The Palestinian Muslim village of Artas is cradled in the lap of four mountains in the Israeli-occupied West Bank. Although Artas has experienced the violence of Israeli occupation, Spirits of Palestine does not focus exclusively on the villagers' experiences of violence, terrorism, or loss. This ethnography looks instead at the daily lives of Palestinian women and men and how they relate to tragedies and difficulties both large and small. Through stories of possession by the jinn, spirits that appear throughout the Koran, anthropologist Celia Rothenberg takes the reader past the dramatic,...

This edited volume explores a range of experiences and conceptualizations of "New Age Judaism," an imprecise term denoting new and evolving forms of North American Judaism that are typically innovative, combinative, and often controversial. Chapters analyze the phenomenon of New Age Judaism from theoretical, theological and ethnographic perspectives. As a result, they offer a broad sampling of some of the most fascinating forms of Jewish religious expression and philosophy in North America today. Rothenberg explores the teachings of Jewish shamanism and Jewish yoga. Vallely explores the...

Unique in the literature on Jewish camping, this book provides an in-depth study of a community-based, residential summer camp that serves Jewish children from primarily rural areas. Focused on Camp Ben Frankel (CBF), established in 1950 in southern Illinois, this book focuses on how a pluralist Jewish camp constructs meaningful experiences of Jewish "family" and Judaism for campers--and teaches them about Israel. Inspired by models of the earliest camps established for Jewish children in urban areas, CBF's founders worked to create a camp that would appeal to the rural, often isolated Jewish...