The Jewish communities of East and Southeast Asia display an impressive diversity. Jonathan Goldstein's book covers the period from 1750 and focuses on seven of the area's largest cities and trading emporia: Singapore, Manila, Taipei, Harbin, Shanghai, Rangoon, and Surabaya. The book isolates five factors which contributed to the formation of transnational, multiethnic, and multicultural identity: memory, colonialism, regional nationalism, socialism, and Zionism. It emphasizes those factors which preserved specifically Judaic aspects of identity. Drawing extensively on interviews conducted in all seven cities as well as governmental, institutional, commercial, and personal archives, censuses, and cemetery data, the book provides overviews of communal life and intimate portraits of leading individuals and families. Jews were engaged in everything from business and finance to revolutionary activity. Some collaborated with the Japanese while others confronted them on the battlefield. The book attempts to treat fully and fairly the wide spectrum of Jewish experience ranging from that of the ultra-Orthodox to the completely secular.

An impressive interdisciplinary effort by Chinese, Japanese, Middle Eastern, and Western Sinologists and Judaic Studies specialists, these books scrutinize patterns of migration, acculturation, assimilation, and economic activity of successive waves of Jewish arrivals in China from approximately A.D.1100 to 1949.

An impressive interdisciplinary effort by Chinese, Japanese, Middle Eastern, and Western Sinologists and Judaic Studies specialists, these books scrutinize patterns of migration, acculturation, assimilation, and economic activity of successive waves of Jewish arrivals in China from approximately A.D.1100 to 1949.

An impressive interdisciplinary effort by Chinese, Japanese, Middle Eastern, and Western Sinologists and Judaic Studies specialists, these books scrutinize patterns of migration, acculturation, assimilation, and economic activity of successive waves of Jewish arrivals in China from approximately A.D.1100 to 1949.

This is the first-of-its-kind analysis, in any language, of the trilateral relationship between Israel, the People's Republic of China, and the Republic of China. It is also the first comprehensive analysis of the relations between the founders and early statesmen of the ROC and the founders of modern Israel before the proclamation of the Jewish state in 1948. It includes eyewitness testimony from five of the key players involved in the trilateral relationship; historical analysis from Chinese, Israeli, Arab, and East Indian perspectives; and a multilingual bibliography.

The collection describes Israeli-ROC and Israeli-PRC relations that vacillated over the decades. By 1998, they stabilized into full diplomatic relations between Israel and the PRC and officially unofficial trade and cultural ties between Israel and the ROC--an accommodation that has also been adopted in Sino-American relations.

A hilarious re-imagining of the heroes of the Old Testament for a modern world-and the neurotic, demanding reader.
In the beginning...there was humor.
Sure, it's the foundation for much of Western morality and the cornerstone of world literature. But let's face it: the Bible always needed punching up. Plus, it raised quite a few questions that a modern world refuses to ignore any longer: wouldn't it be boring to live inside a whale? How did Joseph explain Mary's pregnancy to the guys at work? Who exactly was the megalomaniacal foreman who oversaw the construction of the Tower of Babel? And honestly, what was Cain's problem?
In "Ladies and Gentlemen, the Bible ," Jonathan Goldstein re-imagines and recasts the greatest heroes of the Bible with depth, wit, and snappy dialogue. This is the Bible populated by angry loners, hypochondriacs, and reluctant prophets who fear for their sanity, for readers of Sarah Vowell and the books of David Sedaris. Basically, a Bible that readers can finally, genuinely relate to.
Jonathan Goldstein's new book, "I'll Seize the Day Tomorrow," will be available May 2013.

The "big round table" in the author's childhood home was the place to eat and talk, the place where her parents engaged in after-dinner chess matches, the place where her father made simple repairs to, e.g., radios, lamps, etc. But in the author's memory it is, best of all, the place where her father told imaginative and engaging "tall tales" presented in a style characterized by humorous digressions, a warm confidentiality and a nonsensical logic that dared one not to believe what would seem to be unbelievable. In "Fish, Fog, Frogs (and other stories)" during a visit to her childhood home (and the "big round table"), the author encourages her father to share his stories with her children (his two grandchildren). With only a little urging, he begins with the tale of his pet (crime-fighting) fish. He feigns a hesitancy to continue but before the family leaves the table, Jennifer and Jonathan have heard six of his most famous tales. Though the reading level is for 4th-6th grades, the stories and setting make this a book for all ages, encouraging families to leave their "big flat screen TVs" and find their own version of a "big round table" where they can identify the stars and supporting cast of their own family legends, keeping alive memories of people and experiences that have helped to shape who they are.

Presents a wry and comical snapshot of the mind of Josh, a rather confused young man who must cope with his father's listlessness, his own overwhelming lust, and the arrival of the Moschiach, inventor of the infamous Love Lotion. Original.

Formerly one of the largest and most militant Islamic organizations in the Middle East, Egypt's al-Gama'ah al-Islamiyah is believed to have played an instrumental role in numerous acts of global terrorism, including the assassination of President Anwar Sadat and the 1993 World Trade Center bombing. In later years, however, the organization issued a surprising renunciation of violence, repudiating its former ideology and replacing it with a shari'ah-based understanding and assessment of the purpose and proper application of jihad. This key manifesto of modern Islamist thought is now available to an English-speaking audience in an eminently readable translation by noted Islamic scholar Sherman A. Jackson. Unlike other Western and Muslim critiques of violent extremism, this important work emerges from within the movement of Middle Eastern Islamic activism, both challenging and enriching prevailing notions about the role of Islamists in fighting the scourge of extremist politics, blind anti-Westernism, and, alas, wayward jihad.

II Maccabees continues the chronicle of the "Time of the Troubles" (167-64 B.C.E.), begun in I Maccabees. It recounts the stories of conflict between militant Jews, led by Judas Maccabaeus, and their Hellenistic oppressors. Aside from the story of the struggle to control the temple and the holy city of Jerusalem, though, II Maccabees shares little in common with I Maccabees. The second volume of reflections of Jewry in the generation following the Maccabaean revolt presents and evaluates the experience from its own unique perspective.
How these events came to be written, who told the stories, and what reasons motivated such divergent yet parallel interpretations are the questions Jonathan A. Goldstein, translator and commentator on both Maccabaean histories, addresses here. Goldstein utilizes the full array of scholarly tools to examine the critical issues raised by II Maccabees. By examining its language and style, its Hellenic yet Jewish flavor, its comparison and relationship to I Maccabees, its use of sacred writings (Torah and Prophets), its historical context, and the role of the miraculous, Goldstein thoroughly elucidates this powerful account of a pivotal period in Jewish history.
As the commentary makes clear, II Maccabees focuses on certain themes: miracles as God's tools for shaping history; the holiness of the Jerusalem temple; the dynamic relationship between the Hasmonaean rulers and their pious opponents; praise of martyrdom; the doctrine of resurrection. An abridgment of Jason of Cyrene's work, II Maccabees advances its own theological perspective to its Greek-speaking audience, refuting the Hasmonaean partisan's view that pervades I Maccabees.
Jonathan A.Goldstein, author of I Maccabees, is Professor of History and Classics at the University of Iowa. He earned bachelor's and master's degrees at Harvard, and a doctorate at Columbia University.