This book is the humorous story of unrequited love of Tikvah for Gary.

Winner of the 2021 National Jewish Book Award for Con­tem­po­rary Jew­ish Life and Prac­tice Finalist for the 2021 Kirkus Prize in Nonfiction A New York Times Notable Book of the Year A Wall Street Journal, Chicago Public Library, Publishers Weekly, and Kirkus Reviews Best Book of the Year A startling and profound exploration of how Jewish history is exploited to comfort the living. Renowned and beloved as a prizewinning novelist, Dara Horn has also been publishing penetrating essays since she was a teenager. Often asked by major publications to write on subjects related to Jewish culture—and increasingly in response to a recent wave of deadly antisemitic attacks—Horn was troubled to realize what all of these assignments had in common: she was being asked to write about dead Jews, never about living ones. In these essays, Horn reflects on subjects as far-flung as the international veneration of Anne Frank, the mythology that Jewish family names were changed at Ellis Island, the blockbuster traveling exhibition Auschwitz, the marketing of the Jewish history of Harbin, China, and the little-known life of the "righteous Gentile" Varian Fry. Throughout, she challenges us to confront the reasons why there might be so much fascination with Jewish deaths, and so little respect for Jewish lives unfolding in the present. Horn draws upon her travels, her research, and also her own family life—trying to explain Shakespeare’s Shylock to a curious ten-year-old, her anger when swastikas are drawn on desks in her children’s school, the profound perspective offered by traditional religious practice and study—to assert the vitality, complexity, and depth of Jewish life against an antisemitism that, far from being disarmed by the mantra of "Never forget," is on the rise. As Horn explores the (not so) shocking attacks on the American Jewish community in recent years, she reveals the subtler dehumanization built into the public piety that surrounds the Jewish past—making the radical argument that the benign reverence we give to past horrors is itself a profound affront to human dignity. Now including a reading group guide.

The Story of Hebrew explores the extraordinary hold that Hebrew has had on Jews and Christians, who have invested it with a symbolic power far beyond that of any other language in history. Preserved by the Jews across two millennia, Hebrew endured long after it ceased to be a mother tongue, resulting in one of the most intense textual cultures ever known. Hebrew was a bridge to Greek and Arab science, and it unlocked the biblical sources for Jerome and the Reformation. Kabbalists and humanists sought philosophical truth in it, and Colonial Americans used it to shape their own Israelite political identity. Today, it is the first language of millions of Israelis. A major work of scholarship, The Story of Hebrew is an unforgettable account of what one language has meant and continues to mean.

"I've been a philosopher for all my adult life and the three most profound books of philosophy that I have ever read are Ecclesiastes, Job, and Song of Songs." These are the opening lines of Kreeft's Three Philosophies of Life. He reflects that there are ultimately only three philosophies of life and each one is represented by one of these books of the Bible-life is vanity; life is suffering; life is love. In these three books Kreeft shows how we have Dante's great epic The Divine Comedy played out, from Hell to Purgatory to Heaven. But it is an epic played out in our hearts and lives, here and now. Just as there is movement in Dante's epic, so there is movement in these books, from Ecclesiates to Job, from Job to Song of Songs. Love is the final answer to Ecclesiastes' quest, the alternative to vanity, and the true meaning of life. Finally, Kreeft sees in these books the epitome of theological virtues of faith, hope and love and "an esstential summary of the spiritual history of the world".

From one of our most preeminent writers, a tale that captures the shifting meanings of the past and how our experience colors those meanings In Antiquities, Lloyd Wilkinson Petrie, one of the seven elderly trustees of the now-defunct (for thirty-four years) Temple Academy for Boys, is preparing a memoir of his days at the school, intertwined with the troubling distractions of present events. As he navigates, with faltering recall, between the subtle anti-Semitism that pervaded the school's ethos and his fascination with his own family's heritage--in particular, his illustrious cousin, the renowned archaeologist Sir William Matthew Flinders Petrie--he reconstructs the passions of a childhood encounter with the oddly named Ben-Zion Elefantin, a mystifying older pupil who claims descent from Egypt's Elephantine Island. From this seed emerges one of Cynthia Ozick's most wondrous tales, touched by unsettling irony and the elusive flavor of a Kafka parable, and weaving, in her own distinctive voice, myth and mania, history and illusion.

A 2019 National Jewish Book Award Finalist "At the top of my reading list." —Alan Dershowitz, professor emeritus at Harvard Law School "Reads like an international thriller, but it is actually a compelling factual day-by-day (and sometimes hour-by-hour) account of an incident of acute threat and decisive action by the Jewish state...". —Jonathan Kirsch, Jewish Journal Review The never-before-told inside story of how Israel stopped Syria from becoming a global nuclear nightmare—and its far-reaching implications On September 6, 2007, shortly after midnight, Israeli fighters advanced on Deir ez-Zour in Syria. Israel often flew into Syria as a warning to President Bashar al-Assad. But this time, there was no warning and no explanation. This was a covert operation, with one goal: to destroy a nuclear reactor being built by North Korea under a tight veil of secrecy in the Syrian desert. Shadow Strike tells, for the first time, the story of the espionage, political courage, military might and psychological warfare behind Israel’s daring operation to stop one of the greatest known acts of nuclear proliferation. It also brings Israel’s powerful military and diplomatic alliance with the United States to life, revealing the debates President Bush had with Vice President Cheney and Israeli Prime Minister Ehud Olmert as well as the diplomatic and military planning that took place in the Oval Office, the Prime Minister’s Office in Jerusalem, and inside the IDF’s underground war room beneath Tel Aviv. These two countries remain united in a battle to prevent nuclear proliferation, to defeat Islamic terror, and to curtail Iran’s attempts to spread its hegemony throughout the Middle East. Yaakov Katz's Shadow Strike explores how this operation continues to impact the world we live in today and if what happened in 2007 is a sign of what Israel will need to do one day to stop Iran's nuclear program. It also asks: had Israel not carried out this mission, what would the Middle East look like today?

Devoted to God and each other Spend each day growing in the Word of God and drawing closer as a couple with the practical counsel of #1 New York Times bestselling author Dr. Gary Chapman. Gary Chapman's readers call his teaching relevant, helpful, simple, and effective—and he brings this style to The Love Languages Devotional Bible. As you read through Scripture together, you will enjoy brief devotional readings that apply the text to your relationship, and you'll deepen your understanding of God and each other. Research has shown that couples who read their Bibles and pray together enjoy a much healthier relationship. This Bible makes reading God's Word and praying as a couple enjoyable and rewarding. It even covers special topics, like communication, expectations, roles, sex, conflict, money, children, and more. Key features include: New Living Translation, clear and elegant, ideal for reading aloud Scripture reading plan, making it easy to read through the entire Bible in a year 260 daily devotions, one for each weekday 52 feature articles, one for each weekend Prayer guides, reducing awkwardness by providing specific cues Select readings addressing a wide variety of couple-oriented topics Bible book introductions providing context and essential background information

In Polydoxy, Dr. Alvin J. Reines has developed a wonderfully unique and new point of view in the philosophy of liberal religion. Polydoxy explores the reasons for personal religious freedom, the limits of this freedom, and the rich possibilities it offers to intelligent, thoughtful human beings. Expanding on the nature of polydoxy, the author analyzes the "liberal" religions, drawing a distinction between orthodox liberal religions and polydox liberal religions. Dr. Reines' development of the concept of polydox religion is regarded by many as the most important theoretical advance in contemporary religious thought. It has come to exercise a profound influence upon many of the present generation of liberal religionists. This influence has produced new forms of religion: Polydox Reform Judaism, Polydox Christianity, and the Polydox fellowship (which brings together in one community adherents from all historical religions). Reines describes the intriguing anatomy of liberal religions, analyzes their institutions, and critiques their doctrines. He has found that the vocabulary that has been used to express this new religious understanding is still tangled in a thicket of traditional concepts and shows how to make such language both clear and contemporary. He offers new definitions of "religion" and "theology."

Winner of the National Jewish Book Award in American Jewish Studies—an engaging firsthand portrait of American Judaism today American Judaism has been buffeted by massive social upheavals in recent decades. Like other religions in the United States, it has witnessed a decline in the number of participants over the past forty years, and many who remain active struggle to reconcile their hallowed traditions with new perspectives—from feminism and the LGBTQ movement to "do-it-yourself religion" and personally defined spirituality. Taking a fresh look at American Judaism today, Jack Wertheimer, a leading authority on the subject, sets out to discover how Jews of various orientations practice their religion in this radically altered landscape. Which observances still resonate, and which ones have been given new meaning? What options are available for seekers or those dissatisfied with conventional forms of Judaism? And how are synagogues responding? Offering new and often-surprising answers to these questions, Wertheimer reveals an American Jewish landscape that combines rash disruption and creative reinvention, religious illiteracy and dynamic experimentation.

First came parents with the good sense to flee Europe in 1940 and the good fortune to reach the land of freedom. Their daughter, Ruth, grew up in the shadow of genocide—but in tandem with the birth of Israel, which remained her lodestar. She learned that although Jewishness is biologically transmitted, democracy is not, and both require intensive, intelligent transmission through education in each and every generation. They need adults with the confidence to teach their importance. Ruth tried to take on that challenge as dangers to freedom mounted and shifted sides on the political spectrum. At the high point of her teaching at Harvard University, she witnessed the unraveling of standards of honesty and truth until the academy she left was no longer the one she had entered.