At once an ecological phenomenon and a cultural construction, the desert has varied associations within Zionist and Israeli culture. In the Judaic textual tradition, it evokes exile and punishment, ye
This book presents for the first time the complete text of the earliest known Ladino-language memoir, transliterated from the original script, translated into English, and introduced and explicated by
In this book, Marc Caplan argues that the literatures of ostensibly marginal modern cultures are key to understanding modernism. Caplan undertakes an unprecedented comparison of nineteenth-century Yid
This book examines the intersection of urban society and modern politics among Jews in turn of the century Warsaw, Europe's largest Jewish center at the time. By focusing on the tumultuous events surr
In this book, Sephardism is defined not as an expression of Sephardic identity but as a politicized literary metaphor. Since the nineteenth century, this metaphor has occurred with extraordinary frequ
Should the works of Israeli Nobel laureate S.Y. Agnon be considered Holocaust literature? This is one of the many questions that Alan Mintz explores in his comprehensive study of Agnon's posthumously
The Merchants of Oran weaves together the history of a Mediterranean port city with the lives of Oran's Jewish mercantile elite during the transition to French colonial rule. Through the life of Jacob
"Literary Passports is a breakthrough in the understanding of the literary modernism that flourished in Hebrew on European soil during the early decades of the twentieth century. Its vivid investigati
Stories abound of immigrant Jews on the outside looking in, clambering up the ladder of social mobility, successfully assimilating and integrating into their new worlds. But this book is not about the
Stories abound of immigrant Jews on the outside looking in, clambering up the ladder of social mobility, successfully assimilating and integrating into their new worlds. But this book is not about the
Beyond Expulsion is a history of Jewish-Christian interactions in early modern Strasbourg, a city from which the Jews had been expelled and banned from residence in the late fourteenth century. This
Music from a Speeding Train explores the uniquely Jewish space created by Jewish authors working within the limitations of the Soviet cultural system. It situates Russian- and Yiddish- language author
This book presents for the first time the complete text of the earliest known Ladino-language memoir, transliterated from the original script, translated into English, and introduced and explicated by
With great immediacy, the diaries of Willy Cohn, a Jew and a Social Democrat, show how the process of marginalization under the Nazis unfolded within the vibrant Jewish community of Breslau—until that
In the late seventeenth century, France prided itself for its rationality and scientific achievements. Yet it was then that Raphael Levy, a French Jew, was convicted, tortured, and executed for an act
This book explores the life and thought of one of the most important but least known figures in early Zionism, Nathan Birnbaum. Now remembered mainly for his coinage of the word "Zionism," Birnbaum wa
Porat (modern Jewish history, Tel Aviv University) tells the story of Abba Kovner, poet, freedom fighter and Jew. His life started in Vilna, Lithuania, amidst one of the largest Jewish communities in
