Download or read book The Wondering Jew written by Micah Goodman and published by Yale University Press. This book was released on 2020-11-10 with total page 265 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: A celebrated Israeli author explores the roots of the divide between religion and secularism in Israel today, and offers a path to bridging the divide "A thoughtful social, political, and philosophical examination of Judaism. . . . A cogent consideration of the place of religion in the modern world."--Kirkus Reviews Zionism began as a movement full of contradictions, between a pull to the past and a desire to forge a new future. Israel has become a place of fragmentation, between those who sanctify religious tradition and those who wish to escape its grasp. Now, a new middle ground is emerging between religious and secular Jews who want to engage with their heritage--without being restricted by it or losing it completely. In this incisive book, acclaimed author Micah Goodman explores Israeli Judaism and the conflict between religion and secularism, one of the major causes of political polarization throughout the world. Revisiting traditional religious sources and seminal works of secularism, he reveals that each contains an openness to learn from the other's messages. Goodman challenges both orthodoxies, proposing a new approach to bridge the divide between religion and secularism and pave a path toward healing a society torn asunder by extremism.

Download or read book The Pursuit of Peace and the Crisis of Israeli Identity written by D. Waxman and published by Springer. This book was released on 2006-09-02 with total page 260 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: This book offers a theoretically-informed analysis of the way in which Israeli national identity has shaped Israel's foreign policy. By linking domestic identity politics to Israeli foreign policy, it reveals how a crisis of Israeli identity inflamed the debate in Israel over the Oslo peace process.

Download or read book Israel s Jewish Identity Crisis written by Yaacov Yadgar and published by Cambridge University Press. This book was released on 2020-01-30 with total page 229 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: An innovative and provocative study tackling the main assumptions surrounding Israel's claim to Jewish identity.

Download or read book Identity written by Emanuel Shahaf and published by . This book was released on 2020-01-19 with total page 254 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: Emanuel Shahaf has succeeded in producing a book that reflects both a rich career in the field together with a profound understanding of the deeper significance of the period he has lived through. Any person either interested in experiencing a period of active life in the region or who wishes to delve into the culture and characteristics of key figures who made history will benefit considerably from a very good read. Ephraim Halevy, 9th Director of the Mossad.Part autobiography, part concise political treatise, Emanuel Shahaf tells his story from childhood in Germany, how he found his destiny in the Jewish State, served in the Israel Air Force and later on as Mossad Head of Station in South East Asia. His path leads him to insights of significance in the rapidly changing world that Israel has to adapt to. His political engagement in conjunction with his diverse background and experience has taught him to consider identities for a new Israel that are of relevance to all those who have Israel's future at heart. An easy and sometimes funny read with an optimistic outlook for all those who are concerned about the path Israel is taking today.The book outlines a new and unique approach that may enable a resolution of the deadlock Israel has found itself in politically and diplomatically, an approach that doesn't belong to either side of the political map.Emanuel Shahaf, Co-Chair of the Federation Movement and political and social activist served the country for 21 years in the Air Force and the Mossad in Israel and abroad retiring as head of a station in South East Asia. Based on his accumulated experience he proposes a federation in the Land of Israel as an alternative political solution to the conflict with the Palestinians.

Download or read book Identity Politics on the Israeli Screen written by Yosefa Loshitzky and published by University of Texas Press. This book was released on 2010-01-01 with total page 250 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: 2002 — A Choice Outstanding Academic Book The struggle to forge a collective national identity at the expense of competing plural identities has preoccupied Israeli society since the founding of the state of Israel. In this book, Yosefa Loshitzky explores how major Israeli films of the 1980s and 1990s have contributed significantly to the process of identity formation by reflecting, projecting, and constructing debates around Israeli national identity. Loshitzky focuses on three major foundational sites of the struggle over Israeli identity: the Holocaust, the question of the Orient, and the so-called (in an ironic historical twist of the "Jewish question") Palestinian question. The films she discusses raise fundamental questions about the identity of Jewish Holocaust survivors and their children (the "second generation"), Jewish immigrants from Muslim countries or Mizrahim (particularly the second generation of Israeli Mizrahim), and Palestinians. Recognizing that victimhood marks all the identities represented in the films under discussion, Loshitzky does not treat each identity group as a separate and coherent entity, but rather attempts to see the conflation, interplay, and conflict among them.

Download or read book Identity in Conflict written by Elie Assis and published by Penn State Press. This book was released on 2016-02-01 with total page 225 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: No nation has been subjected to a wider range of biblical attitudes and emotions than Edom. In some sources, Edom is perceived as Israel’s brother; in many others, the animosity toward Edom is tremendous. The book of Genesis introduces Isaac, his wife Rebecca, and their twin sons, Esau and Jacob. Rivalry between the brothers emerges even before their birth and escalates over the course of their lives. The question of which son should be favored also causes tension in the parents’ relationship, and most of the Genesis text concerning Isaac and Rebecca revolves around this issue. The narrative describes the fraternal conflict between Jacob and Esau at length, and many hold that this description is a reflection of the hostility between Edom and Israel. However, the relationship between the brothers is not always depicted as strained. The twofold relationship between the brothers in Genesis—brotherhood and fraternity coupled with hatred and rivalry—introduces a dichotomy that is retained throughout the Hebrew Bible. In this monograph, Assis elucidates the complex relationship between Edom and Israel reflected in the Bible, to attempt to clarify the source of this complexity and the function that this relationship serves in the various biblical texts and Israel’s early history. He shows how this relationship plays an important role in the formation of Israel’s identity, and how the historical interaction between the nations influenced the people’s theological conception, as reflected in prophetic literature, poetry, and biblical narrative.

Download or read book Jewish Identity and Palestinian Rights written by David Landy and published by Zed Books Ltd.. This book was released on 2012-09-13 with total page 205 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: Diaspora Jews are increasingly likely to criticise Israel and support Palestinian rights. In the USA, Europe and elsewhere, Jewish organisations have sprung up to oppose Israel’s treatment of Palestinians, facing harsh criticism from fellow Jews for their actions. Why and how has this movement come about? What does it mean for Palestinians and for diaspora Jews? Jewish Identity and Palestinian Rights is a groundbreaking study of this vital and growing worldwide social movement, examining in depth how it challenges traditional diasporic Jewish representations of itself. It looks at why people join this movement and how they relate to the Palestinians and their struggle, asking searching questions about transnational solidarity movements. This book makes an important contribution to Israel/Palestine and Jewish studies and responds to urgent questions in social movement theory.

Download or read book Israel and Palestine Out of the Ashes written by Marc H. Ellis and published by Pluto Press (UK). This book was released on 2002-10-20 with total page 224 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: New expanded edition of a classic anthropology title that examines ethnicity as a dynamic and shifting aspect of social relations.

Download or read book Israel and Its Mediterranean Identity written by D. Ohana and published by Springer. This book was released on 2016-04-30 with total page 212 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: This book is a detailed and comprehensive work which reviews the origins of Israel's Mediterranean identity, starting with its Zionist ideological origins and tracing the path up to the present, as Israel struggles with what it means to be a post-ideological Mediterranean country.

Download or read book Israeli Identity written by David Tal and published by Routledge. This book was released on 2013-07-18 with total page 348 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: For many years before and after the establishment of the state of Israel, the belief that Israel is a western state remained unchallenged. This belief was founded on the predominantly western composition of the pre-statehood Jewish community known as the Yishuv. The relatively homogenous membership of Israeli/Jewish society as it then existed was soon altered with the arrival of hundreds of thousands of Jewish immigrants from Middle Eastern countries during the early years of statehood. Seeking to retain the western character of the Jewish state, the Israeli government initiated a massive acculturation project aimed at westernizing the newcomers. More recently, scholars and intellectuals began to question the validity and logic of that campaign. With the emergence of new forms of identity, or identities, two central questions emerged: to what extent can we accept the ways in which people define themselves? And on a more fundamental level, what weight should we give to the ways in which people define themselves? This book suggests ways of tackling these questions and provides varying perspectives on identity, put forward by scholars interested in the changing nature of Israeli identity. Their observations and conclusions are not exclusive, but inclusive, suggesting that there cannot be one single Israeli identity, but several. Tackling the issue of identity, this multidisciplinary approach is an important contribution to existing literature and will be invaluable for scholars and students interested in cultural studies, Israel, and the wider Middle East.

Download or read book Saving Israel written by Daniel Gordis and published by Turner Publishing Company. This book was released on 2010-06-17 with total page 278 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: Is Israel worth saving, and if so, how do we secure its future? The Jewish State must end, say its enemies, from intellectuals like Tony Judt to hate-filled demagogues like Mahmoud Ahmadinejad. Even average Israelis are wondering if they wouldn't be better off somewhere else and whether they ought to persevere. Daniel Gordis is confident his fellow Jews can renew their faith in the cause, and in Saving Israel, he outlines how. 2009 National Jewish Book Award winner Addresses the most pressing issues faced by Israel-and American Jews-today, without recycling the same old arguments Lays to rest some of the most pernicious myths about Israel, including: Jews could thrive without Israel; Israeli Arabs just want equality, and Palestinians just want their own state; peace will come, if Israel will just do the right things "Morally powerful . . . from a writer whose reflections are consistently as intellectually impressive as they are moving. . . . Gordis addresses the exigencies of our time with the urgency they overridingly demand, and with the depth of feeling they inspire."-Cynthia Ozick Gordis has written many popular personal essays and memoirs in the past, but Saving Israel is a full-throated call to arms. Never has the case for defending-no, celebrating-the existence of Israel been so clear, so passionate, or so worthy of wholehearted support.

Download or read book How I Stopped Being a Jew written by Shlomo Sand and published by Verso Books. This book was released on 2014-10-07 with total page 113 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: Shlomo Sand was born in 1946, in a displaced person’s camp in Austria, to Jewish parents; the family later migrated to Palestine. As a young man, Sand came to question his Jewish identity, even that of a “secular Jew.” With this meditative and thoughtful mixture of essay and personal recollection, he articulates the problems at the center of modern Jewish identity. How I Stopped Being a Jew discusses the negative effects of the Israeli exploitation of the “chosen people” myth and its “holocaust industry.” Sand criticizes the fact that, in the current context, what “Jewish” means is, above all, not being Arab and reflects on the possibility of a secular, non-exclusive Israeli identity, beyond the legends of Zionism.

Download or read book Belonging in Genesis written by Amanda Beckenstein Mbuvi and published by . This book was released on 2016-03-15 with total page 167 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: Genesis calls its readers into a vision of human community unconstrained by the categories that dominate modern thinking about identity. Genesis situates humanity within a network of nurture that encompasses the entire cosmos--only then introducing Israel not as a people, but as a promise. Genesis prioritizes a human identity that originates in the divine word and depends on ongoing relationship with God. Those called into this new mode of belonging must forsake the social definition that had structured their former life, trading it for an alternative that will only gradually take shape. In contrast to the rigidity that typifies modern notions, Genesis depicts identity as fundamentally fluid. Encounter with God leads to a new social self, not a "spiritual" self that operates only within parameters established in the body at birth. In Belonging in Genesis, Amanda Mbuvi highlights the ways narrative and the act of storytelling function to define and create a community. Building on the emphasis on family in Genesis, she focuses on the way family storytelling is a means of holding together the interpretation of the text and the constitution of the reading community. Explicitly engaging the way in which readers regard the biblical text as a point of reference for their own (collective) identities leads to an understanding of Genesis as inviting its readers into a radically transformative vision of their place in the world.

Download or read book Ten Days of Birthright Israel written by Leonard Saxe and published by UPNE. This book was released on 2008 with total page 244 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: The remarkable story of Birthright Israel, an intensive ten-day educational program designed to connect Jewish young adults to their heritage

Download or read book Land Law and Policy in Israel written by Haim Sandberg and published by Indiana University Press. This book was released on 2022-07-05 with total page 268 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: As one of the smallest and most densely populated countries in the world, the State of Israel faces serious land policy challenges and has a national identity laced with enormous internal contradictions. In Land Law and Policy in Israel, Haim Sandberg contends that if you really want to know the identity of a state, learn its land law and land policies. Sandberg argues that Israel's identity can best be understood by deciphering the code that lies in the Hebrew secret of Israeli dry land law. According to Sandberg, by examining the complex facets of property law and land policy, one finds a unique prism for comprehending Israel's most pronounced identity problems. Land Law and Policy in Israel explores how Israel's modern land system tries to bridge the gaps between past heritage and present needs, nationalization and privatization, bureaucracy and innovation, Jewish majority and non-Jewish minority, legislative creativity and judicial activism. The regulation of property and the determination of land usage have been the consequences of explicit choices made in the context of competing and evolving concepts of national identity. Land Law and Policy in Israel will prove to be a must-read not only for anyone interested in Israel but also for anyone who wants to understand the importance of land law in a nation's life.

Download or read book American Jewish Films written by Lawrence J. Epstein and published by McFarland. This book was released on 2013-04-06 with total page 223 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: This is a thematic survey of American films with significant Jewish content that made an important statement about America. Both familiar and lesser known films are included. An introduction discusses why American Jews were attracted to films as audiences, performers and business people, and evaluates how films help audiences think about their lives. The book then focuses on themes and representative and important films, placing them in their cultural contexts. One of the aspects of American Jewish life brought out by the films in general is the tensions between an American and a Jewish identity and between a Jewish identity and a broader human identity. Other themes are assimilation and acculturation, interfaith relations, Israel, marriage and family relations, the role of women, Jews and American politics, and anti-Semitism including the Holocaust.

Download or read book The Shaping of Israeli Identity written by Robert Wistrich and published by Routledge. This book was released on 2014-03-05 with total page 268 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: A dozen essays document the evolution of national myths in Israel as the heroic figures and events of independence and survival transmute into blind fanaticism, great-power manipulation, and traditional colonialism and genocide. Without passing any judgement on the changes, they delve into the meani