Despite considerable research on the Jewish diaspora in the Middle East and North Africa since 1800, there has until now been no comprehensive synthesis that illuminates both the differences and commonalities in Jewish experience across a range of countries and cultures. This lacuna in both Jewish and Middle Eastern studies is due partly to the fact that in general histories of the region, Jews have been omitted from the standard narrative. As part of the religious and ethnic mosaic that was traditional Islamic society, Jews were but one among numerous minorities and so have lacked a...

Despite considerable research on the Jewish diaspora in the Middle East and North Africa since 1800, there has until now been no comprehensive synthesis that illuminates both the differences and commonalities in Jewish experience across a range of countries and cultures. This lacuna in both Jewish and Middle Eastern studies is due partly to the fact that in general histories of the region, Jews have been omitted from the standard narrative. As part of the religious and ethnic mosaic that was traditional Islamic society, Jews were but one among numerous minorities and so have lacked a...

Since arriving in Rome more than 2,000 years ago, the Jewish communities of Italy have retained their identity over millennia. This book traces the foundations of their community, focusing on their economic, intellectual, and social lives as they moved between northern and southern Italy. Over the centuries these localized Italian groups were reinforced with the arrival of German, Provencal, Sephardic, and--most recently--Ashkenazi and Middle Eastern Jews. Surviving religious persecution, ghetto-ization, and the Holocaust, the Jews contributed to Italian society when they could. Supplemented...

Born into a leading Lithuanian-Jewish rabbinic family, Moshe Aron Reguer initially followed the path of traditional yeshiva education. His adolescence coincided with World War I and its upheavals, pandemics, and pogroms, as well as with new ideas of Haskala, Zionism, and socialism. His memoir, recently discovered and here translated and published for the first time, discusses his internal struggles and describes the world around him and the people who influenced him. Moshe Aron Reguer wrote his memoir at the age of 23, on the eve of his departure for Eretz Israel in 1926. However, his story...

A collection of essays which reflects the author's skills and her ability to communicate and educate on a variety of levels. Her writing is informative and inspiring, passionate and poignant and ranges from the comic to the tragic, all frequently peppered with personal insights and anecdotes. Critical family issues such as childlessness and matriarch are sensitively covered alongside issues of death and burial. Sometimes there are vignettes such as her account of the funeral conducted by her youthful father for a bird he accidentally killed. In sum, this collection provides a sweeping...