What makes someone Jewish?Theodore Ross was nine years old when he moved with his mother from New York City to the Mississippi Gulf Coast. Once there, his mother decided, for both personal and spiritual reasons, to have her family pretend not to be Jewish. He went to an Episcopal school, where he studied the New Testament, sang in the choir, and even took Communion. Later, as an adult, he wondered: Am I still Jewish?Seeking an answer, Ross traveled around the country and to...

What makes someone Jewish?Theodore Ross was nine years old when he moved with his mother from New York City to the Mississippi Gulf Coast. Once there, his mother decided, for both personal and spiritual reasons, to have her family pretend not to be Jewish. He went to an Episcopal school, where he studied the New Testament, sang in the choir, and even took Communion. Later, as an adult, he wondered: Am I still Jewish?Seeking an answer, Ross traveled around the country and to...

How does the Jesus of the New Testament compare to the Jesus we think we know so well? Join bestselling author Philip Yancey as he conducts an enlightening biblical and historical investigation into the real Jesus.From the manger in Bethlehem to the cross in Jerusalem, Philip Yancey presents a complex character who generates questions as well as answers--a disturbing and exhilarating Jesus who wants to radically transform your life and stretch your faith.In...

National Bestseller • A New York Times Notable BookNamed Best Book of the Year by Esquire, Times Literary Supplement, Elle Magazine, LitHub, Publishers Weekly, Financial Times, Guardian, Refinery29, PopSugar, and Globe and Mail"A brilliant novel. I am full of admiration." —Philip Roth"One of America’s most important novelists" (New York Times), the award-winning, ...

A “complex and heart-wrenchingly compelling” exploration of Hasidic Jews struggling to live within, or outside, their restrictive communities—for viewers of Unorthodox and One of Us (Boston Globe)When Hella Winston began talking with Hasidic Jews in Brooklyn for her doctoral dissertation in sociology, she was surprised to be covertly introduced to Hasidim unhappy with their highly restrictive way of life and sometimes desperately struggli...

An addictively readable mix of practical information, fun facts and figures, and amusing trivia about Jewish life.This witty handbook serves up a hearty stew of all things Jew. Did Jew Know is filled with fun, surprising, and informative facts about all aspects of Jewish life. Need to know about all those second-tier holidays no one ever celebrates? We've got you covered. Curious about kosher laws and Kabbalah? Have no fear. Join us for a history of the Jew...

BONUS: This edition contains a The Sabbath World discussion guide.What is the Sabbath, anyway? The holy day of rest? The first effort to protect the rights of workers? A smart way to manage stress in a world in which computers never get turned off and work never comes to an end? Or simply an oppressive, outmoded rite? In *The Sabbath World,*Judith Shulevitz explores the Jewish and Christian day of rest, from its origins in the ancient world to its complicated observance in...

Here are more than 100 of the best Jewish jokes you'll ever hear, interspersed with perceptive and persuasive insight into what they can tell us about how Jews see themselves, their families, and their friends, and what they think about money, sex, and success. Rabbi Joseph Telushkin is as celebrated for his wit as for his scholarship, and in this immensely entertaining book, he displays both in equal measure. Stimulating, something stinging, and always very, very funny, Jewish Humor offer...

More than a quarter of a century ago, Leo Rosten published the first comprehensive and hilariously entertaining lexicon of the colorful and deeply expressive language of Yiddish. Said “to give body and soul to the Yiddish language,” The Joys of Yiddish went on to become an indispensable tool for writers, journalists, politicians, and students, as well as a perennial bestseller for three decades.Rosten described his book as “a relaxed lexicon of Yiddish, Hebrew, and...

"Fascinating and thought-provoking. . . . A witty memoir that should appeal to Christians and Jews alike (as well as Wiccans, Jains and Bahais . . . )." —A.J. Jacobs, author of The Know-It-All and The Year of Living BiblicallyPart memoir, part spiritual quest, part anthropologist's mission, Benyamin Cohen's My Jesus Year is a humorous, personal, ultimately inspirational exploration of Evangelical Christianity by the son of an Orthodox Rabb...

Why are words so important to so many Jews? Novelist Amos Oz and historian Fania Oz-Salzberger roam the gamut of Jewish history to explain the integral relationship of Jews and words. Through a blend of storytelling and scholarship, conversation and argument, father and daughter tell the tales behind Judaism’s most enduring names, adages, disputes, texts, and quips. These words, they argue, compose the chain connecting Abraham...

A warm, witty memoir of Greenwich Village in the late 1950s and '60s by a young rabbi who led a local synagogue in the midst of it all.In the late fifties and sixties, Greenwich Village was the quirkiest, most charming, jazzy, eccentric, and urban of environments, the center of all that was both quaint and "cool": brownstones and beatniks, coffeehouses and college students, folksingers and freethinkers, poets and "prophets." Into this fascinating mix of cultural arc...