As Israel braves Saddam Hussein’s Scud missiles, a Torah from Iraq disappears in China. Can the “Jewish Miss Marple” find the historic religious scroll in time for a momentous diplomatic breakthrough? Lily Kovner, while scoffing at her nickname, the “Jewish Miss Marple,” undertakes the improbable quest of finding a Torah gone missing in Shanghai. Political intrigue and long-buried resentments of an ancient community figure into a journey plagued by threats, physical attack and murder. And the ultimate unraveling of the theft opens a Pandora’s box of personal history in a Jewish community that endured a diaspora that stretched over 2500 years in Iraq, India and China.

As World War II erupts, a young Jewish scribe flees Lithuania with his in-progress Torah, meeting a family of Chinese calligraphers living under Japanese occupation. Moshe's faith is challenged by the attraction of Ming, the young daughter of the renown poet, Zhao Heng. Moshe learns the power he wields when he sets his words onto parchment.

The collection presents the proceedings of the international colloquium held in Sankt Augustin in 1997 and additional materials. The articles are written in English, German or Chinese (with English abstracts). The volume includes a general index with glossary.

The Jewish people and world Jewish leadership are facing critical dilemmas, opportunities and challenges. These create a need for systematic thinking to examine the range of decisions that may affect the standing of world Jewry in the decades to come. The Jewish People Policy Planning Institute (JPPPI) was established as an independent think tank whose mission is to contribute to the continuity of the Jewish people and Judaism, and their thriving future. China and the Jewish People' is the first document in a series of strategy papers dedicated to improving the standing of the Jewish people in emerging superpowers without biblical tradition.China and Jewish People: Old Civilizations in a New Era by Dr. Shalom Salomon Wald, is a crucial book that addresses the Jewish people and their issues with China.

A thousand years ago, the Chinese government invited merchants from one of the Chinese port synagogue communities to the capital, Kaifeng. The merchants settled there and the community prospered. Over centuries, with government support, the Kaifeng Jews built and rebuilt their synagogue, which became perhaps the world’s largest. Some studied for the rabbinate; others prepared for civil service examinations, leading to a disproportionate number of Jewish government officials. While continuing orthodox Jewish practices they added rituals honouring their parents and the patriarchs, in keeping with Chinese custom. However, by the mid-eighteenth century—cut off from Judaism elsewhere for two centuries, their synagogue destroyed by a flood, their community impoverished and dispersed by a civil war that devastated Kaifeng—their Judaism became defunct. The Theology of the Chinese Jews traces the history of Jews in China and explores how their theology’s focus on love, rather than on the fear of a non-anthropomorphic God, may speak to contemporary liberal Jews. Equally relevant to contemporary Jews is that the Chinese Jews remained fully Jewish while harmonizing with the family-centred religion of China. In an illuminating postscript, Rabbi Anson Laytner underscores the point that Jewish culture can thrive in an open society, “without hostility, by absorbing the best of the dominant culture and making it one’s own.”

By the time he had concluded twelve years on prime-time television, Archie Bunker had raised a Jewish child in his home, befriended a black Jew, gone into business with a Jewish partner, enrolled as a member of Temple Beth Shalom, eulogized his close friend at a Jewish funeral, hosted a Friday evening Sabbath dinner, participated in a bar mitzvah ceremony, and joined a group to fight synagogue vandalism. While the famed style of All in the Family was unique, its inclusions of Jews and Jewish issues was far from unusual. On the whole, Jewish issues have been portrayed with respect and relative depth during five decades of television programming. This work documents and examines the portrayal of Jewish themes in popular prime time television, from 1948 through the 1996-1997 television season, focusing on how such topics as anti-Semitism, intermarriage, Jewish lore and traditions, Israel, the Holocaust, and questions of Jewish identity have been featured in numerous television genres. How real-life attitudes about Jews and Jewish issues are reflected in television portrayals is also explored.

This scholarly collection examines the origins, history, and contemporary nature of Chinese Judaism in the community of Kaifeng. These essays, written by a diverse, international team of contributors, explore the culture and history of this thousand-year-old Jewish community, whose synthesis of Chinese and Jewish cultures helped guarantee its survival. Part I of this study analyzes the origin and historical development of the Kaifeng community, as well as the unique cultural synthesis it engendered. Part II explores the contemporary nature of this Chinese Jewish community, particularly examining the community’s relationship to Jewish organizations outside of China, the impact of Western Jewish contact, and the tenuous nature of Jewish identity in Kaifeng.

The Reader's Guide to Judaism is a survey of English-language translations of the most important primary texts in the Jewish tradition. The field is assessed in some 470 essays discussing individuals (Martin Buber, Gluckel of Hameln), literature (Genesis, Ladino Literature), thought and beliefs (Holiness, Bioethics), practice (Dietary Laws, Passover), history (Venice, Baghdadi Jews of India), and arts and material culture (Synagogue Architecture, Costume). The emphasis is on Judaism, rather than on Jewish studies more broadly.

The author, part of the Jewish refugee community in Shanghai, tells of his experiences growing up in the ghetto under Japanese occupation.