Adult

Dweck relates the history and culture of her community through its extraordinary cuisine, offering more than 180 exciting ethnic recipes with tantalizing photos and describing the unique customs that the Aleppian Jewish community observes during holidays and lifecycle events. Among the irresistible recipes are:

-Bazargan-Tangy Tamarind Bulgur Salad

-Shurbat Addes-Hearty Red Lentil Soup with Garlic and Coriander

-Kibbeh-Stuffed Syrian Meatballs with Ground Rice

-Samak b'Batata-Baked Middle Eastern Whole Fish with Potatoes

-Sambousak-Buttery Cheese-Filled Sesame Pastries

-Eras bi'Ajweh-Date-Filled Crescents

-Chai Na'na-Refreshing Mint Tea

Like mainstream Middle Eastern cuisines, Aleppian Jewish dishes are alive with flavor and healthful ingredients-featuring whole grains, vegetables, legumes, and olive oil-but with their own distinct cultural influences. In Aromas of Aleppo, cooks will discover the best of Poopa Dweck's recipes, which gracefully combine Mediterranean and Levantine influences, and range from small delights (or maza) to daily meals and regal holiday feasts-such as the twelve-course Passover seder.

""

Throughout history, Jews around the world have had plenty of reasons to lament. And for a thousand years, they've had the perfect language for it. Rich in color, expressiveness, and complexity, Yiddish has proven incredibly useful and durable. Its wonderful phrases and idioms impeccably reflect the mind-set that has enabled the Jews of Europe to survive a millennium of unrelenting persecution . . . and enables them to "kvetch" about it

Michael Wex professor, scholar, translator, novelist, and performer takes a serious yet unceasingly fun and funny look at this remarkable kvetch-full tongue that has both shaped and has been shaped by those who speak it. Featuring chapters on curse words, food, sex, and even death, he allows his lively wit and scholarship to roam freely from Sholem Aleichem to Chaucer to Elvis.

Perhaps only a "khokhem be-layle" (a fool, literally a "sage at night," when there's no one around to see) would care to pass up this endearing and enriching treasure trove of linguistics, sociology, history, and folklore an intriguing appreciation of a unique and enduring language and an equally fascinating culture.

Blending the recipes with over 160 stories from the Rabinowitz family--by the end of the book you'll have gotten to know the whole wacky clan--and illustrated throughout with more than 500 photographs reaching back to the 19th century, Cooking Jewish invites the reader not just into the kitchen, but into a vibrant world of family and friends. Written and recipe-tested by Judy Bart Kancigor, a food journalist with the Orange County Register, who self-published her first family cookbook as a gift and then went on to sell 11,000 copies, here are 532 recipes from her extended family of outstanding cooks, including the best chicken soup ever - really - from her mother, Lillian. (Or as the author says, "When you write your cookbook, you can say your mother's is the best.")

Every recipe, a joy in the belly.

How did the Ten Lost Tribes become lost ? Are circumcisions performed on the Sabbath ? Which country first granted Jews equal rights ?When was polygamy outlawed for Jews ? Why does Jewish law compare gossiping to murder ?

You'll find the answers to these questions -- and much more -- in this insightful and comprehensive guide. Written by esteemed rabbi and bestselling author Joseph Telushkin, "Jewish Literacy" has become one of the most respected and widely used reference books on Jewish life, culture, religion, and tradition. Now revised and updated, this fascinating volume distills a vast body of scholarship into 348 short, readable chapters, making the rich and complex history of Judaism accessible to any reader.

Organized by subject, the book's fifteen sections include:

History and Contemporary Life
From the biblical and Talmudic periods through the Spanish Inquisition to modern times, with special sections on the Holocaust, Israel, and American-Jewish life.

Beliefs, Ethics, and Rituals
From monotheism to Judaism's views on the afterlife, "chosenness," and human relations with God; ethical concerns ranging from the proper treatment of animals to the real meaning of "an eye for an eye"; along with explanations of the major prayers and synagogue practices.

Jewish Holidays and Life Cycle
The origins and distinctive customs of each holiday, and the rites sanctifying every major life event from circumcision and baby naming to burial and mourning."Answers to the questions from the front flap:

• They were dispersed when the Kingdom of Israel was destroyed by the Assyrians in 722 B.C.E. (see Chapter 45).
• The UnitedStates (see Chapter 203).
• Around 1000 C.E., when it was proscribed by Rabbi Gershom; however, most Sephardic Jews did not accept the ban (see Chapter 95).
• Because gossip, like murder, can do irrevocable damage (see Chapter 271)."

Homicide detective Meyer Landsman of the District Police has enough problems without worrying about the upcoming Reversion. His life is a shambles, his marriage a wreck, his career a disaster. And in the cheap hotel where Landsman has washed up, someone has just committed a murder--right under his nose. When he begins to investigate the killing of his neighbor, a former chess prodigy, word comes down from on high that the case is to be dropped immediately, and Landsman finds himself contending with all the powerful forces of faith, obsession, evil, and salvation that are his heritage.

At once a gripping whodunit, a love story, and an exploration of the mysteries of exile and redemption, "The Yiddish Policemen's Union" is a novel only Michael Chabon could have written.