Kabbalah - Sepher YetzirahW.W. Westcot tr."This is a scholarly study of the origin and evolution of the Kabbalah. Originally published in French in 1843, with a second French edition in 1889, this book traces the origins of the philosophical concepts of the Kabbalah to the ancient Zoroastrians. Franck goes into fascinating detail about the doctrine of the Kabbalah, as expressed in the Sepher Yetzirah and the Zohar. He uses internal evidence to trace the origins of these text...

A historical tour de force, The Invention of the Jewish People offers a groundbreaking account of Jewish and Israeli history. Exploding the myth that there was a forced Jewish exile in the first century at the hands of the Romans, Israeli historian Shlomo Sand argues that most modern Jews descend from converts, whose native lands were scattered across the Middle East and Eastern Europe.In this iconoclastic work, which spent nineteen weeks on the Israeli bestseller list and...

Although major New Testament figures--Jesus and Paul, Peter and James, Jesus' mother Mary and Mary Magdalene--were Jews, living in a culture steeped in Jewish history, beliefs, and practices, there has never been an edition of the New Testament that addresses its Jewish background and the culture from which it grew--until now. In The Jewish Annotated New Testament, eminent experts under the general editorship of Amy-Jill Levine and Marc Z. Brettler put these writings back into the...

Abelsons Jewish Mysticism is wonderful introduction to the Kabbalah and Jewish mysticism. Abelson also discusses how other religions such as Christianity and Gnosticism have affected Jewish mysticism. This edition is illustrated and contains a table of contents for easier navigation.

The "remarkable" story of the grass-roots movement that freed millions of Jews from the Soviet Union ( The Plain Dealer).At the end of World War II, nearly three million Jews were trapped inside the USSR. They lived a paradox—unwanted by a repressive Stalinist state, yet forbidden to leave. When They Come for Us, We'll Be Gone is the astonishing and inspiring story of their rescue.Journalist Gal Beckerman draws on newly released Soviet gov...

Christians and Jews When Mohammed died, the Christians and Jews of Arabia had been totally subjugated. The history of his relations with the Jews and Christians determined how they have been treated over the past 1400 years. Every action and word that comes from Islam today starts with the Mohammed's perfect example. In the very beginning in Mecca, Mohammed said that his prophecies came via the angel, Gabriel, who was the one who spoke to Moses. In Mecca he presented himself as a prophet i...

The Night lasted five years and eight days.Before the Night began, Ernst Bornstein was a precocious eighteen-year-old¬ who had an ordinary family with three siblings, two parents, and a large circle of friends and relatives. But in the autumn of 1939, decades of anti-Semitic propaganda turned into full-fledged violence. Bornstein’s family was subsequently sent to Auschwitz where his parents and siblings were gassed to death.The Long Night is Bornstein’s firsthand account of...

The compassion of Reb Moshe-Leib, the vision of the Seer of Lublin, the wisdom of Reb Pinhas, the warmth of the Ba’al Shem Tov, the humor of Reb Naphtali–to their followers these sages appeared as kings, judges, and prophets. They communicated joy and wonder and fervor to the men and women who came to them in the depths of despair. They brought love and compassion to the persecuted Jews of Russia, Ukraine, Poland, and Lithuania. For Jews who felt abandoned and forsaken by God, these Hasidi...

At the beginning of the eighteenth century most European Jews lived in restricted settlements and urban ghettos, isolated from the surrounding dominant Christian cultures not only by law but also by language, custom, and dress. By the end of the century urban, upwardly mobile Jews had shaved their beards and abandoned Yiddish in favor of the languages of the countries in which they lived. They began to participate in secular culture and they embraced rationalism and non-Jewish education as...

"In fluent prose . . . makes a gripping and persuasive case that it was the Levites who escaped Egypt and carried the story of the Exodus into Canaan." — The New York Times Book ReviewThe Exodus has become a core tradition of Western civilization. Millions read it, retell it, and celebrate it. But did it happen? Unable to find physical evidence until now, many archaeologists and scholars claim this mass migration is just a story, not history....

An insightful collection of essays on the Kabbalah and Jewish spirituality—from the preeminent scholar of Jewish mysticism.Gershom Scholem was the master builder of historical studies of the Kabbalah. When he began to work on this neglected field, the few who studied these texts were either amateurs who were looking for occult wisdom, or old-style Kabbalists who were seeking guidance on their spiritual journeys. His work broke with the outlook of the scholars of th...

The “classic of Holocaust literature” about childhood and family, faith and identity—from a Pulitzer Prize–winning historian and featuring an introduction by Claire Messud (The Guardian).Four months before Hitler came to power, Saul Friedländer was born in Prague to a middle-class Jewish family. In 1939, 7-year-old Saul and his family were forced to flee to France, where they lived through the German Occupation, until his parents’ ill-fated attempt to flee...