Cinema is the most democratic form of art, dependent on the taste of millions of viewers. Within the cinematic historical genre in Arab cinema one finds a rich intellectual discourse, in a constant dialogue with state, censorship and audience. The book Back to the Past: Filmed History in Arab Cinema invites the readers to know the Arab cinema industry, mainly the Egyptian one, through the historical genre, and "medieval" films as its core. In films taking place in Middle Ages , the viewers meet warriors and poets, besides the leaders and founders of Islam. These films present also the images of Mongol and Crusaders invaders, slaves and concubines, Mamluks, Christians and Jews. The book surveys also the transition from a situation of Egyptian cinema exported to the Arab world, into the creation of Pan-Arab historical discourse within the satellite channels.

From Empathy to Denial is the first comprehensive study of the broad range of Arab responses to the Holocaust based on years of painstaking historical research. The book explores how Holocaust representations developed after the Second World War by analyzing themes, and case studies, spanning a period of almost seventy years. It shows how these perceptions evolved in the shadow of the Arab-Israeli conflict.

The Jewish Community of Cuba: Memory and History combines the fruits of academic research with the personal reminiscences of protagonists, creating a collective narrative of Cuban Jews, particularly those who migrated to Miami, on their historical experience prior to the Castro revolution. Through childhood memories in small towns in Poland and Turkey, the reader discovers the circumstances that motivated the migration of Jews to Cuba, and is acquainted with the difficult trajectory of their adaptation to a new environment. The book recounts the version of Cuban Jews to the tragic voyage of the SS St. Louis, but at the same time it points out the destiny of thousands of Jewish refugees who had found in Cuba a shelter from the Nazi inferno. The book describes the rich and colorful Jewish institutional life that covered all the social and cultural aspects. Protagonists, however, were not part of a uniform and homogenous community, as reflected in their testimonies on social and cultural life, political divisions and internal conflicts. The reader will find new oral documentation on the attitude of Cuban politicians towards the establishment of the State of Israel, and on the participation of young Cuban Jews in its War of Independence. The last chapter brings the memory of the lost Cuban paradise. Oral histories reflect the communal flourishing of the 1950s, the economic prosperity, the professional and social achievements but also the trauma of the Castro revolution, that motivated their second exodus. Though interviewees tend to idealize the pre-Castro era, their testimonies reflect the problematic of their marginality in the Cuban society, and the dilemma of dual identity that confronted the second generation.

This book focuses on a perspective that relatively has been neglected from of study on the history of Polish Jewry: The aspect of coexistence between Jews and Poles, their common history and multicultural influences. The articles in this collection present the complexity of the Polish-Jewish encounter throughout the ages. They examine the various directions that have developed in the study of Polish-Jewish relations since the renewed dialogue between Polish researchers and scholars from the West restarted in the 1990's.

The historian Willy Cohn kept a diary from his youth till his death in 1941. The book contains the entries written from 1933 till 1941, which had been hidden in Berlin by family members. This is a comprehensive document containing deep, serious descriptions. The diary was written from a subjective point of view, but also from the point of view of a professional historian. Cohn described the initial shock felt when the Nazis came into power, and the deep disappointment with the disappearance of the humanistic and democratic values he believed in which collapsed right in front of his eyes, as well as the move of many acquaintances to ‘the other side’. This reality created an ongoing conflict with the German patriotism which was part of his personality and became empowered even more during his military service in World War I . The diary includes much documentation of the Jewish community’s life: the efforts made and actions taken in dealing with the economic collapse which resulted from Nazi policy; the serious debate between the Orthodox and the Liberals, between Zionists and non-Zionists, regarding the objectives of the community youth's education; the cultural renaissance which took place within German-Jewish society in the first years of the Nazi regime, which Cohn was a part of by lecturing in his town and in many other communities on topics of Jewish history and Zionism. The stronghold which tightened around the Jewish community after the November 1938 pogrom (Kristallnacht), the isolation which was even more hurtful than the life-threatening economic hardship, the relationships between Jews and non-Jews during these times of crisis, the hope that the German people still has positive forces which will overcome evil, and the desperate efforts to leave Germany and immigrate to Israel – all these are expressed in a unique manner in the diary .

The Holocaust is an unsolved problem for humanity. We are still trying to explain the causes and the origins of the hell of Nazi Europe and its impact on our understanding humanity and concept of Western civilization. For Jewish thinkers, the problem is even more urgent as it brings forward difficult questions about Jewish identity. The book In the Beginning There was the Holocaust brings a panoramic picture of the responses of Jewish Philosophy to the Holocaust, Theodicy, the meaning of Jewish existence after the Holocaust, struggle with nihilism and despair, and questions concerning Holocaust education and the culture of remembrance. The major claim in the book is the Holocaust is a major crossroad in our world; if we want to understand ourselves we have to explore the roads that go out of it.

In this provocative work, Alvin H. Rosenfeld contends that the proliferation of books, films, television programs, museums, and public commemorations related to the Holocaust has, perversely, brought about a diminution of its meaning and a denigration of its memory. Investigating a wide range of events and cultural phenomena, such as Ronald Reagan's 1985 visit to the German cemetery at Bitburg, the distortions of Anne Frank's story, and the ways in which the Holocaust has been depicted by such artists and filmmakers as Judy Chicago and Steven Spielberg, Rosenfeld charts the cultural forces that have minimized the Holocaust in popular perceptions. He contrasts these with sobering representations by Holocaust witnesses such as Jean Améry, Primo Levi, Elie Wiesel, and Imre Kertész. The book concludes with a powerful warning about the possible consequences of "the end of the Holocaust" in public consciousness.

Prof. Dov Levin was one of the first researchers who recognized the value of recording oral history as one of the primary sources for understanding the events of the twentieth century. This book includes brief summaries of 611 interviews, conducted between 1957 and 2008, that were deposited in the archive of the Oral History Division of the Avraham Harman Institute of Contemporary Jewry. Many of the interviews were conducted with Lithuanian Jews, as part of Prof. Levin's important research on the Jews of the Baltic countries in the inter-war period, during the Shoa and under Soviet rule. Other interviews deal with the history of Israel and its culture. Levin's collection of oral histories includes interviews of people from different countries, different social environments, and varied political views, reflecting the wide spectrum of his interests and studies. This book was published by Magnes press for the Avraham Herman Institute of contemporary Jewry.

This is the story of a nearly forgotten chapter of the Holocaust—of over 16,000 Jewish women, girls and children, their origins, itineraries and fates, who suffered in the horrendous Nazi concentration camp for women, Ravensbrück. As a historian, Judith Buber Agassi was struck by the changing conditions, countries of origin, and fates of these women during 5 distinct periods during the 6 years of the camp's existence. As a sociologist, she studied the social relations of the Jewish prisoners among themselves as well as with the non-Jewish majority. After the mass murder of Jewish prisoners early in 1942, a larger group organization became impossible, but the Jewish women developed a special and effective form of small-group organization, the so-called camp-families. As a sociologist of gender, she surveyed the educational background and patterns of behavior specific to Jewish women, and has produced an impressive study.

"A comprehensive and compelling chronicle of a 2000-year-old fabrication that Jews engage in the ritual murder of Christians, a racial fantasy exploited by the Nazis in the 20th century and by radical Islam in the 21st" - Professor Colin Tatz AO, Sydney, Australia The Pinnacle of Hatred provides a comprehensive history of the blood libel allegation against the Jews. Deftly insinuated and finely honed in medieval Christianity, the charge that Jews murder children and others in order to use their blood for ritual purposes was elaborated further by 19th-century antisemitic jurists, and widely promoted in the anti-Jewish campaigns of the Nazi Party in the Third Reich. A myth that will not die, the charge continues to be made by neo-Nazis and radical Muslim preachers. Drawing on primary sources and documents not previously available in English, Darren O’Brien takes a radical new approach in understanding the historical origins and longevity of the blood libel allegation and its tributaries—crucifixion murder, plain murder, mutilation murder, and the misnamed “ritual murder.”