First Published in 1999. Emmanuel Levinas (1906-1995) is widely acknowledged to be one of the great Jewish thinkers of the 20th century. This book explores the relationship between Levinas' ethical philosophy and his understanding of Judaism. Through close readings of his major texts, the significance of key terms in Levinas' work is clarified.

A French woman's heartrending account of her survival in a WWII Nazi concentration camp—and a tribute to her father who died there.A runaway bestseller in France, But You Did Not Come Back has already been the subject of a French media storm and hailed as an important new addition to the library of books dealing with the Holocaust. It is the profoundly moving and poetic memoir by Marceline Loridan-Ivens, who at the age of fifteen was arrested in occupied F...

A history of how anti-Semitism evolved into the Holocaust in Germany: "If any book can tell what Hitlerism was like, this is it" (Alfred Kazin).Lucy Dawidowicz's groundbreaking The War Against the Jews inspired waves of both acclaim and controversy upon its release in 1975. Dawidowicz argues that genocide was, to the Nazis, as central a war goal as conquering Europe, and was made possible by a combination of political, social, and technological factors. Sh...

Sixty-two of the most accomplished Jews in America speak intimately—most for the first time—about how they feel about being Jewish. In unusually candid interviews conducted by former 60 Minutes producer Abigail Pogrebin, celebrities ranging from Sarah Jessica Parker to Supreme Court Justice Ruth Bader Ginsburg, from Larry King to Mike Nichols, reveal how resonant, crucial or incidental being Jewish is in their lives. The connections they have to their Jewish heritage range from ho...

A history of the Jewish people from bris to burial, from “muscle Jews” to nose jobs.Melvin Konner, a renowned doctor and anthropologist, takes the measure of the “Jewish body,” considering sex, circumcision, menstruation, and even those most elusive and controversial of microscopic markers–Jewish genes. But this is not only a book that examines the human body through the prism of Jewish culture. Konner looks as well at the views of Jewish physiology held by non-Jew...

Rodinsky's world was that of the East European Jewry, cabbalistic speculation, an obsession with language as code and terrible loss. He touched the imagination of artist Rachel Lichtenstein, whose grandparents had left Poland in the 1930s. This text weaves together Lichtenstein's quest for Rodinsky - which took her to Poland, to Israel and around Jewish London - with Iain Sinclair's meditations on her journey into her own past and on the Whitechapel he has reinvented in his own writing.

In June 1942, when twelve-year-old Gerta is deported with her parents to the Theresienstadt ghetto – the Nazis' deceptive "model Jewish settlement" – her family helps her cope with the surrounding devastation. Later, alone in Auschwitz, Gerta is determined to survive the unbearable. Her intrepid spirit and keen observation guides her anew through post-war communism to freedom in Canada.

The story of Raoul Wallenberg - the Swedish businessman who, at immense personal risk, rescued many of Budapest's Jews from the Holocaust and subsequently disappeared into the Soviet prison system - is one of the most fascinating episodes of World War II. Yet the complete story of his life and fate can only be told now - and for the first time in this book - following access to the Russian and Swedish archival sources, previously not used. Born into a wealthy Swedish family, Wallenberg was...

Although difficult to imagine, sixty years ago the Holocaust had practically no visibility in examinations of the Second World War. Yet today it is understood to be not only one of the defining moments of the twentieth century but also a touchstone in a quest for directions on how to avoid such catastrophes.In Lessons of the Holocaust, the distinguished historian Michael R. Marrus challenges the notion that there are definitive lessons to be deduced from the destruction of...

“Mr. Yerushalmi’s previous writings . . . established him as one of the Jewish community’s most important historians. His latest book should establish him as one of its most important critics. Zakhor is historical thinking of a very high order - mature speculation based on massive scholarship.” - New York Times Book Review

From 1949 to 2000, Moshe Dayan, Yitzhak Rabin, Ariel Sharon, and Ehud Barak conducted Israel's successful (and unsuccessful) talks with its Arab neighbors, from the armistice negotiations to Kissinger's shuttle diplomacy, to Camp David I and the Egyptian-Israeli peace treaty, and finally to the Oslo peace process. The four successful generals who became politicians are covered in four separate biographies, which discuss the early life and military career of each subject and his subsequent ...

Prior to 1492, Jews had flourished on the Iberian Peninsula for hundreds of years. Marked by alternating cooperative coexistence and selective persecution alongside Christians and Muslims, this remarkable period was a golden age for Iberian Jews, with significant and culturally diverse advances in sciences, arts and government.This work traces the history of the Sephardic Jews from their golden age to their post-Columbian diaspora. It highlights achievements in science, medicine, p...