New Books In Jewish Studies

In The Eleventh Plague: Jews and Pandemics from the Bible to COVID-19 (Oxford UP, 2023), Brown investigates the relation between Judaism and infectious diseases throughout the ages, from premodern and early-modern plagues, to rabbinic responses to smallpox and cholera, to the special vulnerabilities Jewish immigrants faced in the US as result of prejudice, and to the curious practice of “Black Weddings” in which two orphans are married in a cemetery and brings us to the modern day with the COVID-19 pandemic. Learn more about your ad choices. Visit megaphone.fm/adchoices Support our show by becoming a premium member! https://newbooksnetwork.supportingcast.fm/jewish-studies

Those of us who have some background in Jewish history are taught that the Ottoman Empire encouraged Jews, particularly those of the Spanish and Portuguese Expulsions, to settle in Ottoman Lands.  In Ottoman Jewry: Leadership, Charity, and Literacy (Brill, 2024), Professor Ayalon debunks what he calls that myth. The Ottomans, according to Yaron, were interested in stability - economic and otherwise. Minorities, with their additional taxes, would bring more financial benefits. Many were merchants who would pay higher taxes. With this premise, we discussed the world of the Ottoman Jews as one of creating community and society. There were Romaniot, Sephardim, Msta'ribun and some Ashkenazim who settled across these lands, and together they created strong communities with Rabbinic and lay leadership and a cultural heritage that can still be seen today in those communities who have survived and relocated around the world.  Learn more about your ad choices. Visit megaphone.fm/adchoices Support our show by becoming a

Hasidism, Haskalah, Zionism (U Pennsylvania Press, 2023) reveals how political and literary dialogues and conflicts between the Hebrew literature of the Hasidism, the Jewish Enlightenment, and Zionism interacted with each other in the nineteenth century. Hannan Hever uses postcolonial theories and theories of nationality to analyze how Jews used literature to make sense of hostility directed toward Jews from their European “host” countries and to set forth their own ideas and preferences regarding their status, control, and treatment. In doing so, Hever theorizes the Enlightenment’s intellectual aims and cultural influences, tracking how the models of integration crucial to Haskalah gave way to Jewish nationalism in the twentieth century. The readings in this book are theoretically informed, setting forward novel claims based on detailed textual analyses of hasidic tales, Haskalah satires, and Zionist narratives. Thus, this book tackles a major interpretative problem visible at the core of modern Hebrew lite

What was it like to work as a Jewish district attorney in provincial Soviet Ukraine in the post-Stalinist eras? What role did antisemitism and Holocaust memories play in solving and investigating the criminal cases? How does a detective’s mind work? The answers to these and many other fascinating questions are found in Memoirs of a Jewish District Attorney from Soviet Ukraine (Academic Studies Press, 2024).  Mikhail Goldis (1926-2020) worked as a detective and district attorney for 30 years in Ukraine and wrote his memoirs after immigrating to the US in 1993. Translated by Marat Grinberg, a prolific scholar of Russian and Jewish literature and cinema, the memoirs tell the rich and poignant story of Goldis’s life and what it took for a Jew to navigate and survive in the halls of Soviet power. Learn more about your ad choices. Visit megaphone.fm/adchoices Support our show by becoming a premium member! https://newbooksnetwork.supportingcast.fm/jewish-studies

The New York Times bestselling author of The Dressmakers of Auschwitz tells the stories of four Jewish girls during the Holocaust, strangers whose lives were unknowingly linked by everyday garments, revealing how the ordinary can connect us in extraordinary ways. Jock Heidenstein, Anita Lasker, Chana Zumerkorn, and Regina Feldman all faced the Holocaust in different ways. While they did not know each other—in fact had never met—each had a red sweater that would play a major part in their lives. In this absorbing and deeply moving account, award-winning clothes historian Lucy Adlington documents their stories, knitting together the experiences that fragmented their families and their lives. Adlington immortalizes these young women whose resilience, skills, strength, and kindness accompanied them through the darkest events in human history. A powerful reminder of the suffering they endured and a celebration of courage, love, and tenacity, this moving and original work illuminates moments long lost to history, n

Although most perished, hundreds of thousands of Central European Jews escaped the Holocaust; tens of thousands of these Jewish refugees ended up in East Asia, Southeast Asia, or South Asia. Taking a global and transnational approach, German-Speaking Jewish Refugees in Asia, 1930-1950 (Routledge, 2025) examines the cultural, political, and socioeconomic encounters among and between Asian and European states and empires, Central European Jews, and Asians between 1930 and 1950, offering important case studies that address the policies toward and experiences of German-speaking Jews across East Asia, Southeast Asia, and South Asia. The strength of this volume lies not only in its efforts to include multiple theoretical perspectives, which integrate German, Jewish, Asian, and Migration Studies, but also in the original empirical research on which it is based. Engaging directly with the rich and growing historiography on the origins, course, and consequences of the Holocaust in East, Southeast, and South Asia, this

This compelling family history spans from the 1890s to the 21st century, weaving personal stories into the broader fabric of German history to reveal a deeply moving account of survival, courage, and resilience. At the heart of this narrative is Paul Bernstein, a Jewish WWI veteran who was awarded for his bravery but ultimately perished in Auschwitz in 1944, and his wife, Johanna Moosdorf, a non-Jewish woman who fought tirelessly to protect their family. Their two half-Jewish children, Barbara and Thomas, born in the late 1930s, faced constant danger during WWII. Yet, thanks to Johanna's courageous efforts and Nazi policies that treated half-Jews differently, the children survived the war. With a powerful epilogue that reflects on Germany's response to its Nazi past and its relevance to contemporary far-right movements, including those in the U.S., Holocaust: German History and Our Half-Jewish Family (Cherry Orchard, 2024) offers a timely perspective on history's echoes in today's world. This unforgettable st

Second Temple Judaism is one of the more exciting burgeoning fields in biblical studies. Now, with T&T Clark's two-volume Encyclopedia of Second Temple Judaism, anyone can have a wealth of knowledge literally at their fingertips. Tune in as we speak with Daniel Gurtner, an editor and contributor to the encyclopedia, as we speak about this outstanding resource! Daniel M. Gurtner is Professor of New Testament Studies at Gateway Seminary in Ontario, California. Learn more about your ad choices. Visit megaphone.fm/adchoices Support our show by becoming a premium member! https://newbooksnetwork.supportingcast.fm/jewish-studies

In The People of the Book and the Camera: Photography in the Hebrew Novel (Syracuse UP, 2022), Amihay offers a pioneering study of the unique nexus between literature and photography in the works of Hebrew authors. Exploring the use of photography--both as a textual element and through the inclusion of actual images-- Amihay shows how the presence of visual elements in a textual work of fiction has a powerful subversive function. Contemporary Hebrew authors have turned to photography as a tool to disrupt narratives and give voice to marginalized sectors in Israel, including women, immigrants, Mizrahi Israelis, LGBTQ+ individuals, second-generation Holocaust survivors, and traumatized army veterans. Amihay discusses standard novels alongside graphic novels, challenging the dominance of the written word in literature. In addition to providing a poetic analysis of imagetext pages, Amihay addresses the social and political issues authors are responding to, including gender roles, Zionism, the ethnic divide in Isr

In Rescue and Remembrance: Imagining the German Collective After Nazism (U Wisconsin Press, 2025), Kobi Kabalek examines how the rescue of Jews during the Holocaust has been understood and represented in Germany from the Nazi period to the present. In many regions outside Germany, a small number of known Holocaust rescuers are often held up as exemplars of broad pro-Jewish sentiment among that country's population during World War II, thereby projecting an image of national moral virtue. Within Germany, by contrast, rescuers are often presented in both scholarship and public commemoration as a small minority; their examples condemn the majority by showing what Germans could have done but did not do. Kabalek argues that such simplistic depictions of the majority versus minority obscure the complex motivations and situations that led people in Nazi Germany to help persecuted Jews. Against the view that the rescuers were "forgotten" after the war, he shows that portrayals and interpretations of helping Jews appe

In Well Worth Saving (Yale University Press, 2019), Professor Laurel Leff explores how American universities responded to the sudden and urgent appeals for help from scholars trapped in Nazi-dominated Europe. Although many scholars were welcomed into faculty or research positions in the US, thousands more tried to find a way over and failed. Those who were unable to flee were left to face the horrors of the Holocaust. In this rigorously researched book, Laurel Leff rescues from obscurity scholars who were deemed "not worth saving" and tells the riveting, full story of the hiring decisions universities made during the Nazi era. Laurel Leff is Professor of Journalism and Associate Director of Jewish Studies at Northeastern University. This interview was conducted by Renee Hale, who holds a Ph.D. in Chemical Engineering and works in R&D for the food and beverage industry. She is the author of The Nightstorm Files, a voracious reader, and enjoys sharing the joy of discovering new perspectives with listeners. Lear

It is a common assumption that in Israel, Jews have sovereignty, and in most other places where Jews live today, they have religious freedom instead. As Simon Rabinovitch shows in this original work, the situation is much more complicated. Jews today possess different kinds of legal rights in states around the world; some stem from religious freedom protections, and others evolved from a longer history of Jewish autonomy. By comparing conflicts between Jewish collective and individual rights in courts and laws across the globe, from the French Revolution to today, this book provides a nuanced legal history of Jewish sovereignty and religious freedom. Rabinovitch weaves key themes in Jewish legal history with the individual stories of litigants, exploring ideas about citizenship and belonging; who is a Jew; what makes a Jewish family; and how to define Jewish space. He uses recent court cases to explore problems of conflicting rights and then situates each case in a wider historical context. This unique compar

In Laws of the Spirit: Ritual, Mysticism, and the Commandments in Early Hasidism (Stanford UP, 2024), Ariel Evan Mayse faces up to an enduring question about the Jewish religious movement known as Hasidism: how did it manage to innovate in the realms of Jewish study and practice with such daring and yet at the same time produce communities ready and willing to subject themselves to the rigors of inherited Jewish law? Exploring the movement from its emergence in the mid-1700s until 1815, Mayse turns to ritual studies rather than history or theology in order to grapple with this enigma, and does so with clarity, insight, and profound ambition. Avi Bernstein-Nahar is founder of 36learningmatters.com, a Jewish adult learning practice. Ariel Evan Mayse is associate professor of religious studies at Stanford University. Learn more about your ad choices. Visit megaphone.fm/adchoices Support our show by becoming a premium member! https://newbooksnetwork.supportingcast.fm/jewish-studies

The author of Siddur from Its Sources has combed through the history of the Jewish prayer book to identify when each prayer was added. The results are presented with captivating visuals, including a digitally enhanced presentation of the first known manuscript for each prayer, some dating back thousands of years! There is intimate access to the source material that is the basis for the modern Jewish prayer book both in the book and the supplemental website. This first volume includes the prayers for the weekday services, including all three daily prayers, special prayers for The New Month and reciting the Shema before going to sleep. Learn more about your ad choices. Visit megaphone.fm/adchoices Support our show by becoming a premium member! https://newbooksnetwork.supportingcast.fm/jewish-studies

For centuries before its "rebirth" as a spoken language, Hebrew writing was like a magical ship in a bottle that gradually changed design but never voyaged out into the world. Isolated, the ancient Hebrew ship was torpid because the language of the Bible was inadequate to represent modern life in Europe. Early modern speakers of Yiddish and German gave Hebrew the breath of life when they translated dialogues, descriptions, and thought processes from their vernaculars into Hebrew. By narrating tales of pilgrimage and adventure, Jews pulled the ship out of the bottle and sent modern Hebrew into the world. In Travels in Translation: Sea Tales at the Source of Jewish Fiction (Syracuse UP, 2016), Frieden analyzes this emergence of modern Hebrew literature after 1780, a time when Jews were moving beyond their conventional Torah- and Zion-centered worldview. Enlightened authors diverged from pilgrimage narrative traditions and appropriated travel narratives to America, the Pacific, and the Arctic. The effort to tran

In this rich intellectual history of the French-Jewish philosopher Emmanuel Levinas's Talmudic lectures in Paris, Ethan Kleinberg addresses Levinas's Jewish life and its relation to his philosophical writings while making an argument for the role and importance of Levinas's Talmudic lessons. Pairing each chapter with a related Talmudic lecture, Kleinberg uses the distinction Levinas presents between "God on Our Side" and "God on God's Side" to provide two discrete and at times conflicting approaches to Levinas's Talmudic readings. One is historically situated and argued from "our side" while the other uses Levinas's Talmudic readings themselves to approach the issues as timeless and derived from "God on God's own side." In Emmanuel Levinas's Talmudic Turn: Philosophy and Jewish Thought (Stanford UP, 2021), Kleinberg asks whether the ethical message and moral urgency of Levinas's Talmudic lectures can be extended beyond the texts and beliefs of a chosen people, religion, or even the seemingly primary unit of t

John joins Lori Allen and Ajantha Subramanian for the roundup episode of the second series of Violent Majorities, focusing on long-distance ethnonationalism. Looking back at their conversations with Peter Beinart on Zionism and Subir Sinha on Hindutva, Lori begins by asking whether Peter underestimates the material entanglements keeping Jewish American support for Israel in place. Ajantha wonders if a space has been opened up by Zionism’s more naked dependence on coercion and brute force. When John expresses puzzlement about the fervent ethnonationalism of minorities within a pluralistic society Lori and Ajantha point out that a sense of minority vulnerability may heighten the allures of long-distance ethnonationalism. The three explore various questions. Does the successful rise of Hindu ethnonationalism in the UK stem from a perceived contrast between benign Hinduism and dangerous Islam? Does the need for popular ratification through electoral democracy limit the scope of long-distance ethnonationalism? Is

On 23rd August 1944, following the collapse of the pro-Nazi dictatorship of Ion Antonescu, Romania changed sides and abandoned the Axis to join the Allies. Justice and Restitution in Post-Nazi Romania explores the hopes, struggles and disappointments of Jewish communities in Romania seeking to rebuild their lives after the Holocaust. Focusing on the efforts of survivors to recuperate rights and property, Stefan Cristian Ionescu demonstrates how the early transitional government enabled short term restitution. However, from 1948, the consolidated communist regime implemented nationalizations which dispossessed many citizens. Jewish communities were disproportionality affected, and real estate and many businesses were lost once again.  Drawing on archival sources from government documentation to diaries and newspaper reports, Justice and Restitution in Post-Nazi Romania: Rebuilding Jewish Lives and Communities, 1944-1950 (Cambridge UP, 2024) explores both the early success and later reversal of restitution poli

Jewish Pogroms in Kiev During the Russian Civil War discusses how anti-Jewish violence began during the revolution and civil war 1917-1920 raising questions of responsibility of civil and military authorities and the antisemitic propaganda spread by official mass media as well as deliberate exploitation of antisemitism for political purposes. Learn more about your ad choices. Visit megaphone.fm/adchoices Support our show by becoming a premium member! https://newbooksnetwork.supportingcast.fm/jewish-studies

The main objective of Re-Constructing Grassroots Holocaust Memory: The Case of the North Caucasus (de Gruyter, 2020) is to locate the grass roots initiatives of remembering the Holocaust victims in a particular region of Russia which has a very diverse ethnic structure and little presence of Jews at the same time. It aims to find out how such individual initiatives correspond to the official Russian hero-orientated concept of remembering the Second World war with almost no attention to the memory of war victims, including Holocaust victims. North Caucasus became the last address of thousands of Soviet Jews, both evacuees and locals. While there was almost no attention paid to the Holocaust victims in the official Soviet propaganda in the postwar period, local activists and historians together with the members of Jewish communities preserved Holocaust memory by installing small obelisks at the killing sites, writing novels and making documentaries, teaching about the Holocaust at schools and making small thema