"A thought-provoking and timely call to apply Judaism's powerful teachings to help shift our imperiled planet onto a sustainable path. While appreciating the radical, transformative nature of Judaism, Richard Schwartz argues that it has been "stolen" by Jews who are in denial about climate change and other environmental threats and support politicians and policies that may be inconsistent with basic Jewish values. Tackling such diverse issues as climate change, world hunger, vegetarianism, poverty, terrorism, destruction of the environment, peace prospects in Israel, and American foreign policy, he offers practical suggestions for getting Judaism back on track as a faith based on justice, peace, and compassion. He urges the reader to reconsider current issues in line with Judaism's highest values in an effort to meet the pressing challenges of today's world." --

In the five decades since Richard Schwartz first became a religious Jew, he has watched the mainstream Jewish community shift more and more to the Right, often abandoning the very values that originally attracted him to Orthodox Judaism. In this soul-searching book, Schwartz examines the ways in which he believes his religion has been "stolen" by partisan politics, and offers practical suggestions for how to get Judaism back on track as a faith based on peace and compassion. Tackling such diverse issues as U.S. politics, Israeli peace issues, the misuse of the Holocaust, antisemitism, U.S. foreign policy, Islamophobia, socialism, vegetarianism, environmentalism, Schwartz goes where many Jews fear to go -- and challenges us to re-think current issues in the light of positive Jewish values. (With photos, notes, action ideas, resource lists, and annotated bibliography. Also includes appendix materials with Rabbi Yonassan Gershom.)

Liz Bucar navigates the thorny terrain of religious appropriation, from yoga classes to non-Muslims who signal allyship by donning hijabs. Exploring the ethics of alleged appropriations, Bucar argues that borrowing isn’t itself a problem, as long as we are invested in our enthusiasms—committed to understanding their roots and diverse meanings.

This is what we dream of: to be so swept away, so poleaxed by a book that the breath is sucked right out of us. Brace yourselves. May 1565. Suleiman the Magnificent, emperor of the Ottomans, has declared a jihad against the Knights of Saint John the Baptist. The largest armada of all time approaches the knights' Christian stronghold on the island of Malta. The Turks know the knights as the "Hounds of Hell." The knights call themselves "The Religion." In Messina, Sicily, a French countess, Carla La Penautier, seeks passage to Malta in a quest to find the son taken from her at his birth twelve years ago. The only man with the expertise and daring to help her is a Rabelaisian soldier of fortune, arms dealer, former janissary, and strapping Saxon adventurer by the name of Mattias Tannhauser. He agrees to accompany the lady to Malta, where, amid the most spectacular siege in military history, they must try to find the boy—whose name they do not know and whose face they have never seen—and pluck him from the jaws of Holy War. The Religion is the first book of the Tannhauser Trilogy, and from the first page of this epic account of the last great medieval conflict between East and West, it is clear we are in the hands of a master. Not since James Clavell has a novelist so powerfully and assuredly plunged readers headlong into another world and time. Anne Rice transformed the vampire novel. Stephen King reinvented horror. Now, in a spectacular tale of heroism, tragedy, and passion, Tim Willocks revivifies historical fiction.

Of the 200,000 years homo sapiens has been wandering this planet, this has to be the most absurd and challenging time to be a man... How can you hunt and gather in an open-plan office? Is monogamy fighting a losing battle against testes size? Why do men make up 95% of FTSE CEOs yet 95% of the prison population? Trapped in bodies barely changed since caveman days, males are now contending with corporate culture, lifelong commitment, rampant depression and crazy expectations to be a success at work and home. Enter award-winning BBC broadcaster and journalist Tim Samuels with Who Stole My Spear? - which stops at nothing to explore how men should actually be living these days. From relationships, religion, and the rise of ISIS, to porn, fatherhood and the oppression of office life. Nothing is taboo: Is it less serious when a man has an affair? Why don’t new parents want boys? Who Stole My Spear? is an inspiring rallying call for men and ‘good masculinity’ which cannot be ignored – that will leave you rethinking much about life’s big questions. And for women who wonder what’s on a man’s mind, this is the book that offers the entertainingly explosive answer.

This book will delight the reader and put him on the path to achieve lasting self-esteem and happiness. A good sequel to The Secret,this book holds the powerful message of how positivity trumps negativity. Artfully written, presented, and studded with many relevant quotations.

Ms. Donna Haskins is an African American woman who wrestles with structural inequity in the streets of Boston by inhabiting an alternate dimension she refers to as the “spirit realm.” In this other place, she is prepared by the Holy Spirit to challenge the restrictions placed upon Black female bodies in the United States. Growing into her spiritual gifts of astral flight and time travel, Donna meets the spirits of enslaved Africans, conducts spiritual warfare against sexual predators, and tends to the souls of murdered Black children whose ghosts haunt the inner city. Take Back What the Devil Stole centers Donna’s encounters with the supernatural to offer a powerful narrative of how one woman seeks to reclaim her power from a lifetime of social violence. Both ethnographic and personal, Onaje X. O. Woodbine’s portrait of her spiritual life sheds new light on the complexities of Black women’s religious participation and the lived religion of the dispossessed. Woodbine explores Donna’s religious creativity and her sense of multireligious belonging as she blends together Catholic, Afro-Caribbean, and Black Baptist traditions. Through the gripping story of one local prophet, this book offers a deeply original account of the religious experiences of Black women in contemporary America: their bodies, their haunted landscapes, and their spiritual worlds.