Our Jewish Robot Future


Book Description

Leonard Borman has woven an instant classic with venues ranging from the Garden of Eden to the fields of modern fertility science, says Neal Karlen, author of The Story of Yiddish. Not only has Borman written a brilliantly entertaining, smart, and mindful allegory of faith and existence, he has found that eleventh commandment most of us didn't know was missing; Thou shall not nosh thy brother. With clever bibical subtext and glossary of terms, this book is a must read for anyone curious for an alternative, humorous take on human survival and Jewish family traditions.




How to Fight Anti-Semitism


Book Description

WINNER OF THE NATIONAL JEWISH BOOK AWARD • The prescient founder of The Free Press delivers an urgent wake-up call to all Americans exposing the alarming rise of anti-Semitism in this country—and explains what we can do to defeat it. “A praiseworthy and concise brief against modern-day anti-Semitism.”—The New York Times On October 27, 2018, eleven Jews were gunned down as they prayed at their synagogue in Pittsburgh. It was the deadliest attack on Jews in American history. For most Americans, the massacre at Tree of Life, the synagogue where Bari Weiss became a bat mitzvah, came as a shock. But anti-Semitism is the oldest hatred, commonplace across the Middle East and on the rise for years in Europe. So that terrible morning in Pittsburgh, as well as the continued surge of hate crimes against Jews in cities and towns across the country, raise a question Americans cannot avoid: Could it happen here? This book is Weiss’s answer. Like many, Weiss long believed this country could escape the rising tide of anti-Semitism. With its promise of free speech and religion, its insistence that all people are created equal, its tolerance for difference, and its emphasis on shared ideals rather than bloodlines, America has been, even with all its flaws, a new Jerusalem for the Jewish people. But now the luckiest Jews in history are beginning to face a three-headed dragon known all too well to Jews of other times and places: the physical fear of violent assault, the moral fear of ideological vilification, and the political fear of resurgent fascism and populism. No longer the exclusive province of the far right, the far left, and assorted religious bigots, anti-Semitism now finds a home in identity politics as well as the reaction against identity politics, in the renewal of America First isolationism and the rise of one-world socialism, and in the spread of Islamist ideas into unlikely places. A hatred that was, until recently, reliably taboo is migrating toward the mainstream, amplified by social media and a culture of conspiracy that threatens us all. Weiss is one of our most provocative writers, and her cri de coeur makes a powerful case for renewing Jewish and American values in this uncertain moment. Not just for the sake of America’s Jews, but for the sake of America.




The Book of Revelation Decoded


Book Description

Understand the connection between the Old Testament and the end times, what to expect during the last days, and how to stand firm in Christ in the face of opposition. Rabbi K. A. Schneider decodes the Book of Revelation, showing how the end-time events prophesied in the New Testament book correspond with the teachings of the Torah and the Hebrew prophets. You will discover how the Passover foreshadows the great tribulation, and what the Hebrew prophets reveal about the anti-Messiah, Armageddon, hell, the return of the Messiah, the millennial kingdom, heaven, and much more. As the world grows darker and darker, many people have a sense of impending doom. This book will teach you what to expect during the last days and how to stand firm in Christ even in the face of opposition.




People Love Dead Jews: Reports from a Haunted Present


Book Description

Winner of the 2021 National Jewish Book Award for Con­tem­po­rary Jew­ish Life and Prac­tice Finalist for the 2021 Kirkus Prize in Nonfiction A New York Times Notable Book of the Year A Wall Street Journal, Chicago Public Library, Publishers Weekly, and Kirkus Reviews Best Book of the Year A startling and profound exploration of how Jewish history is exploited to comfort the living. Renowned and beloved as a prizewinning novelist, Dara Horn has also been publishing penetrating essays since she was a teenager. Often asked by major publications to write on subjects related to Jewish culture—and increasingly in response to a recent wave of deadly antisemitic attacks—Horn was troubled to realize what all of these assignments had in common: she was being asked to write about dead Jews, never about living ones. In these essays, Horn reflects on subjects as far-flung as the international veneration of Anne Frank, the mythology that Jewish family names were changed at Ellis Island, the blockbuster traveling exhibition Auschwitz, the marketing of the Jewish history of Harbin, China, and the little-known life of the "righteous Gentile" Varian Fry. Throughout, she challenges us to confront the reasons why there might be so much fascination with Jewish deaths, and so little respect for Jewish lives unfolding in the present. Horn draws upon her travels, her research, and also her own family life—trying to explain Shakespeare’s Shylock to a curious ten-year-old, her anger when swastikas are drawn on desks in her children’s school, the profound perspective offered by traditional religious practice and study—to assert the vitality, complexity, and depth of Jewish life against an antisemitism that, far from being disarmed by the mantra of "Never forget," is on the rise. As Horn explores the (not so) shocking attacks on the American Jewish community in recent years, she reveals the subtler dehumanization built into the public piety that surrounds the Jewish past—making the radical argument that the benign reverence we give to past horrors is itself a profound affront to human dignity.




Sharkbot Shalom


Book Description

Annotation rev. per pub. request; revised again per pub. request.




A Psalm for the Wild-Built


Book Description

Winner of the Hugo Award! In A Psalm for the Wild-Built, bestselling Becky Chambers's delightful new Monk and Robot series, gives us hope for the future. It's been centuries since the robots of Panga gained self-awareness and laid down their tools; centuries since they wandered, en masse, into the wilderness, never to be seen again; centuries since they faded into myth and urban legend. One day, the life of a tea monk is upended by the arrival of a robot, there to honor the old promise of checking in. The robot cannot go back until the question of "what do people need?" is answered. But the answer to that question depends on who you ask, and how. They're going to need to ask it a lot. Becky Chambers's new series asks: in a world where people have what they want, does having more matter? At the Publisher's request, this title is being sold without Digital Rights Management Software (DRM) applied.




The Wicked Son


Book Description

David Mamet's interest in anti-Semitism is not limited to the modern face of an ancient hatred but encompasses as well the ways in which many Jews have internalized that hatred. Using the metaphor of the Wicked Son at the Passover seder (the child who asks, "What does this story mean to you?") Mamet confronts what he sees as an insidious predilection among some Jews to exclude themselves from the equation and to seek truth and meaning anywhere--in other religions, political movements, mindless entertainment--but in Judaism itself. He also explores the ways in which the Jewish tradition has long been and still remains the Wicked Son in the eyes of the world. Written with the searing honesty and verbal brilliance that is the hallmark of Mamet's work, The Wicked Son is a powerfully thought-provoking look at one of the most destructive and tenacious forces in contemporary life.




Jewish Marriage in Antiquity


Book Description

Marriage today might be a highly contested topic, but certainly no more than it was in antiquity. Ancient Jews, like their non-Jewish neighbors, grappled with what have become perennial issues of marriage, from its idealistic definitions to its many practical forms to questions of who should or should not wed. In this book, Michael Satlow offers the first in-depth synthetic study of Jewish marriage in antiquity, from ca. 500 B.C.E. to 614 C.E. Placing Jewish marriage in its cultural milieu, Satlow investigates whether there was anything essentially "Jewish" about the institution as it was discussed and practiced. Moreover, he considers the social and economic aspects of marriage as both a personal relationship and a religious bond, and explores how the Jews of antiquity negotiated the gap between marital realities and their ideals. Focusing on the various experiences of Jews throughout the Mediterranean basin and in Babylonia, Satlow argues that different communities, even rabbinic ones, constructed their own "Jewish" marriage: they read their received traditions and rituals through the lens of a basic understanding of marriage that they shared with their non-Jewish neighbors. He also maintains that Jews idealized marriage in a way that responded to the ideals of their respective societies, mediating between such values as honor and the far messier realities of marital life. Employing Jewish and non-Jewish literary texts, papyri, inscriptions, and material artifacts, Satlow paints a vibrant portrait of ancient Judaism while sharpening and clarifying present discussions on modern marriage for Jews and non-Jews alike.




The Invention of the Jewish People


Book Description

A historical tour de force, The Invention of the Jewish People offers a groundbreaking account of Jewish and Israeli history. Exploding the myth that there was a forced Jewish exile in the first century at the hands of the Romans, Israeli historian Shlomo Sand argues that most modern Jews descend from converts, whose native lands were scattered across the Middle East and Eastern Europe. In this iconoclastic work, which spent nineteen weeks on the Israeli bestseller list and won the coveted Aujourd'hui Award in France, Sand provides the intellectual foundations for a new vision of Israel's future.