Jewish History

Vladimir Jabotinsky (1880–1940) was a man of huge paradoxes and contradictions and has been the most misunderstood of all Zionist politicians—a first-rate novelist, a celebrated Russian journalist, and the founder of the branch of Zionism now headed by Benjamin Netanyahu. This biography, the first in English in nearly two decades, undertakes to answer central questions about Jabotinsky as a writer, a political thinker, and a leader. Hillel Halkin sets aside the stereotypes to which Jabotinsky has been reduced by his would-be followers and detractors alike.

All the Light We Cannot See meets The Nightingale in this literary WWI-era novel and epic love story of a brilliant young doctor who races against Einstein to solve one of the universe's great mysteries. In Russia, in the summer of 1914, as war with Germany looms and the Czar's army tightens its...

In this inspirational call to action, a senior U.S. politician reveals how to accomplish goals with a combination of strong allies, persistence, and attention—that is, chutzpah. It Takes Chutzpah is an inspirational call to action by a senior U.S. politician, describing how Americans of all...

In 1942, in German-occupied Poland, a Jewish baby girl was smuggled out of the Warsaw ghetto in a backpack. That baby, Joasia, knew nothing about this extraordinary event until she was thirty-two, when a letter arrived from a stranger. She also learned that the parents who raised her were actually her aunt and uncle. Joasia kept this knowledge hidden from her own daughter, Karen—until an innocent question unexpectedly revealed the truth.

From the author of Jerusalem Maiden comes a remarkable story, inspired by little-known true events, about the thousands of young Jewish women who were trafficked into prostitution at the turn of the 20th century, and whose subjugation helped build Buenos Aires. The turn of the 20th century finds...

Created and compiled by Charles Krauthammer before his death, The Point of It All is a powerful collection of the influential columnist's most important works. Spanning the personal, the political and the philosophical, it includes never-before-published speeches and a major new essay about the...

From Harold S. Kushner, the author of When Bad Things Happen to Good People, an audiobook that shows us how to be our best selves even when things don’t turn out as we had hoped–that is, how we can overcome life’s disappointments. Kushner turns to the experience of Moses to find the...

The illuminating and deeply moving true story of twin sisters who survived Nazi experimentation, against all odds, during the Holocaust. Eva and her identical twin sister, Miriam, had a mostly happy childhood. Theirs was the only Jewish family in their small village in the Transylvanian...

The Boy Who Saved Lives with a Pen: How Adolfo Kaminsky Forged a Path to Freedom During WWII by Deborah Blumenthal is a forthcoming title from Roaring Brook Press...

Polish Catholics believed she was one of them. A devoted Nazi family took her in as if she was their own daughter. She fell in love with a German engineer who built aeroplanes for the Luftwaffe. What none of these people knew was that Mala Rivka Kizel had been born into a large Orthodox Jewish family in Warsaw, Poland, in 1926. By using her charm, intelligence, blonde hair, and blue eyes to assume different identities, she was the only member of her family to survive World War II.

***2019 NATIONAL JEWISH BOOK AWARD WINNER—Jew­ish Edu­ca­tion and Iden­ti­ty Award*** The award-winning author of The Eichmann Trial and Denial: Holocaust History on Trial gives us a penetrating and provocative analysis of the hate that will not die, focusing on its current, virulent...

A “gripping” (Kati Marton, author of The Chancellor) historical investigation and family memoir that intertwines the iconic narrative of Anne Frank with the untold story of Bep Voskuijl, her protector and closest confidante in the Annex, bringing us closer to understanding one of the great...

Is it possible to conceive of the American diet without bagels? Or Star Trek without Mr. Spock? Are the creatures in Maurice Sendak's Where the Wild Things Are based on Holocaust survivors? And how has Yiddish influenced Hollywood? These and other questions are explored in this stunning and rich anthology of the interplay of Yiddish and American culture, edited by award-winning authors and scholars Ilan Stavans and Josh Lambert. It starts with the arrival of Ashkenazi immigrants to NYC's Lower East Side and follows Yiddish as it moves into Hollywood.

When three little girls—Anna, Bernie, and Elica—make a pact to be blood sisters for life, they believe nothing can come between them. Anna is from an affluent Jewish family, while Bernie and Elica are from poor Austrian families who barely make ends meet. As they get older, their social differences become all too real. With infectious Jew-hate-laden rhetoric from Nazi Germany spreading into Austria, it is only a matter of time before their bond of friendship gets severely tested.

Traditionally, American Jews have been broadly liberal in their political outlook; indeed African-Americans are the only ethnic group more likely to vote Democratic in US elections. Over the past half century, however, attitudes on one topic have stood in sharp contrast to this group's generally progressive stance: support for Israel. Despite Israel's record of militarism, illegal settlements, and human rights violations, American Jews have, stretching back to the 1960s, remained largely steadfast supporters of the Jewish 'homeland'.

Admiral Hyman George Rickover (1899-1986) remains an almost mythical figure in the United States Navy. A brilliant engineer with a ferocious will and combative personality, he oversaw the invention of the world’s first practical nuclear power reactor. In this exciting biography, historian Marc Wortman explores the constant conflict Rickover faced and provoked, tracing how he revolutionized the navy and Cold War strategy.

A Paste Most Anticipated Historical Fiction for Fall An “epic and marvelously entertaining” family saga by award-winning author Linda Grant about the European Jewish experience from WWI to the present day, that “constantly moves forward even as it looks sorrowfully back” (Financial...

‘Haunting.’ Jonathan Freedland ‘Powerful.’ Daniel Finkelstein The profoundly moving and deeply intimate story of one Jewish family’s fate in the Holocaust, following the thread from Germany to Latvia and to Britain. In November 1941, Peter Bradley's grandparents, Sally and Bertha...

Indiana Jones meets The Da Vinci Code in an old Egyptian synagogue - the amazing story of one of the most important discoveries in modern religious scholarship. In 1897, Rabbi Solomon Schechter of Cambridge University stepped into the attic of the Ben Ezra Synagogue in Cairo, Egypt, and there found the largest treasure trove of medieval and early manuscripts ever discovered.

WINNER OF THE NATIONAL JEWISH BOOK AWARD BARI WEISS NAMED TO THE 2025 TIME100 NEXT LIST The prescient founder of The Free Press and editor-in-chief of CBS News delivers an urgent wake-up call to all Americans exposing the alarming rise of anti-Semitism in this country—and explains what we...