Linwood Messina Literary Agency is a boutique agency based in Paris representing rights on behalf of French and English language publishers, agencies and authors. Our list is quite diverse covering mostly every genre except for SF and children's books.
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A bold, new history of British Jewish life since the Second World War. Historian Gavin Schaffer wrestles Jewish history away from the question of what others have thought about Jews, focusing instead on the experiences of Jewish people themselves. Exploring the complexities of inclusion and exclusion, he shines a light on groups that have been marginalised within Jewish history and culture, such as queer Jews, Jews married to non-Jews, Israel-critical Jews and even Messianic Jews, while offering a fresh look at Jewish activism, Jewish religiosity and Zionism. Weaving these stories together, Schaffer argues that there are good reasons to consider Jewish Britons as a unitary whole, even as debates rage about who is entitled to call themselves a Jew. Challenging the idea that British Jewish life is in terminal decline. An unorthodox history demonstrates that Jewish Britain is thriving and that Jewishness is deeply embedded in the country's history and culture.
This book began with Paul Steinberg's realization that although religions are struggling to meet the needs and trends of our modern age, spirituality is not. Its contemporary manifestations continue to thrive, and Jews can be found throughout all varieties of spiritual leadership in America.Facing the fact that, for whatever reason, Jewish leaders simply have not done a good job of translating the ancient, spiritual wisdom of their beliefs into contemporary language and images that resonate with mass appeal, Rabbi Steinberg knew that the faith of his fathers was ready for a new spiritual message. And so he has written it―a message that is both particular to Judaism and uses Jewish language and text as starting points for a view that is universal enough to include spiritual concepts, terms, and expressions from many other spiritual traditions.Spiritual Growth: A Contemporary Jewish Approach provides both a language and a set of Jewish spiritual principles that are accessible and integrated with contemporary life, as well as being deep and authentically real (i.e., not “dumbed down” for anyone). It is a work that emerged out of Rabbi Steinberg's own personal experiences, pains, and spiritual journey―the trials and growth documented in his highly successful book Recovery, the 12 Steps, and Jewish Spirituality.There are not a lot of works like this. There are books on Jewish scholarship, history, and theology. But books on Jewish spirituality tend usually to focus on a particular motif, such as the feminine, grief, aging, or Kabbalistic biblical interpretations. Spiritual Growth: A Contemporary Jewish Approach presents its message through the psycho-spiritual world view of 2018 but without the language and narrative of a therapist. It is an important contribution to the spiritual-seeking community at large, to Jews who have become alienated from their faith, and to anyone interested in learning more about what a historically vibrant spirituality can bring to today's troubled world.
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Michel Ezra Safra & Sons is a family saga by a well-known Israeli writer, Amnon Shamosh. The story is semibiographical and takes place partly in Aleppo, Syria, the birthplace of the author. The book describes the life, struggles, and dispersion of a well-to-do Syrian Jewish family during the course of three generations, beginning in the mid-1930’s. The story of the Ezra Safra family is the tale of a Middle Eastern Jewish society and its basic traditional values, which are constantly challenged by other norms, both circumstantial and universal. Shaken by local and global upheavals, the family, headed by Michel and his pretty wife Linda, is driven from their hometown of Aleppo during riots in the aftermath of the United Nations resolution in late 1947 on the establishment of a Jewish state in Palestine. Michel, a practical figure, continues to rule his worldwide business empire. His grip on his children seems to loosen, however, though he still enjoys their respect and love. Rachmo, the eldest son and heir apparent, runs the Paris branch of the family business, but his conduct as a family man does not live up to his parents’ standards. Albert, his younger brother, abhors business and shuns the course he is expected to take. He finds an outlet in Zionist underground activity, including “smuggling” Jews into Palestine. Five other Safra sons and daughters emigrate to Europe, America, and Israel. What concerns Michel most, disturbing and haunting him, is not the state of his financial empire, but a grave “sin” that he has committed. When the old synagogue of Aleppo was set on fire, Michel rescued the “Aram Zova” Torah scroll and managed to keep it from burning. He removed a piece from this priceless, sacred scroll and secreted it in a safe in Nice, France. Although this treasure is protected, Michel construes the tragedies that befall the family as divine punishment. Throughout the novel, the reader follows Michel on his worldwide travels, settling family and business affairs, burdened by poor health and by his conscience. The life of his son Albert, now an influential member of a collective settlement in Israel, is completely alien to him. The saga of the Ezra Safra family draws to a finale when Michel dies heartbroken a few days after his grandson is killed during the 1967 Six-Day War. Later, Rachmo, who was made party to his father’s secret, dies of a heart attack upon learning that the scroll in Nice has been stolen. Linda agrees to join her children in Israel, but refuses to live with them. She chooses to live a solitary life, surrounded by photos and memories of the past. Michel Ezra Safra and Sons was made into a highly successful mini-series for the Israeli television. French and Spanish translations of the entire novel are available! 348 pages, 14.5X21 cm
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A hundred years of history from two branches of a Jewish family, set against the backdrop of Tsarist Russia, from the early 19th century to their migration to Argentina in the early 20th century. It's not just the tradition of the Jews from Eastern Europe, but a vivid portrayal of the characters that inhabited this complex and diverse society of declining nobility, gypsies, and Bolsheviks. Clandestine loves, uprisings, and persecutions are described with nostalgic detail, alongside an unexpected display of Hasidic humor and magic.
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An imaginative investigation into a historical crime that sheds new light on Jewish history. In 1734 a pedlar turned smuggler named Jacob Harris slit the throats of three people in a pub in Sussex. This triple-murder, for which he was hanged and gibbeted, remains the most violent crime ever committed by a British Jew. Yet today it is all but forgotten. In The Jewish pedlar, Tony Kushner goes in search of the enigmatic Harris. Digging into a remarkable range of sources, from law records and newspaper reports to ballads and folktales, he follows the traces of Harris's legend across three hundred years of British history. In doing so, he reconstructs the world of Jewish pedlars and criminals across many continents. The lives these figures eked out at the margins of society paint a picture of persistent antisemitism - but also of remarkable integration. Intellectually bold and deeply humane, The Jewish pedlar takes a new, grassroots approach to the history of Jews in the modern world, shedding light on everyday lives from the Enlightenment to the Holocaust and beyond.
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This is an integrated collection of essays by leading scholars that looks at issues of conflict, conversion and coexistence in the religious context since the third century. The range of topics explored include paganism and Christianity in the later Roman world, the Crusades, the impact of the Reformation in Britain and Ireland, subsequent Protestant-Catholic conflict, the Hindu Renaissance in nineteenth-century India, the Palestinian-Israeli conflict, Britain in the 1960s, women and the ministry, and Christianity, Judaism and the Holocaust. The book concludes by offering an historical perspective on religion, conflict and coexistence in the world today. Published in association with The Open University, this is a student-friendly and accessible volume on popular subjects within religious history, and it will be of value to students on a range of courses, as well as to a wider readership interested in the historical background to the role of religion in the contemporary world. ;
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This book sheds light on an unprecedented Protestant conversion initiative for the global evangelisation of Jews. Founded in 1929, the International Committee on the Christian Approach to the Jews (ICCAJ) aimed to bring Jewish people to their 'spiritual destiny', a task it saw as both benevolent and essential for a harmonious society. By the time of Hitler's rise to power it was active in thirty-two countries, educating Protestant churches on the right Christian attitude towards Jews and antisemitism. Reconstructing the activities of the ICCAJ in the years before, during and immediately after the Holocaust, Tracking the Jews reveals how ideas disseminated through the organisation's discourse - 'Jewish problem', 'Jewish influence', 'Judaising threat', 'eternal Jew' - were used to rationalise, justify, explain or advance a number of deeply troubling policies. They were, for vastly different reasons, consciously used elements of argumentation in both Protestant conversionary discourse and Nazi antisemitic ideology.
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The forgotten legacy of religious Jewish anarchism, and the adventures and ideas of its key figures, finally comes to light in this book. Set in the decades surrounding both world wars, No masters but God identifies a loosely connected group of rabbis and traditionalist thinkers who explicitly appealed to anarchist ideas in articulating the meaning of the Torah, traditional practice, Jewish life and the mission of modern Jewry. Full of archival discoveries and first translations from Yiddish and Hebrew, it explores anarcho-Judaism in its variety through the works of Yaakov Meir Zalkind, Yitshak Nahman Steinberg, Yehudah Leyb Don-Yahiya, Avraham Yehudah Heyn, Natan Hofshi, Shmuel Alexandrov, Yehudah Ashlag and Aaron Shmuel Tamaret. With this ground-breaking account, Hayyim Rothman traces a complicated story about the modern entanglement of religion and anarchism, pacifism and Zionism, prophetic anti-authoritarianism and mystical antinomianism.
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This book follows the lives of female Jewish refugees who fled Nazi persecution and became nurses. Nursing was nominally a profession but with its poor pay and harsh discipline, it was unpopular with British women. In the years preceding the Second World War, hospitals in Britain suffered chronic nurse staffing crises. As the country faced inevitable war, the Government and the profession's elite courted refugees as an antidote to the shortages, but many hospitals refused to employ Continental Jews. The book explores the changes in the refugees' status and lives from the war years to the foundation of the National Health Service and to the latter decades of the twentieth century. It places the refugees at the forefront of manoeuvres in nursing practice, education and research at a time of social upheaval and alterations in the position of women.
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As European politics, society, economy and religion underwent epoch-making changes between 1400 and 1600, the treatment of Europe's Jews by the non-Jewish majority was, then as in later periods, a symptom of social problems and tensions in the Continent as a whole. Through a broad-ranging collection of documents, John Edwards sets out to present a vivid picture of the Jewish presence in European life during this vital and turbulent period. Subjects covered include the Jews' own economic presence and culture, social relations between Jews and Christians, the policies and actions of Christian authorities in Church and State. He also draws upon original source material to convey ordinary people's prejudices about Jews, including myths about Jewish 'devilishness', money-grabbing, and 'ritual murder' of Christian children. Full introductory and explanatory material makes accessible the historical context of the subject and highlights the insights offered by the documents as well as the pitfalls to be avoided in this area of historical enquiry. This volume aims to provide a coherent working collection of texts for lecturers, teachers and students who wish to understand the experience of Jewish Europeans in this period.
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Religion in the Making – so der englische Originaltitel – besteht aus vier Vorlesungen, die Whitehead 1926 gehalten hat. In der gleichen Perspektive, wie er in den ein Jahr früher gehaltenen Lowell Lectures, die unter dem Titel Wissenschaft und moderne Welt erschienen sind, Entwicklung und Wirkung der modernen Wissenschaft analysiert hatte, verfolgt er in Wie entsteht Religion? die Ziele, »eine gedrängte Analyse der vielfältigen Faktoren in der menschlichen Natur vorzulegen, die in ihrem Zusammenwirken eine neue Religion entstehen lassen, den unausweichlichen Wandel der Religion im Zusammenhang mit dem Wandel des Wissens darzustellen und insbesondere die Aufmerksamkeit darauf zu richten, wie die Religion von unserer Auffassung jener beständigen Elemente abhängt, vermöge derer es in der Welt eine feste Ordnung gibt – beständige Elemente, ohne die es keine sich verändernde Welt geben könnte«.
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This edited volume presents the latest research on the intersection of religion and medicine in Asia. It features chapters by internationally known scholars, who bring to bear a range of methodological and geographic expertise on this topic. The book's central question is to what extent 'religion' and 'medicine' have overlapped or interrelated in various Asian societies. Collectively, the contributions explore a number of related issues, such as: which societies separated out religious from medical concerns, at which times and in what ways? Where have medicine and religion converged, and how has such knowledge been defined by scholars and cultural actors? Are 'religion' and 'medicine' the best terms by which scholars can grapple with knowledge about the sacred and the self, destiny and disease?
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Die Klassiker der Soziologie hatten die Religionssoziologie als einen zentralen Teil der Gesellschaftstheorie angesehen, und zwar auch und gerade dort, wo ihnen die moderne, angeblich so religionsfern gebaute Gesellschaft vor Augen stand. Der vorliegende Band, an dem Niklas Luhmann bis kurz vor seinem Tod gearbeitet hat, erneuert diesen Anspruch, indem er die Religion als autonomes Kommunikationssystem innerhalb der modernen Gesellschaft beschreibt.
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In Singapore and Malaysia, the inversion of Chinese Underworld traditions has meant that Underworld demons are now amongst the most commonly venerated deities in statue form, channelled through their spirit mediums, tang-ki. The Chinese Underworld and its sub-hells are populated by a bureaucracy drawn from the Buddhist, Taoist and vernacular pantheons. Under the watchful eye of Hell's 'enforcers', the lower echelons of demon soldiers impose post-mortal punishments on the souls of the recently deceased for moral transgressions committed during their prior incarnations. Chinese religion in contemporary Singapore, Malaysia and Taiwan offers an ethnography of contemporary Chinese Underworld traditions, where night-time cemetery rituals assist the souls of the dead, exorcised spirits are imprisoned in Guinness bottles, and malicious foetus ghosts are enlisted to strengthen a temple's spirit army. Understanding the religious divergences between Singapore and Malaysia (and their counterparts in Taiwan) through an analysis of socio-political and historical events, Fabian Graham challenges common assumptions about the nature and scope of Chinese vernacular religious beliefs and practices. Graham's innovative approach to alterity allows the reader to listen to first-person dialogues between the author and channelled Underworld deities. Through its alternative methodological and narrative stance, the book intervenes in debates on the interrelation between sociocultural and spiritual worlds, and promotes the destigmatisation of spirit possession and discarnate phenomena in the future study of mystical and religious traditions.
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This book covers the ideological motives and religious perceptions behind travel to sites prescribed with sanctity in Judaism, Christianity and Islam. It covers sites that have drawn pilgrims and religious tourists to them for hundreds of years, and seeks to provide an understanding of the complex world of religiously motivated travel. Beginning with contemporary perspectives of pilgrimage across these religions, it then discusses management aspects such as logistics, infrastructure, malevolent behaviour and evangelical volunteers. This book: - Provides a collection of new, contemporary perspectives on pilgrimage. - Reviews the ideological motives, history, mental health, and religious perceptions of tourism to holy cities. - Contains practical applications, models and illustrations of religious tourism and pilgrimage management from a variety of international and academic perspectives. Written by subject experts, this book addresses cultural sustainability for researchers and practitioners within religious tourism, religious studies, geography and anthropology. ; This book fills a major gap in the current literature for an up-to-date account of this topic and its implications for crop improvement. Written by authorities from the UK, USA, Canada, Peru, Netherlands, Germany, Sweden and Poland, this major reference work will be indispensible for workers in plant genetics, breeding and biotechnology. ; 1: Western Holy Cities and Places – An IntroductionPart I: Western Pilgrimage to Holy Cities in Judaism, Christianity and Islam2: Judaism – Jewish and Israeli Pilgrimage Experience: Constructing National Identity3: Christianity – Contemporary Christian Pilgrimage and Traditional Management Practices at Sacred Sites4: Christanity- Christian Pilgrimage to Sacred Sites in the Holy Land: A Swedish Perspective5: Islam – Contemporary Perspectives6: Islam – Spiritual Journey in Islam: the Qur’anic Cognitive ModelPart II: Managing Pilgrimage Sites in Holy Cities7: Pilgrimage Policy Management: Between Shrine Strategy and Ritual Improvisation8: The Management of Pilgrims with Malevolent Behaviour in a Holy Space: a Study of Jerusalem Syndrome9: Logistics at Holy Sites10: Protestants and Pilgrimages: the Protestant Infrastructure in Jerusalem11: The Impact of the Islamic State of Iraq and Syria’s Campaign on Yezidi Religious Structures and Pilgrimage Practices12: Evangelical Volunteers in Israel as Long-term Pilgrims: Ambassadors for the KingdomPart III: Closing Words13: Redeeming Western Holy Places and Contested Holy Cities-: Appendix – Discussion Points
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This book offers a collection of essays tightly focused around the issue of religion in England between 1640 and 1660, a time of upheaval and civil war in England. Edited by well-known scholars of the subject, topics include the toleration controversy, women's theological writing, observance of the Lord's Day and prayer books. To aid understanding, the essays are divided into three sections examining theology in revolutionary England, inside and outside the revolutionary National Church and local impacts of religious revolution. Carefully and thoughtfully presented, this book will be of great use for those seeking to better understand the practices and patterns of religious life in England in this important and fascinating period. ;
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Religion and life cycles in early modern England assembles scholars working in the fields of history, English literature and art history to further our understanding of the intersection between religion and the life course in the period c. 1550-1800. Featuring chapters on Catholic, Protestant and Jewish communities, it encourages cross-confessional comparison between life stages and rites of passage that were of religious significance to all faiths in early modern England. The book considers biological processes such as birth and death, aspects of the social life cycle including schooling, coming of age and marriage and understandings of religious transition points such as spiritual awakenings and conversion. Through this inclusive and interdisciplinary approach, it seeks to show that the life cycle was not something fixed or predetermined and that early modern individuals experienced multiple, overlapping life cycles.
