Martin Goodman is professor of Jewish studies at the University of Oxford, where he is president of the Oxford Centre for Hebrew and Jewish Studies and a fellow of Wolfson College. His books include Rome and Jerusalem: TheClash of Ancient Civilizations and The Oxford Handbook of Jewish Studies. A sweeping history of Judaism over more than three millennia Judaism is one of the oldest religions in the world, and it has preserved its distinctive identity...

"After a decade as a political speechwriter for leaders like Hillary Clinton and President Barack Obama, and as head speechwriter for First Lady Michelle Obama, 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 thirty-six, after a tough break-up, she happened upon an advertisement for a beginner's class on...

A world-renowned scholar reveals how a pivotal transformation in spiritual experience during the biblical era made us who we are today A great mystery lies at the heart of the Bible. Early on, people seem to live in a world entirely foreign to our own. God appears to Abraham and Sarah, Jacob and others; God buttonholes Moses and Isaiah and Jeremiah and tells them what to say. Then comes the Great Shift, and Israelites stop seeing God or hearing the...

The much-dissected Pew Research Center study of 2013, A Portrait of Jewish Americans, revealed that most U.S. Jews locate their Jewishness in their ancestry and culture―not in religion. Abigail Pogrebin wondered if perhaps that’s because we haven’t all looked at religion closely enough. Although she grew up following some holiday rituals, Pogrebin realized how little she knew about their foundational purpose and current relevance. She wanted...

"I am Miriam, the dancer. Feel the stories of the Bible come to life within you. I am the Tree of Life. The Torah is called the Tree of Life. Just as a tree is always growing and changing, the Torah's ideas can help us grow and change, too. Yoga can do the same. Both can help us strengthen ourselves, calm our minds, and learn to appreciate the world around us. Written by rabbi and certified yoga instructor Mychal Copeland, I Am the Tree of Life encourages...

Since 1925 the Streit’s matzo factory has sat in a low-slung tenement building on Manhattan’s Lower East Side. While other matzo companies have modernized, Streit’s remained a piece of living history, churning out 40 percent of the nation’s unleavened bread on pre-War machinery as old as the factory itself. In a neighborhood where the Jewish immigrants long ago moved on, in a nation where progress and profits trump all else, where manufacturing...

"What does it mean to be a Jew? At a time of worldwide crisis, venerable answers to this question have become unsettled. In To Be a Jew Today, the legal scholar and columnist Noah Feldman draws on a lifelong engagement with his religion to offer a wide-ranging interpretation of Judaism in its current varieties. How do Jews today understand their relationship to God, to Israel, and to each other—and live their lives accordingly? Writing sympathetically...

A web of family secrets unravels in this moving documentary following a family fractured by war. Two brothers, Izak and Shep, were born inside the Bergen-Belsen displaced persons camp in 1945 and separated as babies, never told of the other’s existence. Nearly 70 years later, the discovery of family records leads the brothers to an emotional reunion with their elderly mother, Aida, who hid more from Izak and Shep than just each other. Official Selection...

The final film from groundbreaking auteur Chantal Akerman, NO HOME MOVIE is a portrait of her relationship with her mother, Natalia, a Holocaust survivor and familiar presence in many of her daughter's films. At once disarmingly intimate and formally rigorous, NO HOME MOVIE is a singualr exploration of family, memory and history.

I HAVE NEVER FORGOTTEN YOU provides an intimate portrait of famed Nazi hunter and humanitarian, Simon Wiesenthal. This rare biography looks closely at the sacrifices made by one of history's bravest and boldest.