American Judaism

The situation of American Jews today is deeply paradoxical. Jews have achieved unprecedented integration, influence, and esteem in virtually every facet of American life. But this extraordinarily diverse community now also faces four critical and often divisive challenges: rampant intermarriage, weak religious observance, diminished cohesion in the face of waning anti-Semitism, and deeply conflicting views about Israel.

In this book, Douglas Wilson calls us to simple, biblical sanity, with clear thinking on Christian/Jewish relations, the Middle East, and the Holocaust, as well as a thorough Reformed theology of the Jews and the Church.

A probing biography of world-renowned Jewish singer and actor Al Jolson and the history of his performance in and the making of The Jazz Singer Al Jolson, born Asa Yoelson, immigrated from a shtetl in Lithuania to the United States in 1894 after his father secured a job as a rabbi in Washington...

By the author of A Terrible Country and Raising Raffi, a novel of love, sadness, wasted youth, and literary and intellectual ambition—"wincingly funny" (Vogue) Keith Gessen is a brave and trenchant new literary voice. Known as an award-winning translator of Russian and a book reviewer for...

A coming-of-age novel about race, privilege, and the struggle to rise in America, written by a former Obama campaign staffer and propelled by an exuberant, unforgettable narrator. “A riot of language that’s part hip-hop, part nerd boy, and part pure imagination.”—The Boston Globe...

Novelist and poet Judy Goldman's inspiring account of the mishap that left her husband paralyzed, how it tested their marriage, and their struggle to regain their "normal" life. When Judy Goldman’s husband of almost four decades has a routine spinal injection to alleviate back pain, he is...

Abram Singer is a Catholic priest with an unusual name and a dark secret. Against the backdrop of gritty 1970s New York, in a simple, straightforward style, he tells us his story. The son of an absent Jewish father and a devout Italian mother, Abram was drawn to the meaningful structure of the...

Imagine awakening to a new reality of who you are, revealing a hidden past that has shaped your family's history for centuries. Fact, not fiction, this experience has been shared by thousands of descendants of Sephardic Jews who fled Spain and Portugal in the 15th and 16th centuries, seeking safe haven from the ruthless Spanish Inquisition. Many had already converted to Catholicism, but learned that conversion was not enough to save their lives. They established new communities throughout the world, living as Catholics on the outside, but guarding a precious Jewish heritage in secret.

Before Harriet Tubman or Martin Luther King was identified with Moses, African Americans identified those who challenged racial oppression in America with Samson. In Black Samson: The Untold Story of an American Icon, Nyasha Junior and Jeremy Schipper tell the story of how this biblical character became an icon of African American literature.

The author assembles a vast array of anecdotes, facts, stories, legends, archaeological discoveries, language comparisons, and speculation from a large collection of different sources to support the claim that the American Indians are descendants of the Lost Ten Tribes of Israel.

An American journalist named Ben Harris, who works for Jewish Telegraphic Agency (JTA), is traveling the world in search of stories about Jews in their various communities. This lively interview with Harris, the "Wandering Jew", about his travels and traveling, was done mostly by email, with two conversations via webcam on Skype. When this writer spoke to Harris off the record for background, he was in the Jewish Telegraphic Agency offices in New York City, but the reported interview via email comes mostly while he was abroad.

Explore las vibrantes culturas mágicas populares y su historia, tradiciones y creencias. ¿Alguna vez ha sentido curiosidad por los distintos rituales y tradiciones mágicas que se practican en diferentes partes del mundo? ¿Alguna vez se ha sentido confundido acerca de la diferencia entre la magia Wicca y el paganismo nórdico? ¿Es su objetivo aprender rituales y prácticas mágicas tal y como se enseñaban en diversas culturas?

"Always remember you are the son of two proud nations," Elan's parents tell him when he turns 13. After celebrating his Bar Mitzvah in San Francisco, Elan, with his Jewish father and Native American mother, travels to New Mexico, where he takes part in a Pueblo manhood ceremony. Based on a true story.