In 1894, 18-year-old Rachel Kahn traveled from Russia to the U.S. for an arranged marriage to Abraham Calof. As North Dakota homesteaders, Rachel and Abraham carved out a life, enduring many hardships. Never sentimental, her memoir is a vital record of their struggle and triumph on the frontier. Features an Epilogue by Rachel's son, Jacob. Photos.

Jews and Gender features sixteen authors exploring the history and culture of the intersection of Judaism and gender from the biblical world to today. Topics include subversive readings of biblical texts; reappraisal of rabbinic theory and practice; women in mysticism, Chasidism, and Yiddish literature; and women in contemporary culture and politics. Accessible and comprehensive, this volume will appeal to the general reader in addition to engaging with contemporary academic scholarship.

This annotated bibliography documents Jews' significant contributions to American agriculture as farmers, ranchers, scientists and teachers. Works cited include periodicals, books, newspapers, government publications, theses and dissertations, and other miscellaneous sources. The work is indexed by title and subject.

In Race, Rights, and Recognition, Dean J. Franco explores the work of recent Jewish American writers, many of whom have taken unpopular stances on social issues, distancing themselves from the politics and public practice of multiculturalism. While these writers explore the same themes of group-based rights and recognition that preoccupy Latino, African American, and Native American writers, they are generally suspicious of group identities and are more likely to adopt postmodern distancing techniques than to presume to speak for "their people." Ranging from Philip Roth's scandalous 1969 novel Portnoy's Complaint to Gary Shteyngart's Absurdistan in 2006, the literature Franco examines in this book is at once critical of and deeply invested in the problems of race and the rise of multicultural philosophies and policies in America. Franco argues that from the formative years of multiculturalism (1965-1975), Jewish writers probed the ethics and not just the politics of civil rights and cultural recognition; this perspective arose from a stance of keen awareness of the limits and possibilities of consensus-based civil and human rights. Contemporary Jewish writers are now responding to global problems of cultural conflict and pluralism and thinking through the challenges and responsibilities of cosmopolitanism. Indeed, if the United States is now correctly-if cautiously-identifying itself as a post-ethnic nation, it may be said that Jewish writing has been well ahead of the curve in imagining what a post-ethnic future might look like and in critiquing the social conventions of race and ethnicity.

There have always been mail-order brides in America—but we haven’t always thought about them in the same ways. In Buying a Bride, Marcia A. Zug starts with the so-called “Tobacco Wives” of the Jamestown colony and moves all the way forward to today’s modern same-sex mail-order grooms to explore the advantages and disadvantages of mail-order marriage. It’s a history of deception, physical abuse, and failed unions. It’s also the story of how mail-order marriage can offer women surprising and empowering opportunities. Drawing on a forgotten trove of colorful mail-order marriage court cases, Zug explores the many troubling legal issues that arise in mail-order marriage: domestic abuse and murder, breach of contract, fraud (especially relating to immigration), and human trafficking and prostitution. She tells the story of how mail-order marriage lost the benign reputation it enjoyed in the Civil War era to become more and more reviled over time, and she argues compellingly that it does not entirely deserve its current reputation. While it is a common misperception that women turn to mail-order marriage as a desperate last resort, most mail-order brides are enticed rather than coerced. Since the first mail-order brides arrived on American shores in 1619, mail-order marriage has enabled women to improve both their marital prospects and their legal, political, and social freedoms. Buying A Bride uncovers this history and shows us how mail-order marriage empowers women and should be protected and even encouraged.

Neither in Dark Speeches nor in Similitudes is an interdisciplinary collaboration of Canadian and American Jewish studies scholars who compare and contrast the experience of Jews along the chronological spectrum (ca. 1763 to the present) in their respective countries. Of particular interest to them is determining the factors that shaped the Jewish communities on either side of our common border, and why they differed. This collection equips Canadian and American Jewish historians to broaden their examination and ask new questions, as well as answer old questions based on fresh comparative data.

Everyone remembers and enjoys a good story -- and heartfelt stories touch us in ways nothing else can. Jesus used stories or parables to emphasize his points and lead his listeners to look at themselves and examine their motivations. This collection of stories illustrating biblical passages from Cycle B of the Revised Common Lectionary will touch your soul. Berg speaks to the person in the pew with accounts drawn from conversations with people, observations of everyday life, and a vast arena of literature.