Nonfiction
Jews and the American Soul: Human Nature in the Twentieth Century by
What do Joyce Brothers and Sigmund Freud, Rabbi Harold Kushner and philosopher Martin Buber have in common? They belong to a group of pivotal and highly influential Jewish thinkers who altered the face of modern America in ways few people recognize. So argues Andrew Heinze, who reveals in rich and unprecedented detail the extent to which Jewish values, often in tense interaction with an established Christian consensus, shaped the country's psychological and spiritual vocabulary. Jews and the American Soul is the first book to recognize the central role Jews and Jewish values have played in shaping American ideas of the inner life. It overturns the widely shared assumption that modern ideas of human nature derived simply from the nation's Protestant heritage. Heinze marshals a rich array of evidence to show how individuals ranging from Erich Fromm to Ann Landers changed the way Americans think about mind and soul. The book shows us the many ways that Jewish thinkers influenced everything from the human potential movement and pop psychology to secular spirituality. It also provides fascinating new interpretations of Sigmund Freud, Alfred Adler, and Western views of the psyche; the clash among Protestant, Catholic, and Jewish moral sensibilities in America; the origins and evolution of America's psychological and therapeutic culture; the role of Jewish women as American public moralists, and more. A must-read for anyone interested in the contribution of Jews and Jewish culture to modern America.
Call Number: General Collection E184.36.I58 H45 2004Publication Date: 2004
American Judaism: A History by
This magisterial work chronicles the 350-year history of the Jewish religion in America. Tracing American Judaism from its origins in the colonial era through the present day, Jonathan Sarna explores the ways in which Judaism adapted in this new context. How did American culture - predominantly Protestant and overwhelmingly capitalist - affect Jewish religion and culture? And how did American Jews shape their own communities and faith in the new world? Jonathan Sarna, a preeminent scholar of American Judaism, tells the story of individuals struggling to remain Jewish while also becoming American. He offers a dynamic and timely history of assimilation and revitalisation, of faith lost and faith regained. The first comprehensive history of American Judaism in over fifty years, this book is both a celebration of 350 years of Jewish life in America and essential reading for anyone interested in American religion and life.
Call Number: General Collection BM205 .S26 2004Publication Date: 2004
Contemporary American Judaism: Transformation and Renewal by
No longer controlled by a handful of institutional leaders based in remote headquarters and rabbinical seminaries, American Judaism is being transformed by the spiritual decisions of tens of thousands of Jews living all over the United States. A pulpit rabbi and himself an American Jew, Dana Evan Kaplan follows this religious individualism from its postwar suburban roots to the hippie revolution of the 1960s and the multiple postmodern identities of today. From Hebrew tattooing to Jewish Buddhist meditation, Kaplan describes the remaking of historical tradition in ways that channel multiple ethnic and national identities. While pessimists worry about the vanishing American Jew, Kaplan focuses on creative responses to contemporary spiritual trends that have made a Jewish religious renaissance possible. He believes that the reorientation of American Judaism has been a "bottom up" process, resisted by elites who have reluctantly responded to the demands of the "spiritual marketplace." The American Jewish denominational structure is therefore weakening at the same time that religious experimentation is rising, leading to the innovative approaches supplanting existing institutions. The result is an exciting transformation of what it means to be a religious American Jew in the twenty-first century.
Call Number: General Collection BM205 .K365 2009Publication Date: 2009
The Jewish 1960s: An American Sourcebook by
No American decade during the twentieth century has been so strongly defined by Jewish-led and Jewish-sponsored political activism or so deeply informed and influenced by Jewish culture as the 1960s. Nor has any decade in the last century had more lasting consequences on the contemporary state of America Jewry. The 1960s marked the rise of Jewish pride, witnessed a revitalization of religious communal commitments, and saw the revival of Jewish particularism as a crucial counterpoint to a liberal-left Jewish universalism. In these and other respects, Jews remade themselves as they transformed the nation in this critical period. The Jewish 1960s introduces a new generation of interested readers to some of the finest essays, speeches, and journalistic accounts by Jewish commentators, spokespersons, prominent rabbis, civil rights and antiwar activists, radical Zionists, feminists, counter-cultural leaders, and their critics from 1960 to the early 1970s. This volume brings together materials from Jews on the right as well as the left and chronicles, among other things, Jewish religious and ethnic renewal, the Jewish stand on civil rights, Jewish liberalism and the origins of Jewish neo-conservatism, American Jews' commitments to Israel, Jewish contributions to feminism and the gay and lesbian rights movements, and the evolution of Holocaust consciousness. Designed for course adoption, this volume contains a general introduction to the period as well as short section introductions to each of the book's thirteen chapters.
Call Number: General Collection E184.36.P64 J42 2004Publication Date: 2004
Jewish Life in Small-Town America: A History by
In this book, Lee Shai Weissbach offers the first comprehensive portrait of small-town Jewish life in America. Exploring the history of communities of 100 to 1000 Jews, the book focuses on the years from the mid-nineteenth century to World War II. Weissbach examines the dynamics of 490 communities across the United States and reveals that smaller Jewish centers were not simply miniature versions of larger communities but were instead alternative kinds of communities in many respects. The book investigates topics ranging from migration patterns to occupational choices, from Jewish education and marriage strategies to congregational organization. The story of smaller Jewish communities attests to the richness and complexity of American Jewish history and also serves to remind us of the diversity of small-town society in times past.
Call Number: General Collection E184.36.S65 W45 2005Publication Date: 2005
This I Believe: Documents of American Jewish Life by
Ninety-one letters, ethical wills, bar mitzvah speeches, and other personal records are presented in chronological order following an interpretive essay on the ethical aspirations of American Jewry.
Call Number: General Collection BJ1279 .T48 1990Publication Date: 1990
Beyond the Synagogue: Jewish Nostalgia as Religious Practice by
Finalist for the 2021 National Jewish Book Award Honorable Mention, 2021 Saul Viener Book Prize, given by the American Jewish Historical Society Reveals nostalgia as a new way of maintaining Jewish continuity In 2007, the Museum at Eldridge Street opened at the site of a restored nineteenth-century synagogue originally built by some of the first Eastern European Jewish immigrants in New York City. Visitors to the museum are invited to stand along indentations on the floor where footprints of congregants past have worn down the soft pinewood. Here, many feel a palpable connection to the history surrounding them. Beyond the Synagogue argues that nostalgic activities such as visiting the Museum at Eldridge Street or eating traditional Jewish foods should be understood as American Jewish religious practices. In making the case that these practices are not just cultural, but are actually religious, Rachel B. Gross asserts that many prominent sociologists and historians have mistakenly concluded that American Judaism is in decline, and she contends that they are looking in the wrong places for Jewish religious activity. If they looked outside of traditional institutions and practices, such as attendance at synagogue or membership in Jewish Community Centers, they would see that the embrace of nostalgia provides evidence of an alternative, under-appreciated way of being Jewish and of maintaining Jewish continuity. Tracing American Jews' involvement in a broad array of ostensibly nonreligious activities, including conducting Jewish genealogical research, visiting Jewish historic sites, purchasing books and toys that teach Jewish nostalgia to children, and seeking out traditional Jewish foods, Gross argues that these practices illuminate how many American Jews are finding and making meaning within American Judaism today.
Call Number: General Collection E184.36.E84 G76 2021Publication Date: 2021
From Haven to Home: 350 Years of Jewish Life in America by
This year marks the 350th anniversary of the first Jewish settlement in America. From Haven to Home celebrates this important occasion by bringing together an eminent group of Judaic scholars who take stock of American Jewish life, from the arrival of the first small group in Manhattan in 1654 to the present. The contributors examine a wide range of topics, including the early history of the American Jewish community and the various significant phases of Jewish immigration, which saw the initial group of twenty-three burgeon into a thriving community of several million by the early twentieth century. Also addressed is the role of Jews in the Civil War and in World War II, anti-Semitism in America, the daily life and struggles of American Jewish women, and American Jews and politics. The essays are amply illustrated with items from the collection of the Library of Congress's Hebraic Section, among them the first Hebrew bible printed in America and the first Yiddish American cookbook, as well as selections of photographs, prints, diaries, maps, and sheet music. Central to the Jewish experience in America is that country's commitment to ideals of freedom, opportunity, religious liberty, equality, and pluralism. The continuity of the faith, in fact, depends on it. From Haven to Homethe story of Jews in Americais therefore also the story of America and American ideals. 100 color illustrations.
Call Number: General Collection Oversize E184.35 .F76 2004Publication Date: 2004
Jews and Gentiles in Early America, 1654-1800 by
The fascinating story of the Jewish contribution to and participation in early American life Jews and Gentiles in Early America tells the story of the five Jewish communities - New York, Newport, Charleston, Savannah, and Philadelphia - where most of colonial America's small Jewish population lived. How did these communities rise and fall? How did they interact with the larger gentile population? Pencak's five richly detailed community studies explore the forms of anti-Semitism that endured in colonial America. Unlike previous works on American Jewish history that concentrate on individual communities, Pencak's book approaches the topic from the perspective of early American, rather than Jewish, history. His exploration of a strain of popular anti-Semitism in the pre-Revolutionary era describes the persistence of prejudices derived from traditional European society.
Call Number: General Collection E184.3512 .P46 2005Publication Date: 2005
Sephardic Jews in America: A Diasporic History by
A significant number of Sephardic Jews, tracing their remote origins to Spain and Portugal, immigrated to the United States from Turkey, Greece, and the Balkans from 1880 through the 1920s, joined by a smaller number of Mizrahi Jews arriving from Arab lands. Most Sephardim settled in New York, establishing the leading Judeo-Spanish community outside the Ottoman Empire. With their distinct languages, cultures, and rituals, Sephardim and Arab-speaking Mizrahim were not readily recognized as Jews by their Ashkenazic coreligionists. At the same time, they forged alliances outside Jewish circles with Hispanics and Arabs, with whom they shared significant cultural and linguistic ties.The failure among Ashkenazic Jews to recognize Sephardim and Mizrahim as fellow Jews continues today. More often than not, these Jewish communities are simply absent from portrayals of American Jewry. Drawing on primary sources such as the Ladino (Judeo-Spanish) press, archival documents, and oral histories,Sephardic Jews in Americaoffers the first book-length academic treatment of their history in the United States, from 1654 to the present, focusing on the age of mass immigration.
Call Number: General Collection E184.36.E84 B46 2009Publication Date: 2009
Quest for Inclusion: Jews and Liberalism in Modern America by
For over sixty years, Jews have ranked as the most liberal white ethnic group in American politics, figuring prominently in social reform campaigns ranging from the New Deal to the civil rights movement. Today many continue to defy stereotypes that link voting patterns to wealth. What explains this political behavior? Historians have attributed it mainly to religious beliefs, but Marc Dollinger discovered that this explanation fails to account for the entire American Jewish political experience. In this, the first synthetic treatment of Jewish liberalism and U.S. public policy from the 1930s to the mid-1970s, Dollinger identifies the drive for a more tolerant, pluralistic, and egalitarian nation with Jewish desires for inclusion in the larger non-Jewish society. The politics of acculturation, the process by which Jews championed unpopular social causes to ease their adaptation to American life, established them as the guardians of liberal America. But, according to Dollinger, it also erected barriers to Jewish liberal success. Faced with a conflict between liberal politics and their own acculturation, Jews almost always chose the latter. Few Jewish leaders, for example, condemned the wartime internment of Japanese Americans, and most southern Jews refused to join their northern co-religionists in public civil rights protests. When liberals advocated race-based affirmative action programs and busing to desegregate public schools, most Jews dissented. In chronicling the successes, limits, and failures of Jewish liberalism, Dollinger offers a nuanced yet wide-ranging political history, one intended for liberal activists, conservatives curious about the creation of neo-conservatism, and anyone interested in Jewish communal life.
Call Number: General Collection E184.36.P64 D65 2000Publication Date: 2000
The New American Judaism by
Popular Washington, D.C. rabbi and psychotherapist Arthur Blecher believes that the American Jewish community is actually flourishing amidst fears of dying out. He shows us that intermarriage strengthens Judaism--a concept that many Jews continue to debate. In straightforward and engaging chapters, he provides a progressive and positive outline of how this religion has changed over the years, and why American Jewish culture must be embraced and discussed in depth in Jewish families. This is afascinating exploration of the ways in which social and psychological forces created a new and quite different form of Judaism in America more than one hundred years ago.
Call Number: General Collection E184.36.S65 B54 2007Publication Date: 2007
Growing up Jewish in America by
These childhood memories of one hundred men and women, ranging in age from twenty-two to ninety-nine, create a vivid portrait of American Jewish life in the twentieth century.
Call Number: General Collection E184.37 .A14 1999Publication Date: 1999
What America Owes the Jews, What Jews Owe America by
To what extent was the American idea founded on faith and on the Hebrew Bible? Why did Abraham Lincoln feel such a close connection to the Jews? Can religious communities in America remain true to their traditions while living in a secular culture? How did the strong alliance between Americanism and Zionism develop? What are the factors that brought about a migration of Jews from urban centers to the suburbs? What makes Jewish literature "Jewish"?
What America Owes the Jews, What Jews Owe America is a collection of essays that explore the cultural, social, economic, and linguistic factors that have shaped the Jewish-American experience.
Featuring the works of seven thought-leaders and scholars, this volume comprises an essential text for lovers and observers of American and Jewish life.
With essays by Jeffrey S. Gurock, Dara Horn, Norman Podhoretz, Rick Richman, Jonathan Sarna, Meir Soloveichik, and Tevi Troy.
Call Number: General Collection E184.35 .W445 2017Publication Date: 2017
Judaism as a Civilization: Toward a Reconstruction of American-Jewish Life by
"...This classic work is widely considered the genesis of the Reconstructionist Movement, and remains one of the most original and stimulating contributions to modern Jewish thought."-- International Journal of Jewish Education Research Judaism as a Civilization is widely considered the genesis of the Reconstructionist Movement, representing a watershed moment in modern Judaism. In this classic book, Mordecai Kaplan introduced a new way of looking at Judaism: as an evolving religious civilization. His approach required innovation in liturgy and ritual, elimination of obsolete customs, and adjustment in light of prevailing social, political, and cultural conditions. Kaplan felt that all Jews--traditional and liberal, religious and secular--could play a part in this; "reconstruction."; Judaism as a Civilization, first published in 1934, remains one of the most original and thought-provoking contributions to modern Jewish thought.
Call Number: General Collection BM197.7 .K26 2010Publication Date: 2010 edition (Originally published 1934)
Fiction
The Amazing Adventures of Kavalier and Clay by
WINNER OF THE PULITZER PRIZE * NEW YORK TIMES BESTSELLER * The epic, beloved novel of two boy geniuses dreaming up superheroes in New York's Golden Age of comics--soon to be a Showtime limited series "It's absolutely gosh-wow, super-colossal--smart, funny, and a continual pleasure to read."--The Washington Post Book World Named one of the 10 Best Books of the Decade by Entertainment Weekly * Finalist for the PEN/Faulkner Award, National Book Critics Circle Award, and Los Angeles Times Book Prize A "towering, swash-buckling thrill of a book" (Newsweek), hailed as Chabon's "magnum opus" (The New York Review of Books), The Amazing Adventures of Kavalier & Clay is a triumph of originality, imagination, and storytelling, an exuberant, irresistible novel that begins in New York City in 1939. A young escape artist and budding magician named Joe Kavalier arrives on the doorstep of his cousin, Sammy Clay. While the long shadow of Hitler falls across Europe, America is happily in thrall to the Golden Age of comic books, and in a distant corner of Brooklyn, Sammy is looking for a way to cash in on the craze. He finds the ideal partner in the aloof, artistically gifted Joe, and together they embark on an adventure that takes them deep into the heart of Manhattan, and the heart of old-fashioned American ambition. From the shared fears, dreams, and desires of two teenage boys, they spin comic book tales of the heroic, fascist-fighting Escapist and the beautiful, mysterious Luna Moth, otherworldly mistress of the night. Climbing from the streets of Brooklyn to the top of the Empire State Building, Joe and Sammy carve out lives, and careers, as vivid as cyan and magenta ink. Spanning continents and eras, this superb book by one of America's finest writers remains one of the defining novels of our modern American age. Winner of the Bay Area Book Reviewers Award and the New York Society Library Book Award
Call Number: General Collection PS3553.H15 A82 2000Publication Date: 2000
American Pastoral by
American Pastoral is the story of a fortunate American's rise and fall - of a strong, confident master of social equilibrium overwhelmed by the forces of social disorder. Seymour "Swede" Levov - a legendary high school athlete, a devoted family man, a hard worker, the prosperous inheritor of his father's Newark glove factory - comes of age in thriving, triumphant postwar America. But everything he loves is lost when the country begins to run amok in the turbulent 1960s. Not even the most private, well-intentioned citizen, it seems, gets to sidestep the sweep of history. With vigorous realism, Roth takes us back to the conflicts and violent transitions of the 1960s. This is a book about loving - and hating - America. It's a book about wanting to belong - and refusing to belong - to America. It sets the desire for an American pastoral - a respectable life of space, calm, order, optimism, and achievement - against the indigenous American Berserk.
Call Number: General Collection PS3568.O855 A77 1997Publication Date: 1997
The Golem and the Jinni: A Novel by
?In The Golem and the Jinni, a chance meeting between mythical beings takes readers on a dazzling journey through cultures in turn-of-the-century New York. Chava is a golem, a creature made of clay, brought to life to by a disgraced rabbi who dabbles in dark Kabbalistic magic and dies at sea on the voyage from Poland. Chava is unmoored and adrift as the ship arrives in New York harbor in 1899. Ahmad is a jinni, a being of fire born in the ancient Syrian desert, trapped in an old copper flask, and released in New York City, though still not entirely free. Ahmad and Chava become unlikely friends and soul mates with a mystical connection. Marvelous and compulsively readable, Helene Wecker's debut novel The Golem and the Jinni weaves strands of Yiddish and Middle Eastern literature, historical fiction and magical fable, into a wondrously inventive and unforgettable tale.
Call Number: General Collection PS3623.E39775 G65 2013Publication Date: 2013
Motherless Brooklyn by
"Tell your story walking." St. Vincent's Home for Boys, Brooklyn, early 1970s. For Lionel Essrog, a.k.a. The Human Freakshow, a victim of Tourette's syndrome (an uncontrollable urge to shout out nonsense, touch every surface in reach, rearrange objects), Frank Minna is a savior. A local tough guy and fixer, Minna shows up to take Lionel and three of his fellow orphans on mysterious errands: they empty a store of stereos as the owner watches; destroy a small amusement park; visit old Italian men. The four grow up to be the Minna Men, a fly-by-night detective agency-cum-limo service, and their days and nights revolve around Frank, the prince of Brooklyn, who glides through life on street smarts, attitude, and secret knowledge. Then one dreadful night, Frank is knifed and thrown into a Dumpster, and Lionel must become a real detective. As Lionel struggles to find Frank's killer--without letting his Tourette's get in the way--he's forced to delve into the complex, shadowy web of relationships, threats, and favors that make up the Brooklyn world he thought he knew so well. No one--not Frank, not Frank's bitter wife, Julia, not the other Minna Men--is who they seem. Not even The Human Freakshow. All of the Lethem touches that have thrilled critics are here--crackling dialogue, sly humor, dizzying plot twists--but they're secondary to wonderfully full, tragic, funny characterizations, and a dazzling evocation of place. Indeed, Brooklyn--with its charming folkways and language, its unique style of bad-guy swagger and sentimentality--becomes itself a major character. Motherless Brooklynis a bravura performance: funny, tense, touching, extravagant. This novel signals the coming of age of a major American writer.
Call Number: General Collection PS3562.E8544 M68 1999Publication Date: 1999
The Yiddish Policemen's Union by
For sixty years, Jewish refugees and their descendants have prospered in the Federal District of Sitka, a "temporary" safe haven created in the wake of revelations of the Holocaust and the shocking 1948 collapse of the fledgling state of Israel. Proud, grateful, and longing to be American, the Jews of the Sitka District have created their own little world in the Alaskan panhandle, a vibrant, gritty, soulful, and complex frontier city that moves to the music of Yiddish. For sixty years they have been left alone, neglected and half-forgotten in a backwater of history. Now the District is set to revert to Alaskan control, and their dream is coming to an end: once again the tides of history threaten to sweep them up and carry them off into the unknown. But homicide detective Meyer Landsman of the District Police has enough problems without worrying about the upcoming Reversion. His life is a shambles, his marriage a wreck, his career a disaster. He and his half-Tlingit partner, Berko Shemets, can't catch a break in any of their outstanding cases. Landsman's new supervisor is the love of his life--and also his worst nightmare. And in the cheap hotel where he has washed up, someone has just committed a murder--right under Landsman's nose. Out of habit, obligation, and a mysterious sense that it somehow offers him a shot at redeeming himself, Landsman begins to investigate the killing of his neighbor, a former chess prodigy. But when word comes down from on high that the case is to be dropped immediately, Landsman soon finds himself contending with all the powerful forces of faith, obsession, hopefulness, evil, and salvation that are his heritage--and with the unfinished business of his marriage to Bina Gelbfish, the one person who understands his darkest fears. At once a gripping whodunit, a love story, an homage to 1940s noir, and an exploration of the mysteries of exile and redemption, The Yiddish Policemen's Union is a novel only Michael Chabon could have written.
Call Number: General Collection PS3553.H15 Y54 2007Publication Date: 2007
Herzog by
Herzog is alone, now that his wife Madeleine has left him for his best friend. Solitary, in a crumbling house which he shares with rats, he is buffeted by a whirlwind of mental activity. People are rumouring that his mind had collapsed. But is it true? Locked for days in the custody of his rambling memories, Herzog scrawls frantic letters which he never mails. His mind buzzes with conundrums and polemics, writing in a spectacular intellectual labyrinth.
Is he crazy, or is he a genius?
In one of his finest achievements, Nobel Prize winner Saul Bellow presents a multifaceted portrait of a modern-day hero, a man struggling with the complexity of existence and longing for redemption.
Call Number: General Collection PS3503.E4488 H45 2001Publication Date: 1964
Great House by
For twenty-five years, a reclusive American novelist has been writing at the desk she inherited from a young Chilean poet who disappeared at the hands of Pinochet's secret police; one day a girl claiming to be the poet's daughter arrives to take it away, sending the writer's life reeling. Across the ocean, in the leafy suburbs of London, a man caring for his dying wife discovers, among her papers, a lock of hair that unravels a terrible secret. In Jerusalem, an antiques dealer slowly reassembles his father's study, plundered by the Nazis in Budapest in 1944. Connecting these stories is a desk of many drawers that exerts a power over those who possess it or have given it away. As the narrators of Great House make their confessions, the desk takes on more and more meaning, and comes finally to stand for all that has been taken from them, and all that binds them to what has disappeared. Great House is a story haunted by questions: What do we pass on to our children and how do they absorb our dreams and losses? How do we respond to disappearance, destruction, and change? Nicole Krauss has written a soaring, powerful novel about memory struggling to create a meaningful permanence in the face of inevitable loss.
Call Number: General Collection PS3611.R38 G74 2010Publication Date: 2010
Heir to the Glimmering World by
Cynthia Ozick is an American master at the height of her powers in Heir to the Glimmering World, a grand romantic novel of desire, fame, fanaticism, and unimaginable reversals of fortune. Ozick takes us to the outskirts of the Bronx in the 1930s, as New York fills with Europe's ousted dreamers, turned overnight into refugees. Rose Meadows unknowingly enters this world when she answers an ambiguous want ad for an "assistant" to a Herr Mitwisser, the patriarch of a large, chaotic household. Rosie, orphaned at eighteen, has been living with her distant relative Bertram, who sparks her first erotic desires. But just as he begins to return her affection, his lover, a radical socialist named Ninel (Lenin spelled backward), turns her out. And so Rosie takes refuge from love among refugees of world upheaval. Cast out from Berlin's elite, the Mitwissers live at the whim of a mysterious benefactor, James A'Bair. Professor Mitwisser is a terrifying figure, obsessed with his arcane research. His distraught wife, Elsa, once a prominent physicist, is becoming unhinged. Their willful sixteen-year-old daughter runs the household: the exquisite, enigmatic Anneliese. Rosie's place here is uncertain, and she finds her fate hangingon the arrival of James. Inspired by the real Christopher Robin, James is the Bear Boy, the son of a famous children's author who recreated James as the fanciful subject of his books. Also a kind of refugee, James runs from his own fame, a boy adored by the world but grown into a bitter man. It is Anneliese's fierce longing that draws James back to this troubled house, and it is Rosie who must help them all resist James's reckless orbit. Ozick lovingly evokes these perpetual outsiders thrown together by surprising chance. The hard times they inherit still hold glimmers of past hopes and future dreams. Heir to the Glimmering World is a generous delight.
Call Number: General Collection PS3565.Z5 H45 2004Publication Date: 2004
For the Relief of Unbearable Urges by
Energized, irreverent, and deliciously inventive stories from Pulitzer-nominated, bestselling author of What We Talk About When We Talk About Anne Frank. In the collection's hilarious title story, a Hasidic man gets a special dispensation from his rabbi to see a prostitute. "The Wig" takes an aging wigmaker and makes her, for a single moment, beautiful. In "The Tumblers," Englander envisions a group of Polish Jews herded toward a train bound for the death camps and, in a deft, imaginative twist, turns them into acrobats tumbling out of harm's way. For the Relief of Unbearable Urges is a work of startling authority and imagination--a book that is as wondrous and joyful as it is wrenchingly sad. It hearalds the arrival of a remarkable new storyteller.
Call Number: General Collection PS3555.N424 F67 2000Publication Date: 2000
Eternal Life: A Novel by
A New York Times Notable Book of 2018 What would it really mean to live forever? Rachel is a woman with a problem: she can't die. Her recent troubles--widowhood, a failing business, an unemployed middle-aged son--are only the latest in a litany spanning dozens of countries, scores of marriages, and hundreds of children. In the 2,000 years since she made a spiritual bargain to save the life of her first son back in Roman-occupied Jerusalem, she's tried everything to free herself, and only one other person in the world understands: a man she once loved passionately, who has been stalking her through the centuries, convinced they belong together forever. But as the twenty-first century begins and her children and grandchildren--consumed with immortality in their own ways, from the frontiers of digital currency to genetic engineering--develop new technologies that could change her fate and theirs, Rachel knows she must find a way out. Gripping, hilarious, and profoundly moving, Eternal Life celebrates the bonds between generations, the power of faith, the purpose of death, and the reasons for being alive.
Call Number: General Collection PS3608.O76 E85 2018Publication Date: 2018
Everything Is Illuminated by
With only a yellowing photograph in hand, a young man - also named Jonathan Safran Foer - sets out to find the woman who might or might not have saved his grandfather from the Nazis. Accompanied by an old man haunted by memories of the war, an amorous dog named Sammy Davis, Junior, Junior, and the unforgettable Alex, a young Ukrainian translator who speaks in a sublimely butchered English, Jonathan is led on a quixotic journey over a devastated landscape and into an unexpected past. As their adventure unfolds, Jonathan imagines the history of his grandfather's village, conjuring a magical fable of startling symmetries that unite generations across time. Lit by passion, fear, guilt, memory, and hope, the characters in Everything Is Illuminated mine the black holes of history. As the search moves back in time, the fantastical history moves forward, until reality collides with fiction in a heart-stopping scene of extraordinary power. An arresting blend of high comedy and great tragedy, this is a story about searching for people and places that no longer exist, for the hidden truths that haunt every family, and for the delicate but necessary tales that link past and future. Exuberant and wise, hysterically funny and deeply moving, EVERYTHING IS ILLUMINATED is an astonishing debut.
Call Number: General Collection PS3606.O38 E84 2002Publication Date: 2002
Shakespeare's Kitchen: Stories by
The thirteen interrelated stories of Shakespeare's Kitchen concern the universal longing for friendship, how we achieve new intimacies for ourselves, and how slowly, inexplicably, we lose them. Featuring six never-before-published pieces, Lore Segal's stunning new book evolved from seven short stories that originally appeared in the New Yorker (including the O. Henry Prize-winning "The Reverse Bug"). Ilka Weisz has accepted a teaching position at the Concordance Institute, a think tank in Connecticut, reluctantly leaving her New York circle of friends. After the comedy of her struggle to meet new people, Ilka comes to embrace, and be embraced by, a new set of acquaintances, including the institute's director, Leslie Shakespeare, and his wife, Eliza. Through a series of memorable dinner parties, picnics, and Sunday brunches, Segal evokes the subtle drama and humor of the outsider's loneliness, the comfort and charm of familiar companionship, the bliss of being in love, and the strangeness of our behavior in the face of other people's deaths. A magnificent and deeply moving work, Shakespeare's Kitchen marks the long-awaited return of a writer at the height of her powers.
Call Number: General Collection PS3569.E425 S47 2007Publication Date: 2007
Jewish American Literature by
Classic and Contemporary Writers: Here, generously represented, are the writers who have shaped the tradition, among them Emma Lazarus, Abraham Cahan, Henry Roth, Nathanael West, Clifford Odets, Tillie Olsen, Bernard Malamud, Saul Bellow, Grace Paley, Philip Roth, Allen Ginsberg, Cynthia Ozick, and Harold Bloom. Joining them are younger writers such as Melvin Jules Bukiet, Jacqueline Osherow, Art Speigelman, Steve Stern and Allegra Goodman, who bring the tradition up to its thriving present.Yiddish and Hebrew Writing in America Jewish American Literature: Traces in breadth and depth America's rich Yiddish-language culture, from the work of Morris Rosenfeld and David Edelshtadt in the 1880s through the Yunge and Introspectivist movements to the post-Holocaust writings of Kadya Molodowsky and Isaac Bashevis Singer. Also represented is Hebrew writing, in translations of the work of Ephraim E. Lisitzky and modernist Gabriel Preil.Special Sections: "Jewish Humor" offers choice selections of Groucho Marx, Woody Allen, and a cluster of perennial Jewish jokes; "The Golden Age of the Broadway Song" samples the unforgettable lyrics of Oscar Hammerstein II, Irving Berlin, Frank Loesser, and Stephen Sondheim, among others; "Jews Translating Jews" reflects on the translator's role in transmitting tradition, gathering poems translated from Yiddish, Hebrew, German, Hungarian, Italian, and Spanish by Jewish American poets from Emma Lazarus to David Unger.Helpful and Lively Reader's Apparatus: The Reader's Apparatus includes a general introduction, period introductions, author headnotes, explanatory annotations, and selected bibliographies.
Call Number: General Collection PS508.J4 J45 2001Publication Date: 2001
Superman Is Jewish?: How Comic Book Superheroes Came to Serve Truth, Justice, and the Jewish-American Way by
As brilliant as it is witty, Harry Brod's surprisingly insightful expos#65533; delves into the secret identities of the world's most famous superheroes. Many of us know that the superheroes at the heart of the American comic book industry were created by Jews. But we'd be surprised to learn how much these beloved characters were shaped by the cultural and religious traditions of their makers. Superman Is Jewish? follows the "people of the book" as they become the people of the comic book. Harry Brod reveals the links between Jews and superheroes in a penetrating investigation of iconic comic book figures. With great wit and compelling arguments, Brod situates superheroes within the course of Jewish- American history: they are aliens in a foreign land, like Superman; figures plagued by guilt for not having saved their families, like Spider-Man; outsiders persecuted for being different, like the X-Men; nice, smart people afraid that nobody will like them when they're angry, like the Hulk. Brod blends humor with sharp observation as he considers the overt and discreet Jewish characteristics of these well-known figures and explores how their creators--including Jerry Siegel, Joe Shuster, Stan Lee, and Jack Kirby-- integrated their Jewish identities and their creativity. Brod makes a strong case that these pioneering Jews created New World superheroes using models from Old World traditions. He demonstrates how contemporary characters were inspired by the golem, the mystically created artificial superhuman of Jewish lore. And before Superman was first drawn by Joe Shuster, there were those Jews flying through the air drawn by Marc Chagall. As poignant as it is fascinating, this lively guided tour travels from the Passover Haggadah's exciting action scenes of Moses's superpowers through the Yiddish humor of Mad to two Pulitzer Prizes awarded in one decade to Jewish comic book guys Art Spiegelman and Michael Chabon. Superman Is Jewish? explores the deeper story of how an immigrant group can use popular entertainment media to influence the larger culture and in the process see itself in new, more empowering ways. Not just for Jewish readers or comic book fans, Superman Is Jewish? is a story of America, and is as poignant as it is fascinating. *** A surprising question, one that takes a certain amount of chutzpah to even raise. To add even a bit more chutzpah, this book considers questions about the Jewishness of more superheroes than just Superman, and offers answers that will surprise many. You mean Spider-Man is Jewish too? Well, actually, yes, but in a very different way than Superman is. And, as we'll see, the shift between them reflects the evolution of Jewish life in America itself in the generation between the two, the generation that gets us from World War II and the "Golden Age" of comics to the 1960s and the "Silver Age" of comics. The historical turning points of those tumultuous years and others, like the powerful 1950s crusade against comics for supposedly causing juvenile delinquency, turn out to be central to our story because these events, and their great impact on American Jews, appear on comic book pages themselves, and behind the scenes in their production. For it turns out that the history of Jews and comic book superheroes, that very American invention, is the history of Jews and America, particularly the history of Jewish assimilation into the mainstream of American culture.
Call Number: General Collection PN6725 .B75 2012Publication Date: 2012
Magical American Jew: The Enigma of Difference in Contemporary Jewish American Short Fiction and Film by
Efforts to describe contemporary Jewish American identities often reveal more questions than concrete articulations, more statements about what Jewish Americans are not than what they are. Highlighting the paradoxical phrasings that surface in contemporary writings about Jewish American literature and culture--language that speaks to the elusive difference felt by many Jewish Americans--Aaron Tillman asks how we portray identities and differences that seem to resist concrete definition. Over the course of Magical American Jew, Tillman examines this enigma--the indefinite yet undeniable difference that informs contemporary Jewish American identity--demonstrating how certain writers and filmmakers have deployed magical realist techniques to illustrate the enigmatic difference that Jewish Americans have felt and continue to feel. Similar to the indeterminate nature of Jewish American identity, magical realism is marked by paradox and does not fit easily into any singular category. Often characterized as a mode of literary expression, rather than a genre within literature, magical realism has been the subject of debates about definition, origin, and application. After elucidating the features of the mode, Tillman illustrates how it enables uniquely cogent portrayals of enigmatic elements of difference. Concentrating on a diverse selection of Jewish American short fiction and film--including works by Woody Allen, Sarah Silverman, Cynthia Ozick, Nathan Englander, Steve Stern, and Melvin Jules Bukiet-- Magical American Jew covers a range of subjects, from archiving Holocaust testimony to satirical Jewish American humor. Shedding light on aspects of media, marginalization, excess, and many other facets of contemporary American society, the study concludes by addressing the ways that the magical realist mode has been and can be used to examine U.S. ethnic literatures more broadly.
Call Number: General Collection PS153.J4 T55 2018Publication Date: 2017
Youth and children's books
The Jewish Americans: A History in Their Own Words, 1650-1950 by
A collection of accounts of personal experiences of Jewish Americans, taken from letters, journals, diaries, autobiographies, speeches, and other documents.
Call Number: EMM Youth Collection - Bracken 4 West Ranges 1-3 973.049 J596Publication Date: 1982
The Jewish American Family Album by
As long ago as September 1654, 23 Jews disembarked from a ship named the Sainte Catherine into New Amsterdam--today's New York City. They came to find a safe haven from oppression and religious persecution and to seek economic opportunity. But even they were not the first Jewish Americans, and they were certainly not the last. Three million Jewish immigrants followed in the next three centuries. Today, about 4 out of every 10 Jews in the world are U. S. citizens. The Jewish American Family Album tells personal stories of Jewish immigrants from their arrival in this country (as early as 1579) to the present day. Dorothy and Thomas Hoobler have found letters, diaries, and newspaper articles that describe what life was like in the old countries and tell of the difficulties encountered in leaving home for a new life in America. They have combed through family archives and scrapbooks to find personal accounts that make history as immediate and exciting as stories told generation after generation in any family. In their own words, we learn what life was like for these millions of Jewish immigrants. We read of the earliest of the Jewish Americans, some of whom fought and died in the Revolution. We hear from Holocaust survivors and their children. We discover that from the beginning, Jewish Americans provided a base of support--lodging and fellowship--for those who followed. The part Jewish Americans played in the settlement of the American West, their strategic importance to the U.S. labor movement, and their many contributions to theater and music are documented with rare first-person accounts and extraordinary photographs. We hear of the challenges the immigrants faced, including anti-Semitism, even in the "Land of the Free." But Jewish Americans linked old traditions with new ones to build communities that have become a permanent and important part of American life. The memories and experiences of well-known Jewish Americans such as comedians George Burns and Jack Benny, Oscar Solomon Straus (the first Jewish Presidential cabinet member), and novelist Edna Ferber are included, as are profiles of Barbra Streisand, Steven Spielberg, Leonard Bernstein, union leader Samuel Gompers, and poet Emma Lazarus, among others. But other Jewish Americans who did not achieve celebrity status are also represented. Moses Albert Levy, a doctor who joined Sam Houston's army, 13-year-old Mary Antin, who arrived in Boston in 1894, Sarah Thal, who was a homesteader in the Dakotas, and many more fascinating but unknown immigrants tell powerful, emotional, and sometimes funny stories of life in their new homeland. These memories and profiles are illustrated with rare and moving photographs from news sources and family collections. They show in vivid fashion a people who have brought us humor, spirit, and perseverance. The Jewish American Family Album is an important tribute to the magnificent variety of people and cultures that makes up our United States. The titles in the American Family Albums series tell the multicolored and often heroic stories of American immigrant groups, largely through their own words and pictures. Like any family album or scrapbook, the pages contain many period photographs and other memorabilia. These join with original documents--including selections from diaries, letters, memoirs, and newspapers--to bring the immigrant experience vividly to life.
Call Number: EMM Youth Collection - Bracken 3 West Ranges 1-2, 27-32 325.73 H776JEPublication Date: 1995
The Blessing Cup by
"The skeins of faith and love that connect a family are all knit together in this powerful, accessible, and deeply affecting story. " --Kirkus Reviews, starred review A New York Times bestseller A bond of love unites a family throughout generations in this companion to the beloved and bestselling classic The Keeping Quilt. As a young Russian Jewish girl in the early 1900s, Anna and her family lived in fear of the Czar's soldiers. The family lived a hard life and had few possessions--their treasure was a beautiful china tea set. A wedding gift to Anna's parents, the tea set came with a wish that "Anyone who drinks from this will have blessings from God. They will never know a day of hunger. Their lives will always have flavor. They will know love and joy and they will never be poor." When Anna's family leaves Russia for America, they bring the tea set and its blessings. A source of heritage and security, the tea set helps Anna's family make friends and find better lives in America. A cup from the tea set--The Blessing Cup--became an anchor of family history, and it remains a symbol of lasting love more than a century later. This tender tribute to the importance of loving lineage is a prequel and companion to the perennial bestseller The Keeping Quilt and is told and illustrated with authenticity and tremendous heart.
Call Number: EMM Youth Collection - Bracken 3 East To Be Shelved Area 800 P762BLPublication Date: 2013
Good Night, Maman by
Dearest Maman, I keep all my letters to you in my notebook under my pillow. One day, when we're together again, I'll give them to you, and we'll sit and read them.... In June 1940, twelve-year-old Karin Levi's world is torn apart as the German army occupies Paris. Karin, her older brother, Marc, and their maman must flee, seeking safety wherever they can find it. But Maman falls ill and is unable to travel, forcing Karin and Marc to leave her behind. When Marc manages to obtain two coveted places aboard a ship bound for America, the distance between them grows even greater. Will Karin ever see her beloved maman again?
Call Number: EMM Youth Collection - Bracken 3 East To Be Shelved Area 800 M4756GOPublication Date: 2001
The Keeping Quilt by
"We will make a quilt to help us always remember home," Anna's mother said. "It will be like heaving the family in backhome Russia dance around us at night. And so it was. From a basket of old clothes, Anna's babushka, Uncle Vladimir's shirt, Aunt Havalah's nightdress and an apron of Aunt Natasha's become The Keeping Quilt, passed along from mother to daughter for almost a century. For four generations the quilt is a Sabbath tablecloth, a wedding canopy, and a blanket that welcomes babies warmly into the world. In strongly moving pictures that are as heartwarming as they are real, patricia Polacco tells the story of her own family, and the quilt that remains a symbol of their enduring love and faith.
Call Number: EMM Youth Collection - Bracken 3 East To Be Shelved Area 800 P762KEPublication Date: 1988
Hereville: How Mirka Got Her Sword by
Spunky, strong-willed eleven-year-old Mirka Herschberg isn't interested in knitting lessons from her stepmother, or how-to-find-a-husband advice from her sister, or you-better-not warnings from her brother. There's only one thing she does want: to fight dragons! Granted, no dragons have been breathing fire around Hereville, the Orthodox Jewish community where Mirka lives, but that doesn't stop the plucky girl from honing her skills. She fearlessly stands up to local bullies. She battles a very large, very menacing pig. And she boldly accepts a challenge from a mysterious witch, a challenge that could bring Mirka her heart's desire: a dragon-slaying sword! All she has to do is find - and outwit - the giant troll who's got it! A delightful mix of fantasy, adventure, cultural traditions, and preteen commotion, Hereville will captivate middle-school readers with its exciting visuals and entertaining new heroine. Accolades and Praise for Hereville: How Mirka Got Her Sword Sydney Taylor Award Eisner nomination Harvey nomination Ignatz nomination Nebula nomination "Utterly ingenious." --Kirkus, starred review "Withouth a doubt, the best graphic novel of 2010 for kids. Bar None."--School Library Journal, starred review "A terrific story, told with skill and lots of heart."--Publishers Weekly, starred review "Mirka is a spunky, emotionally realistic, and fun heroine."--Booklist, starred review "Sequel, please!"--Horn Book Magazine
Call Number: EMM Youth Collection - Bracken 2 West To Be Shelved Area 800 D486HEPublication Date: 2010
