The Sun at Midday: Tales of a Mediterranean Family

The Sun at Midday: Tales of a Mediterranean Family PDF Author: Gini Alhadeff
Publisher: Odyssey Editions
ISBN: 1623730392
Category : Biography & Autobiography
Languages : en
Pages : 174

Get Book Here

Book Description
This astonishing memoir is the story of a family who always felt slightly foreign in every country and developed a chameleon-like ability to adapt to their surroundings. Gini Alhadeff was born in Alexandria, Egypt, and grew up in Cairo, Khartoum, Florence, and Tokyo. With a vivid gift for narrative, Alhadeff evokes the languid Alexandria of the early decades of this century (where her mother’s family made its fortune in cotton) and some of its beguiling honorary citizens: a violet-eyed aunt who refused to have new slipcovers made for her sofa so President Nasser would find the old ones when her house was impounded; a cousin who was taught the limits of reason by Wittgenstein at Cambridge and became a monsignor; a gynecologist uncle interned at Auschwitz and then Buchenwald, who lived to tell his tale with stark unsentimentality. With a keen sense for both the comic and the tragic, Alhadeff sizes up what is left of the family fortune: a tendency to live beyond one’s means, the stories and legends that survive the rise and fall of families, and the present as a paradise for those who, having lost all, have nothing to lose.

The Schocken Book of Modern Sephardic Literature

The Schocken Book of Modern Sephardic Literature PDF Author: Ilan Stavans
Publisher: Schocken
ISBN: 030749053X
Category : Fiction
Languages : en
Pages : 482

Get Book Here

Book Description
The expulsion of the Jews from Spain in 1492 gave rise to a series of rich, diverse diasporas that were interconnected through a common vision and joie de vivre. The exodus took these Sephardim to other European countries; to North Africa, Asia Minor, and South America; and, eventually, to the American colonies. In each community new literary and artistic forms grew out of the melding of their Judeo-Spanish legacy with the cultures of their host countries, and that process has continued to the present day. This multilingual tradition brought with it both opportunities and challenges that will resonate within any contemporary culture: the status of minorities within the larger society; the tension between a civil, democratic tradition and the anti-Semitism ready to undermine it; and the opposing forces of religion and secularism. Ilan Stavans has been described by The Washington Post as “Latin America’s liveliest and boldest critic and most innovative cultural enthusiast.” And the Forward calls him “a maverick intellectual whose canonical work has already produced a whole array of marvels that are redefining Jewishness.” This new anthology contains fiction, memoirs, essays, and poetry from twenty-eight writers who span more than 150 years. Included are Emma Lazarus’s legendary poem “The New Colossus,” inscribed on the pedestal of the Statue of Liberty; the hypnotizing prose of Greece-born, Switzerland-based Albert Cohen; Nobel—Prize winner Elias Canetti’s ruminations on Europe before World War II; Albert Memmi’s identity quest as an Arab Jew in France; Primo Levi’s testimony on the Holocaust; and A. B. Yehoshua’s epic stories set in Israel today. When read together, these explorations offer an astonishingly incisive collective portrait of the “other Jews,” Sephardim who long for la España perdida, their lost ancestral home, even as they create a vibrant, multifaceted literary tradition in exile.

Jewish Libya

Jewish Libya PDF Author: Jacques Roumani
Publisher: Syracuse University Press
ISBN: 0815654278
Category : History
Languages : en
Pages : 337

Get Book Here

Book Description
In June 2017, the Jews of Libya commemorated the jubilee of their complete exodus from this North African land in 1967, which began with a mass migration to Israel in 1948–49. Jews had resided in Libya since Phoenician times, seventeen centuries before their encounter with the Arab conquest in AD 644–646. Their disappearance from Libya, like most other Jewish communities in North Africa and the Middle East, led to their fragmentation across the globe as well as reconstitution in two major centers, Israel and Italy. Distinctive Libyan Jewish traditions and a broad cultural heritage have survived and prospered in different places in Israel and in Rome, Italy, where Libyan Jews are recognized for their vibrant contribution to Italian Jewry. Nevertheless, with the passage of time, memories fade among the younger generations and multiple identities begin to overshadow those inherited over the centuries. Capturing the essence of Libyan Jewish cultural heritage, this anthology aims to reawaken and preserve the memories of this community. Jewish Libya collects the work of scholars who explore the community’s history, its literature and dialect, topography and cuisine, and the difficult negotiation of trauma and memory. In shedding new light on this now-fragmented culture and society, this collection commemorates and celebrates vital elements of Libyan Jewish heritage and encourages a lively intergenerational exchange among the many Jews of Libyan origin worldwide.

The Last Transport

The Last Transport PDF Author: Anthony McElligott
Publisher: Bloomsbury Publishing
ISBN: 1474228003
Category : History
Languages : en
Pages : 420

Get Book Here

Book Description
The deportation of 1,755 Jews from the islands of Rhodes and Cos in July 1944, shortly after the last deportation from Hungary, was the last transport to leave Greece for Auschwitz and brought to a close the last significant phase of the genocide of Europe's Jews (notwithstanding the death marches). Within six weeks of their deportation, the Germans were retreating from Greece and the Balkans as Hitler's empire shrank. This last deportation is frequently acknowledged in Holocaust literature but its significance for our understanding of the Nazi genocide of the Jews remains largely overlooked. The timing of the transport, when it was clear to the German military elite that Nazi Germany had lost the war, raises important questions in relation to long-term ideological Nazi goals and the immediate contingency thrown up by war. Anthony McElligott, in this account of the last Greek transport of Jews to Auschwitz, tells a compelling story of this previously underexplored event and sheds light on an important aspect of the Holocaust through an in-depth study of one Eastern Mediterranean community.

Tuscany and Umbria: The Collected Traveler

Tuscany and Umbria: The Collected Traveler PDF Author: Barrie Kerper
Publisher: Vintage
ISBN: 0307476731
Category : Travel
Languages : en
Pages : 623

Get Book Here

Book Description
This unique guide to one of today’s hottest tourist destinations combines fascinating articles by a wide variety of writers, woven throughout with the editor’s own indispensable advice and opinions—providing in one package an unparalleled experience of an extraordinary place. This edition on Tuscany and Umbria features: ● Articles, interviews, recipes, and quotes from writers, visitors, residents, and experts on the region, including Frances Mayes, Mario Batali, Erica Jong, Barbara Ohrbach, Faith Willinger, and David Leavitt. ● In-depth pieces about Florence and the hill towns of Tuscany and Umbria that illuminate the simple pleasures of local cuisine, the dazzling art treasures of the Uffizi, the civilized wilderness of Tuscan back roads, the many varieties of olive oil, the endearing quirks of the Italian character, and much more. ● Enticing recommendations for further reading, including novels, histories, memoirs, coookbooks, and guidebooks. ● An A–Z Miscellany of concise and entertaining information on everything from biscotti to Super-Tuscan wine, from the history of the Medicis to traveling with children. ● Spotlights on unusual shops, restaurants, hotels, and experiences not to be missed. ● More than a hundred black-and-white photographs and illustrations.

Athens

Athens PDF Author: Barrie Kerper
Publisher: Fodor's
ISBN: 1400050057
Category : Travel
Languages : en
Pages : 546

Get Book Here

Book Description
Provides a collection of travel articles on the culture, cuisine, and everyday life of the Greek city, along with bibliographies and practical tips on transportation, culinary treasures, accommodations, and sights.

Tevye's Grandchildren

Tevye's Grandchildren PDF Author: Eleanor Mallet
Publisher: Wipf and Stock Publishers
ISBN: 160899225X
Category : Religion
Languages : en
Pages : 225

Get Book Here

Book Description
In Tevye's Grandchildren: Rediscovering a Jewish Identity, Eleanor Mallet describes the unusual journey she took to understand her Jewish past. Like many American Jews, she was secular, assimilated and part of the successful mainstream. When her sons came of age, they reached for a richer, more open way of being Jewish. Their interest sent her on an exploration in which she plunged into the dynamic and relatively recent field of Jewish history, studied Hebrew and traveled to Israel and Germany. Mallet's book provides a tour, from a personal vantage, of the historical forces that are in play for Jews today. In it she connects the spare outline of her Jewish past with its fleshy, fractured history. Her Judaism had a passionate center, which found expression in part in Israel. Yet it was also filled with the dissonance that flowed from American assimilation and the Holocaust's aftermath. These are the forces that have preoccupied the Jewish community for quite some time. Understanding them has taken on a new urgency with the recent and not always welcome prominence Jewishness and Israel have on today's world stage.

Southwest France

Southwest France PDF Author:
Publisher: Three Rivers Press
ISBN: 1400050049
Category : Travel
Languages : en
Pages : 562

Get Book Here

Book Description
Complemented by travel advice, maps, accommodation listings, and site descriptions, a collection of essays and articles on the region of southwestern France, by noted authors, travel writers, and journalists, is organized thematically under such headings as Current Events, Food and Drink, and Museums and Monuments. Original. 15,000 first printing.

Generations of Empire

Generations of Empire PDF Author: Andreas Guidi
Publisher: University of Toronto Press
ISBN: 1487541295
Category : History
Languages : en
Pages : 272

Get Book Here

Book Description
In 1912, Italy occupied Rhodes, an Ottoman town inhabited by Greek Orthodox, Muslims, Jews, and Catholics. Rhodes became a territory of Italy’s empire in 1923 following the Treaty of Lausanne, only one year after Mussolini seized power in Rome. The Ottoman demise corresponded to the expansion of fascist imperialism in the Mediterranean. Both the Ottoman Young Turks and Italian colonial governors invoked the role of a "new generation" of youth in imperial rule. Generations of Empire investigates the relationship between state and society in light of successive transformations of imperial rule, rethinking Italian colonialism as post-Ottoman history. Andreas Guidi explores how communal life in the town of Rhodes was affected by the transition between these regimes, from an autocratic to a constitutional empire in late Ottoman years to Italian military occupation to fascist annexation. Based on archival sources in five languages from seven different countries, the book investigates generational dynamics in the domains of political activism, the family, education, work and leisure, and mobility. Generations of Empire offers a vivid picture of how a local society navigated large-scale social and political transformations in the modern Mediterranean.

Memories of the Maghreb

Memories of the Maghreb PDF Author: Adolfo Campoy-Cubillo
Publisher: Springer
ISBN: 1137028157
Category : Political Science
Languages : en
Pages : 357

Get Book Here

Book Description
Using a cultural studies approach, this book explores how the Spanish colonization of North Africa continues to haunt Spain's efforts to articulate a national identity that can accommodate both the country's diversity, brought about by immigration from its old colonies, and the postnational demands of its integration in the European Union.