In this memoir, Lucy S. Dawidowicz recounts her time in Vilna where she went to study in 1938-39. She also reconstructs the history of Vilna Jews through the centuries and gives a first-hand account of Vilna’s Jewish community right before its destruction by the Nazis. Dawidowicz fled days before the German invasion of Poland, and returned to the American zone in Germany in 1946-47 to help Jews in Displaced Persons camps with the American Jewish Joint Distribution Committee. It was in that role that Dawidowicz helped salvage remnants of YIVO’s Vilna archives that were shipped to New York. “Dawidowicz, a well-known historian of the Jews, has presented us... a memoir on Vilna, a city she left on Aug. 24, 1939, just before World War II began. It is a tremendous collection of facts and names. There are sketches depicting the everyday life of a thriving community and reflections upon its unique culture. But the book is more than that: it is a monument to the community destroyed, not by forces of nature, but by the evil human hand.” — Tomas Venclova, The New York Times “In this deeply moving personal reminiscence, eminent historian Dawidowicz recounts the year she spent in Vilna, Poland [in 1938-39]... [a] poignant memoir... Her piercingly eloquent narrative gives us a sharp first-hand impression of a world in ruins and of the irreparable losses suffered by European Jewry.” — Publishers Weekly “The story of Dawidowicz’s early years and a tribute to the Jewish community and culture of Vilna... Crammed with descriptive details of a people and culture now destroyed and of WW II's chaotic aftermath: chastening, compelling, powerful.” —Kirkus Reviews “A leading historian of the Holocaust, Dawidowicz transports the reader from 1938, when she studied in Vilna, Poland, through 1946, when she returned to Europe to assist Jewish survivors. This is a powerful and absorbing memoir” — Library Journal “Lucy Dawidowicz's memoir comprises several books for the price of one: it portrays Jewish Vilna as the plucky American student encountered it in 1938, describes the fate of Jewish cultural treasures as she helped recover them after the War, and exposes the mind and spirit of an intrepid historian-in-the making.” — Ruth R. Wisse, Harvard University “Lucy Dawidowicz was an historian of monumental importance, best known for her classic The War Against the Jews. But she was also a vital chronicler of the world of European Jewry before its destruction... [A] compelling memoir of Vilna on the brink of destruction.” — Jonathan Rosen, author of The Talmud and the Internet: A Journey Between Worlds

This three-volume work is a cornerstone resource on the evolution and dynamics of the Jewish Diaspora as it played out around the world—from its beginnings to the present. Encyclopedia of the Jewish Diaspora: Origins, Experiences, and Culture is the definitive resource on one of world history's most curious phenomenons, encompassing the communities, cultures, ethnicities, and experiences created by the Diaspora in every region of the world where Jews live or Jewish ancestry exists. The encyclopedia is organized in three volumes. The first includes 100 essays on the Jewish Diaspora experience, with coverage ranging from ethnography and demography to philosophy, history, music, and business. The second and third volumes feature hundreds of articles and essays on Diaspora regions, countries, cities, and other locations. With an editorial board of renowned Jewish scholars, and with an extraordinarily accomplished team of contributors, Encyclopedia of the Jewish Diaspora captures the full scope of its subject like no other reference work before it.

After the Holocaust’s near complete destruction of European Yiddish cultural centers, the Yiddish language was largely viewed as a remnant of the past, tragically eradicated in its prime. In Survivors and Exiles: Yiddish Culture after the Holocaust, Jan Schwarz reveals that, on the contrary, Yiddish culture in the two and a half decades after the Holocaust was in dynamic flux. Yiddish writers and cultural organizations maintained a staggering level of activity in fostering publications and performances, collecting archival and historical materials, and launching young literary talents. Schwarz traces the transition from the Old World to the New through the works of seven major Yiddish writers—including well-known figures (Isaac Bashevis Singer, Avrom Sutzkever, Yankev Glatshteyn, and Chaim Grade) and some who are less well known (Leib Rochman, Aaron Zeitlin, and Chava Rosenfarb). The first section, Ground Zero, presents writings forged by the crucible of ghettos and concentration camps in Vilna, Lodz, and Minsk-Mazowiecki. Subsequent sections, Transnational Ashkenaz and Yiddish Letters in New York, examine Yiddish culture behind the Iron Curtain, in Israel and the Americas. Two appendixes list Yiddish publications in the book series Dos poylishe yidntum (published in Buenos Aires, 1946–66) and offer transliterations of Yiddish quotes. Survivors and Exiles charts a transnational post-Holocaust network in which the conflicting trends of fragmentation and globalization provided a context for Yiddish literature and artworks of great originality. Schwarz includes a wealth of examples and illustrations from the works under discussion, as well as photographs of creators, making this volume not only a critical commentary on Yiddish culture but also an anthology of sorts. Readers interested in Yiddish studies, Holocaust studies, and modern Jewish studies will find Survivors and Exiles a compelling contribution to these fields.

In this meticulously researched, unflinching, and reasoned study, National Book Award finalist David I. Kertzer presents shocking revelations about the role played by the Vatican in the development of modern anti-Semitism. Working in long-sealed Vatican archives, Kertzer unearths startling evidence to undermine the Church’s argument that it played no direct role in the spread of modern anti-Semitism. In doing so, he challenges the Vatican’s recent official statement on the subject, We Remember. Kertzer tells an unsettling story that has stirred up controversy around the world and sheds a much-needed light on the past.

David Lehman, a poet of wit, ingenuity, and formidable skill, draws upon his heritage as a grandson of Holocaust victims and offers a stirring autobiographical collection of poems that is his most ambitious work to date. Yeshiva Boys covers an expansive range of subjects -- from love, sex, and romance to repentance, humility, the meaning of democracy, Existentialism, modern European history, military intelligence, and the rituals associated with faith and prayer. The title poem is a work in twelve parts that blends the elements of espionage fiction, memory, history, and moral philosophy. It reflects David's experience as a student in an orthodox Yeshiva, and it, along with many other poems in the book, explores what it means to be a Jew in America, what is gained and lost in assimilating to secular culture, how to understand the peculiar destiny of the Jewish people, and how to reconcile the existence of God with the knowledge of evil. Beautiful, provocative, and accessible, this is David Lehman's most inspired collection.