Monologues from the Makom

Monologues from the Makom

Author: Rivka Cohen

Publisher:

Published: 2020-09

Total Pages: 130

ISBN-13: 9781934730041

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A collection of first-person poetry and prose designed to break the observant Jewish community's taboo against open discussion of female sexuality. "Truly inspiring. This brave collection explores the tension between religious norms and the lived experience of young Jewish women." - Lisa Fishbayn Joffe, Brandeis University


This Is Not a Love Story

This Is Not a Love Story

Author: Judy Brown

Publisher: Little, Brown

Published: 2015-07-28

Total Pages: 264

ISBN-13: 0316400718

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A razor-sharp, hilarious, and poignant memoir about growing up in the closed world of the ultraorthodox Jewish community. The third of six children in a family that harks back to a gloried Hassidic dynasty, Judy Brown grew up with the legacy of centuries of religious teaching, and the faith and lore that sustained her people for generations. But her carefully constructed world begins to crumble when her "crazy" brother Nachum returns home after a year in Israel living with relatives. Though supposedly "cured," he is still prone to retreating into his own mind or erupting in wordless rages. The adults' inability to make him better -- or even to give his affliction a name -- forces Judy to ask larger questions: If God could perform miracles for her sainted ancestors, why can't He cure Nachum? And what of the other stories her family treasured? Judy starts to negotiate with God, swinging from holy tenets to absurdly hilarious conclusions faster than a Talmudic scholar: she goes on a fast to nab coveted earrings; she fights with her siblings at the dinner table for the ultimate badge of honor ("Who will survive the next Holocaust?"); and she adamantly defends her family's reputation when, scandalously, her parents are accused of having fallen in love -- -which is absolutely not what pious people do. For all its brutal honesty about this insular community, This Is Not a Love Story is ultimately a story of a family like so many others, whose fierce love for each other and devotion to their faith pulled them through the darkest time in their lives.


The Jewish Book of Days

The Jewish Book of Days

Author: Jill Hammer

Publisher: Jewish Publication Society

Published: 2010-01-01

Total Pages: 449

ISBN-13: 0827610130

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Throughout the ages, Jews have connected legends to particular days of the Hebrew calendar. Abraham's birth, the death of Rachel, and the creation of light are all tales that are linked to a specific day and season. The Jewish Book of Days invites readers to experience the connection between sacred story and nature's rhythms, through readings designed for each and every day of the year. These daily readings offer an opportunity to live in tune with the wisdom of the past while learning new truths about the times we live in today. Using the tree as its central metaphor, The Jewish Book of Days is divided into eight chapters of approximately forty-five days each. These sections represent the tree's stages of growth--seed, root, shoot, sap, bud, leaf, flower, and fruit--and also echo the natural cadences of each season. Each entry has three components: a biblical quote for the day; a midrash on the biblical quote or a Jewish tradition related to that day; and commentary relating the text to the cycles of the year. The author includes an introduction that analyzes the different months and seasons of the Hebrew calendar and explains the textual sources used throughout. Appendixes provide additional material for leap years, equinoxes, and solstices. A section on seasonal meditations offers a new way to approach the divine every day.


The Ministry of Ungentlemanly Warfare

The Ministry of Ungentlemanly Warfare

Author: Damien Lewis

Publisher: Quercus

Published: 2015-09-08

Total Pages: 388

ISBN-13: 1623659191

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From the award-winning historian, war reporter, and author Damien Lewis (Zero Six Bravo, Judy) comes the incredible true story of the top-secret "butcher-and-bolt" black ops units Prime Minister Winston Churchill assigned the task of stopping the unstoppable German war machine. Criminals, rogues, and survivalists, the brutal tactics and grit of these "deniables" would define a military unit the likes of which the world had never seen. When France fell to the Nazis in spring 1940, Churchill declared that Britain would resist the advance of the German army--alone if necessary. Churchill commanded the Special Operations Executive to secretly develop of a very special kind of military unit that would operate on their own initiative deep behind enemy lines. The units would be licensed to kill, fully deniable by the British government, and a ruthless force to meet the advancing Germans. The very first of these "butcher-and-bolt" units--the innocuously named Maid Honour Force--was led by Gus March-Phillipps, a wild British eccentric of high birth, and an aristocratic, handsome, and bloodthirsty young Danish warrior, Anders Lassen. Amped up on amphetamines, these assorted renegades and sociopaths undertook the very first of Churchill's special operations--a top-secret, high-stakes mission to seize Nazi shipping in the far-distant port of Fernando Po, in West Africa. Though few of these early desperadoes survived WWII, they took part in a series of fascinating, daring missions that changed the course of the war. It was the first stirrings of the modern special-ops team, and all of the men involved would be declared war heroes when it was all over. The Ministry of Ungentlemanly Warfare focuses on a dozen of these extraordinary men, weaving their stories of brotherhood, comradely, and elite soldiering into a gripping narrative yarn, from the earliest missions to Anders Lassen's tragic death, just weeks before the end of the war.


Jews Vs Omnibus

Jews Vs Omnibus

Author: Naomi Alderman

Publisher: Createspace Independent Publishing Platform

Published: 2015-12-03

Total Pages: 274

ISBN-13: 9781519611772

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Now collected into a single volume, editors Lavie Tidhar and Rebecca Levene bring you the groundbreaking anthologies Jews vs Zombies and Jews vs Aliens, which pose the two most important questions asked in the past 2000 years: what happens when the Chosen People meet aliens... or the living dead? With authors ranging from Orange Prize winner Naomi Alderman to The Big Bang Theory's writer/producer Eric Kaplan, and from BSFA Award winner Adam Roberts to BFS Best Newcomer Sarah Lotz, the stories range from the light-hearted to the profound. "If you will it, it is no dream!" as Theodor Herzl said: and no doubt he had just these anthologies in mind. Jews vs Aliens and Jews vs Zombies are the must have anthologies of the year.


The Soul of the Stranger

The Soul of the Stranger

Author: Joy Ladin

Publisher:

Published: 2019

Total Pages: 0

ISBN-13: 9781512600667

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Evocative readings of the Torah through the lens of transgender experience, exploring the ways trans perspectives can enrich our understanding of religious texts, traditions, and God


Postmodern Love in the Contemporary Jewish Imagination

Postmodern Love in the Contemporary Jewish Imagination

Author: Efraim Sicher

Publisher: Routledge

Published: 2022-03-17

Total Pages: 260

ISBN-13: 1000539091

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Offering a radical critique of contemporary Israeli and diaspora fiction by major writers of the generation after Amos Oz and Philip Roth, this book asks searching questions about identity formation in Jewish spaces in the twenty-first century and posits global, transnational identities instead of the bipolar Israel/diaspora model. The chapters put into conversation major authors such as Jonathan Safran Foer, Nicole Krauss, Michael Chabon, and Nathan Englander with their Israeli counterparts Zeruya Shalev, Eshkol Nevo, and Etgar Keret and shows that they share common themes and concerns. Read through a postmodern lens, their preoccupation with failed marriage and failed ideals brings to the fore the crises of home, nation, historical destiny, and collective memory in contemporary secular Jewish culture. At times provocative, at others iconoclastic, this innovative study must be read by anyone concerned with Jewish culture and identity today, whether scholars, students, or the general reader.


Texts to the Holy

Texts to the Holy

Author: Rachel Barenblat

Publisher:

Published: 2018-02

Total Pages: 82

ISBN-13: 9781934730676

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"When I wake your name is honey on my lips." So begins this latest collection by poet and rabbi Rachel Barenblat. These love songs to an unnamed other capture a God-intoxicated spirituality in plain-spoken language redolent of the Bible yet anchored in modern life. Texts to the Holy follows in the tradition of the Song of Songs, the great Biblical poem that describes love between two human beloveds and is also read as an allegory for the love between us and God. It's in the tradition of the medieval poet Judah ha-Levi, whose writings of yearning for God use human love as a metaphor. And it's in the tradition of Adrienne Rich and Pablo Neruda, whose poems of human love and passion are suffused with awareness of the sanctity of the tangible and the everyday. These poems can be read purely as love poems from one human beloved to another, and they can be read as poems of love between a soul and her Source. Texts to the Holy expresses deep emotion in contemporary language, without sentimentality. It reminds us of the truths that the yearning heart finds reminders of the beloved everywhere and that even a text message can be a locus for holiness.