The Year Mom Got Religion


Book Description

An inspiring, frank, and engaging“spiritual autobiography” that will touch anyone seeking deeper meaning in their religious life. As we come to recognize the need to nurture our spiritual lives as adults, The Year Mom Got Religion offers sensitive and intelligent wisdom from a woman who learned how awakening to religion can transform—and disrupt—a life. Lee Meyerhoff Hendler relates her awakening to Judaism. She also shares the hard lessons and realizations she confronted during the process. Her journey of the spirit is a powerful reminder that anyone, at any moment, can fully embrace faith—and meet every one of the challenges that occur along the way. A poignant personal testimony of the discoveries, achievements, and disappointments of a woman’s renewed commitment to her faith—and how her personal transformation deeply affected her lifestyle and relationships. Born into a wealthy and prestigious family, Lee Meyerhoff Hendler was surrounded by privilege and was a rising leader in the Jewish community. Despite her prominence, she realized that something was lacking—and that Judaism needed to be more about spiritual fulfillment and relating to God than about simply writing checks to important causes or sitting on the boards of distinguished organizations. Hendler discovered a void in her life that only Judaism could fill. She embarked upon a journey that took her through intensive study, regular synagogue attendance, renewed dedication to Jewish communal service, squabbles with her children about attending religious school, and quarrels with her husband about religion’s sudden role in their daily lives. If you are seeking deeper spiritual meaning in your life, or are close to someone who has embarked upon a similar journey, The Year Mom Got Religion offers candid and intelligent words of encouragement for the soul.




The Year of the Witching


Book Description

A young woman living in a rigid, puritanical society discovers dark powers within herself in this stunning, feminist fantasy debut. In the lands of Bethel, where the Prophet's word is law, Immanuelle Moore's very existence is blasphemy. Her mother’s union with an outsider of a different race cast her once-proud family into disgrace, so Immanuelle does her best to worship the Father, follow Holy Protocol, and lead a life of submission, devotion, and absolute conformity, like all the other women in the settlement. But a mishap lures her into the forbidden Darkwood surrounding Bethel, where the first prophet once chased and killed four powerful witches. Their spirits are still lurking there, and they bestow a gift on Immanuelle: the journal of her dead mother, who Immanuelle is shocked to learn once sought sanctuary in the wood. Fascinated by the secrets in the diary, Immanuelle finds herself struggling to understand how her mother could have consorted with the witches. But when she begins to learn grim truths about the Church and its history, she realizes the true threat to Bethel is its own darkness. And she starts to understand that if Bethel is to change, it must begin with her.




M Is for Mama


Book Description

Mama of ten Abbie Halberstadt helps women humbly and gracefully rise to the high calling of motherhood without settling for mediocrity or losing their minds in the process. Motherhood is a challenge. Unfortunately, our worldly culture offers moms little in the way of real help. Mamas only connect to celebrate surviving another day and to share in their misery rather than rejoice in what God has done and to build each other up in hard times. There has a be a better way, a biblical way, for mamas to grow and thrive. As a daughter of Christ, you have been called to be more than an average mama. Attaining excellence doesn’t have to be unsettling but it will take committed focus and a desire to parent well according to God’s grace and for His glory. M is for Mama offers advice, encouragement, and scripturally sound strategies seasoned with a little bit of humor to help you embrace the challenge of biblical motherhood and raise your children with love and wisdom. Mama, you are worthy of the awesome responsibility God has given you. Now it’s time to start believing you can live up to it.




Mom Seeks God


Book Description

The first months and years of motherhood can be the most challenging and disorienting of your life—and faith. When you’re surrounded by the happy chaos of children, how do you spend quiet time with God if the only quiet time you get is while you sleep? How can you demonstrate a solid spiritual life to your children if you don’t have time to pursue one yourself? When Julia Roller discovered that her spiritual growth had been stunted by the busyness of life with her toddler, she embarked on a yearlong journey through ten spiritual disciplines: prayer, fellowship, submission, study, simplicity, silence, worship, fasting, service, and celebration. As she focused on each discipline, she discovered practical ways to observe them—even in the chaos of her every day. Mom Seeks God offers a highly relatable story and useful advice to help new moms grow in their faith as they address life changes with grace, patience, and prayer. As readers discover ten essential faith practices, they’ll learn that motherhood, itself, is a spiritual discipline, and may be God’s most effective technique for forming a more Christ-like life.




Yiddishe Mamas


Book Description

The Jewish mother feels her job isn't done even after death. You're never too dead to be a Jewish mother." --Mallory Lewis, daughter of Shari Lewis * What do Steven Spielberg, Woody Allen, Barbra Streisand, Jon Stewart, Bette Midler, and Natalie Portman have in common with this book? A Jewish mother. Is there such a thing as a Jewish mother? And if so, who is she? For the first time, best-selling Jewish author and humorist Marnie Winston-Macauley examines all aspects of the Jewish mother. Chronicling biblical Jewish mothers to modern-day Yentls, she creates a compendium using celebrity interviews, anecdotes, humor, and scholarly sources to answer these questions with truth and humor. * Contributors to the book range from Dr. Ruth Gruber and Rabbi Bonnie Koppel to Jackie Mason, Amy Borkowsky, John Stossel, Lainie Kazan, and more. * "The definitive source on Jewish mothers." --Eileen Warshaw, Ph.D., executive director of the Jewish Heritage Center of the Southwest




You Should Really Write a Book


Book Description

Even if you don't happen to be a celebrity, this book will teach you methods for striking publishing gold—conceptualizing, selling, and marketing a memoir—while dealing with the complicated emotions that arise during the creation of your work. If you've ever been told that "You should really write a book" and you've decided to give it a try, this book is for you. It hones in on the three key measures necessary for aspiring authors to conceptualize, sell, and market their memoirs. Written especially for those who don't happen to be celebrities You Should Really Write a Book reveals why and how so many relatively unknown memoirists are making a name for themselves. With references to more than four hundred books and six memoir categories, this is essential reading for anyone wanting to write a commercially viable memoir in today's vastly changing publishing industry. The days are long gone when editors and agents were willing to take on a manuscript simply because it was based on a "good" idea or even because it was well written. With eyes focused on the bottom line, they now look for skilled and creative authors with an established audience, too. Brooks and Richardson use the latest social networking, marketing, and promotional trends and explain how to conceptualize and strategize campaigns that cause buzz, dramatically fueling word-of-mouth and attracting attention in the publishing world and beyond. Full of current examples and in-depth analysis, this guide explains what sells and why, teaches writers to think like publishers, and offers guidance on dealing with complicated emotions—essential tools for maximizing memoir success.




Life: The First Four Billion Years


Book Description

Award-winning children’s book creators Martin Jenkins and Grahame Baker-Smith team up for a large-scale look at our planet, from the big bang to the dinosaurs and beyond. Before humans took their first steps, there were billions of years of vibrant and varied life-forms on Earth. Discover the story of our planet during this time, from the formation of the universe to the first mammals and all the incredible life that flourished in between. Covering ice ages and fossils, the first life in the sea and on land, the time of the dinosaurs, and the rise of mammals, Martin Jenkins navigates through millennia of prehistory in a style both enthralling and accessible. With superb illustrations from Kate Greenaway Medal winner Grahame Baker-Smith, this is a captivating journey through the life of our planet before we called it ours.




The Jewish Family Fun Book


Book Description

The essential guide to Jewish family life and fun activities at home and on the road! This celebration of Jewish family life is the perfect guide for families wanting to put a new Jewish spin on holidays, holy days, and even the everyday. Full of activities, games, and history, it is sure to inspire parents, children, and extended family to connect with Judaism in fun, creative ways. With over 85 easy-to-do activities to re-invigorate age-old Jewish customs and make them fun for the whole family, this book is more than just kids? stuff. It?s about taking the Jewish family experience to a new educational and entertaining level. The Jewish Family Fun Book details activities for fun at home and away from home, including recipes, meaningful everyday and holiday crafts, travel guides, enriching entertainment?and much, much more! Clearly illustrated and full of easy-to-follow instructions, this lively guide shows us how to take an active approach to exploring Jewish tradition and have fun along the way. Each of The Jewish Family Fun Book?s three sections offer dozens of ideas and easy-to-understand instructions: ? ?Holiday Fun? aims to enrich the appropriate seriousness of Jewish holidays with a healthy dose of fun. How about having a Passover seder in a tent, like Israelites in the desert? Or celebrating the harvest holiday of Shavuot by taking your kids strawberry picking? ? ?Fun at Home? features Jewish activities ranging from relaxing (with a guide to Jewish books, music, movies, and websites) to exhausting (instructions for games and other outdoor fun); from creative (ideas for arts and crafts projects and recipes) to unforgettable (mitzvah and volunteer opportunities). ? ?Fun on the Road? is an easy-to-use travel guide, with suggestions for adding a memorable Jewish component to already built-for-fun family vacations. There?s information on Jewish museums, historical sites, camps, festivals, and kosher restaurants across the U.S.




The Jewish Lights Spirituality Handbook


Book Description

What is “Jewish Spirituality”? How do I make it part of my life? Today’s foremost spiritual leaders share their ideas and experience. Whether you are just curious, intently searching for greater personal meaning, or actively seeking ideas, information, practices and inspiration to enrich your spiritual life, The Jewish Lights Spirituality Handbook is the ideal companion for your journey as it explores: Awakening the Possibilities: What Is Jewish Spirituality? The Worlds of Your Life: Where Is Spirituality Found? The Times and Seasons of Your Life: When Does Spirituality Enter? Swords and Plowshares: How to Forge the Tools that Will Make It Happen So What Do You Do With It? Why Spirituality Should Be Part of Your Life Fifty of our foremost spiritual leaders invite you to explore every aspect of Jewish spirituality—God, community, prayer, liturgy, healing, meditation, mysticism, study, Jewish traditions, rituals, blessings, life passages, special days, the everyday, repairing the world, and more—offering, in one place, everything you need to discover allthe directions that Jewish spirituality can go and can take you. ,b>The royalties from The Jewish Lights Spirituality Handbook are donated by the contributors and publisher to America’s Jewish seminaries.




Index to Jewish Periodicals


Book Description

An author and subject index to selected and American Anglo-Jewish journals of general and scholarly interests.