Here is a kaleidoscopic analysis of Jewish humor as seen through Funnyman, a little-known super-heroic invention by the creators of Superman. Included are complete comic-book stories and daily and Sunday newspaper panels from Jerry Siegel and Joe Shuster’s creative fiasco.Siegel and Shuster, two Jewish teenagers from Cleveland, sold the rights to their amazing and astonishingly lucrative comic book superhero to Detective Comics for $130 in 1938. Not only did they ...

Celebrate one of the world’s greatest collections of pure literatureIn Hebrew, the word Torah means instruction, and throughout thousands of years this collection of writing has offered just that—instruction in the central beliefs of three world religions: Judaism, Christianity, and Islam. But by observing the Torah, or the Hebrew Bible, as a collected work of multiple authors spanning generations, the modern reader can look beyond its fundamental instruct...

'Magisterial and eloquent' SUNDAY TELEGRAPHIn this critically acclaimed book, Paul Johnson delves deep into the 4,000-year history of the Jews: a race of awe-inspiring endurance, steadfast homogeneity and loyalty and, above all, the belief that history has a purpose and humanity a destiny.With exacting precision and enthusiasm, Paul Johnson has mapped the lives of these people from their early ancestors in the House of David, through great periods of creati...

The myriad events and interactions that make up our everyday life provide a rich opportunity for us to examine our impulses and actions and grow spiritually, according to the Jewish practice of Mussar. Mussar is an eminently wise, practical, and effective way to cultivate awareness, gratitude, personal growth, and ethical action on a daily basis. The path has its origins in Orthodox Judaism but it has become popular with Jews of all affiliations who are interested in a practice that can in...

"[An] original point of view. . . . A way of finding new meaning in . . . talking about God. It succeeds brilliantly on all counts." ― Jewish Book CouncilThe love of God is the most essential element in Judaism—but also the most confounding. In biblical and rabbinic literature, the obligation to love God appears as a formal commandment. Yet most people today think of love as a feeling. How can an emotion be commanded? How could one ever fu...

In this unusual and provocative book, Victor Erlich uncovers the origins of the national idea in the Hebrew Bible. Through a series of sensitive and original readings of well-known biblical episodes, Erlich argues that ancient Zionism was not an ideological construct but rather a unique marriage of literary imagination and ethnic pride.

During World War I, the head of a British spy ring in a Jewish colony in Ottoman-ruled Palestine, the beautiful Sarah Aaronsohn, killed herself when the ring was broken by Turks, leaving behind a letter in which she asked to be avenged. Was she? A Strange Death is the answer to this. But it is many other things, too. A tantalizing murder mystery. A lyrical evocation of Israeli town in the 1970s and of its old farming population, the descendants of the colonists who founded it in 1882....

With diverse and robust voices, women are reclaiming their place at the seder table. This complete sourcebook and guide shows you how to do it, too. For the first time, contemporary Jewish women's writings on the Passover seder are gathered in one comprehensive and compelling sourcebook—an unprecedented and powerful resource for those planning a women’s seder and those seeking to infuse their Passover celebration with the creative and courageous voices of Jewish women. Arranged according t...

Traversing river valleys, steppes, deserts, rain-fed forests, farmlands, and seacoasts, the early Israelites experienced all the contrasting ecological domains of the ancient Near East. As they grew from a nomadic clan to become a nation-state in Canaan, they interacted with indigenous societies of the region, absorbed selective elements of their cultures, and integrated them into a radically new culture of their own. Daniel Hillel reveals the interplay between the culture of the Israelite...

Kelaiah, a nazir, was meditating on God, and His Word at the beginning of 5770, when the Revelations of the three books of Kelaiah appeared. Over the course of the next three consecutive days, the books Tzadik Nistar, Lamp of the Lord, and Voice of Heavens were written in that order, one per day. Be as a child with a Voice of Heavens. Learn the meaning of this as you Walk with God.

Winner of the 2016 National Jewish Book Award in the category of Education and Jewish IdentityThe Jewish world is changing before our eyes. The traditional notions of what it means to be a Jew, what Jewish organizations look like and what Jewish leadership means are no longer working, leaving many Jewish organizations in a struggle for survival. Many Jewish leaders are afraid that this will only get worse as the millennials—the “my way, right away, why pay” generation—begin to ente...

Did Paul ever meet Jesus and hear him teach? A century ago, a curious assortment of scholars - William Ramsay, Johannes Weiss, and James Hope Moulton - thought that he had. Since then, their idea has virtually disappeared from New Testament scholarship, to be revived in this monograph. When Paul Met Jesus is an exercise in both biblical exegesis and intellectual history. After examining the positive arguments raised, it considers the negative influence of Ferdinand Christian Baur, William ...