Those who fear deep philosophical meanderings can rest easy. Each chapter is supremely readable, understandable, and...
A rock-solid primer on the history and background of the Jewish people that will appeal to adherents and non-Jews alike.
Surveying more than three millennia—from the Call to Abraham in roughly 1500 B.C.E. to the fall of the Iron Curtain in 1989—Rosenstein (Director Emeritus, Israel Rabbinical Program/Hebrew Union Coll.; Galilee Diary: Reflections on Daily Life in Israel, 2010, etc.) highlights 30 events that have shaped Jewish life. The author effectively captures the essence of each turning point, providing both a timeline and a salient primary text explaining the Jewish understanding of each event. Abraham’s discovering God and Moses’ revelation of the law at Sinai embody the spiritual foundation on which Judaism is built. From there, the author travels through the history of Western civilization, including the Babylonian exile, Greek and then Roman rule, the transformation of oral law into the Mishna, and the experiences of Sephardic, Ashkenazi, and Hasidic Jews. The golden age in Spain (roughly 900 to 1200) saw a toleration of non-Muslims, and the diaspora of the 15th century dispersed Spanish Jews, creating new footholds across Europe. The Enlightenment encouraged Reform Jews to modify their beliefs and practices to better integrate. The end of the 18th century saw the partition of Poland and Jews fleeing to Russia, where they were dealt with by blood libel, expulsions, and pogroms. Ultimately, the only way to survive was to flee, and many went to the United States, joined by Germans, Italians, and Irish. The German immigrants brought the Reform movement and created a truly American Judaism. Into modern times, the Zionists, seeing a nationality, disputed the Reformists. From the beginning, Rosenstein insists that Judaism is a combination of nation, culture, and religion, a fact that will be debated for some time to come. Fortunately, he provides us with the fascinating basics to understand that debate.
Those who fear deep philosophical meanderings can rest easy. Each chapter is supremely readable, understandable, and enlightening, making the book a valuable addition to any library.Pub Date: July 1, 2018
ISBN: 978-0-8276-1263-1
Page Count: 464
Publisher: Jewish Publication Society
Review Posted Online: April 30, 2018
Kirkus Reviews Issue: May 15, 2018
Dogged original research and superb narrative skills come together in this gripping account of pitiless evil.
Greed, depravity, and serial murder in 1920s Oklahoma.
During that time, enrolled members of the Osage Indian nation were among the wealthiest people per capita in the world. The rich oil fields beneath their reservation brought millions of dollars into the tribe annually, distributed to tribal members holding "headrights" that could not be bought or sold but only inherited. This vast wealth attracted the attention of unscrupulous whites who found ways to divert it to themselves by marrying Osage women or by having Osage declared legally incompetent so the whites could fleece them through the administration of their estates. For some, however, these deceptive tactics were not enough, and a plague of violent death—by shooting, poison, orchestrated automobile accident, and bombing—began to decimate the Osage in what they came to call the "Reign of Terror." Corrupt and incompetent law enforcement and judicial systems ensured that the perpetrators were never found or punished until the young J. Edgar Hoover saw cracking these cases as a means of burnishing the reputation of the newly professionalized FBI. Bestselling New Yorker staff writer Grann (The Devil and Sherlock Holmes: Tales of Murder, Madness, and Obsession, 2010, etc.) follows Special Agent Tom White and his assistants as they track the killers of one extended Osage family through a closed local culture of greed, bigotry, and lies in pursuit of protection for the survivors and justice for the dead. But he doesn't stop there; relying almost entirely on primary and unpublished sources, the author goes on to expose a web of conspiracy and corruption that extended far wider than even the FBI ever suspected. This page-turner surges forward with the pacing of a true-crime thriller, elevated by Grann's crisp and evocative prose and enhanced by dozens of period photographs.
Dogged original research and superb narrative skills come together in this gripping account of pitiless evil.Pub Date: April 18, 2017
ISBN: 978-0-385-53424-6
Page Count: 352
Publisher: Doubleday
Review Posted Online: Feb. 1, 2017
Kirkus Reviews Issue: Feb. 15, 2017
BOOK TO SCREEN
BOOK TO SCREEN
BOOK TO SCREEN
The author's youthfulness helps to assure the inevitable comparison with the Anne Frank diary although over and above the...
Elie Wiesel spent his early years in a small Transylvanian town as one of four children.
He was the only one of the family to survive what Francois Maurois, in his introduction, calls the "human holocaust" of the persecution of the Jews, which began with the restrictions, the singularization of the yellow star, the enclosure within the ghetto, and went on to the mass deportations to the ovens of Auschwitz and Buchenwald. There are unforgettable and horrifying scenes here in this spare and sombre memoir of this experience of the hanging of a child, of his first farewell with his father who leaves him an inheritance of a knife and a spoon, and of his last goodbye at Buchenwald his father's corpse is already cold let alone the long months of survival under unconscionable conditions.
Pub Date: Jan. 16, 2006
ISBN: 0374500010
Page Count: 120
Publisher: Hill & Wang
Review Posted Online: Oct. 7, 2011
Kirkus Reviews Issue: Jan. 15, 2006
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