Bøger udgivet af Gefen Publishing House

On March 9, 1942, the Jewish community of Mielec, Poland, ceased to exist. The Nazis dismantled the entire town in a single day, executing the elderly, deporting the able-bodied for slave labor, and transporting the rest to the Lublin district, where they were later murdered in Sobibór and Belżec.

The Warsaw Ghetto Uprising has become a symbol of heroism throughout the world. A short time before the uprising began, Pawel Frenkel addressed a meeting of the Jewish Military fighters: Of course we will fight with guns in our hands, and most of us will fall. But we will live on in the lives and hearts of future generations and in the pages of their history.... We will die before our time but we are not doomed. We will be alive for as long as Jewish history lives! On the eve of Passover, April 19, 1943, German forces entered the Warsaw ghetto equipped with tanks, flame throwers, and machine guns. Against them stood an army of a few hundred young Jewish men and women, armed with pistols and Molotov cocktails. Who were these Jewish fighters who dared oppose the armed might of the SS troops under the command of SS General Juergen Stroop? Who commanded them in battle? What were their goals? In this groundbreaking work, Israel s former Minister of Defense, Prof. Moshe Arens, recounts a true tale of daring, courage, and sacrifice that should be accurately told out of respect for and in homage to the fighters who rose against the German attempt to liquidate the Warsaw ghetto, and made a last-ditch fight for the honor of the Jewish people. The generally accepted account of the Warsaw Ghetto Uprising is incomplete. The truth begins with the existence of not one, but two resistance organizations in the ghetto. Two young men, Mordechai Anielewicz of the Jewish Fighting Organization (ZOB), and Pawel Frenkel of the Jewish Military Organization (ZZW), rose to lead separate resistance organizations in the ghetto, which did not unite despite the desperate battle they were facing. Included is the complete text of The Stroop Report translated into English.

From pre-Hitler Germany to Kristallnacht, a lastminute escape from the Holocaust, and on to a life on three continents, this book catalogs the experiences of one Jewish family as the events of the twentieth century overturned its settled existence and scattered the family across the globe. Enhanced by excerpts from several historical diaries, and lavishly illustrated with photographs and maps, this personal history of triumph despite persecution is a microcosm of the life of the Jewish people.

Over 500,000 Jews fought under the Soviet banner in World War Two, of which an approximate 40 percent gave their lives the highest percentage of all the nations of the Soviet Union and among all the other nations that fought in the Second World War. Dr. Arad now sets the record straight on the immense contribution of Soviet Jewry in the battle against Nazi Germany, a part of history long concealed by the Soviet government. After outlining the military progress of the war, the book documents the contributions of Soviet Jewry on the battlefronts and in the weapons development industry, in the ghetto undergrounds and in partisan warfare. In addition, the book records the Soviet government s deliberate attempts to downplay the Jewish effort and the anti-Semitism that Jewish soldiers and partisan groups suffered at the hands of the Soviet establishment, even while giving their lives for their country. Replete with the stories of individual heroes of all ranks, the book pays a debt of gratitude to those who paid the ultimate price to achieve our victory.

This eyewitness account details the destructionc of Vilna Jewry at the hands of the Nazis. Its chronicle of life in the two Vilna ghettos is the only historical document describing life in the small ghetto from its formation until its liquidation.

This guide, based on first-hand, day-by-day survival of over three decades in Israel, will help you to first understand, then gradually accept, and eventually almost conform to the Israeli mentality, which in turn will enable you to first look like, then gradually behave like, and eventually almost become a real Israeli. With tongue firmly in cheek, the author takes some affectionate, punning jabs at his adoptive homeland's language, people, lifestyle, and land.

Did you know that the great Jewish sage and physician Maimonides practiced medicine while lying flat on his back? That a famous passage penned by George Washington was actually the work of a rabbi? That a Jewish athlete represented Nazi Germany in its infamous 1936 Olympic Games?

Of all the personalities associated with Anne Frank, the most important figure, without whom Anne Frank would never have been able to write her diary, is perhaps the least known. He is Victor Kugler, the Mr. Kraler of the diary. The principal business partner of Otto Frank, Victor Kugler assumed managerial control of the Frank's Amsterdam spice-importing business when Nazi persecution forced the Frank family into hiding. It was Victor Kugler who kept the business going and obtained food rations under what was the harshest German wartime occupation in all of Western Europe. Without Victor Kugler, Anne Frank and her family would have starved to death a month after going into hiding. For this heroism, Victor Kugler himself was arrested and sent to a series of German labor camps in Holland where he survived by his wits and finally escaped a few weeks before the end of the war. Several years after the end of the war, when the Dutch spice business collapsed following the Indonesian revolution that nationalized Dutch holdings, Victor Kugler emigrated to Toronto, Canada. There, he led a quiet life where nobody knew who he was and what he had done during the war. Only twenty years later he began to reveal his story. The modern-day saga of this Righteous Gentile, who was honored as such at Israel s Yad Vashem Holocaust Martyrs and Heroes Remembrance Authority, is told here in semi-documentary style, largely in his own words as told to Torontonian Eda Shapiro, herself of Eastern European Jewish background; and by many others who knew him, as compiled by well-known Toronto writer-journalist Rick Kardonne.

If someone who is rich and powerful comes to you for a favor, you don't persecute him - you help him. Having such a person indebted to you is a great insurance policy. There was one nation that did treat the Jews as if they were powerful and rich. The Japanese never had much exposure to Jews, and knew very little about them.

In 1977, Israel s Mossad spy agency was given an assignment far different from its usual cloak and dagger activities. It was ordered by then Prime Minister Menachem Begin to rescue thousands of Ethiopian Jewish refugees in Sudan and deliver them to me in the Jewish state. No stranger to action in enemy countries, the agency established a covert forward base in a deserted holiday village in Sudan, and deployed a handful of operatives to launch and oversee the exodus of the refugees to the Promised Land, by sea and by air, in the early 1980s. Gad Shimron, the author of this book, was one of their number. First published in Hebrew in 1998, this updated English version of the book offers a thrilling firsthand account of how the operation was put in place, and how the Mossad team in Sudan brought it off, despite great personal risk, running a partying vacation spot for wealthy tourists by day as they stole through the Sudanese desert to rescue desperate refugees by night. The book sheds light on American involvement in the latter stages of the operation, when the White House facilitated an airlift of Ethiopian Jews and the CIA station in Khartoum sheltered the last Mossad operatives, on the run from Libyan secret service agents, and spirited them out of Sudan in special boxes labeled Diplomatic Mail. Enhanced by Gad Shimron s wide-ranging historical observations and his crisp, incisive prose, this is at once an entertaining read and a powerful tale of idealistic heroism.

The memories of David Shachar are a journey through the tunnel of time: from wanderings in Poland to the life of a refugee in World War II, and on to a soldier's life fighting the Nazis. After the war, while studying radio electronics in Paris, David cut his studies short and came to Israel to fight in the War of Independence.

Portrait tells the true story of Rita Kasimow Brown's experience of hiding in an underground pit from the Nazi death hunt.

Dov Freiberg was only twelve when he was hurled into the crushing events of the German occupation of Poland. His father was killed by German soldiers in the first days of the war, and his mother fought valiantly to keep her four children fed as the ghetto walls grew more and more constricting.

It is a little known fact that there have been more than fifty prominent Jewish Messiahs. These characters, though unrenowned today, inspired messianic fervour that at times seized the whole Jewish, Christian, Muslim and even secular worlds. The stories of these fifty Messiahs, both male and female, are unknown...

When Leon was eight years old, his grandfather took him to a one-man stage performance titled, "Papirena Kinder", or Paper Children. It told the story of a bereaved old man who, despite having raised five children, had been abandoned by all of them in his old age.

The three stories in this volume are derived from real-life experiences, mostly during Arieh Larkey s more than forty years of living out his dream in the Jewish Homeland.The first story, An Improbable Zionist Recollections, is a light autobiographical sketch of life s twists and turns, which lead the author on adventures he could never have envisioned as a youth growing up in the Jewish neighborhood of Newark, New Jersey; adventures in a place that lies six thousand miles to the east of his hometown namely, the fledgling Jewish State of Israel.To round out the trilogy, the two additional short stories in this volume, entitled Nazi Germany and the Sinai a Link to the Past and My First Time...under Katyusha Fire, show tantalizing glimpses of the author s extraordinary adventures in his adopted home. Sometimes he uses fictional characters to tell the story. Other times, he himself is the protagonist. But in either case, the readers will enjoy a full 360 panoramic view of the author s physical and emotional surroundings as the stories unfold.

As the Jewish people embark on their fateful journey toward redemption, we wonder: How did the Jewish people s suffering prepare them for their destiny? What enabled them to receive the Torah? How could the people have perpetrated the golden calf debacle, and how can we successfully learn from their experiences to live wiser, more God-conscious lives? Plumbing the depths of Jewish sources, Rabbi Ari Kahn provides fascinating answers to age-old questions, infusing the parashah with fresh significance. Through provoking questions and intriguing insights, Rabbi Kahn continually inspires us to seek the Godly. Salvation and Sanctity is the second in a five-volume work on the weekly Torah portion, published jointly by Gefen Publishing House and the OU.

The Prophets sublime poetry, phantasmagoric visions, and sonorous voices have intrigued us and moved us over the centuries. The writings of the great seers of the Hebrew Bible resonate with us in ways that go beyond our own short lives, tapping in to a human consciousness that transcends our age. How do we understand them? How do we appreciate them? Nahum HaLevi has painted the prophetic visions in unified, loud, and explosively colorful visual-literary canvases, which he has then retranslated back into fresh literary-biblical analyses, providing novel understandings of the Bible and insights into the genesis of biblical thought. The Color of Prophecy contains fifteen chapters, one chapter for each of the fifteen books in the Prophets. Each chapter is accompanied by a copy of an original oil painting and the biblical analysis derived from it. This book addresses those who have an interest in the visual arts, the Bible, or both. Although it is a Jewish-inspired book, it strikes a universal chord and broadly appeals to Jews, Christians, and those of all faiths who share a common love of the Bible and art.

To Be a Princess travels the route from high school romance in the sixties to today s high-tech markets. With fascinating variety, the tales depict young people s travel experiences and students odd jobs, physicians afflictions, soldiers battles in the Middle East and terror fighter s dilemmas. This prose collection reaches the snow-capped peaks of the Peruvian Andes, Paris s working-class bars, the submarine realm in tropical seas and the vineyards of rural Greece. Mostly fictional, these short stories are all based on true events.