Pacaritambo

THE AFFAIR: The Case of Alfred Dreyfus
by Jean-Denis Bredin. Condition: Gently pre-read 1986 George Braziller huge Trade Paperback [628 pages], no printing given. No major problems, just pre-read. Content: A detailed history of the shameful French military episode involving Alfred Dreyus, a Jewish scapegoat. Bredin unravels the legal aspects of the "Affair" and presents the whole conspiracy in a manner that is consistenly fascinating. Questions welcome [1 copy available]
$ 5.49 + $ 3.59 media shipping.

THE GIFTS OF THE JEWS: How A Tribe of Desert Nomads Changed the Way Everone Thinks and Feels
by Thomas Cahill. B&W Maps. Condition: UNREAD 1999 Anchor Books Trade Paperback, first printing. Small shelfwear to bottom front cover corner. Light tanning to page edges. Content: This a light-handed, popular account of ancient Jewish culture, the culture of the Bible. The book is written from a decidedly modern point of view. He encourages us to see the Old Testament through ancient eyes--to see its characters not as our contemporaries but as those of Gilgamesh and Amenhotep. Cahill also lingers on often-overlooked books of the Bible, such as Ruth, to discuss changes in ancient sensibility. The result is a fine, speculative, eminently readable work of history. Cahill argues that the greatest gifts of the Jews are the linear theory of history (vs. the cyclical theory of other ancients), with its implication that life can get better and avoid decline and the idea of the equality and dignity of each individual that culminated in the declaration that "All men are created equal." Other gifts include the concepts of universal brotherhood, peace, and justice. An excellent book! [1 copy available]
$ 3.50 + $ 3.09 media shipping.

THE ISRAELITES IN HISTORY AND TRADITION (Library of Ancient Israel series)
by Niels Peter Lemche. Cecilia Amorocho cover art. Condition: NEW 1998 Westminster John Knox Press hardcover & DJ (in mylar jacket), first printing. Content: In this volume in the Library of Ancient Israel, Niels Peter Lemche focuses on the way Israelites understood themselves at different points in history - before, within, and after the monarchy. Lemche discusses references to the people and their leaders in other ancient Near Eastern texts and examines the Israelites self-understanding or behavior as a distinct people throughout their history. Questions welcome [1 copy available]
$ 7.50 + $ 3.19 media shipping. Priority shipping available.

THE JEW: ASSUMPTIONS OF IDENTITY
by Juliet Steyn. B&W photos and drawings illustrate. Condition: NEW 1999 Cassell (London) Trade Paperback, first printing. Tiny edgewewar. Interior clean & tight. Content: Setting out to banalize the Jew, Steyn presents case studies from Britain and America to confront the demonization of the Jew and the post-Shoah and postmodern view of the Jew as sublime. She ranges from details of a tie-pin in a 1905 photograph to the Holocaust Museum in Washington. [1 copy available]
$ 5.50 + $ 3.19 media shipping.

THE JEWISH STATE: An Attempt at a Modern Solution of the Jewish Question
by Theodor Herzl. Condition: NEW 1993 Henry Pordes (London) Trade Paperback, Seventh Edition. Content: This reviewer (Harold Grooms) said it better than I've seen anywhere: ""The Jewish State," was the means by which author, Theodor Herzl, rallied world Jewry to the cause of establishing a national homeland for his people. Published in 1896, this little pamphlet ignited age-old passions among Jews the world over and began the drive for the establishment of the first Jewish State in 2000 years. By doing so, Herzl set in motion events that monopolize the world's attention today. Herzl outlines the plan for establishing his state. In a logical, step-by-step process he defines how the land would be colonized, financed, and administered. Palestine and Argentina are suggested as possible sites. However, Palestine emerges clearly as the desired locale for spiritual and emotional reasons. Anyone trying to establish a state could use this pamphlet as a guide. Emerson said that American colonists fired, "the shot heard 'round the world," at Lexington and Concord. Herzl fired a similar shot by publishing "The Jewish State." He, no less than the colonists, started a revolution by his actions. Both ultimately achieved their goals of establishing a state for their peoples. However, America did not have to endure a Holocaust to facilitate an exodus to our shores; unfortunately, Israel did. Today, the Jewish State exists in the form of modern Israel. Born out of controversy, this state exists as a prosperous, democratic entity, in the midst of numerically superior and extremely hostile Arab states. Jews have their home, but they have to fight daily to keep them. Is this what Herzl envisioned? Did he do the world a favor by establishing his state? The verdict is still out. One thing is clear. The roots of the current controversy that has American soldiers fighting in Afghanistan can be traced back to Israel, and Israel's roots can be traced to Herzl's pamphlet." [3 copies available]
$ 6.39 + $ 2.89 media shipping. Priority & International shipping available.

THE "JEWISH THREAT": Anti-Semitic Politics of the the U.S. Army
by Joseph W. Bendersky. Condition: UNREAD 2000 Basic Books Trade Paperback, first edition, first printing. Light shelfwear - no edgewear. [539 pages] Content: The author spent 10 years researching this important history of anti-Semitism in the U.S. Army. He offers evidence that vicious anti-Semitism permeated the highest ranks of the U.S. Army from the turn of the century through the 1970s. He found that the Army's Military Intelligence Division (NM) created a separate classification for Jews to accommodate pertinent reports, memoranda, and correspondence. Bendersky also discovered letters between officers, secret agents, state secretaries, and embassies abroad, in which information on Jews was exchanged, including lists of prominent Jews who supposedly dominated or influenced German banking, industry, and politics. These Jewish files, Bendersky shows, reveal that an anti-Semitic worldview persisted in the army officer corps throughout World War II. Although the presence of anti-Semitism in the army has never been a secret, Bendersky's documented study reveals for the first time the extent of this insidious policy of Judeophobia. This is truly a significant work. [1 copy available]
$ 7.39 + $ 3.49 media shipping.

JUDAISM AND THE AMERICAN IDEA
by Milton R. Konvitz. Condition: UNREAD 1980 Schlocken Books Trade Paperback, first edition, first printing. Thin row of vertical rubbings front cover. Content: Firmly grounded in the Declaration of Independence as well as the Torah and Talmud, Konvitz's book delves eloquently into the subject of human ideals and rights. Essays on Judaism and Israel as filtered through American ideas on human rights. [1 copy available]
$ 4.39 + $ 2.89 media shipping.

THE SATANIZING OF THE JEWS:
Origin and Development of Mystical Anti-Semitism
by Joel Carmichael. Condition:NEW 1993 Fromm Trade Paperback, first paperback edition. Content: Unlike other forms of prejudice, anti-Semitism took on a mystical character with the advent of Christianity, asserts Carmichael. Images of Jews as inhumanly evil and satanically powerful were promulgated by the early Church Fathers. The Crusaders exploited the ancient theme of Jews as demonic murderers of God, and after Luther's campaign of violent anti-Semitism, the stereotype of Jew as primordial sinner became central to the catechism taught to children. Carmichael, a specialist in Christianity ( The Death of Jesus ) and Russian history, follows the lineage of ``mystical anti-Semitism'' from Christian medieval theology through secularized modern Christendom to its ultimate, demented manifestation notion of Holocaust as a `flowering' of anything seems offensive in Hitler and the Holocaust. He views Arab hostility to Israel as a collective enmity distinct from the mystical variety of Jew-hatred and rooted in the conviction that Jews should be subjugated to Islam. This important, lucid critique offers a provocative perspective on centuries of bigotry. A vital book. [1 copy available]
$ 8.50 + $ 3.19 media shipping

STALIN'S FORGOTTEN ZION: Birobidzhan and the Making of A Soviet Jewish Homeland (An illustrated history, 1928 - 1996)
by Robert Weinberg. Introduction by Zvi Gitelman. Photos edited by Bradley Berman. B&W photos. Condition: NEW 1998 University of California Press Trade Paperback, first printing. Short, pale crease bottom front cover, small edgewear. Interior perfect. Content: Robert Weinberg and Bradley Berman's carefully documented and extensively illustrated book explores the Soviet government's failed experiment to create a socialist Jewish homeland. In 1934 an area popularly known as Birobidzhan, a sparsely populated region along the Sino-Soviet border some five thousand miles east of Moscow, was designated the national homeland of Soviet Jewry. Establishing the Jewish Autonomous Region was part of the Kremlin's plan to create an enclave where secular Jewish culture rooted in Yiddish and socialism could serve as an alternative to Palestine. The Kremlin also considered the region a solution to various perceived problems besetting Soviet Jews. Birobidzhan still exists today, but despite its continued official status Jews are a small minority of the inhabitants of the region. Drawing upon documents from archives in Moscow and Birobidzhan, as well as photograph collections never seen outside Birobidzhan, Weinberg's story of the Soviet Zion sheds new light on a host of important historical and contemporary issues regarding Jewish identity, community, and culture. Given the persistence of the "Jewish question" in Russia, the history of Birobidzhan provides an unusual point of entry into examining the fate of Soviet Jewry under communist rule. Fascinating history. [1 copy available]
$ 6.50 + $ 3.19 media shipping.

VENICE AND ENVIRONS: JEWISH ITINERARIES - Places, History and Art
edited by Francesca Brandes. Color & sepia photos illustrate. Condition: NEW 1997 Marsilio (NY) Trade Paperback, no edition given. Content: How appropriate that the publisher's "Jewish Itineraries" series premiers with Venice, home of the world's first officially decreed ghetto (March 29, 1516). Prior to that, Jewish life flourished in and around Venice, contributing culturally and artistically to Italian society as early as the 11th century. This is a historical and cultural documentary of heretofore unrecognized Jewish civilization in 30 cities. Three outlined itineraries precede the alphabetical listings and descriptions. Population, altitude, and itinerary number open each summary of Jewish society. Entries vary from one-half page to several pages, the longest covering Venice, Padua, and Verona. Where available, color photographs show remnants and restorations of artifacts, buildings, synagogues, and cemeteries. Also included is a glossary of "Jewish" terms. This is an interesting, eye-opening account covering everything from cultural enrichment to persecution and banishment. Still valuable when searching for and touring Jewish antiquities & history. Questions welcome [1 copy available]
$ 3.50 + $ 3.19 media shipping