Ana will never forget her mother's face when she and her baby brother, Oskar, were sent out of their Polish ghetto and into the arms of a Christian friend. For Oskar, though, their new family is the only one he remembers. When a woman from a Jewish reclamation organization seizes them, believing she has their best interest at heart, Ana sees an opportunity to reconnect with her roots, while Oskar sees only the loss of the home he loves. Roger grows up in a monastery in France, inventing stories and trading riddles with his best friend in a life of quiet concealment. When a relative seeks to retrieve him, the Church steals him across the Pyrenees before relinquishing him to family in Jerusalem. Renata, a post-graduate student in archaeology, has spent her life unearthing secrets from the past--except for her own. After her mother's death, Renata's grief is entwined with all the questions her mother left unanswered, including why they fled Germany so quickly when Renata was a little girl. Two decades later, they are each building lives for themselves, trying to move on from the trauma and loss that haunts them. But as their stories converge in Israel, in unexpected ways, they must each ask where and to whom they truly belong. Beautifully evocative and tender, filled with both luminosity and anguish, Once We Were Home reveals a little-known history. Based on the true stories of children stolen during wartime, this heart-wrenching novel raises questions of complicity and responsibility, belonging and identity, good intentions and unforeseen consequences, as it confronts what it really means to find home.

When Jennifer Amy Rose's firstborn baby fails her postnatal hearing test, Rose is stunned: How will she and her husband, both hearing, raise a deaf child? How will they communicate with a baby who can't hear their voices? Although her mother is hard of hearing, Rose has no real experience with deafness. But then she discovers a hidden history, going back generations to the ghettoes of Eastern Europe and the culture of shame that was attached to the "deaf and dumb."

Now the parent of two congenitally deaf children, Rose shares her journey into the modern world of the hearing impaired, and the tough decisions she and her husband have made about hearing aids, cochlear implants, and sign language. She also travels back in time to imagine her silent relatives who had few options but showed surprising creativity in dealing with a world that preferred to ignore them. If a Tree Falls is a memoir, a tale of the imagination, a guide for families with special-needs children and adults, and a poignant meditation on life's most unpredictable moments.

Jennifer Amy Rose is the author of The Messy Self. She holds a PhD in philosophy from Stanford University and lives in Massachusetts with her husband and two daughters.

Ana will never forget her mother’s face when she and her baby brother, Oskar, were sent out of their Polish ghetto and into the arms of a Christian friend. For Oskar, though, their new family is the only one he remembers. When a woman from a Jewish reclamation organisation seizes them, believing she has their best interest at heart, Ana sees an opportunity to reconnect with her roots, while Oskar sees only the loss of the home he loves. Roger grows up in a monastery in France, inventing stories and trading riddles with his best friend in a life of quiet concealment. When a relative seeks to retrieve him, the Church steals him across the Pyrenees before relinquishing him to family in Jerusalem. Renata, a post-graduate student in archaeology, has spent her life unearthing secrets from the past – except for her own. After her mother’s death, Renata’s grief is entwined with all the questions her mother left unanswered, including why they fled Germany so quickly when Renata was a little girl. Two decades later, they are each building lives for themselves, trying to move on from the trauma and loss that haunts them. But as their stories converge in Israel, in unexpected ways, they must each ask where and to whom they truly belong. Beautifully evocative and tender, filled with both luminosity and anguish, Once We Were Home reveals a little-known history. Based on the true stories of children stolen during wartime, this heart-wrenching novel raises questions of complicity and responsibility, belonging and identity, good intentions and unforeseen consequences, as it confronts what it really means to find home.

Poland, 1941. After the Jews in their town are rounded up, Róza and her five-year-old daughter, Shira, spend day and night hidden in a farmer's barn.

Forbidden from making a sound, only the yellow bird from her mother's stories can sing the melodies Shira composes in her head.

Róza does all she can to take care of Shira and shield her from the horrors of the outside world. They play silent games and invent their own sign language. But then the day comes when their haven is no longer safe, and Róza must face an impossible choice: whether the best thing she can do for her daughter is keep her close by her side, or give her the chance to survive by letting her go…

The Yellow Bird Sings by Jennifer Rosner is a powerfully gripping and deeply moving novel about the unbreakable bond between parent and child and the triumph of humanity and hope in even the darkest circumstances.

Description: Israel's Messiah and the People of God presents a rich and diverse selection of essays by theologian Mark Kinzer, whose work constitutes a pioneering step in Messianic Jewish theology. Including several pieces never before published, this collection illuminates Kinzer's thought on topics such as Oral Torah, Jewish prayer, eschatology, soteriology, and Messianic Jewish-Catholic dialogue. This volume offers the reader numerous portals into the vision of Messianic Judaism offered in Kinzer's Postmissionary Messianic Judaism (2005). An introductory essay by editor Jennifer M. Rosner sets Kinzer's thought and writings in context. Endorsements: ""Mark Kinzer is a 'break-through' thinker who has taken Messianic Judaism to a new level of theological sophistication. No one who cares deeply about the relationship between Judaism and Christianity can afford to ignore these essays."" --Richard J. Mouw President of Fuller Theological Seminary ""This book is a welcome successor to Mark Kinzer's 2005 groundbreaking work, Postmissionary Messianic Judaism . . . It is the kind of theological inquiry that both the Jewish Roots movement and the Messianic Jewish movement are so greatly in need of. Jennifer Rosner's collaboration in this project is a promising sign that a new generation of Messianic Jewish scholars may be ready to accept the challenge."" --Isaac Rottenberg First Chairperson of the National Council of Churches Office on Christian-Jewish Relations ""This is a significant book. Although it is a collection of articles and addresses, it has a far greater coherence than such collections normally possess. This coherence flows directly from the coherence of Mark Kinzer's life-project--to develop a form of Messianic Judaism that is authentically Jewish, and at the same time truly Messianic in the sense of fully recognizing the centrality of Jesus in God's purpose for Israel and for the world."" --Monsignor Peter Hocken Member of International Doctrinal Commission for Catholic Charismatic Renewal ""Whether one welcomes the Messianic Jewish movement wholeheartedly, with reservations, or not at all, the increasing importance of its voice in contemporary theological discussion is certain. This collection of essays by Mark Kinzer demonstrates again why the issues raised by Messianic Judaism are so fundamental in nature, and why Kinzer himself is widely regarded as the movement's foremost theologian."" --R. Kendall Soulen Professor of Systematic Theology, Wesley Theological Seminary About the Contributor(s): Mark S. Kinzer is President Emeritus of Messianic Jewish Theological Institute, and the author of Postmissionary Messianic Judaism (2005). Jennifer M. Rosner is a doctoral candidate at Fuller Theological Seminary.