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Welcome to Vallentine Mitchell Publishers!
Vallentine Mitchell, founded over fifty years ago, are international publishers of books of Jewish interest, both for the scholar and general reader. Subjects published include Jewish history, culture and heritage, modern Jewish thought, biography and reference.
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| | |  | Messianism, Secrecy and Mysticism
A New Interpretation of Early American Jewish Life
New in Paperback!
Winner in the category of American Jewish Studies, National Jewish Book Awards
Winner Jordan Schnitzer Book Award in the Category of Cultural Studies and Media Studies
Leibman, Laura
Messianism, Secrecy and Mysticism tells the history of Early American Jews, focusing on the objects of everyday life used and created by Jews, such as ritual baths, food, gravestones, portraits, furniture, as well as the synagogue. By uncovering these objects and exposing the common culture of the Jewish Atlantic world, the book provides a fresh understanding of a crucial era in Jewish and American history. It offers new insights about the origins of Jewish American messianism, helping readers better understand messianism in contemporary American society. It charts the shared culture of these Jews who lived in the port towns in the Caribbean and on both sides of the Atlantic, and author Laura Arnold Leibman argues that thinking about Judaism as an embodied religion is key to understanding their culture. Messianism, Secrecy and Mysticism makes early Jewish American history entertaining, accessible, and interesting to general readers, as well as to academic audiences. A companion website contains thousands of photographs of material culture from throughout the Jewish Atlantic world, as well as study guides for using the images; http://cdm.reed.edu/cdm4/jewishatlanticworld/
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|  | Cinema and Zionism
The Development of a Nation through Film
Feldestein, Ariel
This book examines the connections between the cinema of the Yishuv (Ottoman and Mandatory Palestine) and the Zionist idea. The book follows the plans to create the figure of the New Jew in Eretz Yisrael, as part of a personal, national, and universal revolution, and it explores the figure and traits of the pioneer. It also examines how cinema has presented the Zionist idea. Cinema and Zionism analyzes the plots, the modes of expression, the themes, and the ideological elements that typify these films, and it positions them within the structure of the Zionist idea. It also engages with connections between the Zionist idea and the cinema through a discussion on the cinematic endeavors and the relationships between the filmmakers and national institutions. The correlation between the two histories is revealed with all its complexity and depth. The book sheds light on a distinctive perspective in the narrative of Eretz Yisrael - that of the creation and consumption of a new culture. The tales of working on the films - how they were prepared and shot, and their ultimate reception - are interwoven with outlines of the films themselves. Together, they create a portrait of an ideological society that distilled events and incidents into myths aimed at forging the Zionist outlook and instructing Zionist settlers toward fulfilling its goals.
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|  | Representing Perpetrators in Holocaust Literature and Film
Adams, Jenni; Vice, Sue
The majority of books on Holocaust literature and film focus on its victims or survivors. The essays in this collection, by established academics as well as newer voices, take the more unusual method of analyzing representations of the Holocaust perpetrators. In doing so, they explore what has until now held critics back from this topic, including moral and emotional distaste, the dangers of confusing understanding with exculpation, and the possibility of problematic identification. Acknowledging and moving beyond these concerns, the contributors develop instead a range of innovative approaches and conclusions, emphasizing the ethical and aesthetic challenges of representing evil and the ways in which these are negotiated by writers, filmmakers, and others. The ethics of such representation are explored by a series of cases studies, analyzing, for instance, how the Nazis and Nazism are shown in: German museums; in fiction, such as Jonathan Littell's The Kindly Ones and Muriel Spark's The Mandelbaum Gate; in films, including Downfall and Shoah; in ghetto diaries; and in the paintings of Francis Bacon.
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|  | After Mussolini
Jewish Life and Jewish Memories in Post-Fascist Italy
Schwarz, Guri
After Mussolini explores the genesis of the 'myth of the good Italian.' This myth was deliberately promoted by the Italian Foreign Ministry, which aimed to obtain a non-punitive peace treaty by distancing the nation from German guilt. Through in-depth research, the book illustrates how Italian Jews, in their efforts to reintegrate in the country after the Second World War, contributed to shaping and legitimizing a representation of Fascist persecutions which drastically downplayed Italian responsibilities in the Holocaust. In addition, the book focuses on community reconstruction and social reintegration, and it is the first comprehensive history of post-war Italian Jewry between 1945 and 1961.
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|  | 'Thank you for your business'
The Jewish Contribution to the British Economy
Taylor, Derek
Over the centuries, arguments have raged over whether or not Britain should be welcoming toward immigrants. This is a book about a tiny proportion of the immigrants to whom Britain did grant asylum, refuge, and liberty. It is the first detailed examination into the survival and economic growth of the Jews in Britain. In Stuart times, the Jews amounted to a few hundred people. Today, there are still only 300,000 Jews in Britain. When they came to that country as impoverished immigrants, they had no jobs, little education, and could not speak English. And yet, some went on to run the biggest business empires in the country. Illustrated throughout, 'Thank You for Your Business' details the astonishing contribution Jews have made over the years to the British economy: how they sustained the currency through many wars; how they invented jigsaw puzzles and postcards; and the creation of such household names as Lyons, Glaxo, Burtons, Shell, ICI, Ladbrokes, and many more. The book examines the background of their founders to see what enabled them to spot opportunities that others missed, and how they overcame obstacles and succeeded where others failed. Over 350 firms are examined to describe the survival and economic growth of the Jews in Britain and to assess the contribution of their cultural and religious background to the success of these entrepreneurs.
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|  | Portraits in Literature: The Jews of Poland
An Anthology
Finalist in Anthologies and Collections, National Jewish Book Awards
Bromberg Ben-Zvi, Hava
Of the six million Jewish victims of the Holocaust, three million were from Poland. Their literary heritage is a treasure to be preserved, and this lavish anthology gathers together the rich and varied forms of magnificent Jewish life and culture from a Poland that is no more. The book includes memoirs, short stories, poetry, eyewitness reports, fragments of novels, essays, letters, folk tales, and humor. The work of writers - both Jewish and Polish, prominent and new - presents a true, valid, rich, and compelling panorama of life as it was. Historically informative, heartbreaking, poignant, and amusing, the book speaks in many voices: those of women, children, and survivors. It is an exceptionally broad range of literature which paints a rich panorama of life before, during, and following the Holocaust, ending with tales of hope and renewal in new centers of Jewish life. With every emotion sensitively and skillfully explored, this anthology will fascinate Jewish and non-Jewish readers, shedding light on the origins and roots of contemporary Jewry in the English-speaking world. Meticulous listing of sources and a bibliography will prove fertile ground for students and scholars alike.
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|  | Siddur Shevet Asher
The Tribe Siddur for Children and Families
Tribe: The Young United Synagogue
Each religious service and section of prayer in the new 280 page siddur is now colour coded. Symbols throughout guide readers, both children and their families, to information, instructions and brief translations. Links to ‘JOG’, the Jewish Online Guides on the United Synagogue website and a QR code take you straight to the instructional video clips - another innovation. The Prayer Book, with an introduction by Chief Rabbi Lord Sacks, has also expanded to include all the additional prayers for High Holydays, asked for by teachers and children’s service leaders, avoiding the need for an additional prayerbook. Also included are additional tehillim, psalms said at time of difficulty and for the healing of a sick person etc. With full colour illustrations throughout, the new Siddur Shevet Asher is certain to become the new ‘must have’ Prayer Book for all children and families, as a stepping stone to the, now familiar, ‘Sacks’ Singer’s Authorised Daily Prayer Book.
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|  | Leslie Howard
The Lost Actor
Eforgan, Estel
Leslie Howard's career as a Hollywood star and his ambitions for the British film industry were well known. He contributed substantially to cinema history, featured in Gone With the Wind, The Scarlet Pimpernel, and Pygmalion, amongst others. But, behind his charm was a perceptive and determined man. An ambivalent identity and a penetrating intelligence gave him the confidence to inform world opinion at the time of the Second World War. His work then is almost unknown, and startlingly unexpected. Howard made efforts to discover exactly what was happening in Nazi Germany and Austria, and what was intended. He struggled with the establishment back in England to get the British film industry restarted in 1940, and aimed to use it to give a lead in democratic values and unity. He worked secretly and alone to develop British propaganda in America, and to help the SOE and the Free French in Britain. He became a well-loved figurehead in Britain's darkest days, and Churchill made effective use of his charismatic personality to sway neutral countries at crucial times during the battle. This book follows his life by using original material from archives and libraries, personal narratives, newspaper and magazine accounts of the time, and, most of all, Howard's own voice to tell his story through his own humorous and pointed articles in The New Yorker and Vanity Fair and his autobiographical war time radio broadcasts at the BBC.
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|  | The Worlds of Wolf Mankowitz
Between Elite and Popular Cultures in Post-War Britain
Dunn, Anthony J.
Wolf Mankowitz was a high-profile and pugnacious participant in the cultural life of 1950s and 1960s London and a prolific writer throughout his life. He is now best remembered for his film scripts A Kid for Two Farthings, and Expresso Bongo, a scathing satire on the cynical construction of a teenage nonentity into a rock ‘n roll star, starring Cliff Richard. This first biography of Mankowitz reveals a writer from the Jewish East End with the confidence and the ability to exercise his talents in many fields. He was one of the founders of the Pickwick Club in Great Newport Street; an acknowledged expert on Wedgwood china; and wrote the ‘book’ for the very successful musical Pickwick, which gave Harry Secombe his first star role on stage. He was a close associate of Orson Welles, Peter Sellers and Sophia Loren, and this biography offers fresh insights into their characters and careers. Mankowitz was proud of his Jewish heritage, and equally proud of the years he spent as a scholarship boy at Cambridge studying English. This biography presents the full story of the twists and turns he made to accommodate these dual influences, and recounts the story of a man for whom writing was the very essence of his existence.
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|  | Sir Sigmund Sternberg
The Knight with Many Hats
Klein, Emma
Sir Sigmund Sternberg was born and raised in a comfortable middle-class family in Hungary. On the eve of the World War II, as an 18-year old, Sternberg was forced to flee his home. He joined his extended family in Britain, helping his cousin Solomon Schonfeld in his attempts to rescue children from Germany. As an enemy alien, Sternberg's options for earning a living were extremely limited, as he was not allowed to seek paid employment. Undaunted, he began to trade in scrap metal, and, from these small beginnings, he built up a company so successful that, by 1965, even though he was relatively young, he was able to sell most of his business interests to devote his time to charitable interests. Sir Sigmund Sternberg has made a unique contribution to the furtherance of relations between Christians and Jews. He breathed new life into the Council of Christians and Jews, and went on to found, together with the Rev. Marcus Braybrooke and the late Imam Zaki Badawi, the Three Faiths Forum, which has brought Muslims into the sphere of interfaith dialogue. He has received innumerable awards for his endeavors, including a knighthood, a papal knighthood, and the Templeton Prize for Progress in Religion. This authorized biography offers fascinating insights into Sir Sigmund Sternberg's family, friends, and colleagues. The book documents the philanthropy and charitable work that he has devoted his life toward. It explores the public and private life of one of the pillars of the Jewish and wider community.
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|  | Place, Memory and Myth in Contemporary Israeli Cinema
Zanger, Anat
This book examines several Israeli fictional and non-fictional films, and how their portrayal of landscape and territory provides a unique perspective on Jewish and Israeli identity. The book demonstrates how space in film is not only a 'container' for events in the plot, but an event in and of itself, since space and place are significant elements in the on-going negotiations regarding Jewish and Israeli identity. Films capture more than just the outward appearance of a place: they also record a web of unruly traces of economic, social, and political systems. Almost 2,000 years of Jewish exile created a gap between the idea of 'the Israeli place' and how the modern State of Israel has actualized that idea. Israeli cinema contains layered expressions of this issue, and, in this book, place and space function both as the subject matter of the analysis and as a theoretical tool. This innovative perspective will enable readers to discern themes significant both to contemporary culture (maps, borders, checkpoints, and military zones) and Jewish mythology (garden, desert, water, Jerusalem, and sacred space). Place, Memory and Myth in Contemporary Israeli Cinema includes references to Israeli literature and art, and it interweaves observations from the fields of visual studies, cultural studies, mythology, and Jewish thought to create a thought-provoking analysis.
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|  | Jewish Symbols and Secrets
A Fifteenth-Century Spanish Carpet
Felton, Anton
In the hundred years that led up to expulsion in 1492, hundreds of thousands of Spanish Jews converted publically - but not privately - to Christianity. They left some clues to their compelling and dangerous secret lives, revealed through personal artifacts. This book examines one such artifact - the brilliant 15th-century Vizcaya carpet that has bedazzled experts and visitors alike. It becomes clear through this original study of the private lives of the noble family who commissioned the carpet, as well as the weavers who wove it, that neither group were Christians. They were secret Jews, also known as conversos. The symbols in the carpet - with their hidden messages of Judaism and Kabbalah - are analyzed in the book, along with their alternative meanings in medieval Christian and Islamic culture. Jewish Symbols and Secrets also traces the history of the Star of David in Judaism, from Biblical times to 1600 C.E. The hitherto neglected role of textiles in Jewish culture is uncovered, as is the ancient history of the Sephardi weavers of Spain and the Mediterranean, from Biblical to Islamic times. Further insights are gained in the oft-debated question as to the total number of Jews who converted to Christianity. In understanding the worlds and the guarded secret lives of the people who came together to create this carpet, we now see it as an extraordinary and beautifully encoded statement of Jewish faith and survival.
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|  | Whatever Happened to British Jewish Studies?
Ewence, Hannah; Kushner, Tony
This wide-ranging collection of essays investigates the current position and purpose of British Jewish studies in the modern age. Taking the post-1880 period as its focal point, the book adopts an innovative approach that brings together trans-disciplinary, historical, and cultural perspectives viewed through the prism of the local, national, and global. The book's approaches range from literary criticism, cultural studies, oral history, legal studies, history, memory, and heritage research. Using this range of methodologies, the essays open up and drive forward this pertinent area of enquiry. The book is accessible to a wide readership, and, underpinned by an intellectually and theoretically rigorous agenda, it will provide a fruitful area of study for academics.
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|  | Being Jewish and Doing Justice
Bringing Argument to Life
New in Paperback!
Klug, Brian
This book deals with a wide range of moral, social and political issues centred on questions of identity, Jewish or otherwise. Its scope extends from anti-Semitism, Zionism and Palestinian terrorism to the language of race, the status of animals, the rights of the child and related topics. While the chapters interact and overlap, each is self-contained. Taken together, they develop the title theme: the inner connection between being Jewish and doing justice. The prologue offers a bold, new interpretation of the idea of ëthe people of Godí. From this point on, bringing argument to life is the authorís watchword. Drawing on his training as an academic philosopher, his Jewish education and personal experience, Klug tackles thorny problems, combining rigorous analysis with outspokenness. He assists readers to think for themselves about difficult questions and provokes them to do so. Following a series of reflections on what it means to be an animal, a child, and a human being, the epilogue brings the discussion round to the title theme: being Jewish and doing justice.
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|  | Izak Goller
Selected Poems, Plays and Prose
Goller, Izak, Sivan, Gabriel
Izak Goller (1891-1939) was a gifted and inspiring teacher, poet, playwright, novelist, and thinker. Now, more than 70 years after his death, readers can better appreciate Goller's artistry, his fearless hard-hitting style, and his uncompromising Zionism. Goller had three parallel careers - as an educator, an author, and a Zionist leader - and wrote nearly a dozen literary works, many enhanced by the author's striking 'cartoons.' He had a powerful influence on his young disciples in Liverpool and sought to infuse the Anglo-Jewish rabbinate and ministry with courageous moral leadership in the prophetic tradition. Based on extensive research, interviews, and textual analysis, including the recent discovery of his last (unpublished) novel, this representative selection of Izak Goller's verse and prose demonstrates his genius and versatility. The book also shows how far ahead of his time Goller was, and how he cut a masterly figure in Anglo-Jewish literature between the two World Wars. It includes many of the author's original line drawings and cartoons.
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|  | The Jewish Year Book 2013
Levy, Elkan; Taylor, Derek
For over 115 years, readers have been referring to The Jewish Year Book for information regarding Britain's Jewish community - the institutions, the organizations, the charities, contact details, and a who's who of personalities. The Jewish Year Book 2013 also provides details on: dates that matter in the Jewish calendar, award winners, anniversaries, obituaries, an overview of the position of Jews in countries outside Britain, happenings in Israel, the 2013 festivals and Sabbaths all over the country, and a 30-year Jewish calendar. The Jewish Year Book has always been meticulous in its research and widespread in its coverage. Also included in this volume are a series of articles which look back over the year gone by and the centuries gone by, including: the centenary of the appointment of Chief Rabbi Hertz * Jewish youth groups * the French Jewish community in London * the Jewish Leadership Council * Jewish chaplaincy.
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