Rabbi A. James Rudin

In his new book, Defending Israel: The Story of My Relationship with My Most Challenging Client, Alan Dershowitz underscores his love affair with and his passionate defense of the world’s only Jewish state: “There was never a time that Israel was not part of my consciousness.”

Karl Marx! The name conjures up an intimidating bearded revolutionary intent on violently overthrowing society. Shlomo Avineri, professor emeritus of political science at the Hebrew University, shatters that conception in his superb new biography.

This books tells the story of the Papal State’s 300-year effort to forcibly convert the Jews of Rome to Catholicism. The officially sanctioned campaign included kidnapping youngsters, harsh incarceration, and mind manipulation.

Hitler (Oxford University Press) is the definitive biography of Adolf Hitler. Despite its length, Longerich’s book is no ornamental “door stopper;” it is, rather, an “eye opener” that sets this book apart from those of many other Hitler biographers.