The author's travels across the United States, Europe, and the Middle East on horseback. He relates his adventures and includes full color photography of the breathtaking landscape that he encounters off the beaten track.

Pirkei Avos with a Twist of Humor is a unique and whimsical journey through the impressive Sayings of Our Sages. Enjoy Joe Bobker's educational romp through Jewish ethics, heritage, law and lore, all stirred with a twist of humor and served with the intent of inspiring the reader to explore Judaism!

Join Joe Bobker in his humorous adventure through Torah and Talmud, history and halacha, law and lore, and much more. This enjoyable volume on Jewish practice and law serves, in the author s words, as an envelope to be opened from time to time in order to learn something new. Packed with nuggets of information, this pithy tome is a lighthearted introduction to the serious business of being Jewish.

Joe Bobker's easy-to-read, indispensable and educational tour de force of the complexities of the laws of Shabbas and the beauty of the lores of Shabbas!Did you ever wonder? Is long-life relative to Shabbas? What s the essence of Shabbas? How did Shabbas observance become the standard of Judaism itself? What s the difference between to remember and to observe? How is it possible to suddenly become holy just because it s Shabbas? Is Shabbas good for the Jews or are the Jews good for Shabbas? What does Shabbas have to do with God s DNA? Why candles? Why not start the Shabbas with cake or herring? Why do Jewish women get the mitzva of lighting Shabbas candles? What does Sheki a mean? Why does my mother cover her eyes when lighting Shabbas candles? I only have enough money to buy Shabbas candles or wine? Which one do I buy? What if I can t light candles on time? Can I make ice cream for the kids on Shabbas? Can I go to a baseball match on Shabbas if someone else carries my ticket for me? Can I go jogging on Shabbas? Can my children build lego sets on Shabbas? Can I pet my dog on Shabbas? Can I set a mouse trap on Shabbas? I was raised in the outback of Australia and we often came across rattlesnakes on Shabbos. What were we supposed to do? Have you seen the price of fish lately! It s more than a barrel of oil! Must I buy it for Shabbas? Can I make ice cubes on Shabbas? Can I open a beer bottle on Shabbas?...

Spiritually nourishing approaches to help you become more insightful, inspired parents and raise soulfully engaged children. Kipnes and November share their hard-won parenting techniques and spirit-filled activities, rituals and prayers to help you cultivate strong Jewish values and cherished spiritual memories in your own family.

Positions Revelation within an ancient Jewish context and demonstrates how the author used humor to resist Roman power.

As an old proverb puts it, "Two Jews, three opinions." In the long, rich, tumultuous history of the Jewish people, this characteristic contentiousness has often been extended even unto Heaven. Arguing with God is a highly original and utterly absorbing study that skates along the edge of this theological thin ice--at times verging dangerously close to blasphemy--yet also a source of some of the most poignant and deeply soulful expressions of human anguish and yearning. The name Israel literally denotes one who "wrestles with God." And, from Jacob's battle with the angel to Elie Wiesel's haunting questions about the Holocaust that hang in the air like still smoke over our own age, Rabbi Laytner admirably details Judaism's rich and pervasive tradition of calling God to task over human suffering and experienced injustice. It is a tradition that originated in the biblical period itself. Abraham, Moses, Elijah, and others all petitioned for divine intervention in their lives, or appealed forcefully to God to alter His proposed decree. Other biblical arguments focused on personal or communal suffering and anger: Jeremiah, Job, and certain Psalms and Lamentations. Rabbi Laytner delves beneath the surface of these "blasphemies" and reveals how they implicitly helped to refute the claims of opponent religions and advance Jewish doctrines and teachings.

“Outstanding . . . A delightfully written work of serious scholarship.” —Jewish Book World Old Odessa, on the Black Sea, gained notoriety as a legendary city of Jewish gangsters and swindlers, a frontier boomtown mythologized for the adventurers, criminals, and merrymakers who flocked there to seek easy wealth and lead lives of debauchery and excess. Odessa is also famed for the brand of Jewish humor brought there in the nineteenth century from the shtetls of Eastern Europe and that flourished throughout Soviet times. From a broad historical perspective, Jarrod Tanny examines the hybrid Judeo-Russian culture that emerged in Odessa in the nineteenth century and persisted through the Soviet era and beyond. The book shows how the art of eminent Soviet-era figures such as Isaac Babel, Il’ia Ilf, Evgenii Petrov, and Leonid Utesov grew out of the Odessa Russian-Jewish culture into which they were born and which shaped their lives. “Traces the emergence, development, and persistence of the myth of Odessa as both Garden of Eden and Gomorrah . . . A joy to read.” —Robert Weinberg, Swarthmore College

Abraham and Sarah were presented with a paradox when God told them they would have a son in their old age. Paradox in the Old Testament plays an important part in the dialogue between God and the Jews. In the New Testament, paradox is prominent in Jesus' teaching and helps to explain the Christian understanding of salvation.