Book Catalog – Judaism

Against Apion (lat. Contra Apionem or In Apionem) is a polemical work written by Flavius Josephus as a defense of Judaism as a classical religion and philosophy against criticism by Apion, stressing its antiquity against what he perceived as more recent traditions of the Greeks. One of his main sources was Menander of Ephesus. Against Apion cites Josephus’ earlier work Antiquities of the Jews, so can be dated after C.E. 94. It was most likely written in the early second century. Against Apion 1:8 also defines which books he viewed as being in the Jewish Scriptures: “For we have not an innumerable multitude of books among us, disagreeing from and contradicting one another, [as the Greeks have,] but only twenty-two books, (8) which contain the records of all the past times; which are justly believed to be divine; and of the five belong to Moses, which contains his laws and the traditions of the origin of mankind till his death. This interval of time was little short of three thousand years; but as to the time from the death of Moses till the reign of Artaxerxes, king of Persia, who reigned after Xerxes, the prophets, who were after Moses, wrote what it did in their times in thirteen books. The remaining four books contain hymns to God, and precepts for the conduct of human life. It is true, our history hath been written since Artaxerxes particularly, but hath not been esteemed of the like authority with the former by our forefathers, because there hath not been an exact succession of prophets since that time; and how firmly we have given credit to these books of our own nation is clear by what we do; for during so many ages as having already passed, no one has been so bold as either to add anything to them, to take anything from them, or to change them; but it has become natural to all Jews immediately, and from their very birth to esteem these books to contain Divine doctrines, and to persist in them, and, if occasion be willing to die for them.”

Titus Flavius Josephus, originally named Yosef Ben Matityahu, was born in 37 AD in Jerusalem and died in 100 AD in Rome. He was a Hebrew historian, priest and academic scholar who composed several books on the Hebrew revolt of 66–70 and on prior Hebrew history against Matityahu went to battle against the Romans during the First Hebrew–Roman War as commander of Hebrew troops in Galilee, before conceding in 67 CE to Roman troops commanded by Vespasian after the 6-week blockade of Jotapata. He believed the Hebrew Messianic prophecies that initiated the First Hebrew–Roman War were alluding to Vespasian becoming Emperor of Rome. After his surrender, Vespian kept as a slave and interpreter. When Vespasian became Emperor in 69 CE, he gave Josephus his freedom, and Josephus took the emperor’s family name of Flavius.

John Lord was not only brilliant, but he was a deeply committed Christian. Because of this, his books were read and republished for over half a century. He stands out because he writes as if Christianity is true. Since the Bible identifies God’s plans for humanity, civilization and history, Lord attempts to help his readers to discern human nature, to see the civilizing goods that follow living by God’s commands, and to see God’s providential acts in history.

This is a lively, enjoyable introduction to a vast range of Jewish literature from the destruction of the Second Temple to the time of Moses Mendelssohn. Abrahams has a charming tone, although he uses English translations of the texts in question and shares some hostility to Kabbalah prevalent. 

These twenty-five brief chapters on Jewish Literature open with the fall of Jerusalem in the year 70 of the current era, and end with the death of Moses Mendelssohn in 1786. Thus the period covered extends over seventeen centuries. Yet, long as this period is, it is too brief. To do justice to the literature of Judaism even in outline, it is necessary to include the Bible, the Apocrypha, and the writings of Alexandrian Jews, such as Philo. Only by such an inclusion can we can trace the genius of the Hebrew people from its early manifestations through its inspired prime to its brilliant afterglow in the centuries with which this little volume deals.

In its original appearance in 1892, Israel Zangwill’s Children of the Ghetto made an impression in both England and America, turning into the original Anglo-Jewish bestseller and establishing Zangwill as the literary voice of Anglo-Jewry. A story set in late nineteenth-century London, Children of the Ghetto gave an inside look into an immigrant community was roughly as mysterious to the more established middle-class Jews of Britain as to the non-Jewish population, providing a compelling analysis of a generation caught between the ghetto and modern British life.

This volume brings back to print the 1895 edition of Children of the Ghetto, the latest American version known to have been corrected by the author. Meri-Jane Rochelson places the novel in proper context by providing a biographical, historical, and critical introduction; a bibliography of primary and secondary sources; and notes on the text, making this ground-breaking novel accessible to a new generation of readers, both Jewish and non-Jewish alike.

The notion that the Hebrews are the “chosen people” and have a unique relation with Yahweh (Hebrew God) is pervasive in Hebrew writings. But, the essence of this relationship is not without complexity and doubt.

They embed the concept of Hebrews being chosen in many bible verses. For example, Deuteronomy 7:6 reads, “For you are a people consecrated to Yahweh your Elohim (God): of all the peoples on earth Yahweh your Elohim chose you to be his treasured people.” The 2 succeeding verses tell us why he made this choice. It says that Yahweh choose the Israelites because he loved them and had promised their ancestors, including Abraham, Jacob and Issac, that he would make an everlasting covenant with them.

Mary Antin was born in Polotsk, Russia in 1881. Like many Jews in Russia, her family suffered under the pogroms of the late 19th century and tried to emigrate to America. Leaving Russia was forbidden, and many Jews had to be smuggled across the border to Germany before traveling by train to the port of Hamburg, where they were brought to emigration halls and put on ships to America.

When Antin was thirteen when her family completed this migration and settled in the slums of Boston. Despite many hardships, she attended the prestigious Boston Latin School and wrote her first biography, which was published in 1894 under the title ‘From Plotzk to Boston’. Told this story reveals Antin’s acute powers of observation. In 1912 she wrote her famous and more scholarly autobiography’ The Promised Land’ and became a supporter of Theodore Roosevelt and the Progressive Party.

A brief account of a young girl and her family’s journey from Russia to America. The father has preceded them and after 3 years; they can join him. The children and their mother encounter multiple obstacles along the way, in passing into Germany. Since cholera was raging passengers were subjected to special steamings and cleanings of themselves and their belongings. Prices for passage were often increased. The voyage across the Atlantic was difficult, with seasickness prevalent among the passengers. It is hard to imagine these hard journeys when travel today is so much simpler.

In this book, Maurice Henry Harris translates 3 of Judaism’s most revered religious texts into English. Collectively they serve as an outstanding initiation into Judaism and the Hebraic culture. Harris performs an exhaustive examination of the archaic Hebrew transcripts and presents them in a style easily grasped by English speakers.

First, Harris renders the compilation of archaic Babylonian texts known as the Talmud, which expands on the Biblical canon. Next, he translates the Rabbinic writings and commentaries identified as the Midrash, many of which undertake to explain complex Bible verses. Last, Harris interprets the mystical Hebraic works known as the Kabbalah.

Hebrew literature includes archaic, medieval, and contemporary works written in the Hebrew language. They wrote Hebrew literature in many parts of the world during the ancient and medieval eras, whereas recent Hebrew literature is predominantly Israeli.

Hebrew Life and Times is a classic Jewish studies text by Harold B. Hunting. The Bible’s chief heroes were not kings nor nobles. Its supreme Hero was a peasant workingman. But we have not always studied the Bible from this point of view. In this course we shall try to reconstruct for ourselves the story of the Hebrew people as an account of Hebrew shepherds, farmers, and such like: what oppressions they endured; how they were delivered; and above all what ideals of righteousness and truth and mercy they cherished, and how they came to think and feel about God.

This is the first and still the best history of Russian and polish jews. Written in Russian before WWI it appeared in English in three volumes in 1916, 1918, and 1920. The Book of S. W. Baron written some 50 years after having additional information, but still, the book of Dubnow gives a lot of original research for the first time. Anyway, it is different in approach from the underlying philosophy of Dubnow’s Jewish history.

They proposed it to give the history of Russian Jewry after 1825—the year with which the first volume concludes—in a single volume. This, however, would have resulted in producing a volume of unwieldy dimensions, out of proportion to the one preceding it. It has, therefore, become imperative to divide Dubnow’s work into three, instead of into two volumes. The second volume, which is offered to the public, treats of the history of Russian Jewry from the death of Alexander I. (1825) until the death of Alexander III. (1894). The third and concluding volume will deal with the reign of Nicholas II., the last of the Romanovs, and will also contain the bibliographical apparatus, the maps, the index, and other supplementary material. This division will recommend itself to the reader. The next volume is in type and will follow as soon as circumstances permit.

The author of the present essay, S. M. Dubnow, holds a strong-nigh dominating put in Russian-Jewish history as a historian and a serious judge. His investigations into the history of the Polish-Russian Jews, his accomplishments in the history of Chassidim, have been of central importance in these departments. What raises Mr. Dubnow long above the status of the professional historian, and awakens the reader’s lively interest in him, is not so much the matter of his books, as the manner of presentation. It is rare to meet with a historian in whom scientific objectivity and thoroughness are so combined with an ardent temperament and plastic ability. Mr. Dubnow’s scientific activity, first and last, is a striking refutation of the widespread opinion that identifies attractiveness of form in the work of a scholar with superficiality of content. Even his scientific investigations, besides offering the scholar a wealth of new suggestions, form instructive and entertaining reading matter for the educated layman. 

This is a facsimile reproduction of a book. It was published in English by the Jewish Publication Society in 1911 (the original appeared in German in 1892). Many of the essays are fine works of scholarship and interpretation, and all are readable. Finding that this reprint was available was a pleasant surprise, and re-reading “A Jewish King in Poland” (my favorite), “Moses Maimonides”, “Heinrich Heine and Judaism,” “The Music of the Synagogue” and the rest has been a truly rewarding blast from the past. You don’t have to be Jewish to love Nathan’s hot dogs or this book, and it is a fine reminder of the very strong cultural life of European Jewry before the war.

The following essays were delivered during the last ten years, in the form of addresses, before the largest associations in the great cities of Germany. Each one is a dear and precious possession to me. As I once more pass them in review, reminiscences fill my mind of solemn occasions and impressive scenes, of excellent men and charming women. I feel as though I were sending the best-beloved children of my fancy out into the world, and sadness seizes me when I realize that they no longer belong to me alone—that they have become the property of strangers. The living word falling upon the ear of the listener is one thing; quite another the word staring from the cold, printed page. Will my thoughts be accorded the same friendly welcome that greeted they uttered them when first they?

Josephus hardly merits a place on his own account in a series of Jewish Worthies, since neither as a man of action nor as a man of letters did he deserve particularly well of his nation. It is not his personal worthiness, but the worth of his work, that recommends him to the attention of the Jewish people. He was not a loyal general, and he was not a faithful chronicler of the struggle with Rome; but he had the merit of writing several books on the Jews and Judaism, which not only met the desire for knowledge of his nation in his own day, but which have been preserved through the ages and remain one of the chief authorities for Jewish history. He lived at the great crisis of his people, when it stood at the parting of the ways. And while in his life those who had destroyed the national center patronized him, after his death he found favor with that larger religious community which was carrying part of the Jewish mission to the Gentiles. For centuries Josephus was regarded by the Christians as the standard historian of the Jews, and, though for long he was forgotten and neglected by his own people, in modern times he has been carefully studied also by them, and his merits and demerits both as patriot and as writer have been critically examined.

In Judaism, by Israel Abrahams, the writer has attempted in this Jewish history text to take up a few of the most characteristic points in Jewish doctrine and Jewish practice and to explain some of the various phases through which they have passed, since the first centuries of the Christian era.

The Hebrew religion, also called Judaism, is the oldest monotheistic religion in the world at roughly 4,000 years old. Adherents of Judaism believe in one God (Yahweh) who revealed himself through the prophets of old. The history of the Hebrew religion (Judaism) is vital to our comprehension of the Jewish beliefs, which have a strong custom of law, culture, and heritage. There are currently about 14 million Jews worldwide. Most of them live in the United States and Israel.

The book can open your eyes to an amazing series of concepts and ideas and see how it affected Christianity. Philo is a prototype Paul to my observation after checking the work over.

It is a melancholy reflection upon the history of the Jews that they have failed to pay due honor to their two greatest philosophers. His contemporaries rejected Spinoza from the congregation of Israel; the generations that followed he neglected Philo-Judæus. Maimonides, our third philosopher, was in danger of meeting the same fate, and his philosophical work was for long viewed with suspicion by a large part of the community. Philosophers, by the very excellence of their thought, have in all races towered above the comprehension of the people, and aroused the suspicion of the religious teachers. Elsewhere, however, though rejected by the Church, they have left their influence upon the nation, and taken a commanding place in its history, because they have founded secular schools of thought, which perpetuated their work. In Judaism, where religion and nationality are combined, that could not be. The history of Judaism since the extinction of political independence is the history of a national religious culture; what was national in its thought alone found favor; and unless a philosopher’s work bore this national religious stamp, it dropped out of Jewish history.

This book is full of fascinating brief stories with Jewish themes told in Jewish homes. The Jacobs family lives in London and they tease one son about wearing his tsitsith, (a holy garment worn by Jewish men and boys to remind them of their commitment to God), by his English friends. His father reminds his son the tsitsith is a holy garment and of the reason Jews wear it. He also tells his son that all cultures and religions have holy objects and symbols they wear and venerate, and we do not tease them for doing so. Thus he reads a letter from his cousin who has moved from London to Jerusalem. In the letter, the cousin tells of seeing Jewish boys wearing their tsitsiths on the outside of their garments and relates the youths in Jerusalem are delighted to display their commitment to God. The family decides the Father will read one letter from the cousin every Sabbath day. Soon neighbors join them in this activity.

This book is a classic read that should be reviewed at least once a year for the serious Torah scholar. Explains foundations of Yeshu as teachings, which in and of Himself is Torah. written over the Millenia one learns how to be a just man or wicked. Based on mankind’s freewill, it was/is as pertinent today as when God gave Israel His laws. Trudging individuals would repent and follow God’Torah we would enjoy peace and love in this world and the world to come. Very relevant for all mankind at. This sorrowful time in history.

The ancient Rabbis explain and expand upon Torah teachings. Rabbi Garfinkle’s introduction and notes are very helpful in helping us, at this far remove, to understand the writers and their words in context. The “Pirke Avot” is an important primary source document for Jewish faith and practice. The wisdom presented applies for those who are of a wide range of religious belief and piety, from the traditionally oriented Jew or Christian to the materialistic/secular — the requirements for a well-lived life in an ordered society are universal, as showed by a careful reading of history.

This book is a classic read that should be reviewed at least once a year for the serious Torah scholar. Explains foundations of Yeshu as teachings, which in and of Himself is Torah. written over the Millenia one learns how to be a just man or wicked. Based on mankind’s freewill, it was/is as pertinent today as when God gave Israel His laws. Trudging individuals would repent and follow God’Torah we would enjoy peace and love in this world and the world to come. Very relevant for all mankind at. This sorrowful time in history.

The ancient Rabbis explain and expand upon Torah teachings. Rabbi Garfinkle’s introduction and notes are very helpful in helping us, at this far remove, to understand the writers and their words in context. The “Pirke Avot” is an important primary source document for Jewish faith and practice. The wisdom presented applies for those who are of a wide range of religious belief and piety, from the traditionally oriented Jew or Christian to the materialistic/secular — the requirements for a well-lived life in an ordered society are universal, as showed by a careful reading of history.

The book consists of an author’s Introduction and three major sections. Its argument is that the ancient Israelites did not practice a religion recognizable as Judaism: the earliest religion of the Israelites, as depicted in the Yahwist and Elohist sources, was polytheistic and family-based. The middle layer, the Deuteronomist, shows a clear impulse to the centralisation of worship under the control of a dominant priesthood with royal support. Only in the final, post-Exilic, layer, the Priestly source, when the royal authority has vanished and the priesthood has assumed sole authority over the community, is there evidence of the religion that the world knows as Judaism.

The Jewish Publication Society published his first book, entitled Rabbi and Priest, in 1891. The book is a tale about 2 Russian Jewish brothers who get separated during a massacre. One brother ultimately winds up at his uncle’s home in Kiev, where he is educated in a yeshiva and becomes a rabbi, and the other is rescued by a Russian Countess, attends a monastery and becomes a priest.

The novel examines the ways of life of impoverished Jews residing in Russia in the 19th century and their opinions, beliefs and customs along with the views and lifestyles of the Christian communities. It discusses Russian history and treatment of Jews there from 1850 to 1880, and details the genocides and the points of view of the rulers and the Russian communities. Goldsmith also presents insights into his personal beliefs and opinions, explained through the character Phillip Harris, a Russian Jew who migrates to the United States and then returns home in Kiev.

This volume, however, is not a product of circumstances; it was not written on the occasion of the centenary celebration. It was designed to form one series of the biographies of Jewish Worthies planned by the JEWISH PUBLICATION SOCIETY OF AMERICA; it devoted the first issue of which to Maimonides. The biography of Rashi is the second of the series. It is not for the author to endorse the order adopted, but he hazards the opinion that the readers will find the portrait of Rashi no unfitting companion-piece even to that of the author of the Moreh.

Jewish history may include minds more brilliant and works more original than Rashi’s. But it is incontestable that he is one of those historical personages who afford a double interest; his own personality is striking, and he is the representative of civilization and of a period. He has this double interest for us to an eminent degree. His physiognomy has well-marked, individual features, and yet he is the best exponent of French Judaism in the middle ages. He is somebody, and he represents something. Through this double claim, he forms an integral part of Jewish history and literature. There are eminent men who despite their distinguished attributes stand apart from the general intellectual movements. They can be estimated without reference to historical background. Rashi forms, so to say, an organic part of Jewish history. An entire department of Jewish literature would be enigmatical without him. Like a star which leaves a track of light in its passage across the skies, Rashi aroused the enthusiasm of his contemporaries, but no less was he admired and venerated by posterity, and to-day, after the lapse of eight centuries, he is, as the poet says, “still young in glory and immortality.”

From the Foreword: “The company of inspired men, commonly known as the prophets of Israel, were the unique product of the Jewish religious genius. They were pre-eminently preachers of righteousness. Fearless and undaunted, they told the house of Israel their sins and the house of Jacob their transgressions. They contemplated the facts of life from the highest point of view. For them religion and morality were blended, ethics and politics were one. Theirs was peculiarly a social message; the demand for justice underlies all their thinking and speaking. They had a veritable passion for righteousness; through all the ages their words have been torches lighting the way of men struggling upward towards the truth.”

Antiquities of the Jews is a 20-volume historical composition, penned in Greek, by the Jewish writer Flavius Josephus in AD 94 during the 13th year of the reign of Roman emperor Flavius Domitian. In the foreword of Antiquities of the Jews, Josephus tells why he wanted to do this work. He writes:

“Now I have undertaken the present work, as thinking it will appear to all the Greeks worthy of their study; for it will contain all our antiquities, and the constitution of our government, as interpreted out of the Hebrew Scriptures.”

The book consists of a record of history of the Jewish society for Josephus’ gentile cohorts. In its first 10 volumes, Josephus describes the stories of the Hebrew Bible commencing with the creation of Adam and Eve. The next 10 volumes outline Jewish history beyond the scriptural text and up to the Hebrew War, or the First Hebrew–Roman War, 66 to 73 CE. This publication, along with Josephus’s other notable work, The Jewish War (De Bello Iudaico), contributes valuable cultural knowledge for historians trying to learn 1st-century AD Judaism and the early Christian era.

The chapters of this volume were almost all spoken addresses. The author has not now changed their character as such, for it seemed to him that to convert them into formal essays would be to rob them of any little attraction they may possess.

One of the addresses—that on “Medieval Wayfaring”—was originally spoken in Hebrew, in Jerusalem. It was published, in part, in English in the London Jewish Chronicle, and the author is indebted to the conductors of that periodical for permission to include this, and other material, in the present collection.

Some others of the chapters have been printed before, but a considerable proportion of the volume is quite new, and even those addresses that are reprinted are now given in a fuller and much revised text.

As several of the papers were intended for popular audiences, the author is persuaded that it would ill accord with his original design to overload the book with notes and references. These have been supplied only where absolutely necessary, and a few additional notes are appended at the end of the volume.

The author realizes that the book can have little permanent value. But as these addresses seemed to give pleasure to those who heard them, he thought it possible that they might provide passing entertainment also to those who are good enough to read them.

ISRAEL ABRAHAMS

The Haskalah Movement in Russia by Jacob S. Raisin (Jacob Talmon Raisin). This book will tell you about an intellectual movement among the Jews of Central and Eastern Europe, with a certain influence on those at the West and Muslim lands. It arose as a defined ideological worldview during the 1770s, and its last stage ended around 1881, with the rise of Jewish nationalism.

The Haskalah Movement in Russia, written in 1914, remains a seminal work on the culture and plight of Russian Jews prior to the Revolution. That the rational thinkers covered within these pages were instrumental in the establishment of Hebrew and Yiddish literature and publishing, and an influence on the creation of both Reform Judaism and Zionism makes this work of especial importance in the study of modern Jewish history.

To the lover of mankind, the history of the Russo-Jewish renaissance is an encouraging and inspiring phenomenon. Seldom has a person made such rapid strides forward as the Russian Jews. From the melancholy regularity that marked their existence a little over two generations ago, from the darkness of the Middle Ages in which they were steeped until Alexander II, they emerged into the life and light of the West, and some of the most intrepid devotees of latter-day culture, both in Europe and in America, have come from among them. Destitute of everything that makes for enlightenment, and under the dominion of a Government which sought to extinguish the few rushlights that scattered the surrounding shadows, they snatched victory from defeat, sloughed off medieval superstition, and, disregarding the Dejanira shirt of modern disabilities, compelled their countrymen to admit more than once that.

The International Jewish Cook Book, by Florence Kreisler Greenbaum, is a book about Traditional Jewish Cuisine, is a compilation of the various culinary practices of Jewish communities. It is a distinctive style of cooking that developed over many generations, defined by Jewish dietary laws, Jewish Festivals and Shabbat (Sabbath) rituals. Jewish cooking is shaped by the agriculture, cooking practices, and the economy of the many countries where Jewish people lived and differs all over the globe. The distinctive styles of Jewish cuisines are Arab, Ashkenazi, Indian, Latin-American, Mizrahi, Persian, Sephardi and Yemenite. There are likewise unique recipes for differing Jewish nations stretching from Central Asia to Ethiopia. Since the State of Israel was established in 1948, and especially since the 1970s, an emerging Israeli “fusion cuisine” has evolved, embracing and modifying aspects of all the Jewish styles mentioned previously. New dishes have sprung up based on the different agricultural crops that have been introduced since 1948 and blending in Middle Eastern foods and other foreign cuisines.

Lady Montefiore wrote “The Jewish Manual” because of the increasing enthusiasm amongst the Jews in their ancient roots, traditions, and cook. It outlined the procedures necessary to adhere to the individual conduct expressed in the Bible, in Leviticus (in Hebrew Vayikra).

Lady Montefiore sought to make the art of cooking as effortless as possible by making her recipes straightforward, simple, and succinct. She was attentive to the details concerning the exactness and cost of the portions allotted. Her meals could be depended on, because she’d had them prepared and analyzed in her own kitchen. She deliberately disregarded all laborious and costly methods of cooking as opposite to the aim of her cookbook; which was to instruct the Jewish housemaid in the extravagance and frugality of the table, on which most of the gratification of social interaction hinges.

Theodor Herzl’s strong advocacy of the support of a Jewish state grew out of his sentiment that Jews would never be assimilated into the populations in which they lived. Born in Budapest, Hungary, in 1860, Herzl encountered anti-Semitism when he attended a scientific secondary school. Later, since a newspaper correspondent in Paris, he was dismayed by the anti-Semitic prejudice surrounding the notorious Dreyfus affair (Herzl said in later years that it was the Dreyfus affair that had made a Zionist out of him). Herzl concluded that the only solution for most Jews would be organized emigration to a state of their own.

He discussed the political and historic rationale for such a homeland in this extraordinary and influential book, first published as a pamphlet, Der Judenstaat, in Vienna in 1896. The Jewish question, he wrote, was not a social or religious question but a national question that could be solved only by making it “a political world question to be discussed and settled by the civilized nations of the world in council.” In 1897, at a world congress of Zionism, he declared, “We want to lay the foundation stone for the house which will become the refuge of the Jewish nation. Zionism is the return to Judaism even before the return to the land of Israel.”

Dr. Herzl writes in “The Jewish State” to the Jewish people and others on how to get a Jewish state and how to implement the tactics and strategies to get that independent state. Although brilliant and it is cited throughout the literature as a cornerstone of all such works, it is filled with, well, limitations, Herzl nowhere in his writing discusses the difficulties imposed by founding a nation (Palestine) in which natives (Palestinians) already live. Relations with the Muslim nations and its eventual role as broker between Russia and the United States are also not discussed, although, in all fairness, they could not see this. Reading this after the Armenian genocide and the Holocaust provides the reader with tremendous insights into his arguments and the passions of his arguments. Again, the tactics he proposed were those of a man devoted to an issue but who didn’t have a complete grasp of all the issues. Brilliant work by a man who sacrificed so much for the realization of an Israeli state. 

“The Jews of Barnow” by Karl Emil Franzos is a compilation of short stories about a small town in Galicia during a turbulent period—the late nineteenth century. For illustration, traditional Judaism was being confronted with people undertaking reforms, Jews were receiving civil rights, interactions between Jews and Christians were rising and creating both further misconceptions and further resilience. These stories are alluring, thought-provoking, and shed light on a world that no longer exists, due to the horrors of World War II.

One masterwork of twentieth-century Jewish scholarship was Louis Ginzberg’s Legends of the Jews, or, more accurately, Legends of the Bible… For scholars, Ginzberg’s book is a monumental work of research. But for the general reader, it is a gateway into a world, a world where the imagination roamed and the spirit was free. You discover that Adam had a previous wife, before Eve, that Cain repented and forgiven, that Abraham missed Ishmael and went to see him several times after the expulsion, and that Rebecca was a worthy successor to Sarah. If you are not a scholar, put aside the two volumes of notes for a while and enjoy the legends themselves. The Bible will never be the same for you again, if you do.

There are many stories in here that we have heard alluded to but never had an exact idea where it came from. This book fills in some mysterious holes in the standard Bible but opens up a slew of questions of its own. It is fascinating, well researched, and consistent with the other apocryphal works, and written in accessible language.

One masterwork of twentieth-century Jewish scholarship was Louis Ginzberg’s Legends of the Jews, or, more accurately, Legends of the Bible… For scholars, Ginzberg’s book is a monumental work of research. But for the general reader, it is a gateway into a world, a world where the imagination roamed and the spirit was free. You discover that Adam had a previous wife, before Eve, that Cain repented and forgiven, that Abraham missed Ishmael and went to see him several times after the expulsion, and that Rebecca was a worthy successor to Sarah. If you are not a scholar, put aside the two volumes of notes for a while and enjoy the legends themselves. The Bible will never be the same for you again, if you do.

There are many stories in here that we have heard alluded to but never had an exact idea where it came from. This book fills in some mysterious holes in the standard Bible but opens up a slew of questions of its own. It is fascinating, well researched, and consistent with the other apocryphal works, and written in accessible language.

One masterwork of twentieth-century Jewish scholarship was Louis Ginzberg’s Legends of the Jews, or, more accurately, Legends of the Bible… For scholars, Ginzberg’s book is a monumental work of research. But for the general reader, it is a gateway into a world, a world where the imagination roamed and the spirit was free. You discover that Adam had a previous wife, before Eve, that Cain repented and forgiven, that Abraham missed Ishmael and went to see him several times after the expulsion, and that Rebecca was a worthy successor to Sarah. If you are not a scholar, put aside the two volumes of notes for a while and enjoy the legends themselves. The Bible will never be the same for you again, if you do.

There are many stories in here that we have heard alluded to but never had an exact idea where it came from. This book fills in some mysterious holes in the standard Bible but opens up a slew of questions of its own. It is fascinating, well researched, and consistent with the other apocryphal works, and written in accessible language.

One masterwork of twentieth century Jewish scholarship was Louis Ginzberg’s Legends of the Jews, or, more accurately, Legends of the Bible… For scholars, Ginzberg’s book is a monumental work of research. But for the general reader, it is a gateway into a world, a world where the imagination roamed and the spirit was free. You discover that Adam had a previous wife, before Eve, that Cain repented and forgiven, that Abraham missed Ishmael and went to see him several times after the expulsion, and that Rebecca was a worthy successor to Sarah. If you are not a scholar, put aside the two volumes of notes for a while and enjoy the legends themselves. The Bible will never be the same for you again, if you do.

There are many stories in here that we have heard alluded to but never had an exact idea where it came from. This book fills in some mysterious holes in the standard Bible but opens up a slew of questions of its own. It is fascinating, well researched, and consistent with the other apocryphal works, and written in accessible language.

The Development of Flavius Josephus, or Vita, is an autobiography written by Josephus in approximately 94-99 CE, where Josephus rehashes the details of the Hebrew-Roman War, in retort to accusations made against him by Justus of Tiberias.

Affixed to the Antiquities was a Vita (Life), which is more of an apology for Josephus’ conduct in Galilee during the revolution than it is an autobiography. He wrote it as a retort against the attacks of his adversary Justus of Tiberias, who alleged that Josephus was liable for the revolution. In his defense, he countered the explanation offered in his more candid Jewish War, representing himself as a dependable devotee of Rome and a deserter to the rebellion from the outset. Josephus came across as more trustworthy in his text the Contra Apionem (Against Apion), even though his prior works Concerning the Antiquity of the Jews and Against the Greeks are more significant. Of its 2 volumes, the first responds to different anti-Semitic verbal attacks hurled at the Hebrews by Hellenistic authors, and the second declares the moral supremacy of the Hebrew religion over Hellenism and shows Josephus’ devotion to his culture and religion.

The time characterized by this volume is the most compound and confusing in Israel’s history. The document is not that of the life of a nation, but of the spreading remains of a race. Inevitably, under the influence of their varied environment, the survivors of the Jewish race should develop very strange beliefs and characteristics. The result is that it reflects many currents of thought and shades of belief in the literature of this period; some of it is dross, but much of it is purest gold. While the period following the destruction of Jerusalem was a reflective and a retrospective age in which the teaching of the earlier priests and prophets gained wide acceptance, it was also a creative era. Fully half of the literature of the Old Testament and all the important writings of the Apocrypha come from these tragic five centuries. Although the historical records are not complete, the great crises in Israel’s life are illuminated by such remarkable historical writings as the memoirs of Nehemiah, the first book of Maccabees, and the detailed histories of Josephus.

This is a series of connected essays dealing with Chesterton’s travels to Jerusalem in 1919, two years after the Balfour declaration. This book is the primary evidence against Chesterton as an anti-Semite, but that’s somewhat of a twisted reading. Chesterton is critical of Jews as a culture, but he’s critical of everyone as a culture, including the English. And even in this book, is about Jerusalem and Zionism.

The New Jerusalem is the fulfillment of all God’s promises and exemplifies His goodness. The Apostle John gives his last vision in Revelation of the Holy City for all those who believe in Jesus Christ and covered by His blood to dwell with Him forever.

The New Land – Stories of Jews Who Had a Part in the Making of Our Country, a popular classic work by Elma Ehrlich Levinger is in the English language, and may not include graphics or images from the original edition.

“Twelve stories written for children. The book ‘belongs in part to historical biography with a large fictional element and in part to pure fiction with a historical setting. They keynote is struck in the imagined conversation between Jewish shipmates of Columbus one of whom says: ‘Who knows that this new route to India may not lead us to a new land, an undiscovered place where no Jew will suffer for his faith.’” -Survey

“A series of stories of Jews who have had a part in the making of our country.”

The Promised Land is the autobiography of Mary Antin, written in 1912, that recounts her childhood in Belarus and her journey to the United States in 1894, and her assimilation into American society. The book sold over 85,000 copies and received positive reviews. Its acclaim permitted Mary to do lectures across the country, a stage she utilized to encourage tolerance of immigration to America. Her book was disapproved of by anti-immigration fighters, who didn’t accept her as an American, and likewise by some Jews, who believed she disrespected her Jewish culture.

Initially published in French in 1903 as the Nahum Slouschz’s doctorate thesis at the University of Paris, this book explores the resurrection of Hebrew as a literary language and presents an analysis of the literature it has contributed, by a “grievous spectacle of poets and writers who are constantly expressing their anxiety lest it disappear within them.” European in extent and encapsulating all the passion and discord of the writings of a nation trying to find its voice, this is a compassionate and encouraging work, one that anyone will find practical and entertaining.

In this book, the 1st century Jewish historian Flavius Josephus describes the Jewish history from 164 BC to the destruction of Jerusalem in AD 70. This is one prominent book about Jewish history we never knew about. A slight tough to read, but Josephus was a 1st century man writing in his time in the manor and language they were used to. The other thing is the detail and the graphics of the people’s sufferings. Josephus was there. And he told it like it was. The tragedy, the horror, everything. Read of a rebellious people who hated the Romans and their authority, while still claiming to be God’s people. Read how the Romans tried to make it right for the Jews, but their resistance is beyond human thinking. Their rebellions, endless fighting among themselves at the cost of their own lives and their wives and children, and the demise of the Temple. The Wars of the Jews, Flavius Josephus, give us valuable insight into the first Jewish Roman War and the rebellions that followed thereafter. Josephus having been an agent for both sides of the conflict provides us with a perspective of this conflict that no one else could have. Here is an important historical document.

This book offers a thought-provoking analysis of the tenets of the Bible, considering relative historical accounts. With everything that’s going on in this part of the modern world, it’s interesting to find out how we got to where we are.

In the early Christian centuries thousands turned to the Bible, as drowning men to a life buoy, because it offered them the only way of escape from the intolerable social and moral ills that attended the death pangs of the old heathenism. Then came the Dark Ages, with their resurgent heathenism and barbarism, when the Bible was taken from the hands of the people. In the hour of a nation’s deepest humiliation and moral depravity, John Wycliffe, with the aid of a devoted army of lay priests, gave back the Bible to the people, and in so doing laid the foundations for England’s intellectual, political and moral greatness. The joy and inspiration of the Protestant Reformers was the rediscovery and popular interpretation of the Bible. In all the great forward movements of the modern centuries the Bible has played a central role. The ultimate basis of our magnificent modern scientific and material progress is the inspiration given to the human race by the Protestant Reformation.

This piece, “Zionism and Anti-Semitism” written by Max Nordau and Gustav Gottheil, is a cornerstone reading that everyone with an interest in this topic ought to read. It is all too brief, and we do not found it upon scientific data that we possess today. It provides an excellent view into the plights of anti-Semitism that existed in 1902 and before – well before the Holocaust. Being only a few dozen pages and being old and not using current scientific methods.

Zionism as an organized movement is generally considered to have been founded by Theodor Herzl in 1897. However, the history of Zionism began earlier and is related to Judaism and Jewish history. The Hovevei Zion, or the Lovers of Zion, were responsible for the creation of 20 new Jewish cities in Palestine between 1870 and 1897.