Caging Skies by Christine Leunens
An avid member of the Hitler Youth in 1940s Vienna, Johannes Betzler discovers his parents are hiding a Jewish girl named Elsa behind a false wall in their home. His initial horror turns to...
Jewish Book World Blog
The Juggler & the King: The Jew and the Conquest of Evil: An Elaboration of the Vilna Gaon’s Insights Into the Hidden Wisdom of the Sages by Aharon Feldman
An exciting expansion of the Vilna Gaon’s powerful ideas on the purpose of Creation, the Jewish People and its history and destiny, and the coming of Mashiach.
Secularizing the Sacred: Aspects of Israeli Visual Culture by Alec Mishory
As historical analyses of Diaspora Jewish visual culture blossom in quantity and sophistication, this book analyzes 19th-20th-century developments in Jewish Palestine and later the State of Israel. In the course of these approximately one...
Heavenly Powers: Unraveling the Secret History of the Kabbalah by Neil Asher Silberman
Does the mysterious symbolism of the Kabbalah have a hidden meaning? Does its epic talk of struggle between the forces of Good and Evil have implications for understanding the political history of the Western...
Karl Marx: Philosophy and Revolution by Shlomo Avineri
Karl Marx (1818–1883)—philosopher, historian, sociologist, economist, current affairs journalist, and editor—was one of the most influential and revolutionary thinkers of modern history, but he is rarely thought of as a Jewish thinker, and his...
Sontag: Her Life and Work by Benjamin Moser
No writer is as emblematic of the American twentieth century as Susan Sontag. Mythologized and misunderstood, lauded and loathed, a girl from the suburbs who became a proud symbol of cosmopolitanism, Sontag left a...
A Guide to the Zohar by Arthur Green
The Zohar is the great medieval compendium of Jewish esoteric and mystical teaching, and the basis of the kabbalistic faith. It is, however, a notoriously difficult text, full of hidden codes, concealed meanings, obscure...
Hillel Takes a Bath by Vicki L. Weber
Illustrator: John Joven Today I will use this cloth to do a mitzvah! Hillel the Sage announced to his class. He whisked the cloth off his shoulder and snapped it in the air. The...
A Philosopher of Scripture The Exegesis and Thought of Tanḥum ha-Yerushalmi by Raphael Dascalu
Tanḥum b. Joseph ha-Yerushalmi (d. 1291, Fusṭāṭ, Egypt) was a rigorous linguist and philologist, philosopher and mystic, and a biblical exegete of singular breadth. As well as providing us with an insight into the...
From Metaphysics to Midrash: Myth, History, and the Interpretation of Scripture in Lurianic Kabbala by Shaul Magid
In From Metaphysics to Midrash, Shaul Magid explores the exegetical tradition of Isaac Luria and his followers within the historical context in 16th-century Safed, a unique community that brought practitioners of Judaism, Christianity, and...
