A groundbreaking examination of a little-known but defining episode in early modern Jewish history A refugee crisis of huge proportions erupted as a result of the mid-seventeenth-century wars in the Polish-Lithuanian Commonwealth. Tens of thousands of Jews fled their homes, or were captured and trafficked across Europe, the Middle East, and North Africa. Rescue the Surviving Souls is the first book to examine this horrific moment of displacement and flight, and to assess its social, economic, religious, cultural, and psychological consequences. Drawing on a wealth of primary sources in twelve languages, Adam Teller traces the entire course of the crisis, shedding fresh light on the refugee experience and the various relief strategies developed by the major Jewish centers of the day. Teller pays particular attention to those thousands of Jews sent for sale on the slave markets of Istanbul and the extensive transregional Jewish economic network that coalesced to ransom them. He also explores how Jewish communities rallied to support the refugees in central and western Europe, as well as in Poland-Lithuania, doing everything possible to help them overcome their traumatic experiences and rebuild their lives. Rescue the Surviving Souls offers an intimate study of an international refugee crisis, from outbreak to resolution, that is profoundly relevant today.

"The mid-seventeenth century witnessed an enormous wave of Jewish refugees and forced migrants from the wars of the Polish-Lithuanian Commonwealth, who spread across the Jewish communities of Europe and Asia. A series of wars that hit the Polish-Lithuanian Commonwealth-the Khmelnytsky uprising of 1648; the Muscovite invasion that begin in 1654; and the Swedish incursion from 1655 to 1660-all together forced many Jews out of their homes. Though not the direct targets of the combatants, within a short time many were deeply involved in the conflicts, some becoming victims of violence and some becoming arms-bearing participants. But most became refugees and forced migrants. These refugees posed a huge social, economic and ethical challenge to the Jewish world. In an unprecedented manner, the Jewish centers around Europe answered this challenge and, both individually and jointly, organized relief for the Polish-Lithuanian Jews in all the different places they now found themselves. The need for concerted action on behalf of the Polish Jewish refugees strengthened ties between communities across Europe, and significantly increased the range of communal co-operation. The book moves through the three different environments the refugees found themselves in. The first part looks at the refugees who remained within the Polish-Lithuanian Commonwealth, probing the local and regional policies of relief that would eventually prove so successful in helping them overcome the traumas of their past. The second examines the Jews who were brought to the slave markets of Constantinople, and then redeemed there by newly developed philanthropic systems that had raised the money to do so. The third examines the fate of the Jews who fled to Central and Western Europe, examining tensions that developed within the local Jewish populations between the need to help the refugees and a basic antipathy born of cultural difference. In each case, a web of inter-communal connections was created to help support the refugees-bringing different parts of the Jewish world into an extraordinary level of purposeful contact, and paving the way for similar organization in the future. As a result, the seventeenth century communities set in motion processes of change that would eventually be refashioned into the globalized Jewish world we know today"--

Explores the lives of survivors who were shipwrecked, banished, or abandoned during the past several centuries.

James Leininger was just two years old when he began having disturbing nightmares that would not stop. He screamed out in the night: 'Plane on fire! Little man can't get out!' While nightmares are common among children, what happened next shocked those around him... James began to reveal details of planes and war tragedies that no two-year-old boy could know. His desperate parents were at a loss to help him until he said three things: 'Corsair', 'Natoma' and 'Jack Larsen'. From these tantalising clues, James's parents travelled thousands of miles and spent many long years piecing together these facts to try and find an answer that could end his torment. Finally, despite his mother's fears and his father's staunch Christian beliefs, they found only one possibility to the endless coincidences that surrounded every detail in James's life – that their son was reliving the past life of a World War II fighter pilot. Their touching story is one that will challenge sceptics and confirm the beliefs of those who already believe in life after death.

Annotation A decade after the publication of his highly acclaimed book Soul Murder, Dr. Leonard Shengold reflects anew on the circumstances and the consequences of willful abuse and neglect of children. With compelling examples from literature and from clinical cases, Dr. Shengold describes techniques of adaptation and denial by victims, the psychopathology of soul murder, and therapy techniques for restoring the capacity to love.

There was a time in Miami when it seemed impossible to go through a week without news coverage of the men, women and children escaping Cuba and being pulled off of makeshift rafts in the middle of the Florida Straits. One out of four did not survive the dangerous journey; the others barely hung on with little food and water. Most of the lucky ones were saved by a group of volunteers who called themselves Brothers to the Rescue (BTTR). Seagull One is the never-before-told story of the men and women representing nineteen nationalities who came together to fly in rickety Cessnas over the Florida Straits to search for rafters fleeing Communist Cuba. It is a fascinating account of how José Basulto, a Cuban exile and Bay of Pigs veteran, founded BTTR with the humanitarian mission of saving the lives of the desperate souls willing to brave the ocean in pursuit of freedom. The group’s tactics were sometimes controversial, including protests against both the Cuban and U.S. governments, yet the organization managed to save over 4,200 people they would seldom, if ever, meet. Seagull One also records the infiltration of two spies, one who was a double agent working for the FBI. Together these two volunteers collaborated with the Castro government in planning the shoot down over international waters of two unarmed Cessnas flying a humanitarian mission on February 24, 1996. The cold-blooded murder of four innocent men (three American citizens and one legal resident) led to significant changes in U.S.-Cuba relations. Over one hundred people were interviewed for Seagull One. Their stories come to life in this nonfiction narrative that reads like a novel.

Pastoral care is often focused on individual problems, but much of what harms and impedes us stems from the larger social maladies at work in our lives. This unprecedented gathering of two dozen essays discusses the realities of racism, sexism, heterosexism, ageism, ableism, and classism prevalent within the church and society in an effort to broaden and inform pastoral caregivers with the knowledge and the skills needed to respond effectively to oppressed and marginalized persons. The volumes also help pastors to reflect on the ways their own social location has an impact on their ministries and to gain familiarity with resources available to support pastoral caregivers in a variety of contexts.