Showing titles in Judaism

Discover the secret to a meaningful and fulfilled life through the ancient wisdom of King Solomon.

In this now-classic Holocaust memoir, Simcha Bunem Unsdorfer recounts his survival of the Nazi camps. Clinging fiercely to his faith in God, the 19-year-old Unsdorfer faced the unspeakable horrors of Auschwitz and Buchenwald with courage and moral defiance, a testament to the abiding strength of the Jewish spirit.

Imagine walking into your place of worship - your local church, synagogue, mosque, or meditation center - to find that all of the usual adornments have been replaced with statues and pictures of sexually intertwined cherubs. Chances are, you'd be quickly taken aback. But according to Mark Gafni, bestselling author of "Your Unique Self" and "Soul Prints", these were the precise images found atop the ark of the ancient Temple of Jerusalem.

Abby Stein was raised in a Hasidic Jewish community in Brooklyn, isolated in a culture that lives according to the laws and practices of 18th century Eastern Europe, speaking only Yiddish and Hebrew and shunning modern life. Stein was born as the first son in a dynastic rabbinical family, poised to become a leader of the next generation of Hasidic Jews. But Abby felt certain at a young age that she was a girl. She orchestrated a personal exodus from ultra-Orthodox manhood to mainstream femininity - a radical choice that forced her to leave her home, her family, her way of life.

Jason Sommer's father, Jay, is ninety-eight years old and losing his memory. More than seventy years after arriving in New York from WWII-torn Europe, he is forgetting the stories that defined his life, the life of his family, and the lives of millions of Jews who were affected by Nazi terror. Observing this loss, Jason vividly recalls the trip to Eastern Europe the two took together in 2001.

Distinguished philosopher Hilary Putnam, who is also a practicing Jew, questions the thought of three major Jewish philosophers of the 20th century - Franz Rosenzweig, Martin Buber, and Emmanuel Levinas -- to help him reconcile the philosophical and religious sides of his life. An additional presence in the book is Ludwig Wittgenstein, who, although not a practicing Jew, thought about religion in ways that Putnam juxtaposes to the views of Rosenzweig, Buber, and Levinas.

Mike Levy shines a light on the courageous deeds of twenty-two women and men who transformed the lives of the Kindertransport and other refugees. In 1938, when the Government refused to act and those around them turned a blind eye, these heroic individuals took it upon themselves to orchestrate one of the greatest lifesaving missions the world has ever seen.

The JPS TANAKH: The Jewish Bible, audio version, is a recorded version of the JPS TANAKH, the most widely read English translation of the Hebrew, or Jewish, Bible. Produced and recorded for The Jewish Publication Society (JPS) by The Jewish Braille Institute (JBI), this complete, unabridged audio version of the Torah features over 14 hours of readings by seven narrators. The Torah is the essence of Jewish tradition; it inspires each successive generation.

For thousands of years, Jews have looked to the Hebrew Bible, also known as the Old Testament by Christians, for their origins, and have located in them the tenets of their faith. However, much of what is recognized today as Judaism does not appear in the Bible. How did Judaism develop from its biblical roots to the highly developed system we know today? What has changed - and what has remained constant? In this series of 24 spirited and provocative lectures, Professor Gafni investigates how the Jewish faith struggled to continually redefine itself during the first thousand years after the completion of the last books of the Hebrew Bible.

In a major work of scholarship both erudite and very funny, Jeremy Dauber traces the origins of Jewish comedy and its development from Biblical times to the age of Twitter. Organizing his book thematically into what he calls the seven strands of Jewish comedy - including the satirical, the witty, and the vulgar - Dauber explores the ways Jewish comedy has dealt with persecution, assimilation, and diaspora through the ages. He explains the rise and fall of popular comic archetypes such as the Jewish mother, the JAP, and the schlemiel and schlimazel.

Messianic Judaism is a biblically based movement of Jewish people who have come to believe in Yeshua as the promised Jewish Messiah of Israel. Yeshua is the Hebrew name for Jesus, which means Salvation. Today there are tens of thousands of Messianic Jews in the United States alone – some have estimated the number to be as high as 150,000. Messianic Congregations and Synagogues are springing up in almost every major city across the country including San Diego. Other nations such as Canada, England, France, Israel, and Argentina are experiencing a growing movement of Messianic Jews as well.

Violence in the Old Testament has long been a stumbling block for Christians and skeptics alike. God Is a Man of War offers a fresh interpretation of Old Testament accounts of violence, by exploring them through the twofold lens of Orthodox tradition and historical context. Father Stephen De Young examines what these difficult passages reveal about the nature of Christ and His creation, bearing witness to a world filled not only with pain and suffering - often of human making - but also with the love of God.

In The Holocaust by Bullets, Father Patrick Desbois documented for the first time the murder of 1.5 million Jews in Ukraine during World War II, based on wartime documents, interviews with locals, and the application of modern forensic practices on long-hidden gravesites. Nearly a decade of further work by his team, drawing on interviews with 5,000 neighbors of the Jews, has resulted in stunning new findings about the extent and nature of the genocide.

Prior to the popularization of Kabbalah, Kabbalist Rav Berg synthesized the wisdom’s key concepts into a progressive system, rather than the non-linear manner of exploration previously available. This book is the result. The kabbalistic lineage is inextricably tied to the study of the knowledge itself. To this end, Rav Berg includes historical milestones, as well as insights about master kabbalists, whose lives and deaths provide a basis for learning and connection.

Vitality floods its pages. Philosophers and kings, warriors and merchants, poets and financiers come alive as the story ranges across time and the globe. From ancient Palestine through Europe and the Orient, to America and modern Israel, Max Dimont shows how the saga of the Jews is interwoven with the history of virtually every nation on earth.

This is the powerful memoir of Solomon Perel, a man who survived the Holocaust by hiding his Jewish identity and becoming a member of the Hitler Youth. This book was the basis of Agnieska Hollands' award-winning film Europa, Europa. Published in association with the United States Holocaust Memorial Museum, it is an important and controversial contribution to a better understanding of the complexity of life under the Nazis.

Selma van de Perre was 17 when World War Two began. Until then, being Jewish in the Netherlands had been of no consequence. But by 1941 this simple fact had become a matter of life or death. Several times, Selma avoided being rounded up by the Nazis. Then, in an act of defiance, she joined the Resistance movement, using the pseudonym Margareta van der Kuit. For two years 'Marga' risked it all.

Life is unfolding as planned for Myra Sack and her husband Matt until their beautiful year-old daughter Havi is diagnosed with Tay-Sachs, a fatal neurodegenerative disease, and given only a year to live. Myra and Matt decide to celebrate Havi's short life and vow to show her as much of the world as they can, surrounded by friends and family who relocate to be in Havi's orbit. Tapping their Judaism, they transform Friday night Shabbats into birthday parties—"Shabbirthdays"—to replace the birthdays Havi will never have."Shabbirthdays"—to replace the birthdays Havi will never have.

Experience a practical, uplifting, and fascinating introduction to a time-honored system of spiritual growth and self-discovery. The Kabbalah, Judaism's timeless mystical tradition, was said to be brought down from heaven by angels. Its teachings were originally passed down by word of mouth because mystics believed its secrets transcended the written word. Rabbi David Cooper's Kabbalah Meditation continues this great oral tradition.

Stefan and Marion Hess’s happy childhood was shattered in 1944. Torn from their home in Amsterdam, the six-year-old twins and their parents were deported to a place their mother called “a dying hell”—the infamous concentration camp at Bergen-Belsen. Inseparable is the vivid account of one family’s struggle to survive the Holocaust.