The essays in this important book span an entire millennium, from the arrival of Jews to Chinese shores during the Tang Dynasty in the 9th Century to modern times, illuminating the fascinating encounters between the two cultures. The first part of the book deals with the arrival of Jews to China and their organisation and life in the remote and isolated community of Kaifeng, the settlement of Jews after the Opium War in the mid-nineteenth century and finally the story of the Jewish refugees who flocked to China to find a haven from Nazi persecution in the twentieth century. The second part reflects on the intellectual exchanges between Jews and their Chinese hosts, how the Jewish communities maintained their identity and how their respective cultures met and merged in surprising and powerful ways through scholarship, literary exchange, the translation of Chinese and Yiddish works and through religious reciprocation. Unique in its breadth and depth of analysis, Irene Eber's account of the intellectual and inter-cultural history of these two civilisations, at first sight so diverse, is of great value to scholars and general readers alike.

Boerejood

Julian Roup

PB £11.50

Boerejood is biography crossed with the unpacking of political mystery, crossed with a travel book. A bit of a chameleon - a book of many colours. It takes readers on a 1,000 mile journey round the Cape as Capetonian returns after 25 years abroad to seek an understanding of the SA 'Miracle'. The writer grows up with a foot in two cultures and finding that this can be both uncomfortable & funny. It speaks of then and now and how to live in South Africa today. The book is NOT an apologia for the Afrikaners - but I do speak up for them. It is about the loss of land, language and culture - it is a sad song from the heart of a half Afrikaans expatriate. It is a bifocal view of South Africa which compares and contrasts the Jews and the Afrikaners. It poses the question: 'Will the Afrikaners survive as a tribe, a culture.

A Song of Longing: An Ethopian Journey

Kay Kaufman Shelemay

PB £11.60

'The author's experience with the Beta Israel, the Falashas of Ethiopia, in the early 1970s may be the last in-situ scholarly account we can expect, because the revolution and civil war prevented subsequent access to them... One would not have expected ethnomusicological research to have been quite so exciting nor the scholarly implications of the findings to be so provoking and critical in understanding the social evolution of a population. Highly recommended for both undergraduate and graduate collections in ethnomusicology, anthropology, African, and Judiac studies.'-L.D.

The Jews in Australia

Suzanne D. Rutland

PB £17.99

Jews form only a tiny proportion of the Australian population, yet they have made outstanding contributions and have influenced Australian society immeasurably. Stories such as that of Sir John Monash, Australian commander-in-chief during World War I, whose legacy continues through Monash University, show how Jews have reached the highest echelons of Australian society. The Jews in Australia explores what makes the Australian Jewish community different from other Jewish communities around the world. It traces the community's history from its convict origins in 1788 through to today's vibrant Jewish culture in Australia, and highlights the social and cultural impact the Jews have had on Australia. As well as looking at the emergence of a specific faith tradition in Australia, the book also explores how Jews, as Australia's first ethnic group, have integrated into multicultural Australia .

Jews of the Raj

Mavis Hyman

PB £14.95

An excellent account of one of the lost worlds of Jewry and broadens the scope of Mrs. Hyman's interest in the social and communal heritage of the extended community of Baghdadi Jewry. It gives the flavour of life in Calcutta, at the epicentre of the Raj, and brings together long-lived memories of a lost era. It will provide a seedbed for further research and has the virture of readability and personal experience.