In hundreds of full-colour stamps from many lands, this book depicts a small people who continue to leave their imprint on every area of human activity, from faith and morality to sports and motion pictures. Areas covered include Jewish customs and traditions, major contributions in all areas of culture and science, sports, entertainment, and much more. The stamps are arranged artistically and are catalogued, making the book a visual joy for all readers and a sourcebook for collectors.
“A gorgeous and thrilling novel… Perfect for book clubs and fans of The Nightingale.” –PopSugar A historical novel of love and survival inspired by real resistance workers during World War II Austria, and the mysterious love letter that connects generations of Jewish families. A heart-breaking, heart-warming read for fans of The Nightingale, Lilac Girls, and Sarah's Key. Austria, 1938. Kristoff is a young apprentice to a master Jewish stamp engraver. When his teacher disappears during Kristallnacht, Kristoff is forced to engrave stamps for the Germans, and simultaneously works alongside Elena, his beloved teacher's fiery daughter, and with the Austrian resistance to send underground messages and forge papers. As he falls for Elena amidst the brutal chaos of war, Kristoff must find a way to save her, and himself. Los Angeles, 1989. Katie Nelson is going through a divorce and while cleaning out her house and life in the aftermath, she comes across the stamp collection of her father, who recently went into a nursing home. When an appraiser, Benjamin, discovers an unusual World War II-era Austrian stamp placed on an old love letter as he goes through her dad's collection, Katie and Benjamin are sent on a journey together that will uncover a story of passion and tragedy spanning decades and continents, behind the just fallen Berlin Wall. A romantic, poignant and addictive novel, The Lost Letter shows the lasting power of love.
The Story of Hebrew explores the extraordinary hold that Hebrew has had on Jews and Christians, who have invested it with a symbolic power far beyond that of any other language in history. Preserved by the Jews across two millennia, Hebrew endured long after it ceased to be a mother tongue, resulting in one of the most intense textual cultures ever known. Hebrew was a bridge to Greek and Arab science, and it unlocked the biblical sources for Jerome and the Reformation. Kabbalists and humanists sought philosophical truth in it, and Colonial Americans used it to shape their own Israelite political identity. Today, it is the first language of millions of Israelis. A major work of scholarship, The Story of Hebrew is an unforgettable account of what one language has meant and continues to mean.
Drawing on many rabbinic and post-rabbinic sources, the commandments, by tradition 613 in number, are explained in light of traditional sources in a clear and direct way for today's reader.
A history of the Jewish National Fund and the ways it encouraged Jews around the world to buy land in Palestine in the years 1924-1947. The Jewish National Fund [JNF] is the executive body established by the Zionist movement in 1902 to buy land in Palestine for the Jewish people. Very quickly, however, it became an international organization and soon had branchesin many countries throughout the world. One of the tasks of these branches was to mediate between the central office in Jerusalem and the millions of Jews who donated money to buy land. The organization, which is still active throughout the Jewish world, concerned itself with "the marketing of ideology" the dissemination of symbols, knowledge and ideas to the masses of the Jewish people, and converted them into money and real estate property. In thememories of much of World Jewry the JNF is linked with memories of their childhoods and the forming of their identities. The memory was, in fact, fashioned by the Propaganda Department of the JNF which worked through the mass communications media in the Jewish world and made its presence massively felt in the Jewish education networks in many countries. Among the most remembered items are "the Blue Box", the flagship of the organization, and the stamps distributed to schools, which were miniature posters making political declarations. Up until today there has been virtually no research carried out on these aspects of Zionist propaganda which helped to fashion this collective memoryand left its mark upon Jewish culture in Israel and the Jewish Diaspora. Yoram Bar-Gal is Professor of Geography at Haifa University in Israel.
From the acclaimed author of The Jew in the Lotus comes an "engrossing and wonderful book" (The Washington Times) about the unexpected connections between Franz Kafka and Hasidic master Rabbi Nachman of Bratslav—and the significant role played by the imagination in the Jewish spiritual experience. Rodger Kamenetz has long been fascinated by the mystical tales of the Hasidic master Rabbi Nachman of Bratslav. And for many years he has taught a course in Prague on Franz Kafka. The more he thought about their lives and writings, the more aware he became of unexpected connections between them. Kafka was a secular artist fascinated by Jewish mysticism, and Rabbi Nachman was a religious mystic who used storytelling to reach out to secular Jews. Both men died close to age forty of tuberculosis. Both invented new forms of storytelling that explore the search for meaning in an illogical, unjust world. Both gained prominence with the posthumous publication of their writing. And both left strict instructions at the end of their lives that their unpublished books be burnt. Kamenetz takes his ideas on the road, traveling to Kafka’s birthplace in Prague and participating in the pilgrimage to Uman, the burial site of Rabbi Nachman visited by thousands of Jews every Jewish new year. He discusses the hallucinatory intensity of their visions and offers a rich analysis of Nachman’s and Kafka’s major works, revealing uncanny similarities in the inner lives of these two troubled and beloved figures, whose creative and religious struggles have much to teach us about the Jewish spiritual experience.
