Jewish Frontier Anthology 1934 1944

A diverse collection of essays studying Jewish communities before, during, and after their emergence into a modern, emancipated status. A fitting tribute to an outstanding sociologist and scholar.

This reconstruction of Middle East politics and ideology focuses on the rise of the Zionist settlement in Palestine, the gradual emergence of Arab nationalism, and the increasing difficulties facing the British Mandatory government when reconciling the growing Arab-Jewish communal strife. The Communist International, searching for revolutionary situations in the underdeveloped world, attempted to use unrest in Palestine to undermine the Mandate. In the process two sections of the Communist movement were confronted with an expanding popular movement, Zionism, which they tried to suppress.The situation was unique. The Palestine Communist Party's leadership and membership were predominantly Jewish, and perceived the Communist International's anti-Zionist policies as a threat to the existence of the entire Jewish community. The Soviets themselves promoted an autonomous Jewish region within the Soviet Union and sought to combat manifestations of Zionism in the Middle East that might appeal to Russian Jewry.The precise mechanisms of control and policy influence that the Communist International exerted upon the Palestine Communist Party have only recently been revealed. The author's intimate knowledge of the Middle East enabled him to reconstruct the 1920s situation. By utilizing survivors' testimonies, he also was able to explain the roots of the strong anti-Israeli position taken by the Soviet Union at the time. Communism and Zionism in Palestine during the British Mandate is a vivid historical analysis and will be invaluable to those who wish to understand the complex present situation in the Middle East.

Gerald K. Stone has collected books about Canadian Jewry since the early 1980s. This volume is a descriptive catalog of his Judaica collection, comprising nearly 6,000 paper or electronic documentary resources in English, French, Yiddish, and Hebrew. Logically organized, indexed, and selectively annotated, the catalog is broad in scope, covering Jewish Canadian history, biography, religion, literature, the Holocaust, antisemitism, Israel and the Middle East, and more. An introduction by Richard Menkis discusses the significance of the Catalog and collecting for the study of the Jewish experience in Canada. An informative bibliographical resource, this book will be of interest to scholars and students of Canadian and North American Jewish studies.

During and in the aftermath of the dark period of the Holocaust, writers across Europe and America sought to express their feelings and experiences through their writings. This book provides a comprehensive account of these writings through essays from expert scholars, covering a wide geographic, linguistic, thematic and generic range of materials. Such an overview is particularly appropriate at a time when the corpus of Holocaust literature has grown to immense proportions and when guidance is needed in determining a canon of essential readings, a context to interpret them, and a paradigm for the evolution of writing on the Holocaust. The expert contributors to this volume, who negotiate the literature in the original languages, provide insight into the influence of national traditions and the importance of language, especially but not exclusively Yiddish and Hebrew, to the literary response arising from the Holocaust.

American Aliyah (immigration to Palestine) began in the mid-nineteenth century fueled by the desire of American Jews to study Torah and by their wish to live and be buried in the Holy Land. His movement of people-men and women-increased between World War I and II, in direct contrast to European Jewry’s desire to immigrate to the United States. Why would American Jews want to leave America, and what characterized their resettlement? From New Zion to Old Zion analyzes the migration of American Jews to Palestine between the two world wars and explores the contribution of these settlers to the building of Palestine. From New Zion to Old Zion draws upon international archival correspondence, newspapers, maps, photographs, interviews, and fieldwork to provide students and scholars of immigration and settlement processes, the Yishuv (Jewish community in Palestine), and America-Holy Land studies a well-researched portrait of Aliyah.