Coming in September 2025
When Einstein Met Kafka
By Diego Moldes
The extraordinary breadth of Jewish contributions to Western Culture
in the sciences and arts have been, and continues to be, incalculable.
“This landmark contribution by a leading cultural historian, Diego Moldes, is an original achievement: the fullest and most historically grounded study of Jewish intellectual and cultural achievements and contributions. It fills a gap in the worldwide literature, at the very moment that it addresses urgent issues of the place … in their own contexts, especially today’s challenges not only to larger understandings but to contemporary everyday lives”
—Harvey J. Graff, a comparative social and cultural historian, Professor Emeritus of English and History, Ohio State University, is the author of The Literacy Myth, Literacy and Social Development in the West,
“There is no book like this one, which examines the contributions of Jews as individuals (not as a religious people) to all fields of knowledge”
—Stuart Weitzman, World Renowned Shoe Designer and Entrepreneur
Coming in September 2025
SONS OF SURVIVORS
Making Peace with Inherited Trauma
By Aron Hirt-Manheimer and Marty Yura
This joint memoir encapsulates the power of friendship and love for two sons of Holocaust Survivors
“Two sons of Holocaust survivors, conceived in the same Displaced Persons camp, recount the arc of their converging and diverging lives, and how they reconnected. A memorable contribution to post-war American Jewish history and to the literature on inherited trauma.”
-- Jonathan D. Sarna, University Professor and Joseph H. & Belle R. Braun Professor of American Jewish History, Brandeis University
“SONS OF SURVIVORS: Making Peace with Inherited Trauma testifies to the continuing trauma of the Holocaust eighty years after the Holocaust….The authors work through their traumatic legacy seeking to transform the sheer evil of Nazism into a two-fold challenge for Jews and non-Jews alike: How can love prevail against hate? and, How can the lessons of the Holocaust serve as a stimulus to achieve a tikkun (repair) of the world?"
—Alan Berger, Raddock Family Eminent Scholar Chair in Holocaust Studies, Director, Center for the Study of Values and Violence after Auschwitz, Florida Atlantic University,
At a moment when the Holocaust stakes a fresh claim on contemporary life, Sons of Survivors offers fresh insights on the story that continues to shape our lives. Mixing personal friendship, family history, and profound insights on inherited trauma ---This book will inspire many meaningful conversations.”
—Bruce Feiler, NY Times bestselling author of Walking The Bible
“Aron is a writer possessed of his own special voice. The result is a rare blend of integrity, persuasiveness, and good literary sense.”
-Elie Wiesel, author of Night and Nobel Peace Prize Laureate
“A remarkable tale of inter-generational karma, alternately courageous and tender, painful and promising, a story of historical reckoning. For all seekers on a quest for spiritual identity, this is a book of enduring hope, a profound testament to how shared memory is vital to healing.”
--Tias Little, author of Yoga of the Subtle Body
“This strange and haunting dual memoir captures the legacy of the Holocaust and how it carries its ache down through generations. A gorgeous piece of work, it will give insight to anyone who wants to understand what was lost in the nightmare course of the twentieth century. And what was saved.”
--Rich Cohen, author of Tough Jews and The Fish That Ate the Whale,
“Making peace with intergenerational legacies of trauma involves a continuous unraveling and acceptance of unbearable memories, emotions, and choices while moving toward liberation and self-actualization. This is what the authors do as they navigate their quest to better understand how the Holocaust impacted their identities and relationships…. to undo and repair the past and heal the world for their parents and themselves.”
--Dr. Yael Danieli, From The Foreword
Coming in September 2025
Pass the Trauma, Please
By Todd Diamond
If Mel Brooks and Amy Schumer adopted a second-generation Holocaust survivor, raised him, then sent him off to a writer’s retreat, you’d get Pass the Trauma Please.
“Pass the Trauma, Please isn’t just about the death camps, the gas chambers, the incomprehensible evil. It’s about the Holocaust and its aftershocks. The unrelenting ripple effect of a unique trauma that echoes through children raised in the long shadow of tragedy.”
—ABE FOXMAN, former national director of the Anti-Defamation League.
“This original, provocative, and irreverent memoir presents us with a unique second-generation Holocaust survivor viewpoint that is worthy of a film script. It helps us fathom the unfathomable and even manages to make us laugh along the way. This is not your typical Holocaust story in any way, shape, or form, and therein lies its strength.”
—JAY ROSENBLATT, Academy Award–nominated director
“It takes great courage to confront one’s demons by sharing them with your children, especially when they are now adults. Yet, that’s exactly what ninety-year-old Holocaust survivor David Diamondstein finally does—before his time runs out. Written with much love and wit, his son Todd comes to grips with his own trauma by connecting the historic dots between the Holocaust and the rise of current global antisemitism in the post–October 7th world. Pass the Trauma, Please stands as a unique memoir among Holocaust literature because it does far more than document the past. It connects the past to the present.”
—HAYA MOLNAR, author of Under a Red Sky: Memoir of a Childhood in Communist Romania, winner of the National Jewish Book Award
“The enormity of the Holocaust could not possibly be dissipated in one generation. Todd Diamond’s daring, transgressive, entertaining memoir reads like a roller-coaster speeding from past to present and then back again, reimagining the unimaginable, looking for a finishing line that can never be crossed and a legacy that can’t be ignored.”
—THANE ROSENBAUM, author of the post-Holocaust trilogy: The Golems of Gotham, Secondhand Smoke, and Elijah Visible.
"I laughed so hard at some of this and felt sick in other places. Definitely, a whirlwind of emotions. I sure wish I could meet Todd’s father. What a story.”
—ELIZABETH ASDORIAN, creative director, Ancestry.com
It Takes Two to Torah
The Five Books of Moses
By Abigail Pogrebin and Rabbi Dov Linzer
"Abigail Pogrebin and Rabbi Dov Linzer illuminate the Torah through discussion in the most joyous, insightful, conversational way. They make what could be an academic concept –to investigate and discuss the true meaning of the Torah--into delightful banter, coming at it from two very different perspectives.
They give us permission to question and interpret the layers of the
text and in so doing, realize that it is the questioning that makes us human. I thoroughly enjoyed reading this book and learned so much along the way."
-JULIANNA MARGULIES, Actor/Producer/Author
"This unlikely, inspired pairing of an esteemed Torah scholar (Orthodox) and brilliant journalist (Reform) leads to some of the most spontaneous, moving exchanges about our tradition's foundational text. Linzer and Pogrebin embody the magic of talking Torah--arguing, asking, letting it meet you where you are. It Takes Two to Torah is a gift to anyone who wants to be part of this eternal conversation and be enlightened and surprised -even rabbis who read it every year."
-RABBI ANGELA BUCHDAHL, Senior Rabbi, Central Synagogue
"Rabbi Linzer and journalist Pogrebin (My Jewish Year) discuss 52 weekly readings of the Torah in this intellectually lively adaptation of their Parsha in Progress podcast. Aiming to step outside their “echo chambers,” the authors draw fresh insights…. Such openness gives the book its spark and propels the authors’ broad-minded consideration of such questions as the value of ritual versus belief and what the Bible might have to say about gender identity. Rigorous and readable, it’s a stimulating addition to modern-day Torah scholarship."
-PUBLISHERS WEEKLY, June 4, 2024
"Articulate, eloquent, fascinating, insightful, thoughtful and thought-provoking, "It Takes Two to Torah: An Orthodox Rabbi and Reform Journalist Discuss and Debate Their Way Through the Five Books of Moses" is an extraordinary and unreservedly recommended reading for anyone with an interest in the Torah, Jewish Religious Studies, and the first five books of the Old Testament."
– Midwest Book Review
The Deadening
By Jim Beane
"The book’s muscular straightforward stye and deepening nightmarish tone keeps you in its grip . . . .A powerful depiction of the psychological ravages of war.”
- KIRKUS REVIEWS
"Even though Beane grants limited access to his antihero’s emotional and psychological state, Hickman’s restless and violent actions still give insight into the character and offer an unsparing view of combat trauma."
- PUBLISHERS WEEKLY
"Jim Beane is a rising star in the East Coast literary scene who now shines his light onto the plains of Middle America and a time in history that foretold many of the problems we all face today."
- JAMES GRADY, AUTHOR OF SIX DAYS THE CONDOR AND THE SMOKE IN OUR EYES: A NOVEL
"Like John Steinbeck, Jim Beane is drawn to what happens when the cold machinery of society grinds up an individual and spits him out. Harrell Hickman is a compelling creation: part hero, part outlaw. Told in tightly controlled, spellbinding prose, The Deadening is a marvelously wise debut novel."
K.E SEMMEL, AUTHOR OF THE BOOK OF LOSMAN
"The Deadening deftly brings alive the life and death of men grasping to recover from the killing fields of World War I. Unrelenting story-telling against a stark setting."
HARRY JAFFE, CO-AUTHOR OF DREAM CITY: RACE, POWER AND THE DECLINE OF WASHINGTON, D.C.
Still Life at Eighty, A Memoir
By Nicholas Delbanco
"Delbanco’s fluency, the self-reflexivity, the allusiveness and elusiveness, the wit are in service here to what feels like something new. -- The Delbanco book I’ve been waiting and wanting to read for half my life. Bravo."
—David Shields, author of Reality Hunger, The Thing About Life Is That One Day You’ll Be Dead
"Still Life at Eighty is a triumphant, wise, and elegant memoir that beautifully explores the experience of aging, the joy of life, the inevitability of its end, and Delbanco's remarkably influential journey through the arts."
-- Charles Johnson, A National Book Award winner and MacArthur Fellow
"Houses, family, books, fellow writers, mentors, protégés, ghosts – the wide-eyed younger self meets the wise man looking back with gratitude …. A life worth reading: Nicholas Delbanco does it again."
—James Carroll, author of The Cloister
"Nowadays the word “memoir” can conjure up gruesome tales of abuse, crime, and poverty. Happily, Nicholas Delbanco’s backward look at age 80 is a welcome rarity: this richly gifted author has been blessed with a fortunate life…. Delbanco’s birthday is time for a reckoning … Scores of houses ("repositories of memory"); rollicking friendships with the major writers of his time; a family troupe of loving women."
–Lynn Sharon Schwartz, author of 29 books of fiction, essays and poetry including the celebrated novels, Disturbances in the Field and Leaving Brooklyn.
June 2024
Our Mandel Vilar Press author Homero Aridjis wins prestigious Griffin Poetry Prize!
Winner of the 2024 Griffin Poetry Prize
We are thrilled to announce that Self-Portrait in the Zone of Silence by Homero Aridjis, translated by George McWhirter, has won the Griffin Poetry Prize.
The judges write:
“Self-Portrait in the Zone of Silence brings poet-translator George McWhirter’s adept English to the service of a great world-poet, Homero Aridjis. The book’s enchanting variety of tones and subjects expresses a rounded human being engaged with our total experience, from the familial to the political, from bodily sensations to dream, vision, philosophic thought, and history, from hope to foreboding. A keynote is the sense of a person speaking with us plainly and yet from kinship with a light that bathes, and springs from, each thing.”
Hot off the presses. Deborah Kalb is a well known book blogger who interviews new book authors about their books. This link will take you to Deborah's interview with our author, Eva Umlauf, The Number on Your Forearm is lue Like Your Eyes.
Naomi wrote an Afterword for the book that was recently reprinted on the Jewish Book Council's website. Naomi is mixed race--and her thoughts in the afterword show a kinship with her grandmother's plight as both she and her grandmother are/were considered, "The Other" in their respective majority populations. Erik, Eva's son, married Natalie Williams, who is African American in 1997 and they have two beautiful and bright daughters--Nadja and Naomi. Naomi is a student at Brown U and helped to found the first Black Literary Journal at Brown U. Naomi's mother, Natalie, is a lawyer who clerked for Justice Sotomayor and Sotomayor officiated at the wedding of Erik and Natalie. Natalie became a legal adviser to President Clinton and she and her husband Erik (who is Eva's first born son and is the CFO of J.P. Morgan Bank in New York) were major donors and supporters of Barack Obama.
Eva presented her book in a discussion with well known writer, Daniel Mendelsohn and with translator Shelley Frisch at the 92nd Street Y in New York City to a packed audience of 100+. The discussion was riveting. The 92nd St Y had ordered 30 books for sale and every book was sold and there were many more people who still wanted a copy.
June 2024
Recently Published in May 2024 Co-publication from Mandel Vilar Press and Dryad Press
The Number on Your Forearm Is Blue
Like Your Eyes: A Memoir
By Eva Umlauf with Stefanie Oswalt
Translated from the German by Shelley Frisch. Foreword by Michael Brenner . Afterword by Naomi Umlauf
Book events have just been scheduled and announced to launch Eva Umlauf's memoir:
(1) (May 2nd, a book event hosted by Brown University and the Campus Hillel--Eva Umlauf will have a public discussion of her memoir with her granddaughter who is a student at Brown University on May 2nd.
Then on (2) May 6th the 92nd Street Y (92Y) in New York City will have a book event featuring Eva Umlauf, the author,in discussion about the book with the well known writer Daniel Mendelsohn (former Editor in Chief of The New York Review of Books) and bestselling author and introduced by Shelley Frisch, the translator that we used for the book. Invitations will go out for the 100-seat theater at the 92nd St. Y.
June 1/2022
Mandel Vilar Press and Fig Tree Books LLC
Form A Strategic Partnership
Effective immediately, FTB has become an imprint of MVP.
Robert Mandel said, “Fig Tree’s mission of publishing the best literature of the American Jewish experience dovetails extraordinarily well with Mandel Vilar Press’s mission of advancing diversity and conservation in the book economy and bringing underrepresented literature of the Americas to a wide audience.” READ MORE
LATEST NEWS
Dear Friends and Colleagues Anna Salton Eisen, our author of (1) Pillar of Salt: A Daughter's Life in the Shadow of the Holocaust (ISBN: 9781942134 824) and co-author of (2) The 23rd Psalm: A Holocaust Memoir (ISBN: 9781942134848) has been a very active author speaking a both in-person and virtual events in 2022 and now again in 2023. So far She will be speaking at 10 events in many cities of Texas; she will also be speaking at two events on Long Island, New York; one event in Winston Salem, NC; One event in Newton, MA; one event in Wayne , NJ; one event in Phoenix AZ. We expect that there will be other book events added to this calendar Anna's Book, PILLAR OF SALT was just approved by the Texas Advisory Commission for adoption in middle and high schools in Texas: Here are the links: Just got on the Texas approved Holocaust reading list! https://thgaac.texas.gov/learning/hrw/approved-readings-for-the-classroom https://thgaac.texas.gov/learning/hrw/approved-readings-for-the-classroom#modal-206147 In 2023 (especially in the first four months of the New Year) she is the featured speaker at a number of important events: UPCOMING EVENTS: SUNDAY, JANUARY 15, 2023 – GRAPEVINE, TX First Presbyterian Church Grapevine WEDNESDAY, JANUARY 18, 2023 – VIRTUAL EVENT Statewide Louisiana “A Meaningful Learning Opportunity” **NOTE Her presentation will be broadcasted to every high school in Louisiana SATURDAY, JANUARY 21, 2023 – SOUTHLAKE, TX Gateway Church – Holocaust Remembrance Event MONDAY, JANUARY 23, 2023 – SAN ANTONIO, TX The Holocaust Museum of San Antonio Two San Antonio ISD High School Visits MONDAY, JANUARY 23, 2023 – SAN ANTONIO, TX San Antonio Public Library Holocaust Learn and Remember Series WEDNESDAY, JANUARY 25, 2023 – VIRTUAL EVENT The Holocaust Museum of San Antonio Webinar Presentation for Area Schools SUNDAY, FEBRUARY 5, 2023 – COLLEYVILLE, TX Good Shepherd Catholic Community THURSDAY, FEBRUARY 9, 2023 – VIRTUAL EVENT Women of Chai at Temple Beth Tikvah in Wayne, NJ WEDNESDAY, FEBRUARY 15, 2023 – GRAPEVINE, TX Grapevine Rotary Club TUESDAY, FEBRUARY 21, 2023 – VIRTUAL EVENT—GLEN COVE, NY Holocaust Memorial and Tolerance Center of Nassau County TUESDAY, FEBRUARY 28, 2023 – VIRTUAL EVENT—MANHASSET, NY Irving Roth Holocaust Resource Center of Temple Judea TUESDAY, MARCH 7, 2023 – DALLAS, TX Easy Readers Book Club WEDNESDAY, APRIL 12, 2023 – FORT WORTH, TX Ladies of Literati Book Club MONDAY, APRIL 17, 2023 – WINSTON-SALEM, NC Temple Emanuel Yom HaShoah FRIDAY, MAY 5, 2023 – NEWTON, MA Temple Beth Avodah THURSDAY, MAY 11, 2023 – EL PASO, TX Congregation B’nai Zion WEDNESDAY, MAY 17, 2023 – VIRTUAL EVENT Phoenix Holocaust Association This is a heads up notice for those of you who cover these territories and even those reps in other territories that sell books to bookstores often located (and there are many) in Jewish Community Centers, Synagogues and Holocaust Centers and Museums around the country. I expect that she will be adding a dozen more events in 2023: I will keep you posted.
January, 2023
The 23rd Psalm: A Holocaust Memoir by George Salton and Anna Salton Eisen with a new Foreword by Michael Berenbaum has been named a Finalist for the National Jewish Book Award for 2022 in the Holocaust Memoir category.
Mandel Vilar Press, author Dara Kurtz is doing a series of interviews and podcasts for her book, "I AM MY MOTHER'S DAUGHTER". Mother, daughter, cancer survivor Dara Kurtz shares her “Crazy Perfect Life” and inspires others to make the most of every day!
More News
Click here to go to Teens and Young Adults Read the Holocaust. With a comment about "My Real Name is Hanna," by Tara Lynn Masih
Click here to go to LOCUS Magazine. With a comment about "Zion's Fiction," by Sheldon Teitelbaum and Emanuel Lottem.
Click here for "Green Was My Forest," by Edna Iturralde.
Book Presentation at the Americas Latino EcoFestival, September 2018