Why do Israelis dislike fantasy? Put so bluntly, the question appears frivolous. But in fact, it goes to the deepest sources of Israeli historical identity and literary tradition. Uniquely among developed nations, Israel's origin is in a utopian novel, Theodor Herzl's Altneuland (1902), which predicted the future Jewish state. Jewish writing in the Diaspora has always tended toward the fantastic, the mystical, and the magical. And yet, from its very inception, Israeli literature has been stubbornly realistic. The present volume challenges this stance. Originally published in Hebrew in 2009,...

In Two Steps Forward, One Step Back, Dahlia Moore explores the social and cultural forces at play in Israeli society and their effects on the changing status of women. While delving into some of Israel's unique and influential forces, such as the army, religious sects, and recent immigration, Moore also broadens her perspective, juxtaposing the status of Israeli women with that of women in other Western societies. An excellent resource for scholars of gender and gender attitudes looking beyond North America and Europe.

Between 1920 and 1922, hundreds of members of the Hashomer Hatzair youth movement left the defunct Habsburg Monarchy and sailed to Palestine, where a small group of members of the movement established Upper Bitania, one of the communities that laid the foundation for Israel's kibbutz movement. Their social experiment lasted only eight months, but it gave birth to a powerful myth among Jewish youth which combined a story about a heroic Zionist deed, based on the trope of tragedy, with a model for a new type of community that promised no less than a total, absolute elimination of all physical...

This comprehensive account examines the growing conflict between Arab and Jew in Palestine that first surfaced clearly in the pivotal years 1933-1939, and which proved to be an irreconcilable rift once the leadership of both peoples refused to accept minority status. A compelling narrative, lucidly written and rooted in extensive archival sources, explores the deadly clash of two rival nationalisms against the broader backdrop of rising antisemitism across Europe, the intervention of Arab states, and international realpolitik. The various suggestions then advanced for resolving the Palestine...

This comprehensive account examines the growing conflict between Arab and Jew in Palestine that first surfaced clearly in the pivotal years 1933-1939, and which proved to be an irreconcilable rift once the leadership of both peoples refused to accept minority status. A compelling narrative, lucidly written and rooted in extensive archival sources, explores the deadly clash of two rival nationalisms against the broader backdrop of rising antisemitism across Europe, the intervention of Arab states, and international realpolitik. The various suggestions then advanced for resolving the Palestine...

This comprehensive account examines the growing confl ict between Arab and Jew in Palestine that first surfaced clearly in the pivotal years 1933-1939, and which proved to be an irreconcilable rift once the leadership of both peoples refused to accept minority status. A compelling narrative, lucidly written and rooted in extensive archival sources, explores the deadly clash of two rival nationalisms against the broader backdrop of rising antisemitism across Europe, the intervention of Arab states, and international realpolitik. The various suggestions then advanced for resolving the Palestine...

This comprehensive account examines the growing conflict between Arab and Jew in Palestine that first surfaced clearly in the pivotal years 1933-1939, and which proved to be an irreconcilable rift once the leadership of both peoples refused to accept minority status. A compelling narrative, lucidly written and rooted in extensive archival sources, explores the deadly clash of two rival nationalisms against the broader backdrop of rising antisemitism across Europe, the intervention of Arab states, and international realpolitik. The various suggestions then advanced for resolving the Palestine...

The Struggle for Jerusalem and the Holy Land Between Judaism and Islam is a new inquiry into the Qur'an and classic Islamic sources on the people of Israel, their Torah, and their links to the Holy Land. In recent generations, the Muslim and Arab world has been suffused with publications on the subject of the people of Israel and their affinity to the Land of Israel. Most of these publications are tendentious, written with a hostile attitude toward Jews and Judaism; indeed, some of them are tainted with anti-Semitism. The Qur'an also deals with the question of the status of Eretz Israel, the...

This volume of original essays, by some of Israel's most remarkable public and academic voices, offers a series of state-of-the art, accessible analyses of Israel's ever-evolving theater of statecraft, public debates, and legal and cultural dramas, its deep divisions and--more surprisingly, perhaps--its internal affinities and common denominators. Contributors: Fania Oz-Salzberger, Yedidia Z. Stern, Ayman K. Agbaria, Aviad Bakshi, Ariel L. Bendor, Ruth Gavison, Michael M. Karayanni, David Passig, Avi Sagi, Gideon Sapir, Anita Shapira, Daniel Statman, Gadi Taub, Shira Wolosky, Alexander...

Religious-Zionism developed in Israel as an attempt to combine halakhic commitment with the values of modernity, two networks of meaning not easily reconciled. This book presents a study of the discourse on the body and sexuality within religious-Zionism as it has developed in recent decades, including in cyberspace, and considers such issues as homosexuality, lesbianism, masturbation, and the relationships between the sexes. It also analyzes the shift to a pastoral discourse and alternative religious perspectives dealing with this discourse together with its far wider social and cultural...