Born Dov-Ber Rasofsky to Eastern European immigrants, Barney Ross saw his father's murder, his mother's nervous breakdown, and his three younger siblings sent to an orphanage, all before he turned fourteen. To make enough money to reunite the family, Ross became a petty thief, a gambler, a messenger boy for Al Capone, and, eventually, an amateur boxer. Turning professional at nineteen, he would capture the lightweight, junior welterweight, and welterweight...

"What is hateful unto you, do not do unto your neighbor. That is the whole Torah, all the rest is commentary. Now, go and study." This is the most famous teaching of Hillel, one of the greatest rabbis of the Talmudic era. Hillel's teachings, stories, and legal rulings can be found throughout the Talmud; many of them share his emphasis on ethical and moral living as an essential element in Jewish religious practice. Perhaps the most prominent rabbi...

NATIONAL JEWISH BOOK AWARD FINALIST
Part of the Jewish Encounter series

One May day in 1896, at a dining-room table in Cambridge, England, a meeting took place between a Romanian-born maverick Jewish intellectual and twin learned Presbyterian Scotswomen, who had assembled to inspect several pieces of rag paper and parchment. It was the unlikely start to what would prove a remarkable, continent-hopping, century-crossing saga, and

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"The best-selling author of Taking the Stand presents a no-holds-barred history of Jewish lawyers to profile influential figures from the biblical Abraham and Louis Brandeis through Max Hirschberg and Ruth Bader Ginsburg,"--Novelist.

"For The Dairy Restaurant, Ben Katchor retells the history of where we choose to eat--a history that starts with the first man allowed to enter a walled garden and encouraged by the garden's owner to enjoy it's fruits.In this brilliant, sui generis book, Ben Katchor illuminates the unique historical confluence of events and ideas that led to the proliferation of the dairy restaurant in New York City. In words and his inimitable drawings, he begins...