Judaism Fiction

The Counterlife is about people enacting their dreams of renewal and escape, some of them going so far as to risk their lives to alter seemingly irreversible destinies. Wherever they may find themselves, the characters of The Counterlife are tempted unceasingly by the prospect of an alternative existence that can reverse their fate. Illuminating these lives in transition and guiding us through the book's evocative landscapes, familiar and foreign, is the mind of the novelist Nathan Zuckerman.

Edith Hahn was an outspoken young woman in Vienna when the Gestapo forced her into a ghetto and then into a slave labor camp. When she returned home months later, she knew she would become a hunted woman, so she went underground.

This incisive history upends the complacency that confines anti-Judaism to the ideological extremes in the Western tradition. With deep learning and elegance, David Nirenberg shows how foundational anti-Judaism is to the history of the West. Questions of how we are Jewish and, more critically, how and why we are not have been churning within the Western imagination throughout its history. Ancient Egyptians, Greeks, and Romans; Christians and Muslims of every period; even the secularists of modernity have used Judaism in constructing their visions of the world.

The Psalms express the heart and essence of humanity, covering a wide range of emotions, and the lessons derived from them have had a far-reaching effect through the ages. They are a unique portion of the Old Testament - 150 songs and poems that include hymns of praise, thanksgiving, lament, wisdom, and liturgy. Written over a long period of time by multiple authors, the Psalms illustrate the theology and worship of the Israelites over the centuries.

This is Buber's landmark work in psychology and philosophy as well as in religion.

The Big Jewish Book for Jews brings together Jewish wit, inspiring tales, classic skills, and even pickle recipes, for the instruction and edification of the modern Jew. Readers will learn how to sacrifice a lamb unto the Lord, the rules of Canasta, how to build a pyramid (the Bernie Madoff and the Egyptian kind), and how not to accept the first table you are shown to in a restaurant.

First published in 1976, The Cambridge Liturgical Psalter is a modern English-language version of "The Book of Psalms", prepared for public and private worship by a panel of eight Hebrew specialists drawn from various Christian traditions, working over a period of six years and in collaboration with a single literary scholar who was conversant with the long tradition of translations into English of this ancient Biblical text.

When talented young writer Nathan Zuckerman makes his pilgrimage to sit at the feet of his hero, the reclusive master of American Literature, E. I. Lonoff, he soon finds himself enmeshed in the great Jewish writer's domestic life, with all its complexity, artifice and drive for artistic truth. As Nathan sits in breathlessly awkward conversation with his idol, a glimpse of a dark-haired beauty through a closing doorway leaves him reeling. He soon learns that the entrancing vision is Amy Bellette, but her position in the Lonoff household - student? mistress? - remains tantalisingly unclear.

When the Nazis came to power in Europe, the lives of homosexuals came to be ruled by fear as raids, arrests, prison sentences, and expulsions became the daily reality. When the concentration camps were built, homosexuals were imprisoned along with Jews. The pink triangle, sewn onto prison uniforms, became the symbol of their persecution. Branded by the Pink Triangle combines historical research with first-person accounts and individual stories to bring this history to life for listeners.

I.L. Peretz, the acknowledged "Father of Yiddish Literature", captured the essence of Eastern European Jewish life. He wrote of the magical quality of kindness, and the bitter fruits of blind faith.

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

In the Nazi-occupied Warsaw of 1943, Irma Seidenman, a young Jewish widow, possesses two attributes that can spell the difference between life and death: she has blue eyes and blond hair. With these, and a set of false papers, she has slipped out of the ghetto, passing as the wife of a Polish officer, until one day an informer spots her on the street and drags her off to the Gestapo.

Judah Maccabee is no longer a youth, but a great warrior and the unchallenged leader of the Jewish People. He leads his people to victory after victory on the fields of battle and diplomacy, shocking the leaders of the mighty Seleucid Empire. Relentlessly, the armies of the empire are sent to crush the rebellion in Judea. They will do anything to eliminate the Maccabee army and suppress the Jewish faith. But although the Maccabees are massively outnumbered, they have no choice but to overcome their foes. They know that their defeat would be the end of the Jewish People.

For thousands of years, the stories contained within the Torah - the first five books of the Hebrew Bible - have been passed down, revered, studied, and wondered at. From Adam and Eve, Noah and the Flood, and Abraham’s near-sacrifice of Isaac, through Jacob and his twelve sons, Joseph and his coat of many colors, and finally to Moses, who led his people out of slavery in Egypt and accepted God’s Ten Commandments, these stories tell the history of the Jewish people and their relationship with God.

After enjoying decades of acclaim in the pages of the acclaimed weekly newspaper The Jewish Press, the lovable, side-splitting tales from the legendary town of Chelm have been collected in the world's first encyclopedia of Chelm stories. This new treasury of Jewish wit and whimsy brims with more than 150 stories straight out of the fabled town of Chelm - the place where solving life's practical problems was never a straightforward affair, but rather a rollicking journey into the inane.  

In Redemption Street, retired NYPD officer and newly minted PI Moe Prager, travels up to a decaying Borscht Belt hotel to uncover the truth behind a decades-old fire that killed 17 people, including his high-school crush. Away from his beloved Brooklyn and out of his element, Moe finds that the locals aren't as eager to dredge up the painful past or to stir up the embers of that long-dead fire as he seems to be.

Jewish folklore is full of vivid stories that both entertain and teach. We have selected for you a collection of tales and stories from the Talmud and Midrash, and rewritten them to suit the needs of children of Jewish culture and any other. Along with a large helping of gentle humor, these tales entertain while being infused with the perennial Jewish struggle for survival and dignity.

In the modern world the old traditions are declining - and so is attendance at Rabbi Teichmann's Friday-night sermon. But the rabbi has a plan to win back his congregation, and prove that real faith can embrace both the old and the new. Instigating a tradition that will grow beyond his expectations, the rabbi weaves a simple, entertaining tale around his listeners that resonates with meaning. Soon the rabbi finds that his congregants are not just talented listeners, and stories of universal experience and the meaning of life begin to take hold of both audience and reader alike.

Discover the rich tapestry of folklore woven into Jewish traditions. From magical creatures like Golems and Succubi to talismans, charms and even the esoteric origins of the celebratory cry of "mazel tov", this comprehensive review by Joshua Trachtenberg, a Reform rabbi and PhD holder from Columbia University, offers a detailed and captivating history of Jewish magical belief and practice from the 10th to 15th century.

David's quest spans numerous philosophies and religions, culminating with the Person of Yeshua - Jesus the Messiah. He is plummeted into a vigorous spiritual tug of war. Part of him is intrigued and fascinated by the Messiah, while another is plagued by guilt. How could a Jewish person like himself believe in Yeshua considering all the horrific acts that have been done to his ancestors in His name? You will soon discover that though atrocities have been committed in the name of Yeshua, the greatest crime of all may be against the Messiah Himself...a crime of identity theft.