The Judaism category has 469 audiobooks on Listento.it, with an average listener rating of 4.5★ across 1,810 ratings. The most-rated is By Chance Alone.
Introduction to Judaism
Summary
As a religion, culture, and civilization, Judaism has evolved in surprising ways during its long and remarkable history. In this series of 24 lectures, Professor Cherry explores this rich religious heritage from biblical times to today. The many topics you will learn about include: the oral Torah (the Mishnah) and its commentary (the Gemarahow), which constitute the Talmud; the three pillars of the world defined more than 2,000 years ago by Shimon the Righteous: Torah, worship, and deeds of loving kindness; the calendar of Jewish holidays, from the most important, the Sabbath, to the key holidays of Rosh Hashanah, Yom Kippur, Passover, and Pentecost (Shavuot); and to historically minor celebrations such as Chanukah, which is now a more visible holiday; and the many mysteries of Jewish thought and ritual, such as why the first day of the seventh month (Tishrei) is the Jewish New Year (Rosh Hashanah). In addition, Professor Cherry devotes several lectures to complex issues such as the problem of evil and suffering, the Zionist movement, the role and status of women in the Jewish world, and how Judaism understands Christianity. From the first lecture on the Torah to the last on the Jews as the Chosen People, this course is packed with truly fascinating information. PLEASE NOTE: When you purchase this title, the accompanying reference material will be available in your Library section along with the audio.
©2004 The Teaching Company, LLC (P)2004 The Great Courses
The Hare with Amber Eyes
Summary
The Ephrussis were a grand banking family, as rich and respected as the Rothschilds, who “burned like a comet” in 19th-century Paris and Vienna society. Yet by the end of World War II, almost the only thing remaining of their vast empire was a collection of 264 wood and ivory carvings, none of them larger than a matchbox. The renowned ceramicist Edmund de Waal became the fifth generation to inherit this small and exquisite collection of netsuke. Entranced by their beauty and mystery, he determined to trace the story of his family through the story of the collection. The netsuke—drunken monks, almost-ripe plums, snarling tigers—were gathered by Charles Ephrussi at the height of the Parisian rage for all things Japanese. Charles had shunned the place set aside for him in the family business to make a study of art, and of beautiful living. An early supporter of the Impressionists, he appears, oddly formal in a top hat, in Renoir’s Luncheon of the Boating Party. Marcel Proust studied Charles closely enough to use him as a model for the aesthete and lover Swann in Remembrance of Things Past. Charles gave the carvings as a wedding gift to his cousin Viktor in Vienna; his children were allowed to play with one netsuke each while they watched their mother, the Baroness Emmy, dress for ball after ball. Her older daughter grew up to disdain fashionable society. Longing to write, she struck up a correspondence with Rilke, who encouraged her in her poetry. The Anschluss changed their world beyond recognition. Ephrussi and his cosmopolitan family were imprisoned or scattered, and Hitler’s theorist on the “Jewish question” appropriated their magnificent palace on the Ringstrasse. A library of priceless books and a collection of Old Master paintings were confiscated by the Nazis. But the netsuke were smuggled away by a loyal maid, Anna, and hidden in her straw mattress. Years after the war, she would find a way to return them to the family she’d served even in their exile. In The Hare with Amber Eyes, Edmund de Waal unfolds the story of a remarkable family and a tumultuous century. Sweeping yet intimate, it is a highly original meditation on art, history, and family, as elegant and precise as the netsuke themselves.
©2010 Edmund de Waal (P)2011 Macmillan Audio
The Last Kings of Shanghai
Summary
"In vivid detail...examines the little-known history of two extraordinary dynasties." (The Boston Globe) "Not just a brilliant, well-researched, and highly readable book about China's past, it also reveals the contingencies and ironic twists of fate in China's modern history." (LA Review of Books) An epic multigenerational story of two rival dynasties who flourished in Shanghai and Hong Kong as 20th-century China surged into the modern era, from the Pulitzer Prize-winning journalist Shanghai, 1936. The Cathay Hotel, located on the city's famous waterfront, is one of the most glamorous in the world. Built by Victor Sassoon - billionaire playboy and scion of the Sassoon dynasty - the hotel hosts a who's who of global celebrities: Noel Coward has written a draft of Private Lives in his suite and Charlie Chaplin has entertained his wife-to-be. And a few miles away, Mao and the nascent Communist Party have been plotting revolution. By the 1930s, the Sassoons had been doing business in China for a century, rivaled in wealth and influence by only one other dynasty - the Kadoories. These two Jewish families, both originally from Baghdad, stood astride Chinese business and politics for more than 175 years, profiting from the Opium Wars; surviving Japanese occupation; courting Chiang Kai-shek; and losing nearly everything as the Communists swept into power. In The Last Kings of Shanghai, Jonathan Kaufman tells the remarkable history of how these families participated in an economic boom that opened China to the world, but remained blind to the country's deep inequality and to the political turmoil at their doorsteps. In a story stretching from Baghdad to Hong Kong to Shanghai to London, Kaufman enters the lives and minds of these ambitious men and women to forge a tale of opium smuggling, family rivalry, political intrigue, and survival. The book lays bare the moral compromises of the Kadoories and the Sassoons - and their exceptional foresight, success, and generosity. At the height of World War II, they joined together to rescue and protect 18,000 Jewish refugees fleeing Nazism. Though their stay in China started out as a business opportunity, the country became a home they were reluctant to leave, even on the eve of revolution. The lavish buildings they built and the booming businesses they nurtured continue to define Shanghai and Hong Kong to this day. As the United States confronts China's rise, and China grapples with the pressures of breakneck modernization and global power, the long-hidden odysseys of the Sassoons and the Kadoories hold a key to understanding the present moment.
©2020 Jonathan Kaufman (P)2020 Penguin Audio
The Myth of the Andalusian Paradise
Summary
Scholars, journalists, and politicians uphold Muslim-ruled medieval Spain - "al-Andalus" - as a multicultural paradise, a place where Muslims, Christians, and Jews lived in harmony. There is only one problem with this widely accepted account: It is a myth. In this groundbreaking book, Northwestern University scholar Darío Fernández-Morera tells the full story of Islamic Spain. The Myth of the Andalusian Paradise shines light on hidden features of this medieval culture by drawing on an abundance of primary sources that scholars have ignored, as well as archaeological evidence only recently unearthed. As professors, politicians, and pundits continue to celebrate Islamic Spain for its "multiculturalism" and "diversity", Fernández-Morera sets the record straight - showing that a politically useful myth is a myth nonetheless.
©2016 Darío Fernández-Morera (P)2016 Tantor
DMT and the Soul of Prophecy
Summary
After completing his groundbreaking research chronicled in DMT: The Spirit Molecule, Rick Strassman, MD, was left with one fundamental question: What does it mean that DMT, a simple chemical naturally found in all of our bodies, instantaneously opens us to an interactive spirit world that feels more real than our own world? When his decades of clinical psychiatric research and Buddhist practice were unable to provide answers to this question, Strassman began searching for a more resonant spiritual model. He found that the visions of the Hebrew prophets were strikingly similar to those of the volunteers in his DMT studies. Carefully examining the concept of prophecy in the Hebrew Bible, he characterizes a "prophetic state of consciousness" and explains how it may share biological and metaphysical mechanisms with the DMT effect. Examining medieval commentaries on the Hebrew Bible, Strassman reveals how Jewish metaphysics provides a top-down model for both the prophetic and DMT states, a model he calls "theoneurology". Theoneurology addresses issues critical to the full flowering of the psychedelic drug experience. Perhaps even more important, it points the way to a renewal of classical prophetic consciousness, the soul of Hebrew Bible prophecy, and unexpected directions for the evolution of contemporary spiritual practice.
©2014 Rick Strassman, M.D. (P)2015 Tantor
Unit 731
Summary
Unit 731: The Forgotten Asian Auschwitz by Derek Pua, is not for the faint of heart. It is, however, for anyone wanting to more clearly understand the extent of Imperial Japanese war crimes. This brief, dispassionate, and factual book outlines the creation and development of Unit 731, an organization that employed thousands of Japanese scientists who conducted nightmarish experiments on an untold number of human guinea pigs, all in the name of medical research. The Japanese invasion of China during the Second Sino-Japanese war has left a strong legacy of hate and disgust among many Chinese today. Much of the atrocities committed by the Japanese are now known to most historians, but by far, the most despicable and forgotten act against humanity committed by the Imperial Japanese government was its covert biochemical weapons program. Euphemistically labelled as the Epidemic Prevention and Water Purification Department of the Imperial Japanese Army, the Japanese conducted a wide range of cruel and inhumane experiments on prisoners who were often innocent. Under the leadership of Dr. Shiro Isshi, the department subjected 3,000-250,000 innocent men, women, and children to cruel experiments and medical procedures that were carried out by the brightest medical students and staff that Imperial Japan had to offer. In a bid to develop its own germ warfare capability, the government of Imperial Japan resorted to incredibly depraved and inhumane methods of experimentation, like infecting prisoners with virulent strains of anthrax, plague, cholera, and other diseases. These prisoners were often subject to excruciating vivisections without the use of anaesthetics.
©2015 Pacific Atrocities Education (P)2016 Pacific Atrocities Education
Beginnings of Judaism
Summary
For thousands of years, Jews have looked to the Hebrew Bible, also known as the Old Testament by Christians, for their origins, and have located in them the tenets of their faith. However, much of what is recognized today as Judaism does not appear in the Bible. How did Judaism develop from its biblical roots to the highly developed system we know today? What has changed - and what has remained constant? In this series of 24 spirited and provocative lectures, Professor Gafni investigates how the Jewish faith struggled to continually redefine itself during the first thousand years after the completion of the last books of the Hebrew Bible, tenaciously clinging to existence through circumstances that might well have torn it asunder. The two landmark events that altered Jewish history forever were the two destructions of the Jewish Temple in Jerusalem. This sacred place was first destroyed by the Babylonians in 586 B.C.E., and, after having been rebuilt 70 years later, was razed once again by the Romans in 70 C.E., after the Jews waged a fierce uprising against Roman rule in the province of Judea. The events surrounding these destructions lie at the heart of understanding Judaism. As you explore the evolution of an ancient faith into a system of beliefs, practices, and laws recognizable today as Judaism, you'll discover a tradition of vigorous and joyous debate - where reinterpretation coexists with profound acceptance of the original instructions from God regarding the practice of faith.
©2008 The Teaching Company, LLC (P)2008 The Great Courses
The Book of Giants
Summary
Among the first seven scrolls discovered in the caves of Qumran at the Dead Sea is a scroll given the name "The Book of Giants". It is thought to have been based on the Book of Enoch, a pseudepigraphical Jewish work from the third century BCE. The Book of Giants, like the Book of Enoch, concerns itself with the Nephilim, which are the offspring of fallen angels, who are called the Watchers. Two main versions of the text exist. The Dead Sea version is written in Aramaic. Another version has been found written in middle Persian, adapted from the Aramaic to fit into the Manichean religion. Both versions will be examined. Following theories speculating that the Book of Giants was once part of the Book of Enoch, we will attempt to place the two texts back together to render the complete story of the Watchers and the Nephilim. We will discover the history and contributions of these ancient scrolls and look carefully at their content and meaning. Throughout the combined texts of the Book of Giants and the Book of Enoch we will examine all the biblical and apocryphal references and parallels within the text. The result is an in-depth and panoramic view of the Angels, the Watchers, and the Nephilim, and how one of the giants of the Nephilim race may have survived the flood intended to cleanse the Earth of their horror.
©2014 Joseph B. Lumpkin (P)2017 Joseph B. Lumpkin
Mystical Tradition: Judaism, Christianity, and Islam
Summary
Each of the great three Abrahamic religious traditions holds the seeds for deep mystical contemplation. But what do most of us know about these mystics and the tradition they sustained? Explore this spiritual, literary, and intellectual heritage in these great faiths of the West as it unfolds over three millennia with these 36 enlightening, thought-provoking lectures that offer nearly unprecedented access to these seldom-studied traditions. By laying the mystical traditions of Judaism, Christianity, and Islam side by side, Professor Johnson offers a unique opportunity to compare and contrast the many forms of religious experience in the West. Starting with the most ancient texts of the Hebrew Bible, Professor Johnson traces the emergence, growth, and persistence of mystical thought in many countries and in many ages. Bringing together the disciplines of philosophy, history, literature, and religious studies, these lectures offer a nuanced and insightful examination of Western spirituality-one that contributes not only to a fuller understanding of our religious traditions, but to our shared culture and history as well. As you examine the mystical experience, you'll see how, again and again, Western mystics have sought the answers to a few fundamental questions: What is the nature of reality? What is the relationship between humankind and the divine? Can human beings ever attain full knowledge of creation? What emerges from exploring these potent spiritual and intellectual questions is a picture of Western mysticism as diverse, multifaceted, and ever-developing. PLEASE NOTE: When you purchase this title, the accompanying reference material will be available in your Library section along with the audio.
©2008 The Teaching Company, LLC (P)2008 The Great Courses
In a Pit with a Lion on a Snowy Day
Summary
Your greatest regret at the end of your life will be the lions you didn't chase. You will look back longingly on risks not taken, opportunities not seized, and dreams not pursued. Stop running away from what scares you most and start chasing the God-ordained opportunities that cross your path. In a Pit with a Lion on a Snowy Day is inspired by one of the most obscure yet courageous acts recorded in Scripture, a blessed and audacious act that left no regrets: "Benaiah chased a lion down into a pit. Then, despite the snow and slippery ground, he caught the lion and killed it" (2 Samuel 23:20 -21). Unleash the lion chaser within!
©2006 Mark Batterson (P)2008 christianaudio.com
Is God a Moral Monster?
Summary
Leading apologetics writer with a proven track record tackles the most difficult Old Testament passages and topics, helping listeners to reconcile the God of righteousness with the God of love.
©2011 Paul Copan (P)2016 Baker Publishing Group
Thou Shall Prosper
Summary
A practical approach to creating wealth-based on the established principles of ancient Jewish wisdom-made accessible to people of all backgrounds The ups and downs of the economy prove Rabbi Daniel Lapin's famous principle that the more things change, the more we need to depend upon the things that never change. There's no better source for both practical and spiritual financial wisdom than the time-tested knowledge found in the ancient Jewish faith and its culture. In the second edition of Thou Shall Prosper, Lapin offers a practical approach to creating wealth based on the established principles of ancient Jewish wisdom. This book details the ten permanent principles that never change, the 10 commandments of making money if you will, and explores the economic and philosophic vision of business that has been part of Jewish culture for centuries. The book's focus is on making accessible to individuals of all backgrounds, the timeless truths that Jews have used for centuries to excel in business. Outlines 10 fundamental "commandments" relating to business and money Includes insights that will increase your potential for creating wealth, no matter what your faith or background may be Blends contemporary business stories and Lapin's own business experiences with the wisdom of the Torah and Talmudic prescriptions This second edition provides new examples, especially of Internet related business opportunities. In addition, each chapter highlights specific action steps that can lead to wealth opportunities in both difficult economic times and periods of prosperity.
©2009 Daniel Lapin (P)2010 Gildan Media
The Gospel According to God
Summary
Written to help listeners better understand Jesus's life, death, and ultimate mission, this new book by well-known preacher John MacArthur looks at an important - yet often misunderstood - section of the Bible: Isaiah 53. Often hailed as one of the greatest chapters in the Bible, this passage foretells the crucifixion of Jesus, a critical event in God's ultimate plan for salvation. Explaining the prophetic words of Isaiah 53 verse by verse, MacArthur highlights important connections to the history of Israel and to the New Testament - ultimately showing us how these prophetic words to ancient Israel illuminate essential truths for our lives today.
©2018 eChristian (P)2018 eChristian
Here All Along
Summary
A renowned political speechwriter rediscovers Judaism, finding timeless wisdom and spiritual connection in its age-old practices and traditions. “Sarah Hurwitz was Michelle Obama’s head speechwriter, and with this book she becomes Judaism’s speechwriter." (Adam Grant, New York Times best-selling author of Give and Take and Originals, and co-author of Option B) After a decade as a political speechwriter - serving as head speechwriter for First Lady Michelle Obama, a senior speechwriter for President Barack Obama, and chief speechwriter for Hillary Clinton on her 2008 presidential campaign - Sarah Hurwitz decided to apply her skills as a communicator to writing a book...about Judaism. And no one is more surprised than she is. Hurwitz was the quintessential lapsed Jew - until, at age 36, after a tough breakup, she happened upon an advertisement for an introductory class on Judaism. She attended on a whim but was blown away by what she found: beautiful rituals, helpful guidance on living an ethical life, conceptions of God beyond the judgy bearded man in the sky - none of which she had learned in Hebrew school or during the two synagogue services she grudgingly attended each year. That class led to a years-long journey during which Hurwitz visited the offices of rabbis, attended Jewish meditation retreats, sat at the Shabbat tables of Orthodox families, and read hundreds of books about Judaism - all in dogged pursuit of answers to her biggest questions. What she found transformed her life, and she wondered: How could there be such a gap between the richness of what Judaism offers and the way so many Jews like her understand and experience it? Sarah Hurwitz is on a mission to close this gap by sharing the profound insights she discovered on everything from Jewish holidays, ethics, and prayer to Jewish conceptions of God, death, and social justice. In this entertaining and accessible book, she shows us why Judaism matters and how its message is more relevant than ever, and she inspires Jews to do the learning, questioning, and debating required to make this religion their own. "Searching for meaning in the ancient scripture and traditions of Judaism, Sarah Hurwitz takes us along on an enriching journey of discovery. In Here All Along, she explores her birthright as a Jew and finds timeless and valuable life lessons." (David Axelrod, director of the University of Chicago Institute of Politics and former senior advisor to President Barack Obama)
©2019 Sarah Hurwitz (P)2019 Random House Audio
999
Summary
On March 25, 1942, nearly a thousand young, unmarried Jewish women boarded a train in Poprad, Slovakia. Filled with a sense of adventure and national pride, they left their parents' homes wearing their best clothes and confidently waving good-bye. Believing they were going to work in a factory for a few months, they were eager to report for government service. Instead, the young women - many of them teenagers - were sent to Auschwitz. Their government paid 500 Reich Marks (about $200) apiece for the Nazis to take them as slave labor. Of those 999 innocent deportees, only a few would survive. The facts of the first official Jewish transport to Auschwitz are little known, yet profoundly relevant today. These were not resistance fighters or prisoners of war. There were no men among them. Sent to almost certain death, the young women were powerless and insignificant not only because they were Jewish - but also because they were female. Now acclaimed author Heather Dune Macadam reveals their poignant stories, drawing on extensive interviews with survivors, and consulting with historians, witnesses, and relatives of those first deportees to create an important addition to Holocaust literature and women's history.
©2019 Heather Dune Macadam (P)2019 Tantor
Why?
Summary
A bold new exploration that answers the most commonly asked questions about the Holocaust. Despite the outpouring of books, movies, museums, memorials, and courses devoted to the Holocaust, a coherent explanation of why such ghastly carnage erupted from the heart of civilized Europe in the 20th century still seems elusive even 70 years later. Numerous theories have sprouted in an attempt to console ourselves and to point the blame in emotionally satisfying directions - yet none of them are fully convincing. As witnesses to the Holocaust near the ends of their lives, it becomes that much more important to unravel what happened and to educate a new generation about the horrors inflicted by the Nazi regime on Jews and non-Jews alike. Why? dispels many misconceptions and answers some of the most basic - yet vexing - questions that remain: why the Jews and not another ethnic group? Why the Germans? Why such a swift and sweeping extermination? Why didn't more Jews fight back more often? Why didn't they receive more help? While responding to the questions he has been most frequently asked by students over the decades, world-renowned Holocaust historian and professor Peter Hayes brings a wealth of scholarly research and experience to bear on conventional, popular views of the history, challenging some of the most prominent recent interpretations. He argues that there is no single theory that "explains" the Holocaust; the convergence of multiple forces at a particular moment in time led to catastrophe. In clear prose informed by an encyclopedic knowledge of Holocaust literature in English and German, Hayes weaves together stories and statistics to heart-stopping effect. Why? is an authoritative, groundbreaking exploration of the origins of one of the most tragic events in human history. PLEASE NOTE: When you purchase this title, the accompanying reference material will be available in your Library section along with the audio.
©2017 Peter Hayes (P)2017 Gildan Media LLC
House of Glass
Summary
A writer investigates her family’s secret history, uncovering a story that spans a century, two World Wars, and three generations.
Hadley Freeman knew her grandmother Sara lived in France just as Hitler started to gain power, but rarely did anyone in her family talk about it. Long after her grandmother’s death, she found a shoebox tucked in the closet containing photographs of her grandmother with a mysterious stranger, a cryptic telegram from the Red Cross, and a drawing signed by Picasso.
This discovery sent Freeman on a decade-long quest to uncover the significance of these keepsakes, taking her from Picasso’s archives in Paris to a secret room in a farmhouse in Auvergne to Long Island to Auschwitz. Freeman pieces together the puzzle of her family’s past, discovering more about the lives of her grandmother and her three brothers, Jacques, Henri, and Alex. Their stories sometimes typical, sometimes astonishing - reveal the broad range of experiences of Eastern European Jews during Holocaust.
This thrilling family saga is filled with extraordinary twists, vivid characters, and famous cameos, illuminating the Jewish and immigrant experience in the World War II era. Addressing themes of assimilation, identity, and home, this powerful story about the past echoes issues that remain relevant today.
©2020 Hadley Freeman (P)2020 Simon & Schuster Audio
A History of the Jews
Summary
This historical magnum opus covers 4,000 years of the extraordinary history of the Jews as a people, a culture, and a nation. It shows the impact of Jewish character on the world - their genius, imagination, and, most of all, their ability to persevere despite severe persecutions. Compelling insights into events and individuals are chronologically detailed, from Moses and Jesus to Spinoza, Marx, Freud, the Rothschilds, and Golda Meir.
©1987 Paul Johnson (P)1989 Blackstone Audio, inc.
Inspiration and Incarnation
Summary
How can an evangelical view of Scripture be reconciled with modern biblical scholarship? In this book Peter Enns, an expert in biblical interpretation, addresses Old Testament phenomena that challenge traditional evangelical perspectives on Scripture. He then suggests a way forward, proposing an incarnational model of biblical inspiration that takes seriously both the divine and the human aspects of Scripture.
©2015 Peter Enns (P)2017 Tantor
The Lost
Summary
In this rich and riveting narrative, a writer's search for the truth behind his family's tragic past in World War II becomes a remarkably original epic - part memoir, part reportage, part mystery, and part scholarly detective work - that brilliantly explores the nature of time and memory, family and history. The Lost begins as the story of a boy who grew up in a family haunted by the disappearance of six relatives during the Holocaust - an unmentionable subject that gripped his imagination from earliest childhood. Decades later, spurred by the discovery of a cache of desperate letters written to his grandfather in 1939 and tantalized by fragmentary tales of a terrible betrayal, Daniel Mendelsohn sets out to find the remaining eyewitnesses to his relatives' fates. That quest eventually takes him to a dozen countries on four continents and forces him to confront the wrenching discrepancies between the histories we live and the stories we tell. And it leads him, finally, back to the small Ukrainian town where his family's story began and where the solution to a decades-old mystery awaits him. Deftly moving between past and present, interweaving a world-wandering odyssey with childhood memories of a now-lost generation of immigrant Jews and provocative ruminations on biblical texts and Jewish history, The Lost transforms the story of one family into a profound, morally searching meditation on our fragile hold on the past. Deeply personal, grippingly suspenseful, and beautifully written, this literary tour de force illuminates all that is lost, and found, in the passage of time.
©2016 Blackstone Audio, Inc. (P)2016 Blackstone Audio, Inc.