A fun-filled introduction to the joys of doing good deeds and mitzvot. Join Mitzvah Meerkat and friends as they introduce children to the everyday kindnesses that mark the beginning of a Jewish journey and a lifetime commitment to tikkun olam (repairing the world). Through lively illustrations and playful dialogue, children engage with Jewish wisdom as they share in welcoming new friends, forgiving mistakes, respecting elders, sharing food with the hungry, and much, much more.

Adorable puppy Mitzi visits a nursing home where she helps the residents celebrate Rosh Hashanah, the Jewish New year.

Grover does a mitzvah (good deed) by joining his friends to spruce up the neighborhood playground. Even Moishe Oofnik comes out of his trash can to help, eating up all the trash, and separating the cans for recycling.

Mitzvah Girls is the first book about bringing up Hasidic Jewish girls in North America, providing an in-depth look into a closed community. Ayala Fader examines language, gender, and the body from infancy to adulthood, showing how Hasidic girls in Brooklyn become women responsible for rearing the next generation of nonliberal Jewish believers. To uncover how girls learn the practices of Hasidic Judaism, Fader looks beyond the synagogue to everyday talk in the context of homes, classrooms, and city streets. Hasidic women complicate stereotypes of nonliberal religious women by collapsing distinctions between the religious and the secular. In this innovative book, Fader demonstrates that contemporary Hasidic femininity requires women and girls to engage with the secular world around them, protecting Hasidic men and boys who study the Torah. Even as Hasidic religious observance has become more stringent, Hasidic girls have unexpectedly become more fluent in secular modernity. They are fluent Yiddish speakers but switch to English as they grow older; they are increasingly modest but also fashionable; they read fiction and play games like those of mainstream American children but theirs have Orthodox Jewish messages; and they attend private Hasidic schools that freely adapt from North American public and parochial models. Investigating how Hasidic women and girls conceptualize the religious, the secular, and the modern, Mitzvah Girls offers exciting new insights into cultural production and change in nonliberal religious communities.

How do you raise a mensch? From respecting parents and grandparents to feeding the hungry and repairing the world (tikkun olam), the mitzvahs illustrated on each page will resonate with the littlest people of the book. This simple, fun, and meaningful introduction to the dos and don’ts of Jewish life is perfect for the newest citizens of the world and the grownups who love them.

Presents the story of the author's journeys across America to attend the most distinctive b'nai mitzvah he could find in order to reveal how the bar and the bat mitzvah have become a distinctively American rite of passage.

When John Greenwood, a Catholic priest from Chicago -- and a liberal "child of the 60s" -- suddenly learns that he's a Jewish Holocaust orphan, he asks desperately, what does that make him? Is he Catholic or Jewish? American or German? Father Greenwood plunges into a adventuresome search for identity and for truth. Who is right, his pacifist mentors, or his newfound family, some of whom died fighting Hitler? His mind spins as his struggle to find answers, for himself, his foster parents, his real family, and his long lost love, plays out against a background of real events in America and the world today. Everything he ever knew and believed is on trial. Tension builds to a surprise ending in Israel. 245 pages.

“The amazing tales of Jewish girls on six different continents who celebrate the Jewish ritual of becoming a woman.” —The Jewish Journal Winner, Spirituality Category, New England Festival Best Books of the Holiday Season Divided into nine regions—Africa; Asia; Australia and New Zealand; the Caribbean, Europe; the former Soviet Union, former Yugoslavia and Eastern Europe; Latin America; the Middle East and North Africa; and North America—this book tells the story of each girl’s unique journey and introduction into womanhood. Gorgeously illustrated with more than 100 black and white family photographs, Today I Am a Woman also captures each area’s unique customs and how they affect the lives of Jewish girls and the local Jewish community’s traditions. “The editors scoured the globe to find powerful, varied, and moving depictions of bat mitzvah in the contemporary Jewish world. This is a rich resource for anyone interested in understanding religious diversity, folk practices, and cultural creativity through the lens of gender.” —Deborah Dash Moore, former Director of the Frankel Center for Judaic Studies and a Frederick G.L. Huetwell Professor of History and Judaic Studies, University of Michigan “The stories speak for themselves, putting Jewish girls and women on the center of the stage, into the limelight, and at the pulpit. By showcasing ritual innovation, they make a point about Judaism’s elasticity and women’s agency.” —Hasia R. Diner, coeditor of Remembering the Lower East Side

Make the world a better place through good deeds—big or small. "Thank you, really, for devoting your energies to making the world just a little bit better. By doing so, you are saying to yourself, and to others, that this whole Bar/Bat Mitzvah thing is real and important. And, this book will help you figure out great ways to put your own passions, interests, and hobbies to work for mitzvah." —from the Foreword Are you searching for a meaningful and fun mitzvah project? This inspiring book is packed with ideas to help you connect something you love to a mitzvah project or tikkun olam initiative that you can be passionate about. It is filled with information, ideas and activities to spark your imagination, as well as a planning guide to get you organized and off to a good start. Creativity and Compassion Arts & Crafts • Clothes & Fashion • Computers & Technology • Food & Cooking • Movies & Drama • Reading & Writing Putting Mitzvot in Motion Animals • Camp • Fitness • Health • Music & Dance • Sports Your World, Our World Environment • Family • Friends, Neighbors & Your Community • Global Community • Israel • Your Jewish Heritage

The Jewish coming-of-age ceremony of bar mitzvah was first recorded in thirteenth-century France, where it took the form of a simple statement by the father that he was no longer responsible for his thirteen-year-old son. Today, bar mitzvah for boys and bat mitzvah for girls are more popular than at any time in history and are sometimes accompanied by lavish celebrations. How did bar mitzvah develop over the centuries from an obscure legal ritual into a core component of Judaism? How did it capture the imagination of even non-Jewish youth? Bar Mitzvah, A History is a comprehensive account of the ceremonies and celebrations for both boys and girls. A cultural anthropology informed by rabbinic knowledge, it explores the origins and development of the most important coming-of-age milestone in Judaism. Rabbi Michael Hilton has sought out every reference to bar mitzvah in the Bible, the Talmud, and numerous other Jewish texts spanning several centuries, extracting a fascinating miscellany of information, stories, and commentary.