Academic Studies Press

Dovlatov and Surroundings is a literary ode by one of the most consequential late 20th-century Russian writers, Alexander Genis, to another: Sergei Dovlatov. Though the book’s focus is ostensibly the man himself, the text unfolds as a comprehensive look at the Soviet, post-Soviet, and American cultures that shaped him and which he shaped. Dovlatov and Surroundings constantly, but effortlessly shifts its focus from the intimate to the sweeping, as Genis’s reflections on his friendship with Dovlatov organically give way to recollections about diaspora life, which transition smoothly into analyses of language, culture, politics, and literature. Characterized by Genis as an obituary, this book makes plain the significance of Dovlatov to Russian literature and the nuances of the Soviet cultural heritage.

The Kahans from Baku is the saga of a Russian Jewish family. Their story provides an insight into the history of Jews in the Imperial Russian economy, especially in the oil industry. The entrepreneur and family patriarch, Chaim Kahan, was a pious and enlightened man and a Zionist. His children followed in his footsteps in business as well as in politics, philanthropy, and love of books. The book takes us through their forced migration in times of war, revolution, and the twentieth century’s totalitarian regimes, telling the story of fortune and misfortune of one cohesive family over four generations through Russia, Germany, Denmark, and France, and finally on to Palestine and the United States of America.

The Biblical narrative is usually very terse and cryptic. Over the millennia, Jewish scholars often painted a patriarchal picture with women "in their place." Yes, ancient Middle Eastern society was patriarchal, but matriarchs had power as well. Yes, kings ruled, but the king’s mother had major influence over him. Powerless women existed, but so did female prophets and judges. The narrative describes real people, with human weaknesses as well as strengths. There are love stories and lust stories, as well as stories of the dangers of favoritism, greed, and envy. This book puts these women—some are role models—into the context of an ancient society, bringing them imaginatively from the sidelines onto center stage.

The book, based on memories of a native son and the research of a scholar, is an amalgam of descriptions and discussions, peppered with conversations, personal observations and an acute observer’s reflections, focused on the fabric of life in the city of Lodz and its vicinity. The author describes the “court” of the Hasidic Rabbis of Aleksander, with which his family was affiliated, the rival camps of Hasidim and Zionists, industrialists and laborers, struggles with the Polish authorities, and more. Detailed chapters are dedicated to a description of studies at a modern Jewish-Zionist high school (Gymnasium) – its exhilarating goals, directors and teachers, to the Lodz poet Yitzhak Katzenelson before and during the Holocaust, and to life in a small Polish shtetl.

The concluding chapter “Return to Poland” examines the cities and towns described earlier in the book, as well as Breslau-Wroclaw, where the author had completed his rabbinic and university studies in 1933, as they appeared to him during his visit in 1982, nearly fifty years after his departure from Europe for Israel.

The author's aim was to produce a portrait, sympathetic, intimate, but also knowledgeable and critical, of a generation that did not have the time to take stock of itself before its obliteration. He has thus rendered palpable the experiences and quandaries of many of his contemporaries. 

Kurt and Sonja Messerschmidt were among the last Jews deported from Nazi Berlin. They were among a handful of couples who were married in Theresienstadt, and are possibly the only pair who lived to describe their wedding. 

They survived Auschwitz, and unimaginable slave labor in other camps. Kurt was one of two survivors of a group of death marchers in southern Germany. They found each other again after liberation, and eventually emigrated to the United States. As told to Steve Hochstadt as part of the Holocaust and Human Rights Center of Maine's project to record and preserve individual experiences of Holocaust survivors, this book captures Kurt’s and Sonja’s separate but always intertwined stories. Their accounts, as improbable as they are moving, tell from both sides how a loving relationship formed in persecution became an element of survival in the Holocaust.

Diane Tuckman and Cecile Spiegel fled religious persecution with WWII conflicts at their heels. Separately, from Egypt and from Germany, each leaped continents, cultures, and languages as a refugee before finding a new home in the United States. Hiding in plain sight in France, Cecile eluded capture by the Nazis, but lost many dear to her. Diane came of age there, far from the Mediterranean idyll of her childhood in Egypt. They relied on family, faith, and resilience to overcome the otherness felt by displaced peoples. As they dictated their memoirs to one another, Diane and Cecile discovered the anatomy of their friendship in their parallel odysseys and the optimism of 20th-century American womanhood.

A fantastical propaganda play depicting an armed revolt financed the purchase of the yacht Abril and its conversion to an “illegal” immigrant passenger ship renamed the Ben Hecht. The plan was to evade the British naval blockade and bring Holocaust survivor refugees to Palestine.

Henry Mandel volunteered aboard the Ben Hecht, a converted yacht that challenged the British blockade of Jewish immigrants to pre-state Israel. Captured and detained in Acre Prison, Mandel aided the efforts of prisoners planning an escape. After release, Mandel helped set up a secret bazooka shell plant in New York, which he helped to reassemble in Israel during the 1948 Arab-Israeli War. Mandel was an Orthodox Jew whose reminiscences provide a uniquely illuminating perspective on the creation of the Jewish state. Mandel’s story is explicated in a running commentary that includes the personal narratives of other members of the Ben Hecht crew as well as historical background.

The book, based on memories of a native son and the research of a scholar, is an amalgam of descriptions and discussions, peppered with conversations, personal observations and an acute observer’s reflections, focused on the fabric of life in the city of Lodz and its vicinity. The author describes the “court” of the Hasidic Rabbis of Aleksander, with which his family was affiliated, the rival camps of Hasidim and Zionists, industrialists and laborers, struggles with the Polish authorities, and more. Detailed chapters are dedicated to a description of studies at a modern Jewish-Zionist high school (Gymnasium) – its exhilarating goals, directors and teachers, to the Lodz poet Yitzhak Katzenelson before and during the Holocaust, and to life in a small Polish shtetl.

The concluding chapter “Return to Poland” examines the cities and towns described earlier in the book, as well as Breslau-Wroclaw, where the author had completed his rabbinic and university studies in 1933, as they appeared to him during his visit in 1982, nearly fifty years after his departure from Europe for Israel.

The author's aim was to produce a portrait, sympathetic, intimate, but also knowledgeable and critical, of a generation that did not have the time to take stock of itself before its obliteration. He has thus rendered palpable the experiences and quandaries of many of his contemporaries. 

When the Holocaust broke out in Europe, Hansi and Joel Brand were joined by Israel (Rezső) Kasztner to launch an organized effort to save thousands of human lives. Their efforts, which involved playing a dangerous bluffing game against the Nazi regime, helped to end the Auschwitz extermination. Their success put them at odds with the political machine of the young state of Israel. Politicians wanted the public to believe that there was nothing they could do, a sentiment which many still believe to this day. This cover-up led to Israel’s first politically-motivated homicide.

From Darkness to Light is a compilation of personal testimonies of six Holocaust survivors, written in a short story format. 

The book walks readers through their life experiences before and during the Holocaust, their liberation, and their new life in Israel. Each story is told in their own words, culled from hours of personal interviews with them and their children, so the world can have first-hand knowledge of what happened during that darkest time of our history.

These survivors came from different parts of Europe, and not one story is like the other. Now in their eighties and nineties, they still recall in detail their darkest memories. Amid immense pain and suffering, they managed to overcome every hurdle they encountered under the Nazi regime. When these stalwart individuals were liberated, no matter what further anguish and obstacles they faced, they realized their dream to make aliya to Israel. They settled in the Holy Land as visionaries and pioneers to build the Jewish state, which itself was undergoing conflict and difficult economic times. Their love for the Jewish homeland and their creation of families with children, grandchildren, and great-grandchildren exemplify how Hitler’s aim to annihilate the Jews was nullified.

Jack Nusan Porter’s writings date back to 1966, during the height of the Vietnam War. He describes the anguished struggle against war, racism, and poverty, as well as the radical groups and individuals involved—Jewish socialists, radical Zionists, radical Jews, Rabbi Meir Kahane and the Jewish Defense League, the counterculture, liberals, and conservatives alike. In addition, his writings vividly recount the anti-Zionist, anti-Israel, anti-Semitic, and revolutionary terrorism of the times. Here, Porter draws from the past in an effort to explain the present, walking the precarious bridge between allegiance to Israel and the Jewish people and the universal rights of all people. This collection of older and newer essays combines theory, sociology, film studies, literary criticism, post-modern thought, and politics.

Jack Nusan Porter’s writings date back to 1966, during the height of the Vietnam War. He describes the anguished struggle against war, racism, and poverty, as well as the radical groups and individuals involved—Jewish socialists, radical Zionists, radical Jews, Rabbi Meir Kahane and the Jewish Defense League, the counterculture, liberals, and conservatives alike. In addition, his writings vividly recount the anti-Zionist, anti-Israel, anti-Semitic, and revolutionary terrorism of the times. Here, Porter draws from the past in an effort to explain the present, walking the precarious bridge between allegiance to Israel and the Jewish people and the universal rights of all people. This collection of older and newer essays combines theory, sociology, film studies, literary criticism, post-modern thought, and politics.

From the translator of Avigdor Hameiri’s Hell on Earth, winner of the 2019 TLS-Risa Domb/Porjes Prize

In this unique memoir, now in English for the first time, Israel’s first Poet Laureate Avigdor Hameiri details a trip to Europe in 1930 from the perspective of a Hungarian Jew who had served in the Habsburg Army. Upon visiting Austria, Hungary, Romania (including parts of ceded Hungarian Transylvania), and Czechoslovakia (including his Carpatho-Ruthenian homeland), he sees Europe in flux on the brink of an unknown disaster. Austria and Hungary are full of youth whose philosophy is “eat, drink and be merry; tomorrow we die.” There is fear of Bolshevism from without, but the unfelt danger is German Fascism. Jews (especially in Hungary) are assimilated but cannot escape from their Jewishness: some are Zionists. Romania is corrupt and antisemitic. In Carpatho-Ruthenia, Hameiri has two premonitions warning him to return to Israel, a prediction of the destruction soon to befall Europe. Hameiri also gives accounts of the artistic and cultural scenes of 1930s Europe, as well as the world of Carpatho-Ruthenian Hasidism, which was soon to be destroyed by the Holocaust. From the growing danger and confusion surrounding inter-war Europe, in prose at once compassionate and bitingly sarcastic, comes a sweeping account of Jewish life in 1930 from one of Israel’s prolific writers.

“Academically detailed yet esoterically fun.” —Kirkus

Could a religiously observant Jew, in good conscience, run as a libertarian candidate, promoting a libertarian platform? Or, would doing so betray fundamental Jewish values? 

Running in Good Faith? Observant Judaism and Libertarian Politics considers the seemingly irreconcilable values and political commitments of Judaism and libertarianism. The latter prizes individualism, self-ownership, private property, and freedom, whereas the former emphasizes community, charity, and service of God. But are these differences so sharp? This book seeks to determine if this is an essential clash or merely an apparent one, and to stimulate a broad discussion of Judaism, values, politics, and political philosophy in order to call into question what people think they know, about both Judaism and libertarianism.

Could a religiously observant Jew, in good conscience, run as a libertarian candidate, promoting a libertarian platform? Or, would doing so betray fundamental Jewish values? Running in Good Faith? Observant Judaism and Libertarian Politics considers the seemingly irreconcilable values and political commitments of Judaism and libertarianism. The latter prizes individualism, self-ownership, private property, and freedom, whereas the former emphasizes community, charity, and service of God. But are these differences so sharp? This book seeks to determine if this is an essential clash or merely an apparent one, and to stimulate a broad discussion of Judaism, values, politics, and political philosophy in order to call into question what people think they know, about both Judaism and libertarianism.

Trapped by Evil and Deceit is a historical account of true events that reads like a political thriller.

When the Holocaust broke out in Europe, Hansi and Joel Brand were joined by Israel (Rezső) Kasztner to launch an organized effort to save thousands of human lives. Their efforts, which involved playing a dangerous bluffing game against the Nazi regime, helped to end the Auschwitz extermination. Their success put them at odds with the political machine of the young state of Israel. Politicians wanted the public to believe that there was nothing they could do, a sentiment which many still believe to this day. This cover-up led to Israel’s first politically-motivated homicide.

From the translator of Avigdor Hameiri’s Hell on Earth, winner of the 2019 TLS-Risa Domb/Porjes Prize

In this unique memoir, now in English for the first time, Israel’s first Poet Laureate Avigdor Hameiri details a trip to Europe in 1930 from the perspective of a Hungarian Jew who had served in the Habsburg Army. Upon visiting Austria, Hungary, Romania (including parts of ceded Hungarian Transylvania), and Czechoslovakia (including his Carpatho-Ruthenian homeland), he sees Europe in flux on the brink of an unknown disaster. Austria and Hungary are full of youth whose philosophy is “eat, drink and be merry; tomorrow we die.” There is fear of Bolshevism from without, but the unfelt danger is German Fascism. Jews (especially in Hungary) are assimilated but cannot escape from their Jewishness: some are Zionists. Romania is corrupt and antisemitic. In Carpatho-Ruthenia, Hameiri has two premonitions warning him to return to Israel, a prediction of the destruction soon to befall Europe. 

Hameiri also gives accounts of the artistic and cultural scenes of 1930s Europe, as well as the world of Carpatho-Ruthenian Hasidism, which was soon to be destroyed by the Holocaust. From the growing danger and confusion surrounding inter-war Europe, in prose at once compassionate and bitingly sarcastic, comes a sweeping account of Jewish life in 1930 from one of Israel’s prolific writers.

"When the River Ice Flows, I Will Come Home is a moving memoir that lovingly recreates the lives of Elisa Miller’s father and his family as Jews in the dying years of the Romanov dynasty." —Douglas Smith, author of Former People: The Final Days of the Russian Aristocracy

Shortly after her father’s death, Elisa Brodinsky Miller uncovered a cache of letters among his belongings. Written in Russian and Yiddish, with datelines in Tsarist and early Soviet Russia, the letters detail eight long years (1914-1922) during which Elisa’s father, his five siblings, and their mother spend apart from Elisa’s grandfather who had left for America, believing their separation would be short.

Miller, a Russian affairs specialist, learns bit by bit with each translation about the family she knew so little about, and the eight years of history they lived through, enabling her for the first time to connect her own experiences with those who came before her. This captivating memoir bridges the past with the present, as we learn about her grandparents’ struggles to escape Tsarist Russia, her parents’ hopes for their marriage in America, and her own reach for meaning and purpose: each a generation with dreams—first theirs, now hers.

When the Menorah Fades is a fictionalized account of the town of Hadiach, Ukraine, a small Jewish community destroyed by Nazi occupation during World War II. 

Based on interviews with the surviving residents of Hadiach, Zvi Preigerzon imagines the everyday experiences of ordinary Jewish people during the war. Interweaved with Hebrew and Yiddish expressions and songs, biblical metaphors, and Kabbalistic spiritual elements, a story emerges: resistance in the face of unimaginable cruelty.

A former prisoner of Stalin’s Gulag, Preigerzon wrote this book in complete secrecy, even hiding its existence from his own family. It was originally published under a pen name in Hebrew in 1966 and now appears in English with an introduction by the author’s grandson.

“Academically detailed yet esoterically fun.” —Kirkus

Few written works examine the tradition of prayers in government. This new angle will appeal to students and lovers of American history, Congress, American Jewish history, and religion. It’s a welcome, important addition to our understanding of Congress and Jewish contribution to America.

Wasyl Andreievych Kushnir was born in Ukraine in 1923, and was witness to the tragedies and horrors of the early years of collectivization under the Soviet regime in his homeland. His father fought in the Ukrainian National Army against the Russian Bolshevik invasion and ultimate occupation of Ukraine, and his grandfather was murdered by Chekist Bolsheviks. Early in Wasyl's life, his family's home and all personal possessions were confiscated by the communist authorities, and both parents were exiled, his father to Siberia, and mother to a prison in Mariopol. His uncle Danylo was also arrested and exiled to forced labor in Siberia, and then to Komi SSR. During this period, Ukraine experienced genocidal famine, and Wasyl himself suffered hunger during the Ukrainian Holodomor, in which millions perished. Upon the escape of his parents from prison camps, the family reunited, only to be torn apart again during World War II when Wasyl was taken by the Nazis as a slave laborer to Germany. At the war's conclusion, Wasyl drove trucks for the American Army in Germany, and married his wife, Maria, also a forced labor survivor, who bore him two sons. The family ultimately emigrated to Mississippi, and then Chicago, Illinois where two other children were born. Wasyl pursued the American dream, sought an education, and was ultimately successful in business, retiring in Florida where he spent his last years.

“Epic Journey is indeed an epic journey, a sad, tragic, and ultimately inspiring tale of oppression, defeat, flight, and salvation that addresses the very essence of the human condition. But Epic Journey is also an important addition to the small, but steadily growing, body of memoirs that give voice to the Ukrainian encounter with catastrophe in the twentieth century. As such, it sounds a warning about the dangers of authoritarianism, fanaticism, and intolerance to all people of good will.” —Alexander J. Motyl, Rutgers University-Newark

Wasyl Andreievych Kushnir was born in Ukraine in 1923, and was witness to the tragedies and horrors of the early years of collectivization under the Soviet regime in his homeland. His father fought in the Ukrainian National Army against the Russian Bolshevik invasion and ultimate occupation of Ukraine, and his grandfather was murdered by Chekist Bolsheviks. Early in Wasyl's life, his family's home and all personal possessions were confiscated by the communist authorities, and both parents were exiled, his father to Siberia, and mother to a prison in Mariopol. His uncle Danylo was also arrested and exiled to forced labor in Siberia, and then to Komi SSR. 

 During this period, Ukraine experienced genocidal famine, and Wasyl himself suffered hunger during the Ukrainian Holodomor, in which millions perished. Upon the escape of his parents from prison camps, the family reunited, only to be torn apart again during World War II when Wasyl was taken by the Nazis as a slave laborer to Germany. At the war's conclusion, Wasyl drove trucks for the American Army in Germany, and married his wife, Maria, also a forced labor survivor, who bore him two sons. The family ultimately emigrated to Mississippi, and then Chicago, Illinois where two other children were born. Wasyl pursued the American dream, sought an education, and was ultimately successful in business, retiring in Florida where he spent his last years.

“Aside from his excellent prose, Stonov’s book contains precious details about an era whose features are barely discernible today. The Raskin Family paints a picture of the fate of an entire generation standing at the historic threshold that began with great hopes and ended with those hopes crushed. This autobiographical novel has outlived its author and will no doubt remain not only on library shelves but also in the grateful memory of the upcoming generations.” —David Markish, author of To Become Lutov

Meyer Raskin is a wealthy Jewish entrepreneur running a large agricultural estate in Belarus on the western outskirts of the Russian Empire in the early 20th century. His wife Chava feels out of place and yearns for the quiet life of a Jewish shtetl. Together they have six children, some of whom help their father on the estate, while others are more interested in pursuing education or getting involved in revolutionary politics. Their lives are interrupted first by the Russian revolution of 1905 and later by World War I, which eventually turns them all into refugees. This is an autobiographical novel based on the author’s family.

“A quietly powerful addition to the canon of émigré literature” —The Moscow Times

No longer at home in Russia, but not quite assimilated into the American mainstream, the daily lives of Russian immigrants are fueled by a combustible mix of success and alienation. Simon Reznikov, the Boston-based immigrant protagonist of Maxim D. Shrayer’s A Russian Immigrant, is restless. Unresolved feelings about his Jewish (and American) present and his Russian (and Soviet) past prevent Reznikov from easily putting down roots in his new country.

A visit to a decaying summer resort in the Catskills, now populated by Jewish ghosts of Soviet history, which include a famous émigré writer, reveals to Reznikov that he, too, is a prisoner of his past. An expedition to Prague in search of clues for an elusive Jewish writer’s biography exposes Reznikov’s own inability to move on. A chance reunion with a former Russian lover, now also an immigrant living in an affluent part of Connecticut, unearths memories of Reznikov’s last Soviet summer while reanimating many contradictors of a mixed, Jewish-Russian marriage.

Told both linearly and non-linearly, with elements of suspense, mystery and crime, these three interconnected novellas gradually reveal many layers of the characters’ Russian, Jewish, and Soviet identities. Vectors of love and desire, nostalgia and amnesia, violence and forgiveness, politics and aesthetics guide Shrayer’s immigrant characters while also disorienting them in their new American lives. Set in Providence, New Haven and Boston, but also in places of the main character’s pilgrimages such as Estonia and Bohemia, Shrayer’s book weaves together a literary manifesto of Russian Jews in America.

“Aside from his excellent prose, Stonov’s book contains precious details about an era whose features are barely discernible today. The Raskin Family paints a picture of the fate of an entire generation standing at the historic threshold that began with great hopes and ended with those hopes crushed. This autobiographical novel has outlived its author and will no doubt remain not only on library shelves but also in the grateful memory of the upcoming generations.” —David Markish, author of To Become Lutov

Meyer Raskin is a wealthy Jewish entrepreneur running a large agricultural estate in Belarus on the western outskirts of the Russian Empire in the early 20th century. His wife Chava feels out of place and yearns for the quiet life of a Jewish shtetl. Together they have six children, some of whom help their father on the estate, while others are more interested in pursuing education or getting involved in revolutionary politics. Their lives are interrupted first by the Russian revolution of 1905 and later by World War I, which eventually turns them all into refugees. This is an autobiographical novel based on the author’s family.

Wheat Songs is a memoir of two interconnected Greek-American journeys—an actual physical journey for the grandfather, Pericles Rizopoulos, and a philosophical quest by the author, Perry Giuseppe Rizopoulos. 

When the grandfather, Pericles Rizopoulos, a proud old man, tells his fascinating, tragic and true stories of the Nazi occupation of Greece during World War II and the following Greek Civil War, to his twenty-something grandson, Perry Giuseppe Rizopoulos, Perry’s philosophical reflections on his grandfather’s stories along with his own memories of growing up in his extended Greek/Italian/American family in the Bronx combine to create an enduring story about the strength created by a tightly-knit family and the powerful values passed down from generation to generation.

"A manual for living with defeat" —Tablet

It is no more possible to think about religion without sin than it is to think about a garden without dirt.

By its very nature, the ideals of religion entail sin and failure. Judaism has its own language and framework for sin that expresses themselves both legally and philosophically. Both legal questions—circumstances where sin is permissible or mandated, the role of intention and action—as well as philosophical questions—why sin occurs and how does Judaism react to religious crisis—are considered within this volume. This book will present the concepts of sin and failure in Jewish thought, weaving together biblical and rabbinic studies to reveal a holistic portrait of the notion of sin and failure within Jewish thought.

The suffix "agogue" means to lead or grow. Here as well, Sin•a•gogue: Sin and Failure in Jewish Thought will provide its readers frameworks and strategies to develop even in the face of failure.

"A manual for living with defeat" —Tablet

It is no more possible to think about religion without sin than it is to think about a garden without dirt.

By its very nature, the ideals of religion entail sin and failure. Judaism has its own language and framework for sin that expresses themselves both legally and philosophically. Both legal questions—circumstances where sin is permissible or mandated, the role of intention and action—as well as philosophical questions—why sin occurs and how does Judaism react to religious crisis—are considered within this volume. This book will present the concepts of sin and failure in Jewish thought, weaving together biblical and rabbinic studies to reveal a holistic portrait of the notion of sin and failure within Jewish thought.

The suffix "agogue" means to lead or grow. Here as well, Sin•a•gogue: Sin and Failure in Jewish Thought will provide its readers frameworks and strategies to develop even in the face of failure.

The notebooks included in the three volume set 100 Conversations You Need to Have contain A Philosophy Guide, A Stoic Philosophy Guide, and A Chinese Philosophy Guide.

Each notebook offers an accessible and thought-provoking collection of life’s big questions and corresponding answers from some of history’s greatest philosophers. Readers are provided with the opportunity to answer each question, turn the page and receive a short piece of advice from thinkers on topics that include: 

• Happiness
• Friendship
• Discipline
• Patience
• The meaning of life and death
• And other essential topics

The list of philosophers that are featured in each notebook is very multicultural. It includes both men and women and spans across time, including, among others, Aristotle, Seneca, Simone de Beauvoir, Lao Tzu, Dr. Martin Luther King Jr., Alfarabi, Jean-Paul Sartre and Pema Chodron.

These notebooks duplicate the Socratic dialogue method and embody the idea of philosophy being a pathway to a more fulfilling life by creating 100 meaningful dialogues between the reader and a diverse array of interlocutors who will guide them on their journey to crafting a good life.