Touted as the "Jerusalem of the Balkans," the Mediterranean port city of Salonica (Thessaloniki) was once home to the largest Sephardic Jewish community in the world. The collapse of the Ottoman Empire and the city's incorporation into Greece in 1912 provoked a major upheaval that compelled Salonica's Jews to reimagine their community and status as citizens of a nation-state. Jewish Salonica is the first book to tell the story of this tumultuous transition through the voices and p...

Olga Lengyel tells, frankly and without compromise, one of the most horrifying stories of all time. This true, documented chronicle is the intimate, day-to-day record of a beautiful woman who survived the nightmare of Auschwitz and Birchenau. This book is a necessary reminder of one of the ugliest chapters in the history of human civilization. It was a shocking experience. It is a shocking book.

The Greek War of Independence was fought against the occupying Ottoman Turks from 1821-1832. Started in part by the Filiki Eteria movement in Greece, uprising 1821 soon lead to a full scale war. By 1828, France, Russia, and the United Kingdom pledged their support to Greece and helped defeat the Turks. In 1832, Greece was recognized as an independent country. Greek Independence day is celebrated on March 25th. Lords piece on the Greek Revolution provides a brief history of the events of th...

The "fascinating . . . lively" story of the Russian slave girl Roxelana, who rose from concubine to become the only queen of the Ottoman empire (New York Times).In Empress of the East, historian Leslie Peirce tells the remarkable story of a Christian slave girl, Roxelana, who was abducted by slave traders from her Ruthenian homeland and brought to the harem of Sultan Suleyman the Magnificent in Istanbul. Suleyman became besotted with her and fores...

In 1144, the mutilated body of William of Norwich, a young apprentice leatherworker, was found abandoned outside the city's walls. The boy bore disturbing signs of torture, and a story spread that it was a ritual murder, performed by Jews in imitation of the Crucifixion as a mockery of Christianity. The outline of William's tale eventually gained currency far beyond Norwich, and the idea that Jews engaged in ritual murder became firmly rooted in the European imagination. E.M. Rose's engagi...

"Fascinating footnote to Holocaust history . . . a Jewish hospital in the heart of Berlin that treated patients to the very end of Hitler's reign" ( Kirkus Reviews, starred review)"One of the most incredible stories of World War II." — Dallas Morning NewsHow did Berlin's Jewish Hospital, in the middle of the Nazi capital, survive as an institution where Jewish doctors and nurses cared for Jewish patients throughout World War...

Herod the Great, king of ancient Judea, was a brutal, ruthless, vindictive and dangerously high-strung tyrant. He had many of his subjects killed on suspicion of plotting against him and was accused of slaughtering children in Bethlehem when informed that a new king of the Jews had been born there. Among the victims of the murderous paranoia that ultimately drove him to the brink of insanity were his three oldest sons and the wife he loved most. But there was a crucial aspect to Herod’s ch...

With its varied and glorious history, Istanbul remains one of the world’s perennially fascinating cities. Richard Tillinghast, who first visited Istanbul in the early 1960s and has watched it transform over the decades into a vibrant metropolis, explores its rich art and architecture, culture, cuisine, and much more in this book.Istanbul was known in Byzantine times as the “Queen of Cities” and to the Ottoman Turks as the “Abode of Felicity.” Steeped in Istanbul’s history, Tillingh...

'An unusual and compelling insight into Jewish history... sheer detail and breadth of scale' BBC History MagazineThis newly revised and updated edition of Martin Gilbert’s Atlas of Jewish History spans over four thousand years of history in 154 maps, presenting a vivid picture of a fascinating people and the trials and tribulations which have haunted their story.The themes covered include:Prejudice and Violence- from the destruction of Jewish independence ...

Rhodes and the Holocaust is the story of La Juderia, the Jewish community that once lived and flourished on Rhodes Island, the largest of the twelve Dodecanese islands in the Mediterranean Sea near the coast of Turkey. While the focus of the accounts of the Holocaust has for the most part been on the Jewish populations of Eastern and Middle Europe, little seems to be known of the events that affected those communities in Greece and the surrounding Aegean Islands during that time.

"Wyman's book is the only one that comprehensively, and sensitively, depicts the plight of the postwar refugees in Western Europe."—M. Mark Stolarik, University of Ottawa"This is a fascinating and very moving book."—International Migration Review"Wyman has written a highly readable account of the movement of diverse ethnic and cultural groups of Europe's displaced persons, 1945-1951. An analysis of the social, economic, and political circumstances within which relocation, r...

"This innovative, soundly researched work . . . has filled a long-standing need for the story of Greek Jewry to be told fully." — Jewish Book WorldK. E. Fleming's Greece—a Jewish History is the first comprehensive English-language history of Greek Jews, and the only history that includes material on their diaspora in Israel and the United States. The book tells the story of a people who for the most part no longer exist and whose identity is a para...