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For our Home Page, Please visit MyJewishBooks.com SOME FALL 2008 BOOK READINGS September 07, 2008: One Day Jewish University. Skirball in NYC $75 September 14-24, 2008: Jewish Literary Festival. Wash DC JCC September 14, 2008: Jewish Literary Festival. Humor in Jewish Lit. Wash DC JCC September 16, 08: Jewish Literary Festival. "A is for Abraham". Wash DC JCC September 17, 08: Jewish Literary Festival. Ilan Stavans reads from Resurrecting Hebrew. Wash DC JCC September 17, 08: Jewish Literary Festival. "Camp Camp" with Roger Bennett. Wash DC JCC September 18, 08: Jewish Literary Festival. Peter Manseau and Janet Kirschenbaum read from their works Wash DC JCC September 19, 08: Jewish Literary Festival. Jacques Berlinerblau reads from "Thump It. The Use and Abuse of the Bible in Todays's Presidential Politics" Wash DC JCC September 20, 08: Jewish Literary Festival. Bernard-Henri Levy reads from Left in Dark Times. A Stand Against New Barbarism. Embassy of France, Washington DC 8PM September 21, 08: Jewish Literary Festival. Andrea Askowitz reads from My Miserable Lonely Lesbian Pregnancy Wash DC JCC September 21, 08: Jewish Literary Festival. Elisa Albert reads from The Book of Dahlia Wash DC JCC September 21, 08: Jewish Literary Festival. Darin Strauss reads from More Than It Hurts You Wash DC JCC September 22, 08: Jewish Literary Festival. Eileen Pollack reads from In The Mouth. Stories and Novellas. Wash DC JCC September 23, 08: Heeb Magazine Storytelling. M Bar, Los Angeles, CA 7-10PM September 23-24, 2008: NJDC Washington Conference. NJDC.org, Wash DC September 23, 08: Jewish Literary Festival. Ronnie Fein reads from Hip Kosher Wash DC JCC September 23, 08: Jewish Literary Festival. Ariel Sabar reads from My Father's Paradise Wash DC JCC September 24, 08: Jewish Literary Festival. Masha Gessen reads from Blood Matters Wash DC JCC September 24, 08: Jewish Literary Festival. Stephen Joel Trachtenberg reads from Big Man On Campus Wash DC JCC September 24, 08: ANNE ROIPHE reads from EPILOGUE. B&N UWS NYC September 25, 08: A J JACOBS reads from The Year of Living Biblically. B&N UWS NYC September 27, 2008: National Book Festival, Washington DC. 72 WRITERS INCLUDING Ellen Birnbaum, Geraldine Brooks, Warren Brown, Laura Bush, Jenna Bush, Daniel Schorr, Nancy Schulman, Arthur and Pauline Frommer, Walter Isaacson, James McBride, Francine Prose, and more October 23, 2008: Edgar M. Bronfman reads from Hope, Not Fear: A Path to Jewish Resistance. JCC NYC 7PM October 23, 2008: Anne Roiphe on Bereshit at Skirball in NYC 7PM October 27, 2008: 28th Annual Jewish Books Festival - Miami. Alperjcc.org October 29, 2008: Is Religion Good For The world? Debate Between Christ Hitchens and Rabbi David Wolpe. Temple Emanu El, NYC October 30, 2008: Samuel G. Freedman on Noah at Skirball in NYC 7PM November 06, 2008: Stephen M. Cohen at Skirball in NYC 7PM November 13, 2008: Thane Rosenbaum at Skirball in NYC 7PM November 23, 2008: Tenth Annual Jewish Children's Book Writers' Conference. 9AM-5PM. 92nd St Y, NYC $95 December 02, 2008: Esther Cohen reads from DON'T MIND ME AND OTHER JEWISH LIES. B&N UWS NYC December 04, 2008: Nessa Rapoport at Skirball in NYC 7PM December 11, 2008: Ilana Trachtman at Skirball in NYC 7PM February 15-20, 2009: The 24th Jerusalem International Book Fair SOME REPEATS FROM SUMMER 2008 Ambivalence Adventures in Israel and Palestine by Jonathan Garfinkel August 2008, Norton A memoir. With lofty ideals, spectacular ambivalence, and endearing naivet�, Canadian Jonathan Garfinkel explores Israel and Palestine by talking to ordinary people. Jonathan Garfinkel can't make up his mind-not about his girlfriend, or Judaism, or Israel. After hearing about a house in Jerusalem where Jews and Arabs coexist in peace, he decides it's time to venture there. In Israel, nothing is as he imagined it, and nothing is as he was taught. Garfinkel gives us the people behind the headlines: from secret assignations with Palestinian activists and an uninvited visit at an Arab refugee camp to Passover with Orthodox Jewish friends and finding the truth about the mythic coexistence house, Ambivalence is the provocative, surreal, and often hilarious chronicle of his travels. In this part memoir and part quest, Garfinkel struggles with the growing divisions in a troubled region and with the divide in his soul. Click the book cover to read more. Surprised by God How I Learned to Stop Worrying and Love Religion by Danya Ruttenberg August 2008, Beacon A combat-booted religious awakening and a look at what it takes to develop a spiritual practice. At thirteen, Danya Ruttenberg decided that she was an atheist. Watching the sea of adults standing up and sitting down at Rosh Hashanah services, and apparently giving credence to the patently absurd truth-claims of the prayer book, she came to a conclusion: Marx was right. But as a young adult immersed in the rhinestone-bedazzled wonderland of late-1990s San Francisco, she found herself yearning for something she would eventually call God. And taking that yearning seriously, she came to find, would require much of her. Surprised by God is the memoir of a young woman's spiritual awakening and eventual path to the rabbinate. It's a post-dotcom, third-wave, punk-rock Seven Storey Mountain-the story of integrating life on the edge of the twenty-first century into the discipline of traditional Judaism without sacrificing either. It's also a map through the hostile territory of the inner life, an unflinchingly honest guide to the kind of work that goes into developing a spiritual practice in today's world-and why, perhaps, doing this in today's world requires more work than it ever has. Click the book cover to read more. Cool Jew The Ultimate Guide for Every Member of the Tribe by Lisa Alcalay Klug August 2008 It's never been hipper to be Jewish. Cool Jew does for gefilte fish and matzah balls what the Preppy Handbook did for plaid and polo-only with much more chutzpah. Cool Jew: The Ultimate Guide for Every Member of the Tribe by Lisa Alcalay Klug delivers the kosher response to The Preppy Handbook. -Publishers Weekly Cool Jew covers everything Hebraic from womb to tomb, finally putting an end to Christmas tree envy. Short essays, lists, instructional guides, photographs, and original illustrations celebrate Jewish cultural pride with love, enthusiasm, and irreverence. Entries ranging from "Heebonics for the Yiddish Impaired" to "Self-Help for the Christmas Carole Intolerant" provide the long-awaited Jewish response to that WASP manual of the '80s, The Preppy Handbook. In addition to cultural hilarity, Cool Jew features resourceful back-of-the-book material, including "People of Da Book" (authoritative texts on Jewish concepts and culture), the "Heebster Jewke Box" (tunes that rock the Heebster vibe), and the "Tribe Online" (an extensive listing of Jewish Web resources). Click the book cover to read more. COUNTERFEITER HOW A NORWEGIAN JEW SURVIVED THE HOLOCAUST BY Moritz Nachtstern August 2008 Osprey Published for the first time in English, this is a personal account of the secret Nazi project, Operation Bernhard, devised to destabilize the British and, later, American economies by creating and putting into circulation millions of counterfeit banknotes. A team of typographers and printers was pulled out of the rows of prisoners on their way to the gas chambers and transferred to the strictly isolated Block 19 in Sachsenhausen concentration camp. There they were presented with the enormous task of producing almost perfect counterfeits to the value of hundreds of millions of pounds sterling. These notes were to be dropped from bombers over London, with the aim of causing financial chaos. When the time came the Luftwaffe's resources were fully committed in other campaigns and theaters but some of the currency was successfully used to fund operations in Germany's secret war. Moritz Nachtstern (1902-1969), was a Norwegian-Jewish typographer deported from Oslo in 1942. This is his story, as told to his wife and written down by her, then edited by journalist Ragnar Arntzen. It was originally published in Norwegian in 1949. It covers the three terrible years from his arrest and transportation to Germany, through the horrors of life in Auschwitz and Sachsenhausen to his escape in the last chaotic and terrifying days as the liberating American forces approached. At the center of this personal tale of courage and endurance is Nachtstern's absorbing description of how, in order to survive, he participated in the creation of exquisite forgeries, while working as slowly as possible, both to frustrate the Nazi plan and to ensure that he and his fellow forgers never became expendable. Click the book cover to read more. FROM EMUNAH: CHEF CONFIDENTIAL By Michele Friedman Emunah's New Cookbook. Here is the ultimate insiders' guide to recipes and tips from the world's most famous chefs, Jacques Pepin, Thomas Keller, Jean-Georges and many more have contributed recipes that were adapted by French Culinary Institute Chef Michele Friedman specifically for the home cook. Recipes feature current food trends and plating techniques so explicit you will feel as if the chefs are guiding you in your home. Click the book cover to read more. SPEAKING OF EATING: BANANA WALNUT CUPCAKE EATERS UNITE Food for the Soul Traditional Jewish Wisdom for Healthy Eating by Chana Rubin A Rabbi Cook wrote: When One Eats just to satisfy physical desire, it brings a certain sadness." With the information included in this book, you will be well equipped to make healthy food choices and prepare nutritious meals for you and your family. Food for the Soul: Traditional Jewish Wisdom for Healthy Eating addresses nutrition and health from a Jewish perspective. The nutritional information is universal, but tailored to the Jewish population's specific needs; kashrut, lifestyle, Shabbat and holidays, fast days and the unique Jewish culture of food. Chana Rubin, Registered Dietician, earned her degree in dietetics at Oregon State University. She has worked in dietetics at a Jewish nursing home, hospitals, schools, and as a consultant to physicians. She currently resides in Be'er Sheba, Israel, where she teaches nutrition, sensible eating, and healthy, tasty cooking. Click the book cover to read more. Food for the Soul Traditional Jewish Wisdom for Healthy Eating by Chana Rubin A Rabbi Cook wrote: When One Eats just to satisfy physical desire, it brings a certain sadness." With the information included in this book, you will be well equipped to make healthy food choices and prepare nutritious meals for you and your family. Food for the Soul: Traditional Jewish Wisdom for Healthy Eating addresses nutrition and health from a Jewish perspective. The nutritional information is universal, but tailored to the Jewish population's specific needs; kashrut, lifestyle, Shabbat and holidays, fast days and the unique Jewish culture of food. Chana Rubin, Registered Dietician, earned her degree in dietetics at Oregon State University. She has worked in dietetics at a Jewish nursing home, hospitals, schools, and as a consultant to physicians. She currently resides in Be'er Sheba, Israel, where she teaches nutrition, sensible eating, and healthy, tasty cooking. Click the book cover to read more. The Arts of Intimacy: Christians, Jews, and Muslims in the Making of Castilian Culture By Jerrilynn D. Dodds, Maria Rosa Menocal, and Abigail Krasner Balbale 2008, Yale This lavishly illustrated book explores the vibrant interaction among different and sometimes opposing cultures, and how their contacts with one another transformed them all. It chronicles the tumultuous history of Castile in the wake of the Christian capture of the Islamic city of Tulaytula, now Toledo, in the eleventh century and traces the development of Castilian culture as it was forged in the new intimacy of Christians with the Muslims and Jews they had overcome. The authors paint a portrait of the culture through its arts, architecture, poetry and prose, uniquely combining literary and visual arts. Concentrating on the eleventh and twelfth centuries, the book reveals the extent to which Castilian identity is deeply rooted in the experience of confrontation, interaction, and at times union with Hebrew and Arabic cultures during the first centuries of its creation. Abundantly illustrated, the volume serves as a splendid souvenir of southern Spain; beautifully written, it illuminates a culture deeply enriched by others. Click the book cover to read more. SEPTEMBER 2008 BOOKS INDIGNATION by PHILIP ROTH September 16, 2008, Houghton Mifflin Against the backdrop of the Korean War, a young man faces life's unimagined chances and terrifying consequences. It is 1951 in America, the second year of the Korean War. A studious, law-abiding, intense youngster from Newark, New Jersey, Marcus Messner, is beginning his sophomore year on the pastoral, conservative campus of Ohio's Winesburg College. And why is he there and not at the local college in Newark where he originally enrolled? Because his father, the sturdy, hard-working neighborhood butcher, seems to have gone mad -- mad with fear and apprehension of the dangers of adult life, the dangers of the world, the dangers he sees in every corner for his beloved boy. As the long-suffering, desperately harassed mother tells her son, the father's fear arises from love and pride. Perhaps, but it produces too much anger in Marcus for him to endure living with his parents any longer. He leaves them and, far from Newark, in the midwestern college, has to find his way amid the customs and constrictions of another American world. Indignation, Philip Roth's twenty-ninth book, is a story of inexperience, foolishness, intellectual resistance, sexual discovery, courage, and error. It is a story told with all the inventive energy and wit Roth has at his command, at once a startling departure from the haunted narratives of old age and experience in his recent books and a powerful addition to his investigations of the impact of American history on the life of the vulnerable individual. Adam Begley, writing in The NY Observer, wrote, "....We begin in Newark in the early 1950s, sempiternal source of so many Roth sagas. Remember the glove factory in American Pastoral (1997), the long, loving descriptions of the craftsmanship at Newark Maid Leatherware? This time we get a tour of a kosher butcher shop, with 18-year-old Marcus Messner as our guide. He's working for his father in the seven months between his early graduation from high school and his freshman year at a local college. Are you ready? "It was my job not just to pluck the chickens but to eviscerate them. You slit the ass open a bit and you stick your hand up and you grab the viscera and you pull them out." (The insistent repetition of "you" is not accidental.).... Marcus is wound too tight. He tells us he's a "prudent, responsible, diligent, hardworking A student who went out with only the nicest girls, a dedicated debater, and a utility infielder for the varsity baseball team." You can hear how tight he's wound in the redundancy of "prudent, responsible, diligent, hardworking." He's inherited his intensity from his father, who flips-suddenly, inexplicably-the moment Marcus stops working at the shop and starts attending college in Newark. The doting father hounds the dutiful son with questions about where he's been: "You are a boy with a magnificent future before you-how do I know you're not going to places where you can get yourself killed?" The barrage of crazy worry is intolerable, and so Marcus transfers to Winesberg, a small liberal arts and engineering college in central Ohio, 500 miles from his deranged paternal unit and smack in the middle of Sherwood Anderson's WASP America...... Did I mention that there's a war going on? No, not the one we're fighting today (but yes, that one, too)-I mean the Korean War, which haunts Marcus at every step: If he's not in college, he'll get drafted, sent to Korea, and killed in a frozen trench by a bayonet-wielding communist. (Thereby confirming his father's anguished and "unrelenting intimations of catastrophe.") ..... THE BULK OF Indignation takes place in Winesberg. It's the classic setup: a Jew emerging from a Jewish working-class enclave into a middle-class, decidedly non-Jewish environment. This time it produces hilarity, torrents of indignation on all sides, and (hey, this is Roth!) a whopping case of romantic obsession triggered by an unexpected blow job that nearly unhinges our overwrought young hero...." Click the book cover to read more. N O W I N P A P E R B A C K THE ZOOKEEPER'S WIFE A WAR STORY BY DIANE ACKERMAN September 2008, Paperback Edition. NORTON WINNER OF THE 2008 ORION AWARD Reed it before they make the film On the heels of Alan Weisman's The World Without Us I picked up Diane Ackerman's The Zookeeper's Wife. Both books take you to Poland's forest primeval, the Bialowieza, and paint a richly textured portrait of a natural world that few of us would recognize. The similarities end there, however, as Ackerman explores how that sense of natural order imploded under the Nazi occupation of Poland. Jan and Antonina Zabiniski--keepers of the Warsaw Zoo who sheltered Jews from the Warsaw ghetto--serve as Ackerman's lens to this moment in time, and she weaves their experiences and reflections so seamlessly into the story that it would be easy to read the book as Antonina's own miraculous memoir. Jan and Antonina's passion for life in all its diversity illustrates ever more powerfully just how narrow the Nazi worldview was, and what tragedy it wreaked. The Zookeeper's Wife is a powerful testament to their courage and--like Irene Nemirovsky's Suite Francaise--brings this period of European history into intimate view. A true story - as powerful as Schindler's List- in which the keepers of the Warsaw Zoo saved hundreds of people from Nazi hands. When Germany invaded Poland, Stuka bombers devastated Warsaw - and the city's zoo along with it. With most of their animals dead, zookeepers Jan and Antonina Zabinski began smuggling Jews into empty cages. Another dozen guests hid inside the Zabinskis' villa, emerging after dark for dinner, socializing, and, during rare moments of calm, piano concerts. Jan, active in the Polish resistance, kept ammunition buried in the elephant enclosure and stashed explosives in the animal hospital. Meanwhile, Antonina kept her unusual household afloat, caring for both its human and its animal inhabitants - otters, a badger, hyena pups, lynxes. With her exuberant prose and exquisite sensitivity to the natural world, Diane Ackerman engages us viscerally in the lives of the zoo animals, their keepers, and their hidden visitors. She shows us how Antonina refused to give in to the penetrating fear of discovery, keeping alive an atmosphere of play and innocence even as Europe crumbled around her. Click the book cover to read more. JUST SAY NU YIDDISH FOR EVERY OCCASION WHEN ENGLISH JUST WON'T DO BY MICHAEL WEX September 2008, Harper Perennial PW: This is not your bubbe's-or Leo Rosten's-Yiddish. Translator, novelist and performer Wex follows his witty and erudite Born to Kvetch with a colorful, uncensored guide to the idiomatic, use of Yiddish in such areas as madness, fury, and driving, mob Yiddish, insults and thirteen designations for the human rear (in declining order of politeness). Wex is knowledgeable about the biblical and Talmudic roots of some colloquial phrases; for example, he points out that tukhes (ass as he translates it) may be derived from Tuhkhes, one of the places where the Israelites sojourned on their way from Egypt to the Promised Land. While most of Wex's discussions of words and phrases are brief, he provides lengthier sections on five key, highly nuanced Yiddish words: nu (Well?), shoyn (already, right away), epes (something, somewhat), takeh (precisely) and nebakh (alas). Wex's advice on the complex usage of these words can help even the greenest Yiddish speaker. The book could have given more attention to regional dialects and there are a few organizational quirks. Still, Wex offers both fun and instruction for the non-maven. Click the book cover to read more. I'd Bark But You Never Listen An Illustrated Guide to the Jewish Dog by Harold Kimmel Fall 2008, Red Rock Press From a top Hollywood humor writer comes this edgy collection of illustrated jokes revealing the innermost thoughts of independent-minded dogs. What marks the breed is a quirky mindset--given both to philosophical debate and picky pragmatism, not to mention personal pride: I'd fetch but it's embarrassing. The Jewish greyhound, foxhound or chosen mutt always has an excellent and very funny reason for leading his or her distinguished version of a dog's life. What makes a dog Jewish? A state of mind! The very funny mind of Hollywood comedy writer Harold Kimmel explores herein the loveable attitudes, neuroses and preferences of the Jewish dog. How does Kimmel know? Read this, and you'll know he knows. A dog doesn't have to be born Jewish. He or she could develop a certain way of viewing the world by having a Jewish owner--not that Jewish dogs have owners. So, maybe all a dog needs is a friend in sniffing distance who once ate Bar Mitzvah leftovers. If your dog is contemplative, she's probably Jewish. If your dog is full-grown but greets you with mournful puppy eyes, chances are you're a disappointment to him. Canines of the faith love to eat, shop and snorkel. They like dog spas. It's true that Jewish dogs worry but they also know how to have a good time. Step into the world of Harold Kimmel's poodles, spainels, dalmations, terriers and pointers--and see for yourself. Click the book cover to read more. Angler The Cheney Vice Presidency by Barton Gellman September 2008, Penguin Pulitzer Prize-winning journalist Barton Gellman's newsbreaking investigative journalism documents how Vice President Dick Cheney redefined the role of the American vice presidency, assuming unprecedented responsibilities and making it a post of historic power. Dick Cheney changed history, defining his times and shaping a White House as no vice president has before- yet concealing most of his work from public view. Pulitzer Prize-winning Washington Post reporter Barton Gellman parts the curtains of secrecy to show how Cheney operated, why, and what he wrought. Angler, Gellman's embargoed and highly explosive book, is a work of careful, concrete, and original reporting backed by hundreds of interviews with close Cheney allies as well as rivals, many speaking candidly on the record for the first time. On the signature issues of war and peace, Angler takes readers behind the scenes as Cheney maneuvers for dominance on what he calls the iron issues from Iraq, Iran, and North Korea to executive supremacy, interrogation of Al Qaeda suspects, and domestic espionage. Gellman explores the behind-the- scenes story of Cheney's tremendous influence on foreign policy, exposing how he misled the four ranking members of Congress with faulty intelligence on Iraqi weapons of mass destruction, how he derailed Bush from venturing into Israeli- Palestinian peace talks for nearly five years, and how his policy left North Korea and Iran free to make major advances in their nuclear programs. Domestically, Gellman details Cheney's role as "super Chief of Staff ", enforcer of conservative orthodoxy; gatekeeper of Supreme Court nominees; referee of Cabinet turf; editor of tax and budget laws; and regulator in chief of the administration's environment policy. We watch as Cheney, the ultimate Washington insider, leverages his influence within the Bush administration in order to implement his policy goals. Gellman's discoveries will surprise even the most astute students of political science. Above all, Angler is a study of the inner workings of the Bush administration and the vice president's central role as the administration's canniest power player. Gellman exposes the mechanics of Cheney's largely successful post-September 11 campaign to win unchecked power for the commander in chief, and reflects upon, and perhaps changes, the legacy that Cheney-and the Bush administration as a whole-will leave as they exit office. Click the book cover to read more. DUMBFOUNDED Big Money. Big Hair. Big Problems. Or Why Having It All Isn't for Sissies A MEMOIR BY MATT ROTHSCHILD September 2008, Crown From Publishers Weekly: Rothschild, a writer and high school teacher living in Florida, was abandoned by his mother and raised by his grandparents, a retired Jewish couple living in the most exclusive building in the most exclusive neighborhood of New York City. The setting is sitcom-perfect, from the headstrong grandmother and exasperated grandfather to the wisecracking servants, and Rothschild's youthful acting out offers much opportunity for humor. At one point, his behavior was so out of hand that one of the few private schools he hadn't been asked to leave would accept him only if his grandparents donated one of their Van Goghs as well. But all is not happy: an early attempt by his mother to reunite the family ends in disaster, and her selfish behavior forces him to care for his Alzheimer's-stricken grandmother while still a teenager. Rothschild has been through a lot, and he's an able storyteller, easily drawing readers' sympathy by layering the emotional drama. If his story seems incomplete, that's probably because it is-the final break with his mother would, from an older author, be the midpoint at which Rothschild turns his life around, but this memoir ends with just the first glimmers of an optimistic future. Click the book cover to read more. AN INTRODUCTION TO ISLAM FOR JEWS BY REUVEN FIRESTONE 2008, Jewish Publication Society JPS From Publishers Weekly: Firestone provides a balanced introduction to Islam that will be helpful for all beginners, but particularly for the Jewish readers for whom it is intended. The first part offers a survey of Islamic history, with special emphasis on the interactions of Jews and Muslims throughout (and an entire chapter devoted to the violent relations in seventh-century Medina). Firestone extends a real effort to be fair to both sides; in his discussion of Muhammad's massacre of between 600 and 900 Jewish men, for instance, he reminds readers that the Jews had committed treason and points to examples in the Hebrew Bible where Israelites engaged in similar tactics. Part two digs into the foundations of Islamic law and belief, discussing the Qur'an, the prophetic tradition, key doctrines and sharia law. The final, and perhaps most interesting, part explores Islam in practice. Firestone undertakes an in-depth discussion of the Five Pillars of Islam, finding much common ground: like Muslims, Jews have an ancient tradition of praying at set times; early Muslims, like Jews, fasted on the 10th day of a particular month. Click the book cover to read more. MALE FLIGHT A Man's Responsibility A Jewish Guide to Being a Son, a Partner in Marriage, a Father and a Community Leader by Rabbi Joseph B. Meszler September 2008, Jewish Lights FROM THE BOSTON GLOBE.... American Judaism has a boy problem. After several thousand years in which women were relegated to the sidelines of worship and community leadership, scholars and denominational leaders now say that women are significantly outnumbering men in numerous key segments of non-Orthodox Jewish community life. At the Reform movement's seminary, 60 percent of the rabbinical students and 84 percent of those studying to become cantors are female. Girls are outnumbering boys by as much as 2 to 1 among adolescents in youth group programs and summer camps, while women outnumber men at worship and in a variety of congregational leadership roles, according to the Union for Reform Judaism. The evidence is everywhere. At Temple Sinai in Sharon, nine of the 11 members of this year's confirmation class were girls.... "After bar mitzvah, the boys just drop out," said Sylvia Barack Fishman, a professor of contemporary Jewish life at Brandeis University and the coauthor of a study on "Gender Imbalance in American Jewish Life," which was publicly released last week..... The Brandeis study argues that "men's decreased interest in Jews and Judaism walks hand in hand with apathy toward creating Jewish households and raising Jewish children." "Men need to be encouraged to come back into the synagogue," said Stuart M. Matlins, editor in chief of Jewish Lights Publishing. The Vermont-based publisher has a long list of women's studies books, but this fall is publishing a guide for Jewish men, and next spring is publishing a modern men's Torah commentary. "The welcoming of women into leadership positions is something I have worked very hard on, but we don't want to lose the men.".... "Perhaps one factor is that men are devaluing something that is done by women, while another factor may be that men have less free time then they did a generation ago, and they're choosing to use that free time for child-rearing and family activities," said Rabbi Joseph Meszler, of Temple Sinai of Sharon. Meszler, the author of the Jewish Lights book on men's responsibilities coming out this fall, is an advocate of giving men a time to talk apart from women. He has relaunched his synagogue's defunct brotherhood, held a men's barbecue, and started men's study groups. "We need to reintroduce men to the synagogue, but on their own terms," Meszler said "You have to define the problem in order to solve it," said Rabbi Susan Abramson of Temple Shalom Emeth in Burlington. Abramson, the longest-serving female rabbi in Massachusetts, is not shy about gender issues - she has authored what she says is the world's first comic book series with a female rabbi superhero, Rabbi Rocketpower - but she is now concerned about the role of men. "Two or three years ago there were hardly any men on the temple board or as committee chairs, and we had a discussion that we need to get some men represented in the top layer of the synagogue, so we've brought them back," she said..... IN THIS BOOK, Rabbi Meszler explains how the Jewish man should be as a father, a son, a marriage partner (not a husband), and a community and synagogue leader. . Click the book cover to read more. RESURRECTING HEBREW BY ILAN STAVANS September 2008, Schocken Here is the stirring story of how Hebrew was rescued from the fate of a dead language to become the living tongue of a modern nation. Ilan Stavans's quest begins with a dream featuring a beautiful woman speaking an unknown language. When the language turns out to be Hebrew, a friend diagnoses "language withdrawal," and Stavans sets out in search of his own forgotten Hebrew as well as the man who helped revive the language at the end of the nineteenth century, Eliezer Ben-Yehuda. The search for Ben-Yehuda, who raised his eldest son in linguistic isolation-not even allowing him to hear the songs of birds-so that he would be "the first Hebrew-speaking child," becomes a journey full of paradox. It was Orthodox anti-Zionists who had Ben-Yehuda arrested for sedition, and, although Ben-Yehuda was devoted to Jewish life in Palestine, it was in Manhattan that he worked on his great dictionary of the Hebrew language. The resurrection of Hebrew raises urgent questions about the role language plays in Jewish survival, questions that lead Stavans not merely into the roots of modern Hebrew but into the origins of Israel itself. All the tensions between the Diaspora and the idea of a promised land pulse beneath the surface of Stavans's story, which is a fascinating biography as well as a moving personal journey. Click the book cover to read more. THE DEATH OF SIGMUND FREUD THE LEGACY OF HIS LAST DAYS BY MARK EDMUNDSON September 2008, Bloomsbury (how apropos) From Booklist: Freud's last book-Moses and Monotheism-has counted for little with critics, inclined to dismiss it as a product of his dotage. Edmundson, however, makes large claims for the psychologist's final work. Indeed, he interprets it as central to the dying revolutionary's bold strategy for endowing his psychoanalytic movement-deeply subversive of religion and patriarchal authority-with a quasi-religious permanence that ensured his own immortality as modernity's prophetic father. Despite his antipathy to religious faith, Freud devoted his last two years to a text reappropriating his own Jewish tradition as the wellspring of higher intellectual achievements. In rejecting the social solidity of pagan spectacles, the Hebrews-in Freud's theory-opened the door to honest exploration of the elusive individual psyche. Edmundson underscores the historical significance of Freud's paradigm by identifying its antithesis in Hitler's stunningly effective use of neopagan pageantry to incite a mass hysteria that made Vienna so politically hostile that the aging therapist had to flee. An insightful gloss on a generally neglected episode of Freud's life. Click the book cover to read more. THE GRAND INQUISITOR'S MANUAL A HISTORY OF TERROR IN THE NAME OF GOD BY JONATHAN KIRSCH September 2008, HarperOne The twelfth century birthed a new and sinister brand of sanctioned terror, an international network of secret police and courts, an army of inquisitors whose sworn duty was to seek out anyone regarded as an enemy, and a casualty list numbering in the tens of thousands. The original agents of the Inquisition-priests and monks, scribes and notaries, attorneys and accountants, torturers and executioners-were deputized by the Church and their worst excesses were excused as the pardonable sins of soldiers engaged in a holy war against heresy that became the obsession of Christendom. Yet the first rumblings of Western civilization's great engine of persecution provided no indication of the ultimate scope and influence of the inquisitorial toolkit and how the crimes of the first inquisitors were perpetrated again and again into the twentieth century and beyond. Despite the importance of this legacy, the history of the Inquisition remains a subject that has largely been overlooked by general historians. With The Grand Inquisitor's Manual, national bestselling author Jonathan Kirsch delivers a sweeping and provocative history that explores how the Inquisition was honed to perfection and brought to bear on an ever-widening circle of victims by authoritarians in both church and state for over six hundred years. Ranging from the Knights Templar to the first Protestants, from Joan of Arc to Galileo; from the torture and murder of hundreds of thousands of innocent women during the Witch Craze to its greatest power in Spain after 1492, when the secret tribunals and torture chambers were directed for the first time against Jews and Muslims to the modern war on terror-Kirsch shows us how the Inquisition stands as a universal and ineradicable symbol of the terror that results when absolute power works its corruptions. The history of the Inquisition is draped in myth and mystery, a favorite theme of both artists and propagandists throughout the six hundred years of its active operations. Yet when we pull aside the veil, what we see are the original blueprints for the machinery of persecution that was invented in the High Middle Ages and applied to human flesh ever since. The Grand Inquisitor's Manual exposes the dangerous circular logic of the Inquisition so that we do not perpetuate its brand of terror. Click the book cover to read more. THE SEARCH COMMITTEE A NOVEL BY RABBI MARC ANGEL September 2008, When the leader of a venerable Torah academy passes away, a search committee begins to investigate two candidates, both serious and committed Torah scholars. However, the resemblance ends there. One, the previous leader's son, is a staunch traditionalist determined to keep to the old ways, while the other is a university graduate with a modern, open-minded perspective. The candidates hold opposing views about the role of the yeshiva, the ideals of Torah Judaism, the role of women in the community, and the future of Orthodoxy and the Jewish people. As they, their wives, colleagues, students, and donors address the Committee, a dramatic story emerges about the ways in which a traditional community may embrace or reject the modern world. Click the book cover to read more. I have never read anything quite like The Search Committee, a fascinating novel by the Rabbi Emeritus of America's most distinguished Sephardic congregation. Through the story of two very different men, both vying to lead a prestigious Talmudic academy, the author leads us with breathtaking insight through the maze of religion and politics that is at the heart of the Orthodox Jewish world. This novel is a true contribution to Jewish-American literature. --Naomi Ragen DOUGH A MEMOIR BY MORT ZACHTER Late Summer 2008, Collins From Publishers Weekly: After losing his job as an accountant, enrolling in night law school and taking out a second mortgage to support his family, Zachter answered the phone in 1994 and was asked by a banker if he would like to take control of his uncle Harry's seven-figure money market account. What he at first assumed was a practical joke turned out to be true-Harry had been living like a pauper in a housing project while running a day-old bread store on New York's Lower East Side for 60 years. Zachter's memoir alternates between his imaginings of daily life at the bakery from the 1940s through the '60s and his unearthing of his family's financial secrets in the 1990s. Upon stumbling on a stockpile of crumbling two-dollar bills stashed away in Harry's fruitcake boxes, a relative jokes that Zachter really is from old money. In seeking to reconcile decades of financial stress with his sudden inheritance, Zachter notes, Multiple lifetimes of nothing but hard work and deprivation had amassed this fortune. But what good had it done? The answer, he decides after realizing that he will never have to worry about paying the bills, is in the gift of time to write this book. This rich story pays off with honest but lighthearted discoveries about loyalty and wealth. Click the book cover to read more. SARAH'S KEY A NOVEL BY TATIANA DE ROSNAY( September 2008, Griffin St Martins From Publishers Weekly: Starred Review. De Rosnay's U.S. debut fictionalizes the 1942 Paris roundups and deportations, in which thousands of Jewish families were arrested, held at the V�lodrome d'Hiver outside the city, then transported to Auschwitz. Forty-five-year-old Julia Jarmond, American by birth, moved to Paris when she was 20 and is married to the arrogant, unfaithful Bertrand T�zac, with whom she has an 11-year-old daughter. Julia writes for an American magazine and her editor assigns her to cover the 60th anniversary of the V�l' d'Hiv' roundups. Julia soon learns that the apartment she and Bertrand plan to move into was acquired by Bertrand's family when its Jewish occupants were dispossessed and deported 60 years before. She resolves to find out what happened to the former occupants: Wladyslaw and Rywka Starzynski, parents of 10-year-old Sarah and four-year-old Michel. The more Julia discovers-especially about Sarah, the only member of the Starzynski family to survive-the more she uncovers about Bertrand's family, about France and, finally, herself. Already translated into 15 languages, the novel is De Rosnay's 10th (but her first written in English, her first language). It beautifully conveys Julia's conflicting loyalties, and makes Sarah's trials so riveting, her innocence so absorbing, that the book is hard to put down. Paris, May 2002: On Vel' d'Hiv's 60th anniversary, journalist Julia Jarmond is asked to write an article about this black day in France's past. Through her contemporary investigation, she stumbles onto a trail of long-hidden family secrets that connect her to Sarah. Julia finds herself compelled to retrace the girl's ordeal, from that terrible term in the Vel d'Hiv', to the camps, and beyond. As she probes into Sarah's past, she begins to question her own place in France, and to reevaluate her marriage and her life. Click the book cover to read more. Jewish Dharma A Guide to the Practice of Judaism and Zen by Brenda Shoshanna, Ph.D. September 2008, De Capo Lifelong Books like the Jew in the Lotus have helped to define the intersection of Jewish and Zen experience and custom. Now, in the first guide to the practice of both Judaism and Zen, Dr. Brenda Shoshanna, raised as an Orthodox Jew in Brooklyn, a long-time practitioner and student of both, shares her insights with over one million people who identify as "JuBus," as well as Jews, Zen students, non-Jews, and everyone in the interfaith community who seeks understanding, meaning, and a life grounded in these authentic faiths. Each chapter of Jewish Dharma focuses on common issues that introduce disorder to our lives, using personal narrative, parables, quotations from both Jewish and Zen scriptures, anecdotes, and exercises. Specific guidelines and exercises help readers integrate both practices into their everyday lives-and thereby gain deeper understanding and happiness. Click the book cover to read more. Timeout Sports Stories as a Game Plan for Spiritual Success by Rabbi Dov Moshe Lipman (Ner Israel, Johns Hopkins) September 2008, Devora Positive Torah lessons for sports fans. Appeals to the sports minded who wonder what Torah and Jewish philosophy can offer them. What does the consistency of Cal Ripken, Jr., the work ethic of Michael Jordan, or the lessons from the US Olympic Hockey Team teach you about Torah? The author is a rabbi as well as the former head counselor and Director for Sportstar Click the book cover to read more. Whither Thou Goest The Jewish In-law's Survival Guide by Sorah Shapiro Fall 2008, Devora Here are successful strategies for surviving In-Laws and as an In-Law. Explores the most common points of friction between In-Laws, how to avoid them and how to overcome them. Includes 10 Tips For Getting Along With Your In-Laws and words of advice and solace from psychologists, lawyers, rabbis, and those with years of In-Law experience. If you're married you probably need this book. Click the book cover to read more. Why Faith Matters by Rabbi David J. Wolpe September 2008, HarperCollins Named the #1 Rabbi in America by Newsweek magazine, David Wolpe is the Rabbi of Sinai Temple in Los Angeles, California, where he is a prolific leader, thinker, teacher, and author, but as a pulpit rabbi, he also has to remind congregants to not crowd the kiddush tables. He has also personally known illnesses. Previously he taught at the Jewish Theological Seminary of America in New York, The American Jewish University in Los Angeles, Hunter College, and he currently teaches at UCLA. Rabbi Wolpe writes for many publications, including regular columns for the New York Jewish Week, beliefnet.com, as well as periodic contributions to the Jerusalem Post, The Los Angeles Times, and many others. He is an ethics columnist for Campaigns and Elections Magazine and a monthly book columnist for L.A. Jewish Journal. He has been on television numerous times, featured in series on PBS, A&E, as well as serving as a commentator on CNN and CBS This Morning. Rabbi Wolpe is the author of seven books, including the national bestseller Making Loss Matter: Creating Meaning in Difficult Times. Why Faith Matters is a personal faith journey and response to the new atheists. Faith traditions do not offer easy answers. It is not the opiate of simple minded people. Religion allows seekers and adherents to ask deeply challenging questions... Click the book cover to read more. A Jewish Woman's Prayer Book by Aliza Lavie, PhD, Bar Ilan University Late Summer 2008, Spiegel und Grau On the eve of Yom Kippur in 2002, Aliza Lavie, a university professor, read an interview with an Israeli woman who had lost both her mother and her baby daughter in a terrorist attack. As she stood in the synagogue later that evening, Lavie searched for comfort for the bereaved woman, for a reminder that she was not alone but part of a great tradition of Jewish women who have responded to unbearable loss with strength and fortitude. Unable to find sufficient solace within the traditional prayer book and inspired by the memory of her own grandmother's steadfast knowledge and faith, she began researching and compiling prayers written for and by Jewish women. The Jewish Woman's Prayer Book is the result-a beautiful and moving one-of-a-kind collection that draws from a variety of Jewish traditions, through the ages, to commemorate every occasion and every passage in the cycle of life-from the mundane to the extraordinary. This elegant, inspiring volume includes special prayers for the Sabbath and holidays and important dates of the Jewish year, prayers to mark celebratory milestones, such as bat mitzvah, marriage, pregnancy, and childbirth; and prayers for comfort and understanding in times of tragedy and loss. Each prayer is presented in Hebrew and in an English translation, along with fascinating commentary on its origins and allusions. Culled from a wide range of sources, both geographically and historically, this collection testifies that women's prayers were-and continue to be-an inspired expression of personal supplication and desire. Click the book cover to read more. Contemporary Israel Domestic Politics, Foreign Policy, and Security Challenges by Robert O Freedman, Baltimore Hebrew University September 2008, Westview Since its formation in 1948, and particularly since the assassination of Prime Minister Yitzak Rabin in 1995, Israel has experienced turbulent political change and numerous ongoing security challenges, including major party splits, collapsed peace talks with the Palestinians and Syria, nuclear threats from Iran, and even the specter of civil war as Israel withdrew from Gaza. This essential survey brings together Israeli and American scholars to provide a much-needed balanced introduction to Israel's domestic politics and foreign policy. Experts tackle this difficult subject in three parts: domestic politics, foreign policy challenges, and strategic challenges. Domestic topics include the Israeli Right and Left; religious, Russian, and Arab parties; the Supreme Court; and the economy. Part two discusses Israel's complicated and often fractious relationships with the Palestinians and the Arab world, as well as its improved relations with Turkey and India and continuing close relationship with the United States. Israel's second Lebanon war and existential threats to Israel, including the threat from Iran, are detailed in part three. This compelling and authoritative coverage provides students with the necessary framework to understand Israel's political past and present, as well as the direction it is likely to take in the future. Click the book cover to read more. From Krakow to Krypton Jews and Comic Books by Arie Kaplan September 2008, JPS Jews created the first comic book, the first graphic novel, the first comic book convention, the first comic book specialty store, and they helped create the underground comics (or "Comix") movement of the late '60s and early '70s. Many of the creators of the most famous comic books, such as Superman, Spiderman, X-Men, and Batman, as well as the founders of MAD Magazine, were Jewish. From Krakow to Krypton: Jews and Comic Books tells their stories and demonstrates how they brought a uniquely Jewish perspective to their work and to the comics industry as a whole. Over-sized and in full color, From Krakow to Krypton is filled with sidebars, cartoon bubbles, comic book graphics, original design sketches, and photographs. It is a visually stunning and exhilarating history. Click the book cover to read more. See Also: Disguised As Clark Kent Jews, Comics, And the Creation of the Superhero by Danny Fingeroth (Author), Stan Lee (Foreword) Backstabbing for Beginners My Crash Course in International Diplomacy by Michael Soussan September 2008, Nation Not a Jewish Book, but interesting. The year is 1997, Michael Soussan, a fresh-faced young graduate takes up a new job at the U.N.'s Oil-for-Food Program, the largest humanitarian operation in the organization's history. His mission is to help Iraqi civilians survive the devastating impact of economic sanctions that were imposed following the 1990 invasion of Kuwait. As a gaffe-prone novice in a world of sensitive taboos, Soussan struggles to negotiate the increasing paranoia of his incomprehensible boss and the inner workings of one of the world's notoriously complex bureaucracies. But as he learns more about the vast sums of money flowing through the program, it becomes clear that all is not what it seems. Soussan becomes aware that Saddam Hussein is extracting illegal kickbacks, a discovery that sets him on a collision course with the organization's leadership. On March 8, 2004, in a Wall Street Journal op-ed editorial, Soussan becomes the first insider to call for "an independent investigation" of the U.N.'s dealings with Saddam Hussein. One week later, a humiliated Kofi Annan appointed Paul Volcker to lead a team of sixty international investigators, whose findings resulted in hundreds of prosecutions in multiple countries, many of which are still ongoing. Backstabbing for Beginners is at once a witty tale of one man's political coming of age, and a stinging indictment of the hypocrisy that prevailed at the heart of one of the world's most idealistic institutions. Click the book cover to read more. In the first exile, the Northern Israelites were carried away to Kurdistan. When Judea was conquered, those Judeans were carried away to Babylon and Southern Iraq. This is a story of reclaiming the Kurdish Jewish past. It is gripping. My Father's Paradise by Ariel Sabar September 2008, Algonquin In a remote and dusty corner of the world, forgotten for nearly three thousand years, lived an ancient community of Kurdish Jews so isolated that they still spoke Aramaic-the language of Jesus. Mostly illiterate, they were self-made mystics and gifted storytellers, humble peddlers and rugged loggers who dwelt in harmony with their Muslim and Christian neighbors in the mountains of northern Iraq. To these descendants of the Lost Tribes of Israel, Yona Sabar was born. In the 1950s, after the founding of the state of Yona and his family emigrated there with the mass exodus of 120,000 Jews from Iraq-one of the world's largest and least-known diasporas. Almost overnight, the Jews' exotic culture and language were doomed to extinction. Yona (named for the prophet after his mother prays for a healthy child in Nineveh at the prophet's tomb), who became an esteemed professor at UCLA, dedicated his career to preserving his people's traditions. But to his first-generation American son, Ariel, Yona was a reminder of a strange immigrant heritage on which he had turned his back-until he had a son of his own. My Father's Paradise is Ariel Sabar's quest to reconcile present and past. As father and son travel together to today's postwar Iraq to find what's left of Yona's birthplace, Ariel brings to life the ancient town of Zakho (the center of Kurdish Jewish life in 1930, telling his family's story and discovering his own role in this sweeping saga. What he finds in the Sephardic Jews' millennia-long survival in Islamic lands is an improbable story of tolerance and hope. Populated by chieftains, trailblazing linguists, Arab nomads, devout believers-marvelous characters all- this intimate yet powerful book uncovers the vanished history of a place that is now at the very center of the world's attention. Click the book cover to read more. HURRY DOWN SUNSHINE By Michael Greenberg September 2008, Other Press / Random House Greenberg, a columnist for the TLS: Times Literary Supplement, tells the story of the Summer when, at age 15, his daughter was struck mad and locked into a mental ward of a hospital. It was oppressively hot that Summer, and Greenberg was introduced to the world that is our mental health care system, which seemed arcane and filled with rules. This is a chronicle of that journey and the characters Greenberg meets, including a movie producer, a Classics professor, an unconventional psychiatrist, an Orthodox Jewish patient, a landlord and more. . Click the book cover to read more. Who Wrought the Bible? Unveiling the Bible's Aesthetic Secrets by Yair Mazor September 2008, Wisconsin Approaching the Hebrew Bible as a work of literary art, Yair Mazor examines its many genres, including historical narratives, poetic narratives, poetry, psalms, and songs. Line drawings from a late nineteenth-century Bible illustrate many of the most famous scenes in scripture, suggesting another aesthetic layer of the text. By breaking the Bible into constituent parts, Mazor traces the range of its writing styles, reconfiguring the work as a literary collage and an artistic masterpiece. He shows how the aesthetics of the texts that comprise the Bible serve its over-arching message, and he develops a literary portrait of its authors by decoding their cryptic aesthetic devices. Click the book cover to read more. Ms. Hempel Chronicles by Sarah Shun-lien Bynum September 2008, Harcourt Ms. Beatrice Hempel, teacher of seventh grade, is new-new to teaching, new to the school, newly engaged, and newly bereft of her idiosyncratic father. Grappling awkwardly with her newness, she struggles to figure out what is expected of her in life and at work. Is it acceptable to introduce swear words into the English curriculum, enlist students to write their own report cards, or bring up personal experiences while teaching a sex-education class? Sarah Shun-lien Bynum finds characters at their most vulnerable, then explores those precarious moments in sharp, graceful prose. From this most innovative of young writers comes another journey down the rabbit hole to the wonderland of middle school, memory, daydreaming, and the extraordinary business of growing up. Click the book cover to read more. DON'T MIND ME AND OTHER JEWISH LIES BY ESTHER COHEN and ROZ CHAST September 2008, Hyperion We all tell lies. But Jewish lies are a little bit different. Here's an example: It doesn't matter if you read this. The Jewish people speak many languages. There's English, of course, and Hebrew, and let's not forget Yiddish and Ladino. But the language Jews have mastered is saying one thing and meaning another. And after a while, everyone understands the real meaning of the "lie." Esther Cohen has been listening all her life. She's written down what she's heard, and the result is this small book with a big punch: the first ever list of these subtle (sort of), sly (very), and hilarious Jewish "lies." New Yorker cartoonist Roz Chast is a master interpreter of lies herself--bringing this particular set to life in her inimitably quirky style. Don't Mind Me is a unique compilation of all-too-familiar phrases guaranteed to make you smile. For anyone who's ever been on the receiving end of one of these lies, this is one book that rings absolutely true. Click the book cover to read more. Crossing Hitler The Man Who Put the Nazis on the Witness Stand by Benjamin Carter Hett September 2008, Oxford During a 1931 trial of four Nazi stormtroopers, known as the Eden Dance Palace trial, Hans Litten grilled Hitler in a brilliant and merciless three-hour cross-examination, forcing him into multiple contradictions and evasions and finally reducing him to helpless and humiliating rage (the transcription of Hitler's full testimony is included.) At the time, Hitler was still trying to prove his embrace of legal methods, and distancing himself from his stormtroopers. The courageous Litten revealed his true intentions, and in the process, posed a real threat to Nazi ambition. When the Nazis seized power two years after the trial, friends and family urged Litten to flee the country. He stayed and was sent to the concentration camps, where he worked on translations of medieval German poetry, shared the money and food he was sent by his wealthy family, and taught working-class inmates about art and literature. When Jewish prisoners at Dachau were locked in their barracks for weeks at a time, Litten kept them sane by reciting great works from memory. After five years of torture and hard labor-and a daring escape that failed-Litten gave up hope of survival. His story was ultimately tragic but, as Benjamin Hett writes in this gripping narrative, it is also redemptive. "It is a story of human nobility in the face of barbarism." The first full-length biography of Litten, the book also explores the turbulent years of the Weimar Republic and the terror of Nazi rule in Germany after 1933. [in sidebar] Winner of the 2007 Fraenkel Prize for outstanding work of contemporary history, in manuscript. To be published throughout the world. Click the book cover to read more. CLOTHING OPTIONAL AND OTHER WAYS TO READ STORIES By ALAN ZWEIBEL Fall 2008, Villard In Clothing Optional, Alan Zweibel offers a collection of laugh-out-loud personal narratives, essays, short fiction, dialogues, and even a few whimsical drawings. Zweibel first made a name for himself as one of the original writers for Saturday Night Live, but his career's humble beginnings included creating one-liners for Catskill comedians at seven dollars a pop. That experience is only one of the hysterically inspired anecdotes ("Comic Dialogue") in this quirky compilation. Zweibel confesses his first love, as a young Hebrew school student, for Abraham's wife, Sarah ("At this point, Sarah's husband had been dead for more than three thousand years-so, really, who would I be hurting?"); recounts the time he was sent to a nudist resort to write an article ("The fact that I brought luggage is, in itself, worthy of some discussion"); offers a touching tribute to Saturday Night Live writer and mentor Herb Sargent ("Herb was New York. But an older, more romantic New York that took place in black and white like the kind of TV I grew up on and wanted to be a part of someday"); and imagines a scenario in which Sergeant Joe Friday, the stiff, monotoned character from Dragnet, is inexplicably partnered with Snoop Dogg ("Damn, Friday. You gotta learn to chill. Take some free time and kick it with your boys") Every piece is punctuated with the same wit and insight that have come to define Zweibel's humor. Unhinged and hilarious, Clothing Optional is an unguided tour through the uniquely peculiar life and mind of a man who The New York Times said "has earned a place in the pantheon of American pop culture." Click the book cover to read more. NOW IN PAPERBACK THE MASCOT Unraveling the Mystery of My Jewish Father's Nazy Boyhood By Mark Kurzem Late Summer 2008. Plume When a Nazi death squad massacred his mother and fellow villagers, five-year-old Alex Kurzem escaped, hiding in the freezing Russian forest until he was picked up by a group of Latvian SS soldiers. Alex was able to hide his Jewish identity and win over the soldiers, becoming their mascot and an honorary "corporal" in the SS with his own uniform. But what began as a desperate bid for survival became a performance that delighted the highest ranks of the Nazi elite. And so a young Jewish boy ended up starring in a Nazi propaganda film. After sixty-three years of silence, Alex revealed his terrible secret to his son Mark. With his son's help, Alex retraced his past in search of answers and vindication. His story is at once a terrifying account of survival and its psychological cost as well as a brutally honest examination of identity, complicity, and memory. Click the book cover to read more. JAMES AND THE LOST HEIRS OF JESUS Tracing the History of the Original Followers to Their Legacy Today by Kenneth Hanson, Ph.d. Fall 2008, Council Oak Bringing together recent archeological discoveries and the best contemporary scholarship, Kenneth Hanson, Ph.D. tells a fascinating story that goes mostly untold in the New Testament about the ultimate fate of Jesus mother, brothers, sisters, and closest followers. The story of the Jerusalem Church led by Jesus brother James is dropped as the scriptural spotlight follows the ministry of Paul. Now, using the latest discoveries, including some of his own original research, Professor Hanson picks up the story where the Bible leaves off, answering a question that many Christians have long asked: Whatever happened to Jesus family and this original Christian movement based in Jerusalem? Hanson's startling conclusion: It appears the followers of the Way of Jesus spearheaded a powerful revival of devotion within Judaism. Far from disappearing, this movement profoundly influenced the subsequent development of the Jewish faith, and, as Hanson shows, its legacy continues within Judaism, thriving into the twenty-first century. Click the book cover to read more. Is the hatred for America really just hatred for Jews? Left in Dark Times A Stand Against the New Barbarism by Bernard-Henri Levy Fall 2008, Random In this unprecedented critique, Bernard-Henri L�vy, one of the world's leading intellectuals revisits his political roots, scrutinizes the totalitarianisms of the past as well as those on the horizon, and argues powerfully for a new political and moral vision for our times. Are human rights Western or universal? Does anti-Semitism have a future, and, if so, what will it look like? And how is it that progressives themselves-those who in the past defended individual rights and fought fascism-have now become the breeding ground for new kinds of dangerous attitudes: an unthinking loathing of Israel; an obsessive anti-Americanism; an idea of "tolerance" that, in its justification of Islamic fanaticism, for example, could become the "cemetery of democracies"; and an indifference, masked by relativism, to the greatest human tragedies facing the world today? Illuminating these and other questions, L�vy also brings to life his own autobiography, highlighting the thinkers he has known and scrutinized and the ideological battles he has fought over thirty years-revealing their bearing on the present. Above all, L�vy offers a powerful new vision for progressives everywhere, one based neither on the failed idealisms of the past neither nor on their current misguided, bigoted, and dangerously sentimental attachments but on an absolute commitment to combat evil in all its guises. The "new barbarism" Levy compellingly diagnoses is real and must be confronted. At a time of ideological and political transition in America, Left in Dark Times is a polemical, incendiary articulation of the threats we all face-in many cases without our even being aware of it-and a riveting, cogent stand against those threats. Surprising and sure to be controversial, wise and free of cynicism, it is one of the most important books yet written by one of the crucial voices of our time. Click the book cover to read more. From the guy who edited the Jewish Chicken Soup for the Soul series Jewish Stories from Heaven and Earth Inspiring Tales to Nourish the Heart and Soul Edited by Rabbi Dov Peretz Elkins Fall 2008, Jewish Lights Click the book cover to read more. HOPE, NOT FEAR A PATH TO JEWISH RESISTANCE BY Edgar M. Bronfman September 2008, St. Martins From Publishers Weekly: Bronfman, a philanthropist, former World Jewish Congress president and former Seagram CEO, bemoans the dry, joyless Judaism of his youth, which he in turn transmitted to his own children. The Holocaust and fear of anti-Semitism are no longer enough to drive Jewish identity and participation, he argues, along with writer Zasloff; only a more open, more celebratory and hopeful communal life will draw and retain young Jews. This community must be pluralistic, unreservedly welcoming intermarried Jews and their spouses, gay Jews and others outside the traditional Jewish mold. (Among the scores of mostly young leaders the authors quote is the first Asian-American rabbi.). Few of these ideas are new, and, occasionally, Bronfman oversimplifies, as when he reduces the complex issue of intermarriage to the need for an open tent, mirroring the hospitality of the biblical Abraham and Sarah. Still, Bronfman has spoken to and learned from a highly diverse group of American Jewish religious and cultural leaders outside the mainstream to fashion a fairly coherent view of what a more vibrant Jewish future might looks like. Click the book cover to read more. Who by Fire A Novel by Diana Spechler Fall 2008, Harper Perennial From Publishers Weekly: In her affecting debut, Spechler raises the question of whether, in rescuing others, we risk ruining ourselves. Thirteen years after the abduction of youngest child Alena at the age of six, the remaining members of the Kellerman family are still deeply damaged by their shared loss. The irresponsible oldest daughter, Bits, seeks out random sexual encounters with near strangers to fill the voids in her life. Son Ash, meanwhile, dabbles in a variety of compulsive behaviors before settling on Orthodox Judaism, cutting himself off from the rest of the family and moving to Jerusalem. The mother, Ellie, enlists the help of a charismatic stranger to help save Ash from what she views as a cult, and when Alena's remains are discovered, Bits determines to bring Ash home for their sister's long-overdue memorial service. Told in alternating chapters by Bits, Ellie and Ash, the narrative is notable in large part for how little these family members actually interact with one another despite the drama that confronts them all. Though the ending is overly tidy, Spechler's debut raises provocative questions about religion, violence and the resilience of families and individuals. Click the book cover to read more. JEWISH WISDOM FOR BUSINESS SUCCESS LESSONS FROM THE TORAH AND OTHER ANCIENT TEXTS BY LEVI BRACKMAN AND SAM JAFFE 2008, Amacom Jewish texts such as the Torah and the Kabbalah have long been considered repositories of wisdom. Using real-world business situations as illustrative examples, this book reveals a four-thousand-year-old blueprint for success. Readers will find practical insights on: conquering fear harnessing will power � removing ego from the equation mastering negotiation techniques dealing with failure utilizing spiritual entrepreneurship harvesting the power of positivity and finding the right balance of character traits to succeed in any career or business venture. The ancient Jewish writings contain a breadth of knowledge anyone can use, in business and in life. This enlightening and practical guide gives readers the direction they need to make it work for them. Click the book cover to read more. THE ENTERTAINER AND THE DYBBUK BY SID FLEISCHMAN 2008, Greenwillow Ages 4 - 8 Motivated, as he explains in his afterword, to create a personal remembrance of the 1.5 million Jewish children killed in the Holocaust, Fleischman pairs Freddie, a struggling, ex-GI ventriloquist, with Avron, the ghost of one such victim, in a short, provocative tale that leavens the tears with laughter. Freddie's career isn't exactly taking off as he wanders postwar Europe-until he opens a closet and discovers smart-mouthed Avron, who offers to put a better line of patter into Freddie's mouth in exchange for help finding a certain murderous SS officer. Countering Freddie's understandable reluctance with both gags and gut-wrenching war stories, Avron moves in, and Freddie begins to display stunning vocal tricks to ever-larger audiences. Avron then cajoles his host into keeping kosher, and even undergoing an ersatz (or is it?) bar mitzvah. Ultimately, the search takes the two to America, where in a satisfying (if credulity-straining) climax, they find their quarry standing trial for a new crime, and Avron exacts a triumphant revenge for the old ones. The narrative voice here sounds adult, but the talented Fleischman is still both entertaining and thoughtful. Avron's wisecracking will counterbalance matter-of-fact accounts of Nazi cruelty for young readers, but it's likely to be older ones who will best appreciate the novel's eloquent "inner voice" of conscience, which takes on a definite symbolic cast, and the way in which Freddie's public and private identities shift as the story progresses.. Click the book cover to read more. Eli Remembers by Ruth Vander Zee and Marian Sneider. Illus by Bill Farnsworth Eerdmans Ages 8 - 12 Why does Eli's great-grandmother Gussie cry when she lights the candles for the Jewish New Year? Eli learns the horrifying secret when he flies with his family to the Lithuanian village where Gussie lived as a child. They drive through the forest to the pit, where 80,000 Jews, including her father and siblings, were shot dead by the Nazis, their bodies burned. Based on the experience of Sneider's grandson, this picture book tells the history in stark prose, and Farnsworth's unframed, glowing oil paintings show the boy in his warm home and then in the bleak forest. Unfortunately, the present-day scenario is sentimentalized; the characters are almost greeting-card icons of grief and love. There isn't any of the bitterness or anger in survivor stories found in books such as Art Spiegelman's Maus (1986) and Anita Lobel's No Pretty Pictures (1998), for older readers. But this is a journey back that many Jewish survivor families are now taking, uncovering the horror of genocide that no one ever talked about at home. Sure to spark discussion and more research. Click the book cover to read more. ADVANCED KRAV MAGA BY DAVID KAHN Fall 2008, Griffin Based on the principles of enhancing natural instincts and using appropriate force for self-protection, anyone can master the moves of krav maga - the international self-defense and fitness sensation designed by the IsraelDefense Forces. This follow up to Krav Maga: An Essential Guide to the Renowned Method - for Fitness and Self-Defense, explores essential combative tactics including standing, clinch, and extensive groundwork from yellow, orange and green belt levels, to help you update and improve your skills. In this guide to advance techniques, David Kahn will teach you: The mindset of effective self defense; Upper and lower body combatives and defenses; Powerful retzev workouts; New techniques for mastering escapes; Women's self-defense principles. Regardless of strength, size, age, or gender, you can learn advanced techniques for fending off any attacker - swiftly, powerfully, and simply. And the conditioning you will achieve by practicing these techniques will tone your muscles, improve your reflexes, and get you fighting fit. From the American expert and Israeli Grandmaster Haim Gidon's United States representative in the fitness and combat techniques of krav maga, this is the most up to date, authoritative, and advanced guide to real fighting techniques and rigorous conditioning. Click the book cover to read more. Spit or Swallow A Guide for the Wine Virgin by Jennifer Ratcliffe-wright ( 2008, dsb Wine, like foreplay, requires a little effort. Most wine virgins can swirl, sniff and slurp with consummate ease, but knowing whether to spit or swallow is the realm of the seasoned professional. Spit or Swallow gives you license to enter the world of wine--in a fun, fresh and undemanding way. Written by Jenny Ratcliffe-Wright, a young wine master (mistress?), this book will broaden your wine knowledge, taking you beyond the Bare Essentials. It describes the Perfect Relationship--between food and wine, and offers Tongue Pleasers guaranteed to enhance your taste. But it doesn't stop there. It goes all the way, literally, through to Pillow Talk -- wine terms that will get you out of a sticky situation. Click the book cover to read more. OCTOBER 2008 BOOKS NOW IN PAPERBACK THE SATURDAY WIFE A NOVEL BY NAOMI RAGEN OCTOBER 2008, St Martins From Booklist: Delilah Goldgrab just wanted to be part of the in-crowd. Being blond, attractive, and saddled with the name of a biblical temptress did not make things easy at her Orthodox Jewish girls school. In college, she dreamed of meeting an exciting man who would provide the lifestyle to which she aspired, but that was not to be. In desperation, she marries Chaim, a sincere rabbinical student who is content to take over his grandfather's congregation in a crumbling Bronx neighborhood. The materialistic Delilah pushes Chaim to take a position in a wealthy Connecticut congregation, but once they arrive, she finds herself in way over her head. Trying to please the demanding, hypocritical members of the congregation is difficult. The adventures of Delilah and Chaim provide a cautionary tale about the difficulties faced by those attempting to maintain traditional values while struggling with the temptations of the outside world. Ragen tells this story with insight and humor, vividly illustrating the consequences of lashon hara (gossip). This is Jewish chick lit with a message. Click the book cover to read more. HOW TO READ THE BIBLE A GUIDE TO SCRIPTURE, THEN AND NOW BY JAMES L. KUGEL OCTOBER 2008, Free Press From Publishers Weekly: Kugel's tour de force of biblical scholarship juxtaposes two different ways of reading the Bible: the ancient biblical interpretations, ranging from the Book of Jubilees to Augustine, that he explored in The Bible as It Was, and the modern historical approach that challenges the historical veracity of scripture and seeks instead to find its writers' original sources and purposes. It can be a jarring journey for those schooled in traditional views, but what emerges is a fresh, even strange, and very rich view of everything from the Garden of Eden to Isaiah's dream vision of God. Refreshingly undogmatic and often witty, Kugel brings an intimate knowledge of the Hebrew Bible to illuminate small points as well as large. He discusses who the ancient Israelites were; the resemblances between YHWH and Canaanite gods; the unique role of the prophet in Ancient Near Eastern religions; the nature of ancient wisdom literature; and what the Bible means when it calls Solomon the wisest of men. The result is a stunning narrative of the evolution of ancient Israel, of its God and of the entire Hebrew Bible, contrasted with ancient interpretations that aimed to uncover hidden meanings and moral lessons. So, for example, for the ancients, the story of Cain and Abel is a tale of good versus evil. For the moderns, it was originally a story of origin, about the relation between ancient Israelites and the fierce Kenites to their south. While Kugel is a traditional Jew, he sees the modern approach as compelling, so the dilemma is whether a person of faith can read scripture in both the old way and the new. Drawing on Judaism's nonfundamentalist approach, Kugel's proposed answer is that the original purpose of the texts and their lack of historical accuracy matters less than their underlying message: to serve God. Click the book cover to read more. Bible Poems? An updated publication Roses are Red Kugels are Sweet Poems go to your head And this book is neat THE GREAT POEMS OF THE BIBLE A READER'S COMPANION WITH NEW TRANSLATION BY JAMES L. KUGEL OCTOBER 2008, Free Press In The Great Poems of the Bible, James Kugel, acclaimed Harvard scholar and former poetry editor of Harpers Magazine, selects eighteen essential poems from the Hebrew Bible and offers his own original and articulate translations of these core pieces of religious literature. His eloquent renditions are paired with deeply informed discussions about the conditions surrounding each poem, including its history and what the best religious scholarship and literary criticism tell us about how the poem should be understood. Kugel explains traditions, clarifies often-misunderstood language, and offers readers wonderfully insightful explanations that are indispensable to understanding the poems and, ultimately, the fundamental teachings of the Old Testament. James L. Kugel is Starr Professor of Hebrew Literature at Harvard University and Visiting Professor of Bible Studies at Bar-Ilan University in Israel. Click the book cover to read more. HOW TO HAVE STYLE BT ISAAC MIZRAHI OCTOBER 2008, Gotham From Yeshiva of Flatbush's most well known alumnus designer... that halabi kid, that twenty-year veteran of the fashion industry, Isaac Mizrahi has become a unique icon in the world of style. He doesn't do "makeovers" or take pleasure in berating the way a woman dresses. Instead, he is a problem solver-and a titan of trendsetting who believes that fashion should be seriously fun. Showcasing his singular approach to looking great, How to Have Style begins with the premise that all women should wear what inspires them. Using twelve real women facing real wardrobe dilemmas, Mizrahi walks readers through the fundamentals of finding a personal style that reflects their authentic selves. Other features include: A personal fashion questionnaire and how to create an inspiration board that unlocks the secrets to individual style; Hundreds of fashion tips on everything from clothes and accessories to expert advice on skin care and makeup to mixing patterns and wearing color; and How to become a collector instead of just a shopper. Dubbed a "one-man brand" by BusinessWeek, Mizrahi shares his style rules on everything from boots to bags, from skirt length to the right undergarments. With more than 400 dazzling photographs as well as Mizrahi's own sketches, How to Have Style makes it simple to look your best. Click the book cover to read more. THE PARTNERSHIP A HISTORY OF GOLDMAN SACHS BY CHARLES ELLIS OCTOBER 2008 With unparalleled access to the firm's enigmatic leadership, The Partnership chronicles the brilliant, men (yes.. focused on MEN) who built one of the world's largest investment banks. Goldman Sachs is the most profitable and powerful investment bank in the world today. Fifty years ago it was a marginal family firm with limited prospects. How did it ascend to leadership in Europe, Asia, North and South America; make many, many partners fabulous fortunes; and become the leader in IPOs, M&A, FX, bond dealing, stockbrokerage, derivatives, hedge funds, private equity, and real estate? Ellis tells the illuminating stories of the great personalities who sowed the seeds of Goldman Sachs's success: from Sidney Weinberg, a junior high school drop out with a flair for markets; to Gus Levy, who brought a ferocious intensity to every minute of every workday; to John Whitehead, who wrote the core values that defined a culture of teamwork in serving clients; to the unpretentious John Weinberg, who was the quintessential relationship banker of his era; to Robert Rubin and Hank Paulson, who both became secretary of the treasury; to Governor Jon Corzine; and finally to current CEO and chairman of Goldman Sachs, Lloyd Blankfein. Starting as a sole proprietorship dealing in commercial paper in the mid-nineteenth century, Goldman Sachs became an innovative underwriter; struggled to survive the crash and Depression, and came out of World War II to complete what was then the single most important transaction in Wall Street's history: Ford Motor Company's IPO. Goldman Sachs overcame a full set of dramatic perils: Penn Central's bankruptcy, Robert Maxwell's abusive frauds, and insider trading scandals. Ellis demonstrates how the firm's core values, intensive recruiting, entrepreneurial creativity, and disciplined risk taking-incorporating technology and hard work-laid the foundations, multiplied the firm's resources and profits, and magnified its power until it became today's Goldman Sachs... which of course just had to change it's structure in Spetember 2008 to survive.... Click the book cover to read more. SEVEN DEADLY SINS A VERY PARTIAL LIST BY AVIAD KLEINBERG, Translated by Susan Emanuel October 2008, Harvard University Press The Seven Sins is a fascinating, amusing and highly readable book that offers a rethinking of our sins and passions through an examination of the Christian deadly sins_sloth, envy, lust, gluttony, greed, anger and pride--to which Kleinberg adds an eighth, self-righteousness. (Ynet ) The Seven Sins is an intellectual gem that introduces the reader to a new world of ideas. It is a thought-provoking and passionate book. Kleinberg cites religious (Christian and Jewish) and non-religious texts. He widens our horizons and broadens our minds_Kleinberg's humor and learning invite the reader to a journey of self exploration and to a reexamination of the sources of evil. (Timeout (Israel) ) The strength of this book is the link between the historian-philosopher Kleinberg and the boy Aviad that appears repeatedly in the book. It offers a successful connection between theoretical issues and the life of concrete human beings in our day and age. (Haaretz ) The Seven Sins is a book written with a pleasure that is bound to pass over to the reader. It is an essay that demonstrates the broad scholarship of its author, who is as comfortable with the rabbinic literature as with Christian and Jewish philosophy, with the Bible as with medieval poetry. Unlike many academics that make it a point to be boring and laborious, Kleinberg is fun to read. (Maariv ) There is no society without right and wrong. There is no society without sin. But every culture has its own favorite list of trespasses. Perhaps the most influential of these was drawn up by the Church in late antiquity: the Seven Deadly Sins. Pride, sloth, gluttony, envy, anger, lust, and greed are not forbidden acts but the passions that lead us into temptation. Aviad Kleinberg, one of the most prominent public intellectuals in Israel, examines the arts of sinning and of finger pointing. What is wrong with a little sloth? Where would haute cuisine be without gluttony? Where would we all be without our parents' lust? Has anger really gone out of style in the West? Can consumer culture survive without envy and greed? And with all humility, why shouldn't we be proud? With intellectual insight and deadpan humor, Kleinberg deftly guides the reader through Jewish, Christian, and Greco-Roman thoughts on sin. Each chapter weaves the past into the present and examines unchanging human passions and the deep cultural shifts in the way we make sense of them. Seven Deadly Sins is a compassionate, original, and witty look at the stuff that makes us human. . Click the book cover to read more. Adam Resurrected A Novel by Yoram Kaniuk. Translated by Seymour Simckes 2008, Grove The crowning achievement of one of Israel's literary masters, Adam Resurrected remains one of the most powerful works of Holocaust fiction ever written. A former circus clown who was spared the gas chamber so that he might entertain thousands of other Jews as they marched to their deaths, Adam Stein is now the ringleader at an asylum in the Negev desert populated solely by Holocaust survivors. Alternately more brilliant than the doctors and more insane than any of the patients, Adam struggles wildly to make sense of a world in which the line between sanity and madness has been irreversibly blurred. With the biting irony of Catch-22, the intellectual vigor of Saul Bellow, and the pathos and humanity that are Kaniuk's hallmarks, Adam Resurrected offers a vision of a modern hell that devastates even as it inches toward redemption. Yoram Kaniuk was born in Tel Aviv in 1930 and took part in Israel's War of Independence in 1948. A painter, journalist, and theater critic, he is best known as a novelist. His books have been translated into twenty languages and have earned him the Bialik Prize, the French Prix de Droits de l'Homme, and the Israeli President's Prize. Click the book cover to read more. The Five Books of Moses A Translation with Commentary by Robert Alter Now in Paperback October 2008, Norton From Publishers Weekly: This brilliant and rigorous book by Alter, who teaches Hebrew and comparative literature at Berkeley, strikes the perfect balance. It delves into literary and biblical scholarship, yet is accessible to the general reader. It argues forcefully and persuasively, but is never arrogant, even when Alter is detailing the inadequacies of other biblical translations. It points to the ways a single Hebrew word can make all the difference in our understanding of the text, but it never loses the forest for the trees. In a stimulating and thorough introduction, Alter makes a case for the coherence of the Torah (the first five books of the Bible) as a whole, while acknowledging that it is "manifestly a composite construction" that was written and edited by many people over several centuries. He discusses why we need yet another translation, contending that every existing English translation has an anemic sense of the English language, while the King James Version-the most beautiful and literary English-language translation-is unreliable and sometimes inaccurate with the original Hebrew. After this energizing introduction, Alter proceeds with his eminently readable translation and fascinating footnotes on various Hebrew terms. This may well be the best one-volume introduction to the Torah ever published in English. Click the book cover to read more. CAPTIVES A NOVEL BY TODD HASAK-LOWY October 2008, Spiegel & Grau From Publishers Weekly Hasak-Lowy, author of a well-received short story collection, The Task of This Translator (2005), struggles in his debut novel, set primarily in Los Angeles. Daniel Bloom, a successful screenwriter, has trouble relating to his wife and son. As his family life crumbles, Bloom conceives a new movie idea: a nameless assassin who kills all those we love to hate-greedy CEOs, two-faced politicians, peddlers of questionable influence and various symbols of unearned privilege. It's not lost on Bloom that his brainstorm mirrors the anger and emptiness of his own life. The novel's tight setup, however, quickly unravels in a mire of half-developed characters, a baffling trip to Israel and descriptive passages and stretches of dialogue that serve little purpose. What saves the story is Bloom's wry wit and social commentary. He's a 21st-century man-in-crisis, an appealing character whose plight is, unfortunately, far too drawn out. Click the book cover to read more. American Prince A Memoir by Tony Curtis with Peter Golenbock October 2008, Curtis (Bernard Schwartz, son of Helen Klein and Emanuel Schwartz), born in 1925, has been in more than 100 films. His father was a tailor and his mother, sadly, was mentally ill. Onebrother also fell into mental illness, and his other brother was struck and killed by a truck when Curtis was a preteen. After service in the Navy, he studied acting and soon became a Hollywood star. He was the Golden Boy of the Golden Age. A prince of the silver screen. Dashing and debonair, Tony Curtis arrived on the scene in a blaze of bright lights and celluloid. His good looks, smooth charm, and natural talent earned him fame, women, and adulation-Elvis copied his look and the Beatles put him on their Sgt. Pepper album cover. But the Hollywood life of his dreams brought both invincible highs and debilitating lows. Now, in his captivating, no-holds-barred autobiography, Tony Curtis shares the agony and ecstasy of a private life in the public eye. He has been married six times, his son died of a heroin overdose, Curtis lived a polysexual life, and his spents thousand on restoring Jewish synagogues and cemeteries in Hungary through his Emanuel Foundation for Hungarian Culture. No simple tell-all, American Prince chronicles Hollywood during its heyday. Curtis revisits his immense body of work-including the unforgettable classics Houdini, Spartacus, and Some Like It Hot-and regales readers with stories of his associations with Frank Sinatra, Laurence Olivier, director Billy Wilder, and film industry heavyweight Lew Wasserman, as well as paramours Natalie Wood and Marilyn Monroe, among others. As forthright as he is enthralling, Tony Curtis offers intimate glimpses into his succession of failed marriages (and the one that has endured), his destructive drug addiction, and his passion as a painter. Written with humor and grace, American Prince is a testament to the power of living the life of one's dreams. Click the book cover to read more. ISRAEL'S OCCUPATION BY NEVE GORDON October 2008, University of California Press This first complete history of Israel's occupation of the West Bank and the Gaza Strip allows us to see beyond the smoke screen of politics in order to make sense of the dramatic changes that have developed on the ground over the past forty years. Looking at a wide range of topics, from control of water and electricity to health care and education as well as surveillance and torture, Neve Gordon's panoramic account reveals a fundamental shift from a politics of life--when, for instance, Israel helped Palestinians plant more than six-hundred thousand trees in Gaza and provided farmers with improved varieties of seeds--to a macabre politics characterized by an increasing number of deaths. Drawing attention to the interactions, excesses, and contradictions created by the forms of control used in the Occupied Territories, Gordon argues that the occupation's very structure, rather than the policy choices of the Israeli government or the actions of various Palestinian political factions, has led to this radical shift. Neve Gordon is Senior Lecturer affiliated with Ben Gurion University in Be'er Sheva Click the book cover to read more. THE EXPULSION FROM GUSH KATIF BY NAOMI GROSSMAN 2008, Southern Hills Press The summer of 2005 is permanently engraved upon the memory of Israeli society as the time when thousands of Jewish civilians were forcibly removed by their own government from their homes in northern Samaria and the Gush Katif bloc of the Gaza Strip. These homes and other community buildings were then razed as part of former Prime Minister Ariel Sharon's disengagement plan. It was a long, hot summer of dashed hopes, prayers, destruction, and the tearing apart of a dream. Today, all that remains of the communities of Gush Katif are photographs, diaries, and memories. However, its indomitable spirit lives on among its former residents. For those who never lived in Jewish Gaza, The Expulsion of Gush Katif provides a clear picture of the suffering of its residents and what they went through when their homes were destroyed. It is also a moving record of faith and strength, and hope for the future. Click the book cover to read more. CHARMING AND FUNNY AND SO INFORMATIVE The Boy on the Door on the Ox An Unusual Spiritual Journey Through the Strangest Jewish Texts by Rabbi Martin Samuel Cohen October 2008, Aviv Press The Mishnah, an ancient Jewish text composed around 200 c.e., is the foundation document of rabbinic law. In this groundbreaking work, Martin Samuel Cohen explores texts from the Mishnah as a foundation document of Jewish spirituality, Using the Mishnah's sketchy characters as personal spiritual guides, Rabbi Cohen makes these obscure texts particularly relevant to a modern seeker. This witty, scholarly and charming meditation demonstrates how the study of Mishnah can provide spiritual guidance. Rabbi Martin Samuel Cohen was born in NYC and was based in Canada He is now the rabbi of Shelter Rock Jewish Center in Roslyn NY. Click the book cover to read more. CHICAGO A Novel by ALAA AL ASWANY October 2008, Harper The author of the highly-acclaimed The Yacoubian Building returns with a story of love, sex, friendship, hatred, and ambition set in Chicago with a cast of American and Arab characters achingly human in their desires and needs. Egyptian and American lives collide on a college campus in post-9/11 Chicago, and crises of identity abound in this extraordinary and eagerly anticipated new novel from Alaa al Aswany. Among the players are a sixties-style antiestablishment professor whose relationship with a younger African American woman becomes a moving target for intolerance; a veiled PhD candidate whose conviction in the principles of her traditional upbringing is shaken by her exposure to American society; an �migr� whose fervent desire to embrace his American identity is tested when he is faced with the issue of his daughter's "honor"; an Egyptian informant who spouts religious doctrines while hankering after money and power; and a dissident student poet who comes to America to finance his literary aspirations, but whose experience in Chicago turns out to be more than he bargained for. Populated by a cast of intriguing, true-to-life characters, Chicago offers an illuminating portrait of America--a complex, often contradictory land in which triumph and failure, opportunity and oppression, licentiousness and tender love, small dramas and big dreams coexist. Beautifully rendered, Chicago is a powerfully engrossing novel of culture and individuality from one of the most original voices in contemporary world literature. Note: The character of Wendy, the American girl dating Nagi Abd as-Samad, is Jewish. Click the book cover to rea