From the day that Bobby Zimmerman first turned on the radio in his parents' home in Hibbing, he'd had a pretty good idea that big things were happening, that old values were changing, that something new was on the way.

Bob Dylan arrived in New York one winter morning in 1961. His music and spirit would go on to capture the hearts and minds of a generation, but what no one knew then was that, like so many before him, Dylan was concealing his Jewish origins.

For Harry Freedman, Dylan's roots are the key to grasping how this complete unknown burst onto the scene and reinvented not only himself, but popular music. The instinct for escape and reinvention has defined Dylan's long career.

In this insightful biography Freedman traces the heady atmosphere of the 1960s and the folk-rock revolution spearheaded by Dylan. Right up until the moment in 1966 when Dylan stepped out onto the stage and went electric - exploring how his musical decisions, genius for reinvention and his Jewishness go inescapably hand in hand.

The thrilling story of the Jews in Venice - and the truth behind one of Shakespeare's most famous characters.

Millions of visitors flood to Venice every year. Yet many are unaware of its history - one of dramatic expansion but also of rapid decline. And essential to any history of Venice during its glory days is the story of its Jewish population. Venice gave the world the word ghetto. Astonishingly, the ghetto prison turned out to be as remarkable a place as the city of Venice itself.

With sound scholarship and a narrator's skill, Harry Freedman tells the story of Venice's Jews. From the founding of the ghetto in 1516, to the capture of Venice by Napoleon in 1797, he describes the remarkable cultural renaissance that took place in the Venice ghetto. Gates and walls notwithstanding, for the first time in European history Jews and Christians mingled intellectually, learned from each other, shared ideas and entered modernity together. When it came to culture, the ghetto walls were porous.

Any history of Venice and its Jews also can't avoid the story of Shakespeare's Shylock. The cultural and political revival in the Venice ghetto is often obscured from history by this fictional character. Who, we wonder, was Shylock? Would the people of Venice have recognized him and what did Shakespeare really think of him? Shakespeare's ambivalent anti-Semitism reflects attitudes to Jews in Elizabethan England - but as Freedman demonstrates, Shakespeare's myth is wholly ignorant of the literary, cultural and interfaith revival that Shylock would have experienced.

'Leonard Cohen taught us that even in the midst of darkness there is light, in the midst of hatred there is love, with our dying breath we can still sing Hallelujah.' - The late Rabbi Lord Jonathan Sacks

'Among the finest volumes on Cohen's life and lyrics ... An exploration which would have intrigued and engaged Leonard himself.' - John McKenna, writer and friend of Leonard Cohen

Harry Freedman uncovers the spiritual traditions that lie behind Leonard Cohen's profound and unmistakable lyrics.

The singer and poet Leonard Cohen was deeply learned in Judaism and Christianity, the spiritual traditions that underpinned his self-identity and the way he made sense of the world. In this book Harry Freedman, a leading author of cultural and religious history, explores the mystical and spiritual sources Cohen drew upon, discusses their original context and the stories and ideas behind them.

Cohen's music is studded with allusions to Jewish and Christian tradition, to stories and ideas drawn from the Bible, Talmud and Kabbalah. From his 1967 classic 'Suzanne', through masterpieces like 'Hallelujah' and 'Who by Fire', to his final challenge to the divinity, 'You Want It Darker' he drew on spirituality for inspiration and as a tool to create understanding, clarity and beauty.

Born into a prominent and scholarly Jewish family in Montreal, Canada, Cohen originally aspired to become a poet, before turning to song writing and eventually recording his own compositions. Later, he became immersed in Zen Buddhism, moving in 1990 to a Zen monastery on Mount Baldy, California where he remained for some years. He died, with immaculate timing, on the day before Donald Trump was elected in 2016, leaving behind him a legacy that will be felt for generations to come.

Leonard Cohen: The Mystical Roots of Genius looks deeply into the imagination of one of the greatest singers and lyricists of our time, providing a window on the landscape of his soul. Departing from traditional biographical approaches, Freedman explores song by song how Cohen reworked myths and prayers, legends and allegories with an index of songs at the end of the book for readers to search by their favourites.

By the end the reader will be left with a powerful understanding of Cohen's story, together with a far broader insight into the mystical origins of his inimitable work.

Containing nearly two million words in 37 volumes, the Talmud covers topics as diverse as law, faith, medicine, magic, ethics, sex, humour and prayer. It is a highly complex, profoundly logical and frequently impenetrable work with a history like no other.

In its 1500 year history the Talmud has been banned, censored and burned, dissected by scholars and rabbis, probed by philosophers, poets, republicans and kings.In The Talmud: A Biography, Harry Freedman tells the engrossing story of an ancient classic, the legal and mystical pillar of Judaism and recounts the story of a book which, in many ways, parallels the history of the Jewish people.

From its origins as a record of discussions amongst scholars in towns and villages close to modern-day Baghdad, Freedman traces the spiralling paths of the Jewish diaspora and explores the story of the Talmud's early origins in Babylon, its role during the Enlightenment and its influence over traditional Judaism.

A compelling fusion of law, storytelling and spirituality, the Talmud's story is a fascinating insight into the history of Judaism and Harry Freedman's The Talmud: A Biography is a remarkable account of one of the most important cultural, historical and religious works of our time.

Harry Freedman, author of The Talmud: A Biography and The Murderous History of Bible Translations, explores the mysterious Jewish mystical tradition of Kabbalah.

Kabbalah is popularly known as a fashionable system for personal and spiritual insight, a Jewish mystical tradition popularized by devoted celebrities like Madonna, Gwyneth Paltrow, Demi Moore, and Britney Spears. But behind the hype and simplicity of pop-Kabbalah lies an ancient, complex and very profound system that can take a lifetime to master. Kabbalah: Secrecy, Scandal and the Soul is a short introduction that untangles the complex history and spiritual tradition behind the phenomenon.

Kabbalah is difficult to define. The very phrase story of Kabbalah is as opaque and mysterious as the topic itself. This of course is its appeal. The word itself means received. For over half a millennium, individuals and movements with no attachment to Judaism have incorporated Kabbalah into their own spiritual traditions. Kabbalah flourished in the Renaissance and its method was adopted in varying measures by Hermeticists, Rosicrucians, Freemasons and tarot card readers. Isaac Newton, Gottfried Leibnitz, Carl Jung and Harold Bloom have all admitted to the influence of Kabbalah. But it all goes back to the Hebrew Bible where the prophet Ezekiel described in detail his vision of the heavenly throne, perceived as a chariot.

Kabbalah became fashionable in the late 1960s in the wake of the hippy counter-culture and with the approach of the new age, and enjoyed its share of fame, scandal, and disrepute as the twenty first century approached.

This concise, readable, and thoughtful history of Kabbalah tells its story as it has never been told before. It demands no knowledge of Kabbalah, just an interest in asking the questions why? and how?

A spellbinding and unorthodox look into the life of Leonard Cohen, and the way his experiences with religion and spirituality produced one of the greatest musicians of our time.

Leonard Cohen's music is studded with allusions to Jewish and Christian tradition, as well as Kabbalah and Zen. In his 1994 classic 'Hallelujah' he opens with the words 'Now I've heard there was a secret chord, That David played, and it pleased the Lord... the baffled king composing Hallelujah'. As the song progresses, Cohen takes us on a tour of the Old Testament, he sings of Samson having his hair cut by Delilah, Moses asking God's name and we even meet the blasphemer from the Book of Leviticus.

This book is about the ethos, origins and traditions in Cohen's lyrics. His grandfather was a Rabbi. He had grown up in an observant Jewish family; one with problems. His father died when he was nine, his mother suffered from depression and he himself underwent prolonged dark periods. His Irish catholic nanny took him to Church. He was as familiar with Christian traditions as he was Jewish. In his early works indeed he seemed more engaged with Christianity than with Judaism. But one of the notable features of his work is how he switches with ease from Judaism to Christianity. He is not concerned with confessional barriers, they simply impede access to the deep well of spiritual lore from which he draws. Kabbalah also features in his imagery. He became increasingly interested in Zen. In 1990 he moved into a Zen monastery as a permanent resident, apparently becoming a Buddhist monk. He died in 2016.

Here then is a book that looks deep into the soul and imagination of one of the greatest singers and lyricists of our time. Here is the landscape of his soul. This is not a biography but a biographical narrative into the treatment of each song or theme, so that by the end the reader will in fact have a good understanding of Cohen's life story.

'...detailed and fair.' - The Spectator

'An exhaustive, impressive achievement.' - The Tablet

As a minority, Jews in Britain are confident, their institutions competent and mature. And yet within Jewish life in Britain there is a pervading sense of anxiety.

Jews in Britain have risen to the top of nearly every profession, they run major companies, sit at the top tables in politics, make their voices heard in the media, are prominent in science and the arts. Of course there is serious poverty and gross disadvantage, just as there is in any community. But on any objective measure, British Jews have done well. Particularly when we consider where they came from, the impoverished, often oppressed lives that many Jews lived in Eastern Europe and the Ottoman Empire less than 200 years ago.

Jews have lived in Britain longer than any other minority. They've been here so long, and are so ingrained into the national fabric, that they are often not considered to be a minority at all. Until a periodic outburst of antisemitism or a flare up in the Middle East, or both, turns the spotlight on them once again.

British Jews have another distinction too. They have lived safely and securely, continuously, in Britain longer than any other modern Jewish community has lived anywhere else in the world. They have organised themselves in a way that serves as a model both to more recent immigrant communities in Britain and to Jewish communities elsewhere. Being British, they wear their distinctions lightly, they don't trumpet their achievements, in fact they rarely make a noise at all. But they give back quietly: established Jewish organisations help more recently arrived minorities to create their own structures, charities draw on the Jewish experience of dislocation and persecution to help oppressed people in the developing world, philanthropists support causes far beyond the boundaries of their own communities.

Britain's Jews is a challenging look at Jewish life in the UK today. Based on conversations with Jews from all walks of life, it depicts, in ways that are at times disturbing, at other times inspiring, what it is like to be Jewish in 21st century Britain. And why Jewish life is still a subject of fascination.