In this first volume of his two-volume autobiography, Wiesel takes us from his childhood memories of a traditional and loving Jewish family in the Romanian village of Sighet through the horrors of Auschwitz and Buchenwald and the years of spiritual struggle, to his emergence as a witness for the Holocaust's martyrs and survivors and for the State of Israel, and as a spokesman for humanity. With 16 pages of black-and-white photographs. "From the abyss of the death camps Wiesel has come as a messenger to mankind--not with a message of hate and revenge, but with one of brotherhood and atonement." --From the citation for the 1986 Nobel Peace Prize
A heartbreaking, darkly funny and deeply moving memoir from a fearlessly talented writer Delivered on the banks of the Mainoru River by her two full-blood grandmothers, Marie Munkara was born with light skin which meant one thing - it would only be a matter of time before she would be taken by the authorities and given to a white family to be raised. Then twenty-eight years later an old baptismal card falling out of a book changed the course of her life forever. It was a link to her past. Knowing that she had to follow her heart or forever live to regret it Marie set out to find the family that she had lost, leaving her strict white Catholic parents aghast - why dig up the past? With devastating honesty, humour and courage, the award-winning author of Every Secret Thing shares her extraordinary journey of discovery to find her origins.
Karens love of the water started as a child, when her family visited Lake Itascathe very beginning of the Mississippi River. As a child, she understood that we come from God, and we return to God much like a river and its source. With all its twists and turns, a river is fascinating yet unpredictable, like life. From the book: We all meet someone in life who affects us for the rest of our life whether we want them to or not. For me, it was Bill; then it was Martin; then it was Dan; and then it was ____. You see how it goes. We find ourselves longing for someone or something that is not. Is it because we do not know how to love? Karens story may cause you to reconsider what love really is. Ecclesiastes 1:7 All the rivers run into the sea, yet the sea is not full; unto the place from whence the rivers come, thither they return again.
My Roots, My Destiny, based on a profound historical investigation and the personal recollections of the author Gabriel Groszman, describes the fate of his family in the context of the history of the Central European Jews during two centuries. The narration takes us from the Jewish Enlightenment and Emancipation through the World Wars and their shattering consequences, culminating in the loss of millions of European Jews in the Holocaust. The family history, narrated through several generations, reflects the shared destiny of Austro-Hungarian and German Jewry and their achievements in spite of discrimination and open persecution leading to exile, survival or death. The story, which unfolds without resentment, takes us with irony and humor from the age of the Hapsburg Empire through the author's own coming of age in an increasingly anti-Semitic Hungary, the Nazi terror, a brief period of democracy, communist dictatorship and, finally, life in Austria under the occupation of the victorious allies. Gabriel Groszman was born in 1930 in a small Hungarian village. When he was 10 years old, his religious Jewish family moved to Budapest under the pressure of anti-Semitic laws. There he attended an Orthodox middle school until 1944, at which time Germany occupied Hungary. During the ensuing twelve months, his family struggled to elude the Nazi death trap. In 1949, they left the country, then under communist rule, for Vienna, where he began his university studies. Three years later, they emigrated to Argentina, where Groszman married, had three children, and built up a successful industrial company. In 2003, he moved with his wife to Florida. He published his book My Roots, My Destiny in Spanish in 2009, followed by the German and English translations in August and September 2011, respectively. He is now working on his second endeavor, a family saga in the context of the history of the German Jews.
Gregor Reisch's The Philosophical pearl (Margarita Philosophica), first published in 1503 and republished 11 times in the sixteenth century, was the first extensive printed text which discussed the disciplines taught at university to achieve widespread dissemination. This distinguishes it from printed editions of individual texts of Aristotle and other authorities. It is presented as a dialogue between master and pupil, covering the seven liberal arts, natural philosophy and moral philosophy, and with illustrations throughout. It has received remarkably little attention in its own right as a work of education which helped shape the world view of sixteenth-century educated men. Its author was a Carthusian monk. This volume presents an edited translation and an extensive introduction, of the four books which deal with natural philosophy - the predecessor of modern science. These books clearly show the extent to which for Reisch the study of nature was still primarily undertaken for Christian ends. Not only was nature studied as God's creation, but the study of the soul (a central part of natural philosophy pursued on Aristotelian lines) and its fate was here completely integrated with the salvation or damnation of the individual Christian, as taught in the Bible and by the church fathers, especially Augustine. Natural philosophy for Reisch was a discipline which was as concerned with God and the Bible as it was with Nature and Aristotle.
Life is not fair. What does this reality imply about the nature of God and the destiny of human beings? In this engaging book, Thompson asserts that "fairness" is not an expectation of the faithful within the Judeo-Christian Scriptures. Biblical narrative discloses the mystery of a paradoxical deity that indwells with the suffering of creation and thereby provides a mercy that exceeds the evasive goal of fairness. The process of healing and redemption of this cracked creation occurs through the tears and suffering of the biblical God whose authentic power is revealed within divine vulnerability and weakness. The Jesus of history truly manifested the fullness of this paradoxical God, for he disclosed the richness of the divine Being by emptying himself and taking the form of a redemptive servant. When the church grasps for power and control, avoids compassionate and costly ministries among the poor and powerless, and renders primary focus upon gaining heavenly rewards, it rejects its Christ-centered mission, relinquishes its paradoxical purpose, and ceases to strive toward becoming an extension of the incarnation. Thompson explores various paradoxical facets of each person of the Trinity and richly illustrates with stories from his vast experience as a parish theologian.
