This study presents a unique selection of folk narratives of Moroccan Jews in Israel.Jewish Moroccan Folk Narratives focuses on two central elements: textual research to examine the aesthetic qualities of the narrative, their division into genres, the various versions and their parallels, and acculturation in Israel, as well as contextual research to examine the performance art of the narrator and the role of the narrative as a communicative process in the...

English translations of over fifty stories from the Israel Folktale Archives.In The Power of a Tale: Stories from the Israel Folktale Archives, editors Haya Bar-Itzhak and Idit Pintel-Ginsberg bring together a collection of fifty-three folktales in honor of the fiftieth anniversary of the Israel Folktale Archives (IFA) at the University of Haifa. Established by the folklorist Dov Noy in the 1950s, the IFA is the only archive of its kind in Israel and serve...

In physics, the idea of extra spatial dimensions originates from Nordstöm’s 5-dimensional vector theory in 1914, followed by Kaluza-Klein theory in 1921, in an effort to unify general relativity and electromagnetism in a 5 dimensional space-time (4 dimensions for space and 1 for time). Kaluza–Klein theory didn’t generate enough interest with physicist for the next five decades, due to its problems with inconsistencies. With the advent of supergravity theory (the theory that unifies general...

Rabbi Small takes a break from murder to discuss religious mysteries in this thought-provoking novel from the New York Times –bestselling author.Edgar Award–Winning AuthorIn Conversations with Rabbi Small, the rabbi finds himself taking a well-deserved vacation at a Jewish retreat in the mountains, where he reads, plays cards, and furthers his studies, which have been languishing for too ...

"There is humor and heartbreak in these pages. . . . [Kurshan] immerses herself in the demands of daily Talmud study and allows the words of ancient scholars to transform the patterns of her own life." — The Wall Street JournalAt the age of twenty-seven, alone in Jerusalem in the wake of a painful divorce, Ilana Kurshan joined the world's largest book club, learning daf yomi, Hebrew for "daily page" of the Talmud, a book of rabbinic teachings spanning about...

Learning to read a language with a foreign alphabet can be an intimidating challenge. Even before you can start to study the vocabulary and grammar, you must first decipher this strange new script.But learning a new alphabet does not have to be so difficult.Other language courses start by showing a table of the alphabet and then immediately proceed to dialogues and grammatical descriptions. This is not the ideal way to teach a foreign alphabet, and...

Is Islam a religion of peace or of violence?Islam is a religion we can no longer afford to ignore. It is one of the fastest-growing religions in the world. Newspapers and television news regularly bring stories from the Middle East, but more importantly, the Muslim world has come to us. Between 5 and 7 million Muslims currently live in America, and that number is growing.Recognizing the importance of understanding Islam, R. C. Sproul and Abdul Saleeb had a series of convers...

Buried Hope or Risen Savior? argues for the credibility of Jesus Christ’s resurrection, engaging the issue in relation to the recent “Jesus Family Tomb” claims that continue making headlines around the world.Among the contributors, Steve Ortiz (professor of Biblical Archaeology at Southwestern Baptist Theological Seminary) discusses the general background of this type of tomb and the archaeology of the Talpiot tomb site. Craig Evans (New T...

**“I could not put it down.”—A. J. Jacobs, author of The Year of Living BiblicallyA witty and wide-ranging exploration of a book that has perplexed and delighted people for centuries: the Talmud.**For numerous centuries, the Talmud—an extraordinary work of Jewish ethics, law, and tradition—has compelled readers to grapple with how to live a good life. Full of folk legends, bawdy tales, and rabbinical repartee, it is inspiring, demanding, confounding, and thousands ...

From one of the leading theologians of the twentieth century, an exploration of the historical and spiritual dimensions of Jewish identity.Israel: An Echo of Eternity is Dr. Heschel's book about the past, present, and future home of the Jews. According to Dr. Heschel the presence of Israel has tremendous historical and religious significance for the whole world: "History is not always made by men alone . . . Israel is a personal challenge, a personal relig...

Part of the Jewish Encounter seriesHere is the stirring story of how Hebrew was rescued from the fate of a dead language to become the living tongue of a modern nation. Ilan Stavans’s quest begins with a dream featuring a beautiful woman speaking an unknown language. When the language turns out to be Hebrew, a friend diagnoses “language withdrawal,” and Stavans sets out in search of his own forgotten Hebrew as well as the man who helped revive the language at the e...

The New York Times–bestselling author of Sweet and Low presents the "oft-told saga of the Jews in a fresh and engaging fashion" ( New York Times).In AD 70, when the Second Temple was destroyed, a handful of visionaries saved Judaism by reinventing it, taking what had been a national religion and turning it into an idea. Whenever a Jew studied—wherever he was—he would be in the holy city, and his faith preserved. But in our own time, Zionis...