How did Italy treat Jews during World War II? Historians have shown beyond doubt that many Italians were complicit in the Holocaust, yet Italy is still known as the Axis state that helped Jews. Shira Klein uncovers how Italian Jews, though victims of Italian persecution, promoted the view that Fascist Italy was categorically good to them. She shows how the Jews' experience in the decades before World War II - during which they became fervent Italian patriots while maintaining their distinctive Jewish culture - led them later to bolster the myth of Italy's wartime innocence in the Fascist racial campaign. Italy's Jews experienced a century of dramatic changes, from emancipation in 1848, to the 1938 Racial Laws, wartime refuge in America and Palestine, and the rehabilitation of Holocaust survivors. This cultural and social history draws on a wealth of unexplored sources, including original interviews and unpublished memoirs.

"For thousands of years, Jewish people have lived in a global diaspora, carrying culinary traditions bound by kosher law. For many, Ashkenazi and Sephardic cooking define Jewish cuisine today, but in The New Mediterranean Jewish Table, Joyce Goldstein expands the repertoire with a comprehensive collection of over 400 recipes from the greater Mediterranean, including North Africa, Italy, Greece, Turkey, Spain, Portugal, and the Middle East. This vibrant treasury is filled with vibrant and seasonal recipes that embrace fresh fruits and vegetables, whole grains, small portions of meat, poultry, and fish, enhanced by herbs and spices that create distinct regional flavors. By bringing Old World Mediterranean recipes into the modern home, Joyce Goldstein will inspire a new generation of home cooks as they prepare everyday meals and build their Shabbat and holiday menus"--Provided by publisher.

Commemorating the 500th anniversary of the founding of the Venice Ghetto, this magnificent hand-bound Ultimate Collection volume introduces readers to the beauty and historical and spiritual significance of the five principal synagogues in Venice, the most important markers of Jewish faith and culture in the Most Serene Republic. Behind the walls of the Ghetto, Venetian Jews expressed strong ties to the traditions of their forefathers in constructing these beautiful places of worship. The architecture, furnishings, and decorations blended the memory of their different countries of origin with traditions of Venetian artistic culture, bequeathing the City on the Lagoon enduring monuments of unparalleled eminence that remain sites of reverence and admiration.

When this encyclopedic history of the Jews was first published in 1958, it was hailed as one of the great works of its kind, a study that not only chronicled an assailed and enduring people, but assessed its astonishing impact on the modern world. Now this scholarly and comprehensive book has been massively revised and updated by its author, a professor of modern history at the George Washington University and one of the most respected authorities on the lives and times of the Jewish people. The new edition casts additional light on the milestones of the Jewish saga from the eighteenth century to the close of the twentieth: the Jews' emergence from the ghetto and into the heart of Western society, the debate between the voices of tradition, assimilation, and Zionism; virtual destruction during the Holocaust; and troubled rebirth in Israel. Here, too, are evocative portraits of today's disapora, from the Jews of America to the embattled communities of the former Soviet Union and the Third World.

Farewell Espana transcends conventional historical narrative. With the lucidity and verve that have characterized his numerous earlier volumes, Howard Sachar breathes life into the leading dramatis personae of the Sephardic world: the royal counselors Samuel ibn Nagrela and Joseph Nasi, the poets Solomon ibn Gabirol and Judah Halevi, the philosophers Moses Maimonides and Baruch Spinoza, the statesmen Benjamin Disraeli and Pierre Mendes-France, the warriors Moshe Pijade and David Elazar, the fabulous charlatans David Reuveni and Shabbatai Zvi. In its breadth and richness of texture, Sachar's account sweeps to the contemporary era of Mussolini, Hitler, and Franco, poignantly traces the fate of Balkan Sephardic communities during the Holocaust -- and their revival in the Land and State of Israel. Not least of all, the author offers a tactile dimension of immediacy in his personal encounters with the storied venues and current personalities of the Sephardic world. Farewell Espana is a window opened on a glowing civilization once all but extinguished, and now flickering again into renewed creativity.

First published in 2004, Medieval Italy: An Encyclopedia provides an introduction to the many and diverse facets of Italian civilization from the late Roman empire to the end of the fourteenth century. It presents in two volumes articles on a wide range of topics including history, literature, art, music, urban development, commerce and economics, social and political institutions, religion and hagiography, philosophy and science. This illustrated, A-Z reference is a cross-disciplinary resource and will be of key interest not only to students and scholars of history but also to those studying a range of subjects, as well as the general reader.