The Jewish Phenomenon

With truly startling statistics and a wealth of anecdotes, Silbiger reveals the cultural principles that form the bedrock of Jewish success in America.

With truly startling statistics and a wealth of anecdotes, Silbiger reveals the cultural principles that form the bedrock of Jewish success in America.

Spielberg, Brin, Dell, Seinfeld--phenomenally successful . . . and Jewish. Why have Jews risen to the top of the business and professional world in numbers staggeringly out of proportion to their percentage of the American population? Steven Silbiger has the answer. Based on the author's synthesis of wide reading and research, The Jewish Phenomenon sets forth seven principles that form the bedrock of Jewish financial success. With startling statistics, a wealth of anecdotes, and the fascinating details behind some of America's biggest business success stories, Silbiger convincingly shows how these seven keys have helped the Jews historically and how they continue to ensure Jewish success today. More important, the author makes clear that these principles are equally at the disposal of Jews and non-Jews alike. The amazing success of the Jews simply proves that they work. The Jewish Phenomenon pays tribute not merely to the success of a people but to the commonsense wisdom and enduring values that can enrich us all.

Stone unlocks the amazing secrets to the success of the Jewish people. Their time-honored principles help create wealth, maintain health, raise successful children, and pass on generational blessings.

In this sparkling debut, a young critic offers an original, passionate, and erudite account of what it means to feel Jewish—even when you’re not. Self-hatred. Guilt. Resentment. Paranoia. Hysteria. Overbearing Mother-Love. In this witty, insightful, and poignant book, Devorah Baum delves into fiction, film, memoir, and psychoanalysis to present a dazzlingly original exploration of a series of feelings famously associated with modern Jews. Reflecting on why Jews have so often been depicted, both by others and by themselves, as prone to “negative” feelings, she queries how negative these feelings really are. And as the pace of globalization leaves countless people feeling more marginalized, uprooted, and existentially threatened, she argues that such “Jewish” feelings are becoming increasingly common to us all. Ranging from Franz Kafka to Philip Roth, Sarah Bernhardt to Woody Allen, Anne Frank to Nathan Englander, Feeling Jewish bridges the usual fault lines between left and right, insider and outsider, Jew and Gentile, and even Semite and anti-Semite, to offer an indispensable guide for our divisive times.

The author explores the phenomenon of the Jewish culture in Europe. In this book she askes in what way do non-Jews embrace and enact Jewish culture and for what reasons.

Jewish Souls, Bureaucratic Minds examines the phenomenon of Jewish bureaucracy in the Russian empire—its institutions, personnel, and policies—from 1850 to 1917. In particular, it focuses on the institution of expert Jews, mid-level Jewish bureaucrats who served the Russian state both in the Pale of Settlement and in the central offices of the Ministry of Internal Affairs in St. Petersburg. The main contribution of expert Jews was in the sphere of policymaking and implementation. Unlike the traditional intercession of shtadlanim (Jewish lobbyists) in the high courts of power, expert Jews employed highly routinized bureaucratic procedures, including daily communications with both provincial and central bureaucracies. Vassili Schedrin illustrates how, at the local level, expert Jews advised the state, negotiated power, influenced decisionmaking, and shaped Russian state policy toward the Jews. Schedrin sheds light on the complex interactions between the Russian state, modern Jewish elites, and Jewish communities. Based on extensive new archival data from the former Soviet archives, this book opens a window into the secluded world of Russian bureaucracy where Jews shared policymaking and administrative tasks with their Russian colleagues. The new sources show these Russian Jewish bureaucrats to be full and competent participants in official Russian politics. This book builds upon the work of the original Russian Jewish historians and recent historiographical developments, and seeks to expose and analyze the broader motivations behind official Jewish policy, which were based on the political vision and policymaking contributions of Russian Jewish bureaucrats. Scholars and advanced students of Russian and Jewish history will find Jewish Souls, Bureaucratic Minds to be an important tool in their research.