Book: Encyclopedia of Jews in the Islamic World

The five-volume printed set of the "Encyclopedia of Jews in the Islamic World" is now available in print and online ... for a price.

The "Encyclopedia of Jews in the Islamic World" (EJIW) covers an area of Jewish history, religion, and culture which until now has lacked a specific reference work. It attempts to fill the gap in academic reference literature on the Jews of Muslim lands, particularly in the late medieval, early modern and modern periods.

Details:

-- The only reference work of its kind: up-to-date research and bibliographies make it indispensable for all levels of users.

-- 350-plus internationally-renowned scholars from North America, Europe, Africa and the Middle East.

-- 250-plus color and black and white illustrations, graphs, and maps.

-- 2200-plus entries and 1.5 million words.

-- four volumes plus a resource and index volume.

There is also an online version as of July 2010; email for pricing. The online version will be updated - in 2011 and 2012 - with additional thousands of photographs, audio files and primary sources.

Additional information is available here. The set includes four volumes plus a resource and Index volume.

The editorial board includes:

-- Executive Editor Norman A. Stillman
-- Al-Andalus: Angel Saenz-Badillos
-- Medieval Arabic-Speaking World: Meira Polliack
-- Modern Arabic-Speaking World: Daniel Schroeter, Phillip Ackerman-Lieberman
-- Ottoman Empire and Modern Turkey: Avigdor Levy, Yaron Ayalon (associate editor)
-- Persia, Modern Iran, Kurdistan, Caucasus and Central Asia: Vera Basch Moreen

According to Brill's description of the readership for this work:

The EJIW is first and foremost a reference work destined for a post-graduate audience. However, the Encyclopedia should be accessible to the informed general reader and university undergraduates. For this reason, both topics of classical scholarship and modern themes of an analytic nature will be covered.

While Tracing the Tribe is sure this will be of interest to researchers, this is one set you will want to access in the library, as the US list price is $1,099. Brill's publications are always very expensive. It seems strange that a company that publishes such interesting material thinks that only university professors are interested in its books. If they worked on a lower-price point, more accessible to a much wider community of interested readers, they would sell many more copies.

It reminds me of a very old joke. An old man is selling apples on the street. A passerby stops and asks how much for one. The man answers $100. The passerby remarks on the excessive cost, the man replies, "But I only have to sell one!"

Brill publishes interesting material on many Jewish subjects, including Sephardim and Persian Jews, but it is simply unattainable to the reading audience unless they live near a library that has purchased those books. Such materials should be priced to attract many more readers. While most genealogists are used to paying from $75-100 for books covering our subjects of interest, Brill's price point seems to be in the $200-minimum range. Certainly too pricey for any but university libraries.

This is in addition to an extremely restrictive review copy policy, which usually has the words - I'm paraphrasing here - "our books are very expensive and we don't like to provide review copies." If the books were less expensive..........?

OK, I've come down from my soapbox. Do take a look at the Brill website and see the interesting materials that you may want to add to your never-never wish list or at least until you win the lottery.

Institutions wishing a free trial to the online EJIW should have their librarians contact Brill.

Washington DC: 'Gift to Stalin' film, June 23

The Kazakh film - "Gift to Stalin" - will be shown in the Washington, DC area on Wednesday, June 23.

Sasha, a young Jewish orphan, is sent into exile during a Stalinist purge. Losing his grandfather on the long train journey, Sasha is rescued by a gruff widowed rail worker Kasym (the distinguished Kazakh actor Nurzhuman Ikhtimbaev). Kasym takes the boy to his remote village where Sasha becomes part of a surrogate family of other cast outs. A Muslim living by the tenets of ethnic and religious tolerance, Kasym renames Sasha as Sabyr, meaning "humble of heart" in its Arabic origin, but the older man still preserves the boy's Jewish identity. What Sasha/Sabyr finds on the lovingly-filmed, sweeping Kazakh steppes is more than survival in this lyrical, poignant story told through a child's memories. Film clips in Kazakh and Russian with English subtitles.

At noon, the film will be presented at the Library of Congress (Mumford Room,6th Floor, Madison Building), and at the Magen David Sephardic Congregation (Rockville, Maryland) at 7pm.

From the website of the San Francisco Jewish Film Festival:

In 1949, railcars holding Jews and other deportees creep eastward into oblivion. Or is it? For young Sasha, salvation comes through a rubric of chance, defiance and love. His enforced rebirth finds him surrounded by a makeshift new clan: his savior and new grandfather, Kasym (veteran actor Nurzhuman Ikhtimbaev), who is Muslim; Verka, the wife of a traitor; Ezhik, a Polish resister; and a gang of orphans—a wilderness family with deep bonds despite habitual harassment from authorities. Rare news comes from Moscow announcing a children’s contest celebrating Stalin’s 70th birthday. If Sasha’s original gift wins, he hopes to achieve his parents’ freedom. Decades pass, and Sasha questions history and his fate: “Who are you in the land of your God if a part of your soul was left behind?” Gift’s allegorical ending will linger long in your heart and mind, likely to raise questions, yet perhaps answer others, such as Kasym’s early query, “Whose flock are you from?"

The screening is in cooperation with the European Division and Hebrew Language Table of the LOC with the Washington Jewish Film Festival and the Embassy of Kazakhstan.

The LOC event includes clips of the film and a lecture by producers Boris Cherdabayev and Aliya Uvalzhanova.

The complete film will be screened at Magen David, along with a discussion by the filmmakers.

Both events are free to the public.

Cherdabayev and Uvalzhanova founded Aldongar Productions Kazakhstan in 2006. Their mission is to preserve the cultural and historical legacy of the country, which has a history of tolerance and diversity, as exemplified by its Jewish community with a history of some 2,500 years.