The Wonderful Power of a Hat

This book contains 100 captivating short stories about ordinary and not so ordinary but very recognizable people mostly in a setting of unnamed small Jewish towns in old Eastern Europe. Some are rich, some are poor; some wise, others not so wise. Some happy and insightful, others sad and withdrawn; some young, others old. Regardless, they share the problems of all humanity somehow overcoming the challenges that a Higher Power seems to throw their way.

The stories and tales contained in this volume may be read for personal spiritual growth, as a non-judgmental way to help and guide others, and for a myriad of teaching purposes. The addition of the superb art work greatly enhances the tales to be told, surely providing great enjoyment to the reader.

Rabbi Shmuel Yosef KaplanShmuel Y. Kaplan is a retired rabbi, chaplain, psychologist, college anduniversity instructor, Hillel director, and author or editor of a dozen published works.Included amongst them are, Healing the Distressed: The Jewish Approach, Folktales for Life's Journey, Psychopathology: The Adlerian Paradigm, and Rabbinical Counseling.

Shoshannah Jeanne Brombacher is an artist, author, illustrator and scholar from Amsterdam (The Netherlands) with a PhD in medieval Jewish literature. She has worked and lectured in Leyden, Amsterdam Berlin, where she currently resides, Jerusalem and New York, is an ordained maggidah (Jewish spiritual guide and storyteller) and the vice-president of the American Guild of Judaic Art. Brombacher has curated and participated in many international art exhibitions and received several awards for her art. She authored a long list of books, including For Strangers Passing Through (Chassidic stories), Sefer P'ri Etz Yitzhak Fruit of Yitzhak's Tree (with co- author B. D. Forman) in honor of her Maggidut teacher, M' Yitzhak Buxbaum, and Avraham Abulafia's Seven Paths of the Torah on Sicily seen though the lens of an artist. An artistic synchresis of a 13th century kabbalistic text and its visual interpretation by a modern artist.