According to tradition Caucasian Jews descended from the Ten Tribes exiled from the Kingdom of Israel in the first millenium BCE, making them one of the oldest communities of Jewish people anywhere. This remarkable population preserved its Jewish identity and developed a culture of its own in a region inhabited by a host of different peoples and plagued by ethnic tensions. The term "Mountain Jews" (they call themselves "Juhur") dates back to Imperial Russia's occupation of the Caucasus in the early nineteenth century, when the tsar's visiting representative referred to "Mountain Jews" living mainly in the east and north of the Caucasus range, in what is today the largely Muslim areas of Dagestan and Azerbaijan. After their emigration to Israel, Caucasian Jews continued to resist integration, sharing in Israel's upbuilding without losing touch with their roots in and ties to the Caucasus. Along with her fellow essayists Mordechai Altshuler, Moshe Yosifov, Michael Zand, Ariella Amar, Boris Khaimovich, Anatoly Binyaminov, and Tyilo Khizghilov, author Liya Mikdash-Shamailov, a Jew of Caucasian origin, successfully blends her scientific interest in the community with her own special affinity with its culture. The fruit of many years of field work and extensive research, Mountain Jews presents, in words and striking pictures of this people and its practices, the history, spiritual life, language and literature, daily life, material culture, and decorative arts which together define the rich and extraordinary cultural heritage of Caucasian, "Mountain" Jews.

Yosef and Estrella have spent their whole lives in Morocco's Atlas Mountains. When they move to the city, they face a strange, unfamiliar world. Will their love survive the surprises of their new home? A funny and charming folktale-like story of mistaken identities.

The prevalence of anti-Semitism in Russia is well known, but the issue of race within the Jewish community has rarely been discussed explicitly. Combining ethnography with archival research, Jewish Russians: Upheavals in a Moscow Synagogue documents the changing face of the historically dominant Russian Jewish community in the mid-1990s. Sascha Goluboff focuses on a Moscow synagogue, now comprising individuals from radically different cultures and backgrounds, as a nexus from which to explore issues of identity creation and negotiation. Following the rapid rise of this transnational congregation—headed by a Western rabbi and consisting of Jews from Georgia and the mountains of Azerbaijan and Dagestan, along with Bukharan Jews from Central Asia—she evaluates the process that created this diverse gathering and offers an intimate sense of individual interactions in the context of the synagogue's congregation. Challenging earlier research claims that Russian and Jewish identities are mutually exclusive, Goluboff illustrates how post-Soviet Jews use Russian and Jewish ethnic labels and racial categories to describe themselves. Jews at the synagogue were constantly engaged in often contradictory but always culturally meaningful processes of identity formation. Ambivalent about emerging class distinctions, Georgian, Russian, Mountain, and Bukharan Jews evaluated one another based on each group's supposed success or failure in the new market economy. Goluboff argues that post-Soviet Jewry is based on perceived racial, class, and ethnic differences as they emerge within discourses of belonging to the Jewish people and the new Russian nation.

The Jews of Khazaria chronicles the history of the Khazars, a people who, in the early Middle Ages, founded a large empire in eastern Europe (located in present-day Ukraine and Russia). The Khazars played a pivotal role in world history. Khazaria was one of the largest-sized political formations of its time, an economic and cultural superpower connected to several important trade routes. It was especially notable for its religious tolerance, and in the 9th century, a large portion of the royal family converted to Judaism. Many of the nobles and commoners did likewise shortly thereafter. After their conversion, the Khazars were ruled by a succession of Jewish kings that began to adopt the hallmarks of Jewish civilization, including the Torah and Talmud, the Hebrew script, and the observance of Jewish holidays. In this thoroughly revised edition of a modern classic, The Jews of Khazaria explores many exciting new discoveries about the Khazars' religious life, economy, military, government, and culture. It builds upon new studies of the Khazars, evaluating and incorporating recent theories, along with new documentary and archaeological findings. The book gives a comprehensive accounting of the cities, towns, and fortresses of Khazaria, and features a timeline summarizing key events in Khazar history.

"This collection reveals the presence and power of religious belief and practice in public life after the demise of Soviet socialism. Based on recent research and interdisciplinary methodologies, Religion, Morality, and Community in Post-Soviet Societies examines how religious organizations and individuals engage the changing and troubled environment in which they live, which presents expanded civil freedom but much everyday uncertainty, unhappiness, injustice, and suffering"--Page [4] of cover.

Jewish Communities in Exotic Places examines seventeen Jewish groups that are referred to in Hebrew as edot ha-mizrach, Eastern or Oriental Jewish communities. These groups, situated in remote places on the Asian and African Jewish geographical periphery, became isolated from the major centers of Jewish civilization over the centuries and embraced some interesting practices and aspects of the dominant cultures in which they were situated.

Jewish Languages from A to Z provides an engaging and enjoyable overview of the rich variety of languages spoken and written by Jews over the past three thousand years. The book covers more than 50 different languages and language varieties. These include not only well-known Jewish languages like Hebrew, Yiddish, and Ladino, but also more exotic languages like Chinese, Esperanto, Malayalam, and Zulu, all of which have a fascinating Jewish story to be told. Each chapter presents the special features of the language variety in question, a discussion of the history of the associated Jewish community, and some examples of literature and other texts produced in it. The book thus takes readers on a stimulating voyage around the Jewish world, from ancient Babylonia to 21st-century New York, via such diverse locations as Tajikistan, South Africa, and the Caribbean. The chapters are accompanied by numerous full-colour photographs of the literary treasures produced by Jewish language-speaking communities, from ancient stone inscriptions to medieval illuminated manuscripts to contemporary novels and newspapers. This comprehensive survey of Jewish languages is designed to be accessible to all readers with an interest in languages or history, regardless of their background—no prior knowledge of linguistics or Jewish history is assumed.

New from Bradt is The Holocaust: Europe’s Sites, Museums and Memorials, a unique travel guidebook to European locations that tell the story of the greatest crime ever perpetrated – the Nazi genocide of 6 million Jews and other persecuted groups. In recent years countries once reluctant to delve into the dark corners of their past have begun to document the history of the Holocaust and its aftermath. Europe has many new ground-breaking museums and memorials that tell us as much about the present as they do the past. Chapters are dedicated to each country or region occupied by Nazi Germany, plus nations like the UK and neutral Sweden, which played a vital role both before and after the Holocaust. Organised around city hubs in each country, this Bradt guide helps visitors explore numerous destinations, whether infamous, well known or comparatively unexpected. This is much, much more than a guide to notorious sites such as Auschwitz-Birkenau, Buchenwald or Dachau. You can take a walking tour in Vienna, to view the new wall of names. Or visit the Memorial des Martyrs de la Deportation in Paris, Anne Frank House in Amsterdam or the Jewish Museum in Ferrara. And you can learn how babies were smuggled out of the Kovno ghetto in potato sacks in Lithuania or read about Bavaria’s Kloster Indersdorf, a remarkable children’s home that cared for survivors. Written by a journalist and travel writer specialising in Jewish history, Bradt’s The Holocaust: Europe’s Sites, Museums and Memorials provides the traveller with not only a list of must-see sites in each country but also a comprehensive list of organisations that run tours, commemorations and volunteer schemes. Suggestions of where to eat and stay (including Kosher restaurants and hotels) ease the traveller’s way, as do descriptions of local Jewish organisations and tips on how to pace potentially difficult journeys into Europe’s dark past. Bradt’s The Holocaust: Europe’s Sites, Museums and Memorials is the first comprehensive travel guide to the genocide and the first to help the traveller understand the Holocaust by seeing the places where it unfurled.

The region of the Caucasus with its ongoing, and even deteriorating, crises and instability, and its critical strategic and economic importance, is increasingly at the focus of the world's attention. This book discusses the complexities and interplay among important forces at work in the region, including different brands of Islam, nationalisms, ethnic identities, local bureaucracies, Moscow’s policies and influences from the outside.