By 1917 the European war seemed to be endless. Both sides in the fighting looked to new weapons, tactics and ideas to break a stalemate that was itself destroying Europe. In the German government a small group of men had a brilliant idea: why not sow further confusion in an increasingly chaotic Russia by arranging for Vladimir Ilyich Lenin, the most notorious of revolutionary extremists, currently safely bottled up in neutral Switzerland, to go home? Catherine Merridale's Lenin on the Train recreates Lenin's extraordinary journey from harmless exile in Zürich, across a Germany falling to pieces from the war's deprivations, and northwards to the edge of Lapland to his eventual ecstatic reception by the revolutionary crowds at Petrograd's Finland Station. With great skill and insight Merridale weaves the story of the train and its uniquely strange group of passengers with a gripping account of the now half-forgotten liberal Russian revolution and shows how these events intersected. She brilliantly uses a huge range of contemporary eyewitnesses, observing Lenin as he travelled back to a country he had not seen for many years. Many thought he was a mere 'useful idiot', others thought he would rapidly be imprisoned or killed, others that Lenin had in practice few followers and even less influence. They would all prove to be quite wrong.

Elijah the Prophet is a remarkably impressive figure whose life is full of dramatic moments: the decree to stop the rain, the fierce tension with King Ahab and Queen Jezebel, the war on idolatry which had its climax on Mount Carmel with the killing of the prophets of Baal, God’s revelation at Horeb, the ascent to heaven in a chariot of fire, etc. These episodes sparked the imagination of readers and commentators, thinkers and artists, who continued to study the figure of Elijah throughout the generations. The book Until Elijah Comes: The Portrayal of Elijah the Prophet in Tannaitic Literature is an examination of Elijah’s multi-faceted character as reflected in Tannaitic sources, the earliest stratum of rabbinic literature. Adiel Kadari presents an in-depth analysis of the major issues related to Elijah the Prophet in the intellectual world of the sages, such as the principles and limits of halakhic discourse, messianism and eschatology, religious and political zealotry, the phenomenon of prophecy and the question of its persistence in the post-biblical era, and the relationship to history, religious piety and asceticism. The analysis of Elijah in this volume is rooted in philological studies concerning the origin and transmission of the text, and branches out to an examination of ideological aspects and worldviews. The synthesis of various approaches employed in the study of rabbinic literature yields a rich and variegated discourse. The book’s various chapters reveal the tremendous importance of Elijah in the eyes of the sages, as well as the exegetical and ideological struggles over the shaping of his image.

This book offers a cultural biography of Maimonides as a product of his multi-cultural and multi-religious background. It studies “the great eagle” in his multi-faceted historical and cultural context, and highlights the deep impact on him of Islamic culture as a whole: not only his philosophy, but also his legal and scientific writings as well as his correspondences. The aim of the book is twofold. On the one hand, it highlights universal patterns in Maimonides’ thought. On the other hand, it shows Maimonides’ relevance to the study of Medieval Islam. The presentation of Maimonides as a Mediterranean thinker elucidates his consistent interpretation of his own Jewish tradition in contemporary terms, as they were shaped by his Mediterranean legacy.

The book Shamanism and Literary Criticism deals with the unique attention that scholars of art and literature pay to the object of their study. This specific attention is based on a communitarian approach, a special type of research empathy, and a contemplation radically focused on literature, art, and the community of its readers. What do scholars of literature do in a community where literature is created, read, and interpreted by them? What is the attitude of these scholars to literature and its readers? What is the role entrusted to them by their community? This book offers a new theory about the attitude of the study of literature toward literature, art, and communality. It illustrates the theory and its features as a method of research and interpretation in the works of Uri Nissan Gnessin, Micha Yosef Berdyczewski, Shimon Halkin, A. B. Yehoshua, Aharon Appelfeld, Dahlia Ravikovitch, Ronit Matalon, Orly Castel-Bloom, and Anna Hermann.

Life crises present before the person experiencing them an opportunity to embark on a philosophical journey that is not detached from everyday life. This book provides philosophical guidance which could help a person define their own basic questions, as well as support in the process of creative, autonomous, critical and authentic development of a newly generated world view. It aims to enable a person to realize ideas from the history of human thought and to make their life more meaningful.

The book examines the relations between Oriental, local Jews and Palestinian Arabs in Mandatory Palestine. It focuses on the role of Oriental Jews as possible mediators from a cultural, political and social perspective, as those who sought to bridge Jewish-Arab culture, Jewish-Arab nationalism, and Jewish-Arab identity. Examining these relations from the perspective of Oriental and local Jews sheds new light on the history and historiography of Zionism, the Yishuv, and the Jewish-Arab conflict.

MA‘ARAG: The Israel Annual of Psychoanalysis is a democratic, refereed annual publication, evaluated and edited by academicians, intellectuals in related fields, and clinicians. The journal, dedicated to research in psychoanalytic theory, practice and criticism, is the fruit of the initiative and cooperation of the Sigmund Freud Center for the Study and Research in Psychoanalysis of the Hebrew University, the Israeli Association for Self Psychology and the Study of Subjectivity, Israel Society for Analytical Psychology, Israel Psychoanalytic Society, Clinical Division of the Israel Psychological Association, Israel Institute for Group Analysis, Israel Institute of Jungian Psychology, The Sigmund Freud Chair of Psychoanalysis of the Department of Psychology, The Hebrew University, Tel-Aviv Institute for Contemporary Psychoanalysis, The Winnicott Center in Israel and the New Israeli Jungian Association. In this issue: Merav Roth | FROM “FUNES THE MEMORIOUS” TO FORGETFUL AGNES: ON DEAD REMEMBERED MEMORIES AND THE ALIVE FORGOTTEN Emmanuel Amrami | ON SEXUALITY IN PSYCHOANALYSIS: TWO PHASES, THREE FACES, AND A BRIEF GLANCE TOWARD LOVE Anat Tzur-Mahalel | “WRITING LIKE A DOG DIGGING A HOLE; A RAT DIGGING ITS BURROW:” NARRATIVES OF SEPARATION THROUGH THE PERSPECTIVE OF FREUD’S PATIENTS Rakefet Efrat (Levkovich) Holzer | “YOUR ENDLESS UNRETURN”: MELANCHOLY AND ABYSMAL DOUBLE NEGATION Ayelet Naeh | THE SELF THAT IS NOT ONE: ON THE REFLECTIVE RELATIONSHIPS BETWEEN THE SELF AND AWARENESS THROUGH A KABBALISTIC PERSPECTIVE Yifat Eitan-Persico | OEDIPAL CONFIGURATIONS IN SAME-SEX FAMILIES Omri Blum | THE UNCANNY: A STUDY OF THE UNCANNY IN LITERATURE AND PSYCHOANALYSIS Ruth Netzer | MYTHS AND REALITIES: ON INCEST, SIN AND REDEMPTION Moshe Alon | TRANSFERENCE, COUNTERTRANSFERENCE AND THE WOUNDED HEALER: A JUNGIAN ANALYTIC-PSYCHOLOGICAL PERSPECTIVE ON THE PSYCHOTHERAPEUTIC RELATIONSHIP Tziki Cohen | BETWEEN MONAD AND DYAD: THE MULTIFACETED NATURE OF SELF-CONSTITUTION Alina Schellekes | SENTENCED TO LIFE: REFLECTIONS ON THE INABILITY TO SUSTAIN VITALITY, FOLLOWING THE MOVIE “TURTLES CAN FLY” Dafna Ben-Zvi | HOW DOES THE ‘ISLAND OF MAYBE’ HEAL? REPETITION AND REPARATION IN “THE JOURNEY TO THE ISLAND OF MAYBE” BY MIRIAM YALAN-STEKELIS

Was Niccolò Machiavelli really the cynical schemer of legend - or was he a profound ethical thinker, who tried to save the democratic freedom of Renaissance Florence as it was threatened by ruthless dynasties? This revelatory biography shows us a man of fox-like dissimulation: a master of disguise in dangerous times.

In October 2018, results of a randomized controlled trial showed an excess mortality mainly from cancer, among “healthy” people over the age of 70 who took aspirin, in contrast to many clinical studies previously published. This event was another record in the crisis in scientific medicine that has been unfolding before our eyes in recent decades. In this book the author tries to trace the causes of the shocks that afflict the medical knowledge base, and to offer solutions to strengthen and stabilize it. This book includes four parts. The first part discusses aspirin as a test case for development of clinical research. The second part is devoted to a discussion of the seven foundations of modern clinical research while revealing the pros and cons of each and their relative contribution to the pursuit of scientific truth. In the third part, five groundbreaking discoveries are examined. In each of them, the process that led to the discovery is deciphered, emphasizing the findings making clinical research, on the way from bench to bedside, redundant. In the fourth part the author exposes the rules of the competition among scientist, and determines its impact on the conduct of research and its results.

The Western Wall—Judaism’s holiest site—occupies a prominent position in contemporary Jewish and Israeli discourse, current events, and local politics. In The Western Wall: The Dispute over Israel's Holiest Jewish Site, 1967–2000 , Kobi Cohen-Hattab and Doron Bar offer a detailed exploration of the Western Wall plaza’s evolution in the late twentieth century. The examination covers the role of archaeology, attempts to design the space, the Wall’s transformation as an Israeli and Jewish symbol, and the movement to open it to a variety of Jewish denominations, studying the central processes and shifts that took place at the Western Wall during the three decades that followed the Six-Day War, a relatively short yet crucial chapter in Jerusalem's extensive history.

This volume offers rich accounts of pioneering leadership development projects and other education-related programs operated or supported by the Jack, Joseph and Morton Mandel Foundation over the last thirty years - initiatives designed to advance the Foundation’s mission to enhance the vitality of the Jewish people and to strengthen Israel as a just, compassionate and inclusive society. Scholars, educational leaders and philanthropists will find much to ponder in this book. It offers multiple perspectives on the qualities needed for effective leadership; on leadership development, with attention to the role of the humanities and policy studies in this process; on ways to foster educational and social change; on philanthropic engagement; and on the role of research and profound ideas in efforts to strengthen educational practice and communal life.

This book focuses on space, borders and ethcis in contemporary Hebrew prose written in the shadow of the Occupation and the Intifadas and reads corpus of works written between 1987 and 2007. Israeli literary representations of the Occupation and the two Intifadas, raise critical ethical questions about militarism, humanism, the nature of the State of Israel as a democracy, national identity and its borders, the nature of Zionist education, and the acknowledgment of the Other. The book deals with the portrait of the Israeli soldier, depicts the settings of the Occupied Territories, but also describes life in cities such as Tel Aviv and Jerusalem. It examines realistic writing as well as fantastic-grotesque, in the works of A. B. Yehoshua, David Grossman, Ronit Matalon, Asher Kravitz, Michal Govrin, and Orly Castel-Bloom and many others.

Zionists without Borders tells the story of the Halutz movement in Poland and its role in helping the Labor movement rise to the leadership of the Zionist Movement in the interwar period. It describes the founding of a mass national and socialist movement, which changed the face of the Zionist map. The leaders of the Labor movement in Israel established strong ties with pioneers from Poland, thus making the Halutz a cross-border movement, connecting Jews by means of politics, nationalism and socialism.

During the last decades there have occurred significant upheavals in the political and military position of many religious and ethnic communities in the Middle East and North Africa. Communities which had been rejected and discriminated for decades rose to power or strengthened their political position in their countries by means of military struggles. Meanwhile, in Israel/Palestine, the ethnical-religious Jewish minority has become a ruling majority, while excluding the former Arab-Muslim-Sunni majority, following the wars of 1948 and 1976. This book examines these processes.

Commedia dell’arte, originating in Italy and proliferating on European stages from approximately 1650 to 1750, is one of the most significant and long-lasting phenomena in theatre history; its influence on all performing genres is notable throughout Western Drama to this very day. The new study From Carnival to Theatre: Structure and Chaos in the Commedia Dell'arte provides a comprehensive, deeply-researched study of the development of the genre, the establishment of the first professional troupes in Europe, their organization, their patrons and wide variety of popular and elite audiences. The study traces all aspects of the unique improvised performance: the show's space, dramatic patterns, dramatis personae, acting style, costume and stage design are re-interpreted by the attachment of the commedia dell’ arte to its double roots: the heritage of written literature, and manifestations of popular oral tradition in seasonal festivities. The book explores especially the interaction of the commedia dell'arte with the phenomena of carnival, in its very existence as an opposition to the social structure within the liminal time and space related to the celebration. Being an authorized event, containing metaphors of annihilating the existent order, in which subversion could be substituted by amusement, the carnivalesque combined time, place and creative means into a new theatrical form: the commedia dell'arte.

The book The State of Israel and Its Institutions in the Halachic Thought of Rabbi Shlomo Goren reviews the diverse subjects with which Rabbi Goren dealt as a halakhic ruler: the halakhic status of the State of Israel, the concept of sovereignty, military and war laws, immigration absorption, changes in prayer and blessings, and others. The book describes his original, and sometimes unusual, positions within the history of Israel, and his desire to take part in shaping this history.

Question of place: Architecture between the poetic and the ethical calls for a re-understanding of the foundations of the architectural act while exposing it to phenomenological thought. Through a return to the first, and failed, encounter in the late 1970s, between phenomenology depicting phenomena in the light of human experience and architectural discourse, Edna Langenthal offers a new reading of discourse, embracing the thought of philosopher Martin Heidegger and discussing the influence of architectural-architectural scholar Norteberg Which in her opinion missed Heidegger's contribution to her understanding. To emphasize the potential inherent in Heidegger's thought in understanding the question of place and the possibilities of dwelling in it, the author discusses the meaning of the poetic as a constitutive axis in understanding key concepts in contemporary architectural discourse. But the poetic dimension, for her, cannot exist without the ethical dimension. Through a study of the thought of Heidegger's student and critic, the philosopher Emanuel Levins, the structure that connects an affinity between the ethical and the home and the possibilities of settling in it.

The Second Commandment’s injunction against making graven images and likenesses resonates in all facets of Jewish visuality throughout the generations. Although Jews have always created and consumed art, the attitude to figural art –anthropomorphic and zoomorphic representations – has oscillated, like a pendulum, between strict prohibition and full permissibility. Figureless Art traces a lesser-known chapter in the history of Jewish art – a period governed by the swing to extreme stringency that left its mark on Late Antique synagogues in the Land of Israel. This anti-figural trend manifested in the avoidance of anthropomorphic and zoomorphic depictions and in the deliberate obliteration of anthropomorphic and zoomorphic figures on stone carvings and mosaic carpets that adorned the synagogues. What is the meaning of this strict trend? Did it emerge from within the Jewish world or was it stimulated, conversely, by external influences? Who was responsible for the effacement of the figures in the synagogues and when did these iconoclastic events occur? This book examines these phenomena through a broad historical, religious, and cultural perspective, based on visual and literary sources from Late Antique and early Muslim Palestine.

The book seeks to understand resistance as a meeting point among various political streams that operate in Lebanon and the development of resistance from military action into a project which is beyond culture in the narrow sense, into a hegemony that encompasses all sides of life. The book links the historical development of the Lebanese political system together with the many years of radical Shi'ite political thought in the entire Middle East region, with an emphasis on the influence of leftist and revolutionary secular thought on Shi'ite radical thought in general and that of Hezbollah in particular. The book reviews the various "hegemonic mechanisms" through which Hezbollah rules its hegemony over Lebanon. A hegemony that is not (only) a result of coercion by force, but also (mostly) the result of dominating the discourse of resistance on the Lebanese and regional arena in general.

Therapeutics and Salvation: Freud and Schelling on Freedom proposes a new conceptual perspective on the history of the philosophy of freedom. The book focuses on Sigmund Freud’s theory of freedom, and its fundamental, yet uncharted, connection with the groundbreaking philosophy of the unconscious of F.W.J Schelling. The analysis radically challenges conventional liberal and rationalistic conceptions of freedom in psychoanalysis. The main argument of the book is that Freud formulated his theory of human nature with Schelling’s basic philosophical architecture, in particular Schelling’s concept of freedom, but, at the same time, subverted Schelling’s search for a new theology at the end of the latter's philosophical career. The detailed comparison of Freud’s work with the philosophy of Schelling backtracks a momentous shift from Schelling’s late theo-philosophy, at the endpoint of German Idealism, to the secular system of Freud, in which human reality ousted godly revelation and therapeutics replaced divine salvation. By delineating the move from Schelling’s God-subject relations to Freud’s human-subject relations, the book offers a new perspective on the historical evolution of German Idealism into modern secular thought.

Ateret Zekenim is a work of historical research into the lives of several well-known medieval halakhists from France, Germany, and Spain. The primary focus of the book is biographical, and it attempts to resolve difficult questions that have puzzled the scholarly community for many years. Its author seeks to rely on the writings of his predecessors, but he first substantiates that these foundations were properly laid and that he is not adding to an edifice that is destined to collapse. Thus, for example, the author re-examines the story of Rabbi Asher b. Yeḥiel (Rosh)’s migration from Germany to Spain in the early 14th century, a migration that had a dramatic impact on the culture of Sephardi and Ashkenazi Jewry alike. Is the scholarly consensus – according to which Rosh meticulously planned his flight to distant Toledo, in an entirely different cultural realm, over the course of two decades – correct? After methodical examination of the sources, a very different story emerges. Rosh, and with him the Ashkenazi halakhic tradition, moved from Germany to Spain at the last moment, when there were no other options.

In The Barbed-Wire College Ron Robin tells the extraordinary story of the 380,000 German prisoners who were brought to the USA during WWII and kept in camps throughout the country. Using personal narratives, camp newspapers, and military records, Robin re-creates in arresting detail the attempts of prison officials to mold the minds of their prisoners. From 1943 onward, despite the Geneva Convention, prisoners were subjected to an ambitious re-education program designed to turn them into American-style democrats. Under the direction of the Pentagon, liberal arts professors pushed through a program of arts and humanities that stressed only the positive aspects of American society. The American educators censored popular books and films in order to promote democratic humanism and downplay class and race issues, materialism, and wartime heroics. However, by the war's end, the curriculum was more concerned with combating the appeals of communism than with eradicating the evils of National Socialism. The re-education program, overall, failed to make these POWs shed their Nazi beliefs and become supporters of a liberal- democratic ethos. It succeeded less than the policies of other nations in indoctrinating prisoners of war or internees. In The Barbed-Wire College Ron Robin shows how this intriguing chapter of military history was also tied to two crucial episodes of twentieth- century American history: the battle over the future of American education and the McCarthy-era hysterics that awaited postwar America.

This anthology is a collection of stories, written by women at the turn of the twentieth century and published in the Yiddish press at that time. The have been translated to Hebrew for the first time. From its beginning the Yiddish press enabled all levels of society to sound their voices. Women too were quick to meet this challenge, and until the First World War more than ninety of their works were published: novellas, plays, fiction and a wide variety of short stories. This collection of nineteen stories represents this abundance and its unique qualities. It sounds anew the voices of forgotten women authors, who disappeared even from the eyes of critics and researchers: Maria Lerner, Isabella, Rokhl Brokhes, Yente Serdetsky, Salome Perl, Rokhl Feigenberg and others. Their stories open a window to the world of women at a time of dramatic changes in the lives of Jews in the Russian Empire. They portray conflicts between the generations, especially between the authors and their mothers, the dilemmas of love, and the anguished movement between the small town and the big city, between maintaining traditions and breaking free of frameworks. These stories highly enrich our knowledge of Jewish society at that time and are a fundamental expression of the part women played in that society.

Rabbi Moses ben Nahman (c. 1194-1267), rabbi, commentator, Kabbalist, and public leader, was one of the most prominent and influential Jewish figures in the Middle Ages. His diverse works reflect the history of Jewish communities in Western Europe in the thirteenth century and particularly the story of his own life. This book seeks to illuminate Nahmanides' works and beliefs, on the background of the challenges during his life. How was his thought formed, and what were its sources? In what stage of his life was he acquainted with the Kabbalah? To what extent was his immigration to Eretz Israel the consequence of Barcelona disputation? This book offers a new – historical-biographical – perspective for understanding Nahmanides' religious and intellectual world.

The dictionary is the fruit of a three-decade long research on the vocabulary distinctive of the contemporary Georgian-Jewish language, and especially its Hebrew component. This research is based on ongoing field work performed in various places in Georgia and in Israel. The vocabulary reflects the uniqueness of the language and culture, and to a large extent also the anthropology and history of the community of Georgian Jews.

In the history of halakhah, the treatment of uncertainty became one of the most complex fields of intense study. In his latest book, Moshe Halbertal focuses on examining the point of origin of the study of uncertainty in early rabbinic literature, including the Mishnah, Tosefta, and halakhic midrashim. The book explores instructions concerning how to behave in situations of uncertainty ranging from matters of ritual purity, to lineage and marriage, to monetary law, and to the laws of forbidden foods. This examination of the rules of uncertainty introduced in early rabbinic literature reveals that these rules were not aimed at avoiding but rather at dwelling in the midst of uncertainty, thus rejecting the sectarian isolationism that sought to minimize a community's experience of and friction with uncertainty.

This research project tries, for the first time, to analyze and compare all the key Spanish Jewish apostates, especially Petrus Alfonsi, Abner of Burgos, Geronimo de Santa Fe, Pablo de Santa Maria and Pedro de la Caballeria. The aim of this research is to understand the ideological background of the mass conversion of the Spanish Jewish community from the perspective of the intellectual elite involved in the conversion itself and not – as has usually been the case in modern scholarship – according to the rabbis who decided to stay Jewish. In the first part of the book, the author explains the impact of the conversion of a part of the Jewish intellectual elite on the Spanish Jewish population. In the second part, he examines the opinion of the various ideological converts regarding Christianity (especially the dogmas of the Trinity and Incarnation). In the third part, he analyzes their criticisms of Judaism. The main conclusion of this research is that there is a very important difference between the various converso intellectuals regarding the essence of Christianity. The conversos who were philosophers or kabbalists before their conversion continued with a similar approach even after their conversion, using their former philosophical/kabbalistic knowledge to try to convince their fellow Jews to convert as they had. The common denominator of the different writings of these apostates is not their opinions on Christianity but rather their similar criticisms of Judaism, and especially with regard to keeping Jewish religious obligations.

Many books have been written about the Baal Shem Tov; his extensive work and influence have drawn the attention of prominent researchers in the past and present. Tsippi Kauffman has a fresh outlook: she does not attempt to reconstruct the historical Baal Shem Tov, but rather to trace reflections of traditions pertaining to his in essays and writings related to Rabbi Nahman of Bratslav, his famous great-grandchild. Rabbi Nahman saw himself not only as a preserver, but also as someone who continued and developed the tradition of the Baal Shem Tov, within struggles in new and different fronts. One of these new fronts was the inner sphere; the dilemmas of self-awareness. The tension between Rabbi Nachman's desire to imitate the Baal Shem Tov, his sense of guilt for not being worthy, and the effort to find a solution for the conflicted psychological state, are ways in which the Baal Shem Tov's figure and traditions shaped his great-grandchild, but also in which the latter shaped the figure of the former in the eyes of generations to come.

Since the establishment of the state and until 1985, Israel’s capital market was mostly nationalized. The government controlled most of the financial activities, and the scarce private activity was shared by only a few institutions that lacked real competition. A long line of reforms that took place since 1985 and to this day revolutionized the banking structure, the capital market and the pension system: • The government reduced its involvement almost completely • The funding means of the business sector and of households expanded tremendously • International capital movements were liberalaized • Conflicts of interests were reduced and the competition amongst financial institutions was improved. The book is divided into 3 parts: The demand for investment in means of production and housing; the funding supply of these investments; and the financial institutions and their supervising system. Every chapter covers a description of a different aspect of the Israeli capital market before exploring the market failures that plagued it and the reforms that alleviated them. A special emphasis is dedicated to the importance of resisting the pressure of interest groups and to the lessons that need to be implemented in the tasks that still lay ahead.

This book focuses on a cycle of some thirty “praise” stories ( Shvachim ) whose heroes are Rabbi Shmuel the Pious and his son, the famous Rabbi Judah the Pious (died 1217; author of Sefer Hasidim ) – the two main figures of the medieval mystical circle known as Hasidut Ashkenaz. The narrative cycle in praise of these luminaries portrays them as extremely virtuous, as mystics with supernatural knowledge, and as masters of magical practices ( ba’alay shem ). Originating orally in Yiddish, these stories were first written down in Hebrew, the sacred language, and then translated “back” into Yiddish – the more widely understood language of the Ashkenazic community. The book presents all versions of these “praise” narratives, extant in manuscripts and print, both in Hebrew and Yiddish, side by side. A thorough introduction traces the growth of this narrative treasure from its embryonic oral beginnings to its fully developed bilingual written manifestations. A detailed analysis of individual stories sheds light on the cultural mentality of medieval Jewry in general and of Ashkenazic Jewry in particular.

The author of Sefer Emeq Ha-Bakha (The Vale of Tears), Yosef ha-Cohen, was a sixteenth-century Jewish doctor of Spanish origin who lived in Italy. This book was not printed in his lifetime. A few copies of the manuscript copied by hand survived. In this volume, Yosef ha-Cohen collected essays written about pogroms against the people of Israel during the Second Temple period and the loss of political independence in Eretz Israel.

Chronicle of French and Ottoman Kings was written by a sixteenth-century Jewish doctor of Spanish origin living in Italy. According to the writer, his intention was to document the hardships and injustices suffered by Jews in the Diaspora - especially the expulsion of Jews from Spain and France - and include them in the history of the conflict between the French kinds and Ottoman Empire over the rule in "the land of Judea and Jerusalem." In effect, this is a story, set in chronological order, of selected events in world history, similar in structure and content to hundreds of writings published at the time. It was written in fine biblical Hebrew, and as such was aimed at an audience who knew the language and could appreciate the conflict between the French kings and the Ottoman Empire as representing world history.

The story recalls the life and work of Josef ha-Cohen, the author of The Chronicles of the French and Ottoman Kings and Sefer Emeq ha-Bakha (The Vale of Tears), published simultaneously. The story reflects a momentous experience of joy and bereavement, love and desire, youth and old age, and most particularly the feeling of human transience.

A bullet misses its target in Sarajevo, a would-be Austrian painter gets into the Viennese academy, Lord Halifax becomes British prime minister in 1940 instead of Churchill: seemingly minor twists of fate on which world-shaking events might have hinged. Alternative history has long been the stuff of parlor games, war-gaming, and science fiction, but over the past few decades it has become a popular stomping ground for serious historians. The historian Richard J. Evans now turns a critical, slightly jaundiced eye on a subject typically the purview of armchair historians. The book’s main concern is examining the intellectual fallout from historical counterfactuals, which the author defines as “alternative versions of the past in which one alteration in the timeline leads to a different outcome from the one we know actually occurred.” What if Britain had stood at the sidelines during the First World War? What if the Wehrmacht had taken Moscow? The author offers an engaging and insightful introduction to the genre, while discussing the reasons for its revival in popularity, the role of historical determinism, and the often hidden agendas of the counterfactual historian. Most important, Evans takes counterfactual history seriously, looking at the insights, pitfalls, and intellectual implications of changing one thread in the weave of history. A wonderful critical introduction to an often-overlooked genre for scholars and casual readers of history alike.

‏‏Deganit Berest is one of the prominent Israeli artists active today. Her many artworks span ‎between painting, photography, and installation. Her intricate works trigger and challenge ‎different interpretive moves. This book present eight of them, written by artists, philosophers, ‎curators and other scholars, unfolding a rich and diverse commentary on Berest’s works. In ‎addition to the papers, the book includes fragments written by the artist herself, unveiling ‎another perspective on the artworks, which usually remains hidden: the artist herself meditating ‎about her own works. ‎

Why is is so hard to improve the Israeli education system? Despite the fact that individual innovative pedagogy projects are successful on a small-scale level, creating islands of excellency, it seems that they are unable to connect to form a comprehensive change. Endless reforms are implemented, and yet the Israeli education system is stuck in terms of the quality of learning and teaching. This book alerts that processes of change in education tend to focus on a technical and superficial dimension, while a more comprehensive change demands detailed strategic planning and systematic work on the core of teaching and learning processes.

Rabbi Judah Leib Alter of Ger, a famed nineteenth-century Hasidic master, wrote an influential collection of Hebrew homilies. But it seems that R. Judah Leib’s sermons were also transcribed by his students, some of whom recorded their teacher’s words in the original Yiddish rather than Hebrew translation. This monograph is based on a newly-discovered Yiddish manuscript of sixty pages. It presents a synoptic edition of the Yiddish text alongside the Hebrew version, thus enabling comparison of the witnesses and demonstrating the development of the various texts. The introduction uses this manuscript to explore broader historical and theoretical issues such as the relationship between written texts and oral culture, the development of written Yiddish, the nature and boundaries of translation, and the complex pathways of transmission from teachers to their students.

Vardi and Weitz bring together wide-ranging scholarship to help us understand the roots, effects, and implications of misbehavior in organizations. The book covers key topics that have emerged in scholarly literature in the past decade, such as insidious workplace behavior, bullying and harassment in the workplace, information hiding, cyberbullying, and organizational spirituality. A thorough and up-to-date resource on this crucial and evolving topic in organizational studies, this book provides insights on misbehavior at the individual, position, group, and organizational levels.

The political upheavals, the leadership crisis, and the ideological frustration which the Israeli Labour party went through in the first two decades of the 21st century led it to an unprecedented electoral decline. What happened to the formerly dominant party which established the state? What kind of intrinsic changes did it undergo in the late modernity and due to new sociological generations? What kind of new or old ideological discourses were formed within it? And how can we characterize its renewed ideological discourse? These questions stood at the background of this ethnographic study. The study focuses on young, idealistic activists who joined the Israeli Labour Party during 2006-2009 and asked to promote a social-democratic agenda. The book is based on multi-arena fieldwork and it enables a rare ethnographic reflection on the way macro level political changes take shape and are embodied in interpersonal interactions on the micro level.

The Book Smugglers is the nearly unbelievable story of ghetto residents who rescued thousands of rare books and manuscripts—first from the Nazis and then from the Soviets—by hiding them on their bodies, burying them in bunkers, and smuggling them across borders. It is a tale of heroism and resistance, of friendship and romance, and of unwavering devotion—including the readiness to risk one’s life—to literature and art. And it is entirely true. Based on Jewish, German, and Soviet documents, including diaries, letters, memoirs, and the author’s interviews with several of the story’s participants, The Book Smugglers chronicles the daring activities of a group of poets turned partisans and scholars turned smugglers in Vilna, “The Jerusalem of Lithuania.” The rescuers were pitted against Johannes Pohl, a Nazi “expert” on the Jews, who had been dispatched to Vilna by the Nazi looting agency, Einsatzstab Reichsleiter Rosenberg, to organize the seizure of the city’s great collections of Jewish books. Pohl and his Einsatzstab staff planned to ship the most valuable materials to Germany and incinerate the rest. The Germans used forty ghetto inmates as slave-laborers to sort, select, pack, and transport the materials, either to Germany or to nearby paper mills. This group, nicknamed “the Paper Brigade,” and informally led by poet Shmerke Kaczerginski, a garrulous, street-smart adventurer and master of deception, smuggled thousands of books and manuscripts past German guards. If caught, the men would have faced death by firing squad at Ponar, the mass-murder site outside of Vilna. To store the rescued manuscripts, poet Abraham Sutzkever helped build an underground book-bunker sixty feet beneath the Vilna ghetto. Kaczerginski smuggled weapons as well, using the group’s worksite, the former building of the Yiddish Scientific Institute, to purchase arms for the ghetto’s secret partisan organization. All the while, both men wrote poetry that was recited and sung by the fast-dwindling population of ghetto inhabitants. With the Soviet “liberation” of Vilna (now known as Vilnius), the Paper Brigade thought themselves and their precious cultural treasures saved—only to learn that their new masters were no more welcoming toward Jewish culture than the old, and the books must now be smuggled out of the USSR.

In October 2018, results of a randomized controlled trial showed an excess mortality mainly from cancer, among “healthy” people over the age of 70 who took aspirin, in contrast to many clinical studies previously published. This event was another record in the crisis in scientific medicine that has been unfolding before our eyes in recent decades. In this book the author tries to trace the causes of the shocks that afflict the medical knowledge base, and to offer solutions to strengthen and stabilize it. This book includes four parts. The first part discusses aspirin as a test case for development of clinical research. The second part is devoted to a discussion of the seven foundations of modern clinical research while revealing the pros and cons of each and their relative contribution to the pursuit of scientific truth. In the third part, five groundbreaking discoveries are examined. In each of them, the process that led to the discovery is deciphered, emphasizing the findings making clinical research, on the way from bench to bedside, redundant. In the fourth part the author exposes the rules of the competition among scientist, and determines its impact on the conduct of research and its results.

Breast-feeding has, throughout the generations, been perceived as a natural and instinctive activity essential for the survival of the human race. And yet, the chosen method, its frequency, and the importance attributed to it depend on varying cultural trends, as demonstrated by the visual representations of breast-feeding that testify to its intricate connection to social, religious, and economic ideologies. A “mania” on the subject of breast-feeding and its significance has become apparent in the Western world over the last few decades. In the book Crying over Spilt Milk , the author investigates the ideological concepts behind the endorsement of maternal breast-feeding in modern Western society. Using diverse visual and textual sources and surveying hundreds of artworks produced from the time of the French Revolution to the First World War,Gal Ventura reveals the historical, political, religious, and economic factorsthat shaped the representations of breast-feeding and its substitutes in French art. She thus sheds lights on the changing attitudes toward maternal breast-feeding in nineteenth-century France, which have had a considerable impact on the glorification of breast-feeding in the Western world to this very day.

In The Barbed-Wire College Ron Robin tells the extraordinary story of the 380,000 German prisoners who were brought to the USA during WWII and kept in camps throughout the country. Using personal narratives, camp newspapers, and military records, Robin re-creates in arresting detail the attempts of prison officials to mold the minds of their prisoners. From 1943 onward, despite the Geneva Convention, prisoners were subjected to an ambitious re-education program designed to turn them into American-style democrats. Under the direction of the Pentagon, liberal arts professors pushed through a program of arts and humanities that stressed only the positive aspects of American society. The American educators censored popular books and films in order to promote democratic humanism and downplay class and race issues, materialism, and wartime heroics. However, by the war's end, the curriculum was more concerned with combating the appeals of communism than with eradicating the evils of National Socialism. The re-education program, overall, failed to make these POWs shed their Nazi beliefs and become supporters of a liberal- democratic ethos. It succeeded less than the policies of other nations in indoctrinating prisoners of war or internees. In The Barbed-Wire College Ron Robin shows how this intriguing chapter of military history was also tied to two crucial episodes of twentieth- century American history: the battle over the future of American education and the McCarthy-era hysterics that awaited postwar America.

Elijah the Prophet is a remarkably impressive figure whose life is full of dramatic moments: the decree to stop the rain, the fierce tension with King Ahab and Queen Jezebel, the war on idolatry which had its climax on Mount Carmel with the killing of the prophets of Baal, God’s revelation at Horeb, the ascent to heaven in a chariot of fire, etc. These episodes sparked the imagination of readers and commentators, thinkers and artists, who continued to study the figure of Elijah throughout the generations. The book Until Elijah Comes: The Portrayal of Elijah the Prophet in Tannaitic Literature is an examination of Elijah’s multi-faceted character as reflected in Tannaitic sources, the earliest stratum of rabbinic literature. Adiel Kadari presents an in-depth analysis of the major issues related to Elijah the Prophet in the intellectual world of the sages, such as the principles and limits of halakhic discourse, messianism and eschatology, religious and political zealotry, the phenomenon of prophecy and the question of its persistence in the post-biblical era, and the relationship to history, religious piety and asceticism. The analysis of Elijah in this volume is rooted in philological studies concerning the origin and transmission of the text, and branches out to an examination of ideological aspects and worldviews. The synthesis of various approaches employed in the study of rabbinic literature yields a rich and variegated discourse. The book’s various chapters reveal the tremendous importance of Elijah in the eyes of the sages, as well as the exegetical and ideological struggles over the shaping of his image.

Therapeutics and Salvation: Freud and Schelling on Freedom proposes a new conceptual perspective on the history of the philosophy of freedom. The book focuses on Sigmund Freud’s theory of freedom, and its fundamental, yet uncharted, connection with the groundbreaking philosophy of the unconscious of F.W.J Schelling. The analysis radically challenges conventional liberal and rationalistic conceptions of freedom in psychoanalysis. The main argument of the book is that Freud formulated his theory of human nature with Schelling’s basic philosophical architecture, in particular Schelling’s concept of freedom, but, at the same time, subverted Schelling’s search for a new theology at the end of the latter's philosophical career. The detailed comparison of Freud’s work with the philosophy of Schelling backtracks a momentous shift from Schelling’s late theo-philosophy, at the endpoint of German Idealism, to the secular system of Freud, in which human reality ousted godly revelation and therapeutics replaced divine salvation. By delineating the move from Schelling’s God-subject relations to Freud’s human-subject relations, the book offers a new perspective on the historical evolution of German Idealism into modern secular thought.

The idea behind the book After the Bell: The World of Leisure for Children and Teenagers was born following a national case study, which was funded by the Chief Scientist of the Ministry of Education. Reviewing the literature for that study revealed a necessity for a comprehensive picture of children and adolescents' leisure world. This book was written to address this need. The uniqueness of the book lies in the fact that it combines theory, data and research findings from international and local settings related to children and adolescents. This book presents the essence of the literature regarding the nature of leisure, relevant theories, motives and factors that affect leisure choices, and perceptions of incentives and rewards obtained from participating in leisure activities. It concludes with a chapter on leisure education summarizing the knowledge on this topic as well as suggesting methods and means for effective leisure education. This book is intended for educational researchers, educators, student teachers, and school teachers. It is also suitable for decision-makers and educators in general as well as for anyone related to children and teenagers' well-being (e.g., educational counselors, social workers, psychologists, youth mentors, youth movement and community leaders).

This book contains the biographies of the Antonine Caesars (Aelius-Didius Iulianus) from the Manuscript P(alatinus) 899 in the Vatican Library. The manuscript was already known to men of letters in the late Middle Ages That its contents are essential to a better understanding of Imperial Rome is conventionally accepted by historians. It was published as early as the first generation of printers (Milano 1475). The biographies present a wide array of deeds and indecisions in the history of Rome during the IInd century AD. These were actually the days near the.end of the Pax Romana. The biographies present not only the characters of the Caesars, for they equally reveal the many patterns of Enlightment hovering over Rome during the years of the Antonine patronage. The tendency to base the life of citizens as well as those of the provincials not on the arbitrariness of imperial bureaucrats but law (Roman Law) inspired by philosophy (Hellenic and Hellenistic) is a remarkable signpost of this period Women were in those days considered more as juridical persons and less under the tutelage of men. Indeed the Antonines did not abolish slavery, but the attitude towards them more human. The tolerance these Caesars based on moral principles.aleviated the task of preaching in the name of Christ and winning followers. . Jews were freed by the Caesars from the danger and oppression of the edicts imposed by Hadrian. Their moderation enabled the Jews in Judaea (recently renamed Palaestina by Hadrian) to come close to a rcovery. The author of these biograpies had intentionally disguised his name and identity. Nevertheless (relying on internal evidence of his work) it seems most likely that he had compiled the SHA at the turn of the fifth century. Born as a scion of the old Roman aristocracy, the new religion aggresively imposed on Rome did not attract him. He rather felt close to the Rome of the days bygone, of the liberal temper, its literature and thought and freedom of belief. Aiming to avoid a confrontation on unequal terms with the contemporary authorities in Rome, he prefered to present his work under cover of six differerent pseudonyms. All this makes even the literary aspect of his work of greater interest and admiration Introduced,translated and annotated by David Golan

The charm of Agnon’s work lies in an inebriating combination of the funny and the serious, in his famous irony that knocks down every unquestionable certainty and even its very self. Agnon’s humor eludes rhetoric borderlines, does not tolerate confines of a genre and disobeys simple interpretative solutions. In his new book, Roman Katsman suggests a new literary-anthropological method to break down Agnon’s complicated ‘laughter code’—a method based upon the cultural and semiotic interpretation of symbols. His reading of a wide selection of Agnon’s works, including his four major novels, reveals an entire world of his laughter symbols—a world of violence and sacredness, tragic bewilderment and eruption of new possibilities. In this world, arks fly, princes disappear, serpents eat their own tails, angels and demons dance, illusion turns into reality, and other foolish and cruel miracles occur. The research looks for a solution to the riddle: should Agnon's stories be considered serious or ironic, religious or secular, scornful or emphatic, archaic or modernist; or perhaps the reader is intended to swell with pathos or burst into laughter—and how come Agnon always has the last laugh?

The Stage as a Temporary Home : On Dzigan and Shumacher's Theater (1927-1980) has been designated as the winner of the prestigious Shapiro Award for 2019 for the best book in Israel Studies The Stage as a Temporary Home takes us through the fascinating stages in the life and career of the duo Shimen Dzigan and Isroel Shumacher , over the course of half a century - from the beginning of their work at the Ararat avant-garde Yiddish theater in Łodz, Poland, and to their Warsaw theater, where they produced bold, groundbreaking political satire. The book further discusses their wanderings through the Soviet Union during the Second World War and their attempt to revive Jewish culture in Poland after the Holocaust, and finally describes their arrival in Israel, first as guest performers and later as permanent residents. Despite the restrictions on Yiddish actors in Israel, the duo insisted on performing in their own language and succeeded in translating the new Israeli reality into unique and timely satire. In the 1950s, they voiced a political and cultural critique of a kind that was not heard on any of the Hebrew stages. After they parted ways, and following the death of Shumacher in 1961, Dzigan continued to perform on his own and with other Israeli artists until his death in 1980 . The book is based on rare recordings, transcriptions, programs, personal diaries, letters, photographs, oral testimonies, and critical articles, all of which come together to create the first critical portrait of this extraordinary duo. The book also examines their art, the connection between theater and politics, and the complex relationship between majority culture and minority language . The study includes several valuable indexes: of titles of programs and plays, of the artists who participated in them, of writers and the drafts they wrote, of actors and the programs in which they participated, and a general name index. The book also includes a facsimile of the manuscript Der Nayer Dybbuk [The New Dybbuk]. Click here for the English edition, published by De Gruyter in collaboration with Magnes Press

In this provocative work, Alvin H. Rosenfeld contends that the proliferation of books, films, television programs, museums, and public commemorations related to the Holocaust has, perversely, brought about a diminution of its meaning and a denigration of its memory. Investigating a wide range of events and cultural phenomena, such as Ronald Reagan's 1985 visit to the German cemetery at Bitburg, the distortions of Anne Frank's story, and the ways in which the Holocaust has been depicted by such artists and filmmakers as Judy Chicago and Steven Spielberg, Rosenfeld charts the cultural forces that have minimized the Holocaust in popular perceptions. He contrasts these with sobering representations by Holocaust witnesses such as Jean Améry, Primo Levi, Elie Wiesel, and Imre Kertész. The book concludes with a powerful warning about the possible consequences of "the end of the Holocaust" in public consciousness.

The book seeks to understand resistance as a meeting point among various political streams that operate in Lebanon and the development of resistance from military action into a project which is beyond culture in the narrow sense, into a hegemony that encompasses all sides of life. The book links the historical development of the Lebanese political system together with the many years of radical Shi'ite political thought in the entire Middle East region, with an emphasis on the influence of leftist and revolutionary secular thought on Shi'ite radical thought in general and that of Hezbollah in particular. The book reviews the various "hegemonic mechanisms" through which Hezbollah rules its hegemony over Lebanon. A hegemony that is not (only) a result of coercion by force, but also (mostly) the result of dominating the discourse of resistance on the Lebanese and regional arena in general.

This book focuses on space, borders and ethcis in contemporary Hebrew prose written in the shadow of the Occupation and the Intifadas and reads corpus of works written between 1987 and 2007. Israeli literary representations of the Occupation and the two Intifadas, raise critical ethical questions about militarism, humanism, the nature of the State of Israel as a democracy, national identity and its borders, the nature of Zionist education, and the acknowledgment of the Other. The book deals with the portrait of the Israeli soldier, depicts the settings of the Occupied Territories, but also describes life in cities such as Tel Aviv and Jerusalem. It examines realistic writing as well as fantastic-grotesque, in the works of A. B. Yehoshua, David Grossman, Ronit Matalon, Asher Kravitz, Michal Govrin, and Orly Castel-Bloom and many others.

In his book History, Literature, Critical Theory (2013), the historian Dominique La Capra presented the ways in which the voice of the narrator in the 19th and 20th century novel came to a collapse, which reflects the modern traumatic experience. This study employs this theoretical prism in order to construct a cultural dimension of 20th century Jewish poetics - a dimension in which trauma is reflected in its linguistic representation, but also shapes this same representation. The book offers an understanding of Jewish literature in the 20th century as a far-reaching cultural experience, in which the human figure is not made possible by words, but rather collapses into the animal, the absence, the broken witness, the Muslim, the eastern, the Arab and the queer.

Life crises present before the person experiencing them an opportunity to embark on a philosophical journey that is not detached from everyday life. This book provides philosophical guidance which could help a person define their own basic questions, as well as support in the process of creative, autonomous, critical and authentic development of a newly generated world view. It aims to enable a person to realize ideas from the history of human thought and to make their life more meaningful.

For many years Hannah Arendt (1906-1975) has been the object of intense debate. After her bitter critiques of Zionism, which seemed to nullify her early involvement with that movement, and her extremely controversial "Eichmann in Jerusalem" (1963), Arendt became virtually a taboo figure in Israeli and Jewish circles. Challenging the "curse" of her own title, "Hannah Arendt in Jerusalem" carries the scholorly investigation of this musch-discussed writer to the very place where her ideas have been most conspicuosly ignored. Sometimes sympathetically, sometimes critically, these distinguished contributors reexamine the crucial aspects of Arendt's lfe and thought: her complex identity as a German Jew; her commitment to and critique of Zionism and the State of Israel; her works on totalitarianism, Nazism and the Eichmann trial; her relationship to key twentieth-century intellectuals, from Gershom Scholem to Martin Heidegger; her intimate and tense connections to German culture; and her reworkings of political thought and philosophy in the light of the experience of the twentieth century.

This is a major, unprecedented study of the Soviet partisan movements' intelligence activity in 1941-1945, and its impact on the outcome of the war between the Soviet Union and Nazi Germany. It contributes significantly to the understanding of the Soviet intelligence culture and practice during WWII, as well as to the study of the Holocaust, which is provided with clear well-documented evidence of the Soviet leadership's knowledge about the extermination of the local Jews by the Nazis and their supporters.

The Mandel Alumna are seeking to change the world . This book is an attempt to encounter some of them and describe how they're doing it, in Israel and abroad. They are all talking education: how to meet the world and how to cope with the main issues facing humanity. Throughout the book we meet places and their relevant history and the fascinating questions they raise, and some of the great ideas they're connected with. Between the lines we learn of the role played by the Mandel foundation and institutes.

The book deals with the story of Dinah, told in Genesis 34, and with the wide range of relationships it forms with other biblical stories. This is important, since the story of Dinah was not sealed in the last verse of Genesis 34. Other stories, both in Genesis and other biblical books, shed light on our story, clarifying and enhancing its meanings from their own viewpoints. Moreover, the story of Dinah was not born ex nihilo. In telling his story, the narrator of Genesis 34 was guided by other biblical narratives, whose voices he kept hidden in between the lines. The present book seeks to locate the texts whose traces are found in the story of Dinah, as well as those which, conversely, bear its traces. In this way, we add a further layer to the study of intra-biblical exegesis and the exploration of intertextuality. More precisely, this work is part of the scholarly endeavor to outline the literary chronology of the Bible’s stories and the hidden links that connect them to each other; to determine how these linkages work and what motivated their creation; and to comprehend the world of beliefs and opinions that is mirrored in them.

The Torah of the Ba'aeli Tosaphists-the scholars of Germany and France in the 12th and 13th Century, is the iron pillar of the Halacha and the Jewish law.

This anthology is a collection of stories, written by women at the turn of the twentieth century and published in the Yiddish press at that time. The have been translated to Hebrew for the first time. From its beginning the Yiddish press enabled all levels of society to sound their voices. Women too were quick to meet this challenge, and until the First World War more than ninety of their works were published: novellas, plays, fiction and a wide variety of short stories. This collection of nineteen stories represents this abundance and its unique qualities. It sounds anew the voices of forgotten women authors, who disappeared even from the eyes of critics and researchers: Maria Lerner, Isabella, Rokhl Brokhes, Yente Serdetsky, Salome Perl, Rokhl Feigenberg and others. Their stories open a window to the world of women at a time of dramatic changes in the lives of Jews in the Russian Empire. They portray conflicts between the generations, especially between the authors and their mothers, the dilemmas of love, and the anguished movement between the small town and the big city, between maintaining traditions and breaking free of frameworks. These stories highly enrich our knowledge of Jewish society at that time and are a fundamental expression of the part women played in that society.

The Hope of Enlightenment presents for the first time in Hebrew a comprehensive analysis of the thought of Jürgen Habermas. A philosopher, social critic, and public intellectual, Habermas is an ardent but hardly a dogmatic defender on the Enlightenment. He has thus has contributed a distinctive perspective in the ongoing discourse on modernity. To illuminate the far-reaching significance of this contribution – and its challenges to both Israeli and modern society in general -- Matan Oram examines Habermas's critical thought through the prism of political philosophy in the broad context of the crisis of modernity. By focusing on the dialectical relationship between 'rationalism' and 'liberalism' in Habermas’s thought, the book traces his theoretical project as it has evolved throughout his vast corpus of writings, and explores its philosophical and intellectual origins.

The book Shamanism and Literary Criticism deals with the unique attention that scholars of art and literature pay to the object of their study. This specific attention is based on a communitarian approach, a special type of research empathy, and a contemplation radically focused on literature, art, and the community of its readers. What do scholars of literature do in a community where literature is created, read, and interpreted by them? What is the attitude of these scholars to literature and its readers? What is the role entrusted to them by their community? This book offers a new theory about the attitude of the study of literature toward literature, art, and communality. It illustrates the theory and its features as a method of research and interpretation in the works of Uri Nissan Gnessin, Micha Yosef Berdyczewski, Shimon Halkin, A. B. Yehoshua, Aharon Appelfeld, Dahlia Ravikovitch, Ronit Matalon, Orly Castel-Bloom, and Anna Hermann.

The standard study of Talmud is to accept the given as ultimate, that the sayings and the interpretations recorded therein are faithful to what was actually said. After having checked for the genuine version, for the right GIRSAH, eliminating the scribal errors, the text assumes reliability and serves as a starting point for further discussions and additional deductions. For over forty years, Prof. David Halivni has questioned the given as the authoritative text and argued for the necessity to go back in time and reexamine the veracity of the interpretations. Many of the given interpretations are forced, do not neatly fit the text they interpret and often attribute to the authors of the statements intentions that they did not necessarily share. As a consequence, substitute interpretations were necessary to which the multi volumes of "Sources and Traditions" were dedicated. While the books dealt mainly with the actual Talmudic interpretations, the introductions dealt with the causes responsible for the deviations from the original. It took the writings of a few volumes to become clear that the interpretations, unlike the apodictic statements were not officially transmitted by the Transmitters, the professional reciters and reached the later compilers which are referred to in the volumes as STAMMAIM, anonymous scholars, only through random survival which was not always complete. Sometimes it survived in a truncated form which the later compilers filled in, conjecturing what was missing. The present volume contains all of the introductions which provide the reader not only with the final conclusion but also with the developmental stages which led to that conclusion further strengthening its plausibility.

This book offers a cultural biography of Maimonides as a product of his multi-cultural and multi-religious background. It studies “the great eagle” in his multi-faceted historical and cultural context, and highlights the deep impact on him of Islamic culture as a whole: not only his philosophy, but also his legal and scientific writings as well as his correspondences. The aim of the book is twofold. On the one hand, it highlights universal patterns in Maimonides’ thought. On the other hand, it shows Maimonides’ relevance to the study of Medieval Islam. The presentation of Maimonides as a Mediterranean thinker elucidates his consistent interpretation of his own Jewish tradition in contemporary terms, as they were shaped by his Mediterranean legacy.

Cinema is the most democratic form of art, dependent on the taste of millions of viewers. Within the cinematic historical genre in Arab cinema one finds a rich intellectual discourse, in a constant dialogue with state, censorship and audience . The book "Back to the Past: Filmed History in Arab Cinema" invites the readers to know the Arab cinema industry, mainly the Egyptian one, through the historical genre, and "medieval" films as its core. In films taking place in Middle Ages , the viewers meet warriors and poets, besides the leaders and founders of Islam. These films present also the images of Mongol and Crusaders invaders, slaves and concubines, Mamluks, Christians and Jews. The book surveys also the transition from a situation of Egyptian cinema exported to the Arab world, into the creation of Pan-Arab historical discourse within the satellite channels.

More than fifty years ago the discovery of scrolls in eleven caves beside the Dead Sea ignited the imagination of the world. Expectations abounded that the scrolls would reveal actual contemporaneous accounts of the birth of Christianity, perhaps even of the life of Jesus. The research that followed—its inner logic, and what its impassioned highly controversial theories reveal about the framing of facts and the interpreting of texts—is what interests philosopher Edna Ullmann-Margalit in this thoroughly absorbing book. Since the inception of Dead Sea Scrolls research, a central theory has emerged. Known as the Qumran-Essene Hypothesis, it asserts that the scrolls belonged to the Essenes, a sect whose center was at the nearby site of Qumran. In Out of the Cave, Ullmann-Margalit focuses on this theory and the vicissitudes of its career. Looking at the Essene connection, the archaeology of Qumran, and the sectarian nature of the scrolls community, she explores the different arenas in which contesting theories of the scrolls do battle. In this context she finds fascinating examples of issues that exercise philosophers of science as well as the general public issues that only amplify the already intrinsic interest of the Dead Sea scrolls.

Exploring the military, legal, social and literary aspects of ancient warfare this study examines the multifaceted nature of the siege phenomenon in the ancient Near East. The book is based on Akkadian and biblical (and, to lesser degree, Greek, Aramaic, Egyptian, Hittite and Ugaritic) sources as well as on the depictions on reliefs from Assyrian palaces and Egyptian temples. The analysis incorporates lexical study and military thinking and focuses on the technology of warfare and human behavior is a state of emergency.

In 2000, the book The Incense Trade Route 2000 was published. Since then, many changes occurred in the terrain, knowledge, research and the geo-political situation, in light of the peace treaties between Israel and other counties in the Middle East. The most prominent researchers of the Incense Trade Route have come together to write a new and updated edition.

Two Together , by Moshe Meir, embodies a breakthrough in Judaic philosophy in the new era. Its roots are anchored in the sources of the Jewish religion’s twentieth century philosophy, particularly that of Hermann Cohen and Rabbi Soloveichik, and Chassidic philosophy and heritage; its background is the barren dispute between religiosity and secularism in the era defined as post-modern. Moshe Meir’s painful acknowledgment, drawn from personal experience, is that the independent identity of ‘the religious’ and ‘the secular’ participate in each other’s worlds, and the dispute not only divides them but causes splitting among themselves. In his book, the author develops a new religious-philosophical language which enables stepping out from behind the armor that prevents each party from seeing the other’s humanity, and creating not only humane Jewish rapprochement but also a personal identity that bridges and unifies the secular believer on one hand, and the believing secularist on the other. As a researcher of Judaic philosophy in the new era who has consolidated his own views on these issues, I was deeply impressed by the innovative impetus, clarity and intellectual integrity characteristic of Moshe Meir’s book, from the beauty of its structure, and its elegant style. It is an attractive book which, despite its depth, is eminently readable and enjoyable. This book will enrich and enhance the spiritual world of all readers interested in such topics, and may give rise to serious, in-depth debate among its enthused supporters and equally enthused opponents, whether they are religious or secular. (Prof. Eliezer Schweid, Department of Jewish Thought, Hebrew University, Jerusalem). The search for a refreshing religious philosophy is one of the most vital and fascinating of all. Moshe Meir presents a path which is both model and content for establishing one of the most unique modes of belief in our generation. Precisely because I do not agree with all his views, I consider it of supreme importance that his principles are read by, and echo within, every believing individual – either by their adoption, or critical review – as they convey a tone of orientation that is direct, and deep, in seeking God. (Rabbi Yuval Cherlow). In this beautiful, important, and innovative book, Moshe Meir creates the religious-secular individual from his image, similar only externally to the religious-orthodox individual. This intriguing creation caused me to reconsider my own likeness, and discover that after all is said and done, I am none other than a secular-orthodox person whose similarity to a secular-secularist is only external. (Ari Elon, author of עלמה די and בא אל הקדש (

This book is an attempt to explain the traditions in the Kabala which relate to the female body of G-d.

Zionists without Borders tells the story of the Halutz movement in Poland and its role in helping the Labor movement rise to the leadership of the Zionist Movement in the interwar period. It describes the founding of a mass national and socialist movement, which changed the face of the Zionist map. The leaders of the Labor movement in Israel established strong ties with pioneers from Poland, thus making the Halutz a cross-border movement, connecting Jews by means of politics, nationalism and socialism.

The essays in the book Between Ze'ev Jabotinsky and Menachem Begin deal with the main issues of the History of the Revisionist Movement and Herut Movement. It deals with the movements' historical leaders – Ze'ev Jabotinsky, the founder of the Revisionist Movement, and Menachem Begin, the founder of Herut Movement and the first Israeli Prime Minister from the Right-wing faction. The essays deal with the following issues: The Revisionist Criticism of the Yishuv Leadership during the Holocaust ; Ben-Gurion's Attitude towards the Revisionist Movement , The History of the Herut Movement , 1948-1965 ; The Disappearance of Menachem Begin in 1951 and Its Significance; The Herut Movement and Israel's Relations with Germany; The Attitude of Herut Movement towards Kastner Trial; "The Princes" - The Second Generation of Herut Movement. Winner of the Jabotinsky Literature and Research Prize for 2015

Ateret Zekenim is a work of historical research into the lives of several well-known medieval halakhists from France, Germany, and Spain. The primary focus of the book is biographical, and it attempts to resolve difficult questions that have puzzled the scholarly community for many years. Its author seeks to rely on the writings of his predecessors, but he first substantiates that these foundations were properly laid and that he is not adding to an edifice that is destined to collapse. Thus, for example, the author re-examines the story of Rabbi Asher b. Yeḥiel (Rosh)’s migration from Germany to Spain in the early 14th century, a migration that had a dramatic impact on the culture of Sephardi and Ashkenazi Jewry alike. Is the scholarly consensus – according to which Rosh meticulously planned his flight to distant Toledo, in an entirely different cultural realm, over the course of two decades – correct? After methodical examination of the sources, a very different story emerges. Rosh, and with him the Ashkenazi halakhic tradition, moved from Germany to Spain at the last moment, when there were no other options.

Prayer has been a component of humanity since time immemorial. This revolutionary study explores Jewish prayer; not its textual layer but rather its non-verbal expressions – physical gestures, dress, and voice. These elements create a rich, intricate language, which is the focal point of this vivid scholarly discussion.

This is not the first biography of Manasseh of Ilya, however it claims to be the most embracing and authoritative one, offering new details of Manasseh's life and work and the influences that molded them. The distinctiveness of the book is not only the chapter on the library at Vyasin, but also a thorough analysis of Manasseh's attitude to Hasidism, a problem raised by scholars before but never solved satisfactorily. Another contribution to this work is the description of Manasseh's indebtedness to the thought and ideals of the European Enlightenment. In terms of rabbinic Judaism, Manasseh was no doubt an Illuy (genius), but as had happened to others before him, the use of his talmudic erudition was not in the realm of rabbinic studies, but in support of his reformist ideals, which aimed at cardinal changes in the economic, social and cultural aspects of Jewry. It was, however, the tragedy of his life that he was unable to bridge the abyss between ideal and reality. In other words, his Torah experience was unable to provide him with the tools needed for the articulation and even less so for the implementation of his ideals.

Ta’am HaTe’amim is a messianic treatise in the Hebrew language composed by the Catholic French orientalist and mystic Guillaume Postel (1510-1581). Ta’am HaTe’amim is a relatively unknown Renaissance document, which sheds light on unique intellectual and political stands prevalent among sixteenth-century Catholic reformators . Throughout the treatise, Postel refers to several famous historical issues, depicting them through his own particular perspective, which was based upon a blend of Joachite millenarism, French patriotism and Jewish Kabbalah. In addition, Ta’am HaTe’amim is a rare example of Hebrew writing by an Early Modern Christian Scholar, and it is characterized by remarkable linguistic traits expressing Postel’s theological concepts regarding languages in general and Hebrew in particular.

This is a book on one of Buenos Aires's neighborhoods, Villa Crespo, considered by many a Jewish district, and its football team Club Atletico Atlanta. Through the lens of this neighborhood institution, Rein offers an absorbing social history of Jews in Latin America. Since the end of World War II, there has been a conspicuous Jewish presence among the fans, administrators and presidents of the Atlanta football club. For the first immigrant generation, belonging to this club was a way of becoming Argentine. For the next generation, it was a way of maintaining ethnic Jewish identity. Now it is nothing less than a family tradition for third generation Jewish-Argentines to support Atlanta. The book offers a rare window into the rich culture of everyday life in the city of Buenos Aires, created by Jewish immigrants and their descendants.

The present comprehensive and orderly collection of texts from the Babylonian Talmud allows a deep insight into the knowledge of the rabbis about the importance and decryption of dream experiences and dream messages. It covers, inter alia, the emergence of dreams and their healing power, mysterious Atonement and possibilities of influencing the content of a dream, nightmares, dream and prophecy, sexual dreams, rules and techniques of dream interpretation. The Talmudic texts are added through detailed explanations and contemporary Jewish and non-Jewish parallels. This book was first published in Vienna in 1923. It is Kristianpollers' thesis, written in his 20s. The thesis was finished as a book in 1914 but publication was delayed due to the first world war. The Hebrew translation was initiated by the authors' son, Professor Nahum Kristianpoller, in memory of his parents who perished in the Holocaust.

Vardi and Weitz bring together wide-ranging scholarship to help us understand the roots, effects, and implications of misbehavior in organizations. The book covers key topics that have emerged in scholarly literature in the past decade, such as insidious workplace behavior, bullying and harassment in the workplace, information hiding, cyberbullying, and organizational spirituality. A thorough and up-to-date resource on this crucial and evolving topic in organizational studies, this book provides insights on misbehavior at the individual, position, group, and organizational levels.

The question of theodicy has preoccupied philosophers and theologians throughout generations. Roughly: If God is moral, how can there be evil in the world? Or: Is the existence of evil not evidence against the existence of a righteous God? This question became the greatest philosophical challenge for the believer, and the main device in the hands of atheists. The question of theodicy also raises a second-order discussion, about the nature of the challenge: Is there a logical contradiction between a moral God and the existence of evil? If not, what sort of tension is this? Can the attributes of God be thought of in a coherent manner? Does the very existence of evil give rise to the challenge, or only the existence of unnecessary evil? The present research addresses Kant’s take on theodicy. It focuses mainly on two Kantian assertions that seem to disaccord with Kant’s theory of freedom: 1. That evil is entrenched in mankind, and 2. That if all-inclusive moral-order is impossible, the moral-law is erroneous. The conclusion, based on close examination of Kant’s argumentation, is that Kant did not exclude theodicy from rational discourse, but rather redefined the challenge enclosed in the question of theodicy.

During the last decades there have occurred significant upheavals in the political and military position of many religious and ethnic communities in the Middle East and North Africa. Communities which had been rejected and discriminated for decades rose to power or strengthened their political position in their countries by means of military struggles. Meanwhile, in Israel/Palestine, the ethnical-religious Jewish minority has become a ruling majority, while excluding the former Arab-Muslim-Sunni majority, following the wars of 1948 and 1976. This book examines these processes.

The writings of Yehezkel Kaufman (1889-1963), late Professor of Bible at the Hebrew University of Jerusalem, fall into three main categories: Bible studies, of which the four-volume History of the Religion of Israel is the magnum opus; socio-historical analysis of Jewry's fate and existence as a diaspora-nation community, with the two-volume Golah ve-Nekhar (Exile and Estrangement) being its most outstanding scholarly undertaking in this regard; finally topical articles dealing with immediate socio-political problems of Zionism and the emerging State of Israel. This book comprises three successive chapters from Yehezkel Kaufman's Golah ve-Nekhar which, though intrinsically related to the central topic of that work, constitute a distinct unit of its own. The basic difference between Judaism and Christianity is here defined as two forms of covenant being in conflict with each other. Sample pages A digital version of this book is available here

This book seeks to re-examine the question of whether, indeed, Rav Kook's halakhic teachings lack originality and innovation; whether the two worlds of Rav Kook – the philosophical and the halakhic – are truly contradictory; whether those who maintain this position are correct in neglecting Rav Kook's halakhic heritage. The discussion here focuses on the nature of the philosophical and ideological considerations that find expression in his halakhic teachings. The type of considerations to be examined is called "meta-halakhic" or "extra-halakhic"; this term is defined in relation to the accepted conceptual framework and boundaries of halakha. Won the Wiler Prize from Bar Ilan University, The Faculty of Law 2006.

Contiruptance: Poetical Fluctuations in Naomi Frankel’s Work is the first book dedicated to Frankel's literary work, offering an in-depth reading of her entire fictional oeuvre. The concept of "Contiruptance," which indicates ruptures and continuity, provides insight into Frankel's poetics; suggesting that it may serve to deepen the analysis of the works of other authors.

This book describes the many ups and downs in the relationship between Germany and Israel in the modern era.

The relationship between the traditional Jewish past and the present is a key question in Jewish intellectual thought from the Wissenschaft des Judentums in the nineteenth century up to the present day. The Angel of Jewish History casts a philosophical gaze upon the relationship between the traditional Jewish past and the present through the metaphysical worldviews of five formative Jewish Studies scholars: Yosef Hayim Yerushalmi, Amos Funkenstein, Gershom Scholem, Baruch Kurzweil, and Nathan Rotenstreich. Their hermeneutic worldviews and writings deal with the nature and formation of modern Judaism, Wissenschaft des Judentums and historicism, the image of the Jewish past and tradition, secularization, and God’s status in present-day Jewish reality. These issues are explored in the book against the background of the tense discourse between the perception of modern Jewish reality as a break from the past and tradition and the argument for continuity despite the changes and developments of modernity. The book was originally published in English.

From Empathy to Denial is the first comprehensive study of the broad range of Arab responses to the Holocaust based on years of painstaking historical research. The book explores how Holocaust representations developed after the Second World War by analyzing themes, and case studies, spanning a period of almost seventy years. It shows how these perceptions evolved in the shadow of the Arab-Israeli conflict.

This book is an updated Hebrew translation of The Modulated Scream: Pain in Late Medieval Culture . Chicago: University of Chicago Press, 2010. The subject of this book is human pain in the later middle ages (13 th - 15 th centuries) in Western Europe. The author surveys and analyzes the ways people wrote about pain in different situations (like the difference between childbirth and toothache), and the ways people described their own pains. In a world with very few pain-killers and nothing at all to make surgery bearable, people suffered much more pain than we do today. Consequently, since they could not banish pain, they sought meanings for it. Physicians claimed that one should not try to soothe pain, since pain was an indicator of disease and as such, it was useful. Lawyers and judges claimed that the infliction of pain by torture was a tried-and-true method for eliciting true confessions from criminal suspects. Experts in Christian theology debated the nature of Christ’s pain during his Crucifixion, and mystics tried to identify with it, even to feel it. The common people were exhorted by preachers to bear their illnesses with patience, since pain on earth saved them future sufferings in the afterworld. In conclusion, medieval attitudes towards pain were radically different from modern ones: while we try and conquer pain, seeing it as a challenge, people in the past, who were often in constant pain, gave reasons for suffering and adopted pain as part of their lives.

This book deals with the philosophical problems of the textual commentaries written by Jewish philosophers from Moses Mendelssohn in the 19th Century to Jacques Derrida and Emmanuel Levinas in the Second half of the 20th Century, examining among others the place of tradition and mythology in modern Jewish philosophy and the contribution of Jacques' Derridas' deconstruction and Emmanuel Levinas' philosophy.

The book examines the relations between Oriental, local Jews and Palestinian Arabs in Mandatory Palestine. It focuses on the role of Oriental Jews as possible mediators from a cultural, political and social perspective, as those who sought to bridge Jewish-Arab culture, Jewish-Arab nationalism, and Jewish-Arab identity. Examining these relations from the perspective of Oriental and local Jews sheds new light on the history and historiography of Zionism, the Yishuv, and the Jewish-Arab conflict.

The book deals with the conceptual and practical transformation of history as modern science and art between 1740 and 1940. The book concentrates on the work of six major historians who turned history from its rhetorical classical models of "teaching by examples" into a meaningful investigation narration of human life. Common to them as was the belief that human life and history are made by human being like themselves, by themselves.

This study examines the concept of United Nations peacekeeping operations and their execution in Cambodia, Former Yugoslavia and Somalia from 1988 to 1995. The research is anchored primarily in United Nations documents, which were produced following the diplomatic discussions that took place in the organization on the subject of peacekeeping in general and in the cases of Cambodia, Former Yugoslavia and Somalia in particular This research demonstrates, using the records of diplomatic discourse at the United Nations, that although there was an attempt to change the concept of peacekeeping operations, it eventually failed. The best explanation for this outcome is that international politics at the United Nations – at least as it concerns peacekeeping operations – is still conducted according to the principles of each state’s realpolitik. The states formed their stance on a case by case basis, while calculating power relations in order to advance their own national interests. Therefore their position on each topic did not necessarily match the declared position of any particular political alliance. Furthermore, many multi-functional operations were still executed in accordance with the traditional concept. The main objective of these operations was international mediation between belligerent sides in order to form sovereign governments and to deploy a 'peacekeeping force' in accordance with the traditional principles of international and local consent, impartiality and the non-use of force. Traditional objectives were preferred over new objectives such as democratization, human rights, and economic development.

It has been said: " No two people have ever read the same book." This is true for literature where the reader has to imagine a world presented by words. It doesn't seem appropriate for cinema which presents a world ready-made to be seen and heard. But films, almost since their early beginnings, and especially in the recent decades, have been capable not to present, not to show, but to allude to off-screen events and images. One could say about most of the movies discussed in this book: " No two people have ever watched the same film ".

This selection of studies spans a period of about 50 years while including new studies which are published here for the first time. The studies in the first section all deal with religious rituals in Israel in Biblical times, and are characterized by a constant aspiration to infiltrate this exotic and mysterious world, described in utopist and anachronistic lines, and to see it for what it is, without disregarding its legislative uncompromising character on the one hand or its internal power and riveting wholeness on the other. The second section brings together studies dealing with the written work and the author's labor in Biblical times and from which arises the fact that it is impossible to properly understand the biblical literary design without paying attention to the conditions in which the biblical author lived and the material he worked with, mainly the scrolls. Various studies dealing with various aspects of biblical literature and Israel's biblical faith and religion, were collected in the third section. The fourth section holds programmatic contents on critical studying of the bible and exploring it in the new era.

This volume offers rich accounts of pioneering leadership development projects and other education-related programs operated or supported by the Jack, Joseph and Morton Mandel Foundation over the last thirty years - initiatives designed to advance the Foundation’s mission to enhance the vitality of the Jewish people and to strengthen Israel as a just, compassionate and inclusive society. Scholars, educational leaders and philanthropists will find much to ponder in this book. It offers multiple perspectives on the qualities needed for effective leadership; on leadership development, with attention to the role of the humanities and policy studies in this process; on ways to foster educational and social change; on philanthropic engagement; and on the role of research and profound ideas in efforts to strengthen educational practice and communal life.

In Ha-halakhah ha-nevu’it , the author traces the halakhic philosophy of Rabbi Abraham Isaac ha-Kohen Kook, one of the preeminent Jewish thinkers of modern times. Rabbi Kook was called upon to offer his opinions on the raging issues of the day within the Jewish world—enlightenment, secularization, and the Zionist movement—and his influence on Israeli public life was and remains enormous. His complex, poetically formulated pronouncements resonated with the community and gave rise to varied, sometimes contradictory interpretations. Although regarded as philosophically daring and a source of intellectual ferment, he is also recalled as a stringent halakhist. Not surprisingly, most of the literature on Rabbi Kook thus far has concentrated on his thought and has tended to disregard his halakhic rulings. This book is the first to examine the full extent of Rabbi Kook’s philosophical and halakhic writings, taking account of all the contradictions and tensions they embody. At the same time, it illustrates the linkage among halakhah, aggadah, and prophecy. The study shows that there can be no halakhah without aggadah; that every ruling is illuminated by an underlying philosophy. To elucidate Rabbi Kook’s halakhic writings, the book introduces the reader to the areas of his thinking and philosophy that encompass human thought in general as well as the hidden recesses of Jewish literature in all its forms: aggadah and halakhah; poetry and legal decisions; esoteric and exoteric teachings. Against that comprehensive background, the meta-halakhic principles that underlie his halakhic rulings clearly emerge. Rabbi Kook’s jurisprudence touches on the realm of prophecy, and his journals—extensively cited in this book—convey his prophetic sensibility. The sense of prophecy is tied to the experience of the return to the Land of Israel, and it plays a central role in understanding his halakhic writings. The book examines the problematic interplay between prophecy and halakhah in general and Rabbi Kook’s prophetic-halakhic world in particular, along with its wealth of implications.

A look at three communal educational cycles. Kibbutz Education, education in working class schools and general secular education in the settlement and the state education in the State of Israel.

Commedia dell’arte, originating in Italy and proliferating on European stages from approximately 1650 to 1750, is one of the most significant and long-lasting phenomena in theatre history; its influence on all performing genres is notable throughout Western Drama to this very day. The new study From Carnival to Theatre: Structure and Chaos in the Commedia Dell'arte provides a comprehensive, deeply-researched study of the development of the genre, the establishment of the first professional troupes in Europe, their organization, their patrons and wide variety of popular and elite audiences. The study traces all aspects of the unique improvised performance: the show's space, dramatic patterns, dramatis personae, acting style, costume and stage design are re-interpreted by the attachment of the commedia dell’ arte to its double roots: the heritage of written literature, and manifestations of popular oral tradition in seasonal festivities. The book explores especially the interaction of the commedia dell'arte with the phenomena of carnival, in its very existence as an opposition to the social structure within the liminal time and space related to the celebration. Being an authorized event, containing metaphors of annihilating the existent order, in which subversion could be substituted by amusement, the carnivalesque combined time, place and creative means into a new theatrical form: the commedia dell'arte.

For the first time the reader of the Hebrew language is presented with a book uncovering the unique activity of the German-Catholics in 19th century Eretz Israel. Those are the builders, for example, of the Dormition in Jerusalem and the Hospice in Tabgha.

Question of place: Architecture between the poetic and the ethical calls for a re-understanding of the foundations of the architectural act while exposing it to phenomenological thought. Through a return to the first, and failed, encounter in the late 1970s, between phenomenology depicting phenomena in the light of human experience and architectural discourse, Edna Langenthal offers a new reading of discourse, embracing the thought of philosopher Martin Heidegger and discussing the influence of architectural-architectural scholar Norteberg Which in her opinion missed Heidegger's contribution to her understanding. To emphasize the potential inherent in Heidegger's thought in understanding the question of place and the possibilities of dwelling in it, the author discusses the meaning of the poetic as a constitutive axis in understanding key concepts in contemporary architectural discourse. But the poetic dimension, for her, cannot exist without the ethical dimension. Through a study of the thought of Heidegger's student and critic, the philosopher Emanuel Levins, the structure that connects an affinity between the ethical and the home and the possibilities of settling in it.

Rabbi J.B Soloveitchik (1903-1993) was the preeminent leader of Modern Orthodoxy in the United States for nearly 50 years. His prominence in American Orthodox life was based upon his expertise in Torah and Western intellectual culture, his extraordinary pedagogical and rhetorical skills and his halakhic authority. As the head of the World Mizrachi, he also played an influential role on religious Zionism in Israel. Rabbi in the New World , explores the extent of Rabbi Joseph Soloveitchik’s leadership in shaping the Orthodox communities in the United States and analyzes the characteristics and multiple domains of his influence. The book examines the question of whether Rabbi Soloveitchik’s leadership is best understood as limited to American Orthodoxy or whether his influence exceeded those boundaries. The essays in the book probe which of his students most closely reflect his religious philosophy, whether his vision was sufficiently flexible to meet the challenges of the present and the future, and whether Rabbi Soloveitchik was open to inter-religious dialogue. The book contains twenty-six articles by scholars in history, sociology, education, theology and philosophy, all of whom evaluate Rabbi Soloveitchik’s works and the era in which he was active. Rabbi in the New World , was co-edited by Dr. Avinoam Rosenak, Chair of Jewish Philosophy at the Hebrew University of Jerusalem and Research Fellow at the Van Leer Jerusalem Institute and Rabbi Prof. Naftali Rothenberg, Senior Research Fellow at the Van Leer Jerusalem Institute and Rabbi of Har Adar.

16 October 1943 is one of the most intense, troubling and spectacular works ever written on a single event in the Holocaust of Europe's Jews. This text embodies a stylistic combination of almost real-time journalism, powerful poetic and emotional literature and a profound philosophical essay on the Nazi's behavioral patterns. Giacomo Debenedetti, a distinguished Jewish-Italian author, journalist, and literary critic and theorist describes in 16 October 1943 the terrors of the raid of the Ghetto of Rome. The story (for it is first and foremost a story) unfolds, with piercing, terrifying language, the deportation of one Jewish community within the Nazi extermination mechanism.

This is the eighth book in the "Sources and Traditions - Critical Commentary on the Talmud" series.

MA‘ARAG: The Israel Annual of Psychoanalysis is a democratic, refereed annual publication, evaluated and edited by academicians, intellectuals in related fields, and clinicians. The journal, dedicated to research in psychoanalytic theory, practice and criticism, is the fruit of the initiative and cooperation of the Sigmund Freud Center for the Study and Research in Psychoanalysis of the Hebrew University, the Israeli Association for Self Psychology and the Study of Subjectivity, Israel Society for Analytical Psychology, Israel Psychoanalytic Society, Clinical Division of the Israel Psychological Association, Israel Institute for Group Analysis, Israel Institute of Jungian Psychology, The Sigmund Freud Chair of Psychoanalysis of the Department of Psychology, The Hebrew University, Tel-Aviv Institute for Contemporary Psychoanalysis, The Winnicott Center in Israel and the New Israeli Jungian Association. In this issue: Merav Roth | FROM “FUNES THE MEMORIOUS” TO FORGETFUL AGNES: ON DEAD REMEMBERED MEMORIES AND THE ALIVE FORGOTTEN Emmanuel Amrami | ON SEXUALITY IN PSYCHOANALYSIS: TWO PHASES, THREE FACES, AND A BRIEF GLANCE TOWARD LOVE Anat Tzur-Mahalel | “WRITING LIKE A DOG DIGGING A HOLE; A RAT DIGGING ITS BURROW:” NARRATIVES OF SEPARATION THROUGH THE PERSPECTIVE OF FREUD’S PATIENTS Rakefet Efrat (Levkovich) Holzer | “YOUR ENDLESS UNRETURN”: MELANCHOLY AND ABYSMAL DOUBLE NEGATION Ayelet Naeh | THE SELF THAT IS NOT ONE: ON THE REFLECTIVE RELATIONSHIPS BETWEEN THE SELF AND AWARENESS THROUGH A KABBALISTIC PERSPECTIVE Yifat Eitan-Persico | OEDIPAL CONFIGURATIONS IN SAME-SEX FAMILIES Omri Blum | THE UNCANNY: A STUDY OF THE UNCANNY IN LITERATURE AND PSYCHOANALYSIS Ruth Netzer | MYTHS AND REALITIES: ON INCEST, SIN AND REDEMPTION Moshe Alon | TRANSFERENCE, COUNTERTRANSFERENCE AND THE WOUNDED HEALER: A JUNGIAN ANALYTIC-PSYCHOLOGICAL PERSPECTIVE ON THE PSYCHOTHERAPEUTIC RELATIONSHIP Tziki Cohen | BETWEEN MONAD AND DYAD: THE MULTIFACETED NATURE OF SELF-CONSTITUTION Alina Schellekes | SENTENCED TO LIFE: REFLECTIONS ON THE INABILITY TO SUSTAIN VITALITY, FOLLOWING THE MOVIE “TURTLES CAN FLY” Dafna Ben-Zvi | HOW DOES THE ‘ISLAND OF MAYBE’ HEAL? REPETITION AND REPARATION IN “THE JOURNEY TO THE ISLAND OF MAYBE” BY MIRIAM YALAN-STEKELIS

A collection of articles by one of the leading researchers of the Hebrew language spanning across various fields of knowledge, presented in four sections: Words and their combinations, vocabulary and semantics; language and rhetoric of the media; teaching the language; language, literature, and culture. Raphael Nir was one of the pioneering scholars to study the secondary text: dialect, phrasing, proverbs, as well as headlines, slogans, and even stickers. He researched linguistic transparency in Modern Hebrew, examined the political correctness of the language, and insisted on the use of passive forms in order to conceal the perpetrator when the act described was not morally appropriate. Some of the articles touch on irony, as well as the formation of language norms.

Halakhah: Overt and Implicit Conceptual and Ideological Contexts, is a collection of articles by leading scholars in the field of halakhah and the philosophy of halakhah. The articles uncover the overt and implicit worldviews of a number of halakhic decisors and examine how they coped with extra-halakhic cultures and ideas. Some of them internalized “outside” concepts, while others dealt with the outside world by making new use of the internal notions of the world of halakhah. The articles also consider the link between ideology and the issuance of halakhic rulings. Readers will encounter examples of the influence of ideology on halakhah, alongside arguments that categorically deny that ideology plays any part in halakhic thinking. The volume proposes answers to questions such as whether halakhah derives its power from its anti-ideological character and what underlies the assertion that halakhah is an ideological text.

The Western Wall—Judaism’s holiest site—occupies a prominent position in contemporary Jewish and Israeli discourse, current events, and local politics. In The Western Wall: The Dispute over Israel's Holiest Jewish Site, 1967–2000 , Kobi Cohen-Hattab and Doron Bar offer a detailed exploration of the Western Wall plaza’s evolution in the late twentieth century. The examination covers the role of archaeology, attempts to design the space, the Wall’s transformation as an Israeli and Jewish symbol, and the movement to open it to a variety of Jewish denominations, studying the central processes and shifts that took place at the Western Wall during the three decades that followed the Six-Day War, a relatively short yet crucial chapter in Jerusalem's extensive history.

This book explores the early days of Jewish education in the Russian Empire, especially from the socio-economic perspective. Various chapters describe the world of the lonely scholar, emergence of the enlightenment groups, the employment sphere of the educated, education systems founded, the cultural space they shaped and their relationship with the traditional society circles.

The Second Commandment’s injunction against making graven images and likenesses resonates in all facets of Jewish visuality throughout the generations. Although Jews have always created and consumed art, the attitude to figural art –anthropomorphic and zoomorphic representations – has oscillated, like a pendulum, between strict prohibition and full permissibility. Figureless Art traces a lesser-known chapter in the history of Jewish art – a period governed by the swing to extreme stringency that left its mark on Late Antique synagogues in the Land of Israel. This anti-figural trend manifested in the avoidance of anthropomorphic and zoomorphic depictions and in the deliberate obliteration of anthropomorphic and zoomorphic figures on stone carvings and mosaic carpets that adorned the synagogues. What is the meaning of this strict trend? Did it emerge from within the Jewish world or was it stimulated, conversely, by external influences? Who was responsible for the effacement of the figures in the synagogues and when did these iconoclastic events occur? This book examines these phenomena through a broad historical, religious, and cultural perspective, based on visual and literary sources from Late Antique and early Muslim Palestine.

This book deals with the arrival of modernity in the Holy Land in the form of the 86 km Jaffa-Jerusalem Railway. Befitting the completion of such a substantial undertaking, the inauguration, in September 1892, was a grand affair, attended by representatives of the Ottoman Empire, consuls, religious leaders, and foreign delegations. The tracks approached Jerusalem from the southwest through the Judean Mountains, taking advantage of the deep, winding river bed of the Soreq Valley. This afforded the least steep route, though even then the grades were a challenge for the locomotives. Since the tracks were of narrow meter-gauge they could easily follow the natural contours of the land on the ascent to Jerusalem, the highest point, at about 700 meters above sea level. . The railroad was the largest civil engineering project ever undertaken in the modern Holy Land. It was built to exploit the tremendous growth of pilgrim traffic and tourism during the second half of the nineteenth century. Though several proposals had been put forward since the 1850s, it was only in the 1880s that two young Jewish entrepreneurs, Joseph Navon of Jerusalem and Joseph Amzalak of Jaffa, backed by the Protestant banker Johannes Frutiger, were enabled to take the first steps leading to the acquisition of a license from the Ottoman government for laying down the iron rails. Unable to raise sufficient capital in Europe, Navon sold the license to a group of Catholic businessmen in Paris, who established the Société du Chemin de Fer Ottoman de Jaffa à Jérusalem et Prolongements. When the first locomotive was tested on a short length of track at Jaffa half the population turned up to witness the event, such was the novelty of the sight and sounds of the horse of fire and iron. Despite difficulties due to the low cost of construction and poor traffic during the early years, the railroad opened up Jerusalem to modern tourism, brought greater numbers of pilgrims, and contributed to the growth of the city. It also delivered fresh water in times of drought. This is the most thoroughly researched publication ever to appear on the first railroad in the Holy Land. Moreover, it relies extensively on the one resource that best captures the spirit of the Jaffa-Jerusalem Railway: magnificent photographs, mainly taken between 1891 and 1914. These early photographs, gathered from archives in Israel, the United States, England and Germany, are supplemented with those taken by British forces from December 1917 on, from Israel, Australia and England, and a number of color images dating from the mid-1980s. Details of locomotives and rolling stock, maps, tables of statistics, track plans, extensive notes, a bibliography, and index are included. The intended audiences, apart from general readers and railway enthusiasts, are historical geographers, historians of the Holy Land in modern times, and transport and tourism historians.

The book The State of Israel and Its Institutions in the Halachic Thought of Rabbi Shlomo Goren reviews the diverse subjects with which Rabbi Goren dealt as a halakhic ruler: the halakhic status of the State of Israel, the concept of sovereignty, military and war laws, immigration absorption, changes in prayer and blessings, and others. The book describes his original, and sometimes unusual, positions within the history of Israel, and his desire to take part in shaping this history.

The book sheds light on one of the most interesting episodes in the history of Israel's foreign policy. Since the Sinai war (1956), France was a friend and ally to Israel. She provided State-of-the-art weapons to help maintain the balance of power against the Arab States, gave essential political support and economic assistance, and assisted in building a nuclear reactor in Dimona. Charles De Gaulle's return to power in France in 1958, during the war in Algeria, challenged the Israeli leadership. In light of the French President's determination to renew France's influence in the Arab world- would Israel succeed in preserving the Friendship with France? The book deals with the efforts of statesmen, politicians and Israeli officials to achieve this goal. Also De Gaulle's uncompromising policy to obtain the status of a powerful France and its impact on his views on the State of Israel are discussed. The book sheds light on a mystery that plagued many commentators and still remains largely unsolved: why De Gaulle decided to turn a cold shoulder towards Israel in May 1967, when it was facing one of the toughest challenges ever, and why the hesitant policies towards Israel increased after the victory in the six day war.

In this myth-shattering study Isaiah Friedman provides a new perspective on events in the Middle East during World War I and its aftermath. He shows that British officials in Cairo mistakenly assumed that the Arabs would rebel against Turkey and welcome the British as deliverers. Sharif (later king) Hussein did rebel, but not for nationalistic motives as is generally presented in historiography. Early in the war he simultaneously negotiated with the British and the Turks but, after discovering that the Turks intended to assassinate him, finally sided with the British. There was no Arab Revolt in the Fertile Crescent. It was mainly the soldiers of Britain, the Commonwealth, and India that overthrew the Ottoman rule, not the Arabs. Both T.E. Lawrence ("Lawrence of Arabia") and Sir Mark Sykes hoped to revive the Arab nation and build a new Middle East. They courted disappointment: the Arabs resented the encroachment of European Powers and longed for the return of the Turks. Emir Feisal too became an exponent of Pan-Arabism and a proponent of the "United Syria" scheme. It was supported by the British Military Administration who wished thereby to eliminate the French from Syria. British officers were antagonistic to Zionism as well and were responsible for the anti-Jewish riots in Jerusalem in April 1920. During the twenties, unlike the Hussein family and their allies, the peasants (fellaheen), who constituted the majority of the Arab population in Palestine, were not inimical towards the Zionists. They maintained that "progress and prosperity lie in the path of brotherhood" between Arabs and Jews and regarded Jewish immigration and settlement to be beneficial to the country. Friedman argues that, if properly handled, the Arab-Zionist conflict was not inevitable. The responsibility lay in the hands of the British administration of Palestine. Isaiah Friedman is professor emeritus of history at Ben-Gurion University of the Negev. He was elected Senior Fellow at St. Antony's College, Oxford and was a Visiting Fellow at the London School of Economics. He is the author of Palestine 1914-1918: British- Jewish-Arab Relations; Germany, Turkey and Zionism, 1897-1918; Palestine: a Twice Promised Land? Vol. 1: The British, the Arabs, and Zionism, 1915-1920, the editor of twelve volumes in the series Documents on the Rise of Israel; and co-editor of the new edition of Encyclopaedia Judaica, 22 vols. (2007).

‏‏Deganit Berest is one of the prominent Israeli artists active today. Her many artworks span ‎between painting, photography, and installation. Her intricate works trigger and challenge ‎different interpretive moves. This book present eight of them, written by artists, philosophers, ‎curators and other scholars, unfolding a rich and diverse commentary on Berest’s works. In ‎addition to the papers, the book includes fragments written by the artist herself, unveiling ‎another perspective on the artworks, which usually remains hidden: the artist herself meditating ‎about her own works. ‎

The Temple Mount is the most sacred site in Judaism and the third most sacred site of Islam in, after Mecca and Medina in Saudi Arabia. The sacred nature of the site has made it one of the main foci of tension and friction in the context of the Israeli-Arab conflict. Jewish fundamentalism and the Temple Mount is original and pioneering research on a number of radical and messianic movements in Israel that wish to, and at times, are making preparations to rebuild the Temple. The manuscript examines the theological roots and historical circumstances that have given rise to the movement of Temple Builders. It places the different movements within larger political, social and religious developments, offering the readers a context to understand the place of such groups within the larger Israeli, and global realities of our time. The research is described in the context of the fundamentalist phenomenon – a wave whose ramifications go far beyond the context of the Middle East. The research gives special attention to the connection between Jewish Temple Builders and Christian fundamentalist supporters and presents the theological exchanges that have taken place. The Book points to the Six Day War as a watershed event that has given rise to messianic interpretations of the Israeli victory and its significance for Jewish history. Israel’s’ overtaking of Jerusalem, including the Temple Mount, resurrected and enhanced messianic convictions of Zionist Orthodoxy. However, the crystallizing during the 1980s-2000s of contemporary Messianic groups and their Temple oriented Messianic beliefs has driven not the euphoria of victory, but form the fear of disappointment. Those aspiring to build the Temple are afraid of an imminent loss of the territorial gains of made in the Six Day War, due to the peace process, and the theological implications of such setback to their messianic hopes.

This book examines the impact of Catholic censorship on the publication and dissemination of Hebrew literature in the early modern period. Hebrew literature made the transition to print in Italian print houses, most of which were owned by Christians. These became lively meeting places for Christian scholars, rabbis, and the many converts from Judaism who were employed as editors and censors. Raz-Krakotzkin argues that the regulation of Hebrew print provided an avenue for the integration of Hebrew literature into the Christian corpus.

This collection presents the readers with essays and articles that raise the issue of the religious and cultural sources – together with philosophical, ethical and legal aspects – of the concept of "human dignity". The analyses and presentations only emphasise the necessity for the intellectual grappling with "human dignity" in Israel at the beginning of the 21st Century

“ Halakhic marriage perpetuates a person’s status as property… This form of control over a woman’s sexuality is a type of terrorism that does not apply to men .” This statement expresses a modicum of the discomfort felt by modern religious women with respect to the traditional wedding ceremony. This book follows the efforts by these women to alter the traditional ceremony, challenging it and opposing it even while remaining a part of it. These women choose to express their agreement with and opposition to various elements of the tradition in a manner that reflects a worldview that values both equality and Orthodoxy. The social power relations between these women and their environment describe the revolution taking place in religious society, in the shadow of the intersections of tradition with modernity, and of Orthodoxy with feminism. Non-religious women who nevertheless struggle to accept various aspects of the Jewish wedding ritual will likewise find in this book an echo of the whispers in their hearts.

This book deals with rheumatic diseases that are mainly diseases of the skeletal system and muscles. It contains comprehensive and up-to-date information on more than 120 acquired and congenital joint diseases, such as various arthritis, skeletal and spinal diseases, tendon issues, vascular infections, peripheral nerve injury syndromes, and more. The book is written in a simple, clear and comprehensible language. It lists the various symptoms of diseases, diagnostic methods, including laboratory tests and various imaging methods, various therapeutic approaches, including conventional drug therapies and alternative therapies. A special chapter in the book is devoted to common questions frequently asked by the patients and the answers to them. It also presents explanations of common terms and concepts in rheumatic diseases.

This book is the first attempt to review the history and the fall of the Jewish community that existed in Beit She' an from the late 19th century until the outbreak of the Arab Revolt in 1936. The story of the community, which has been almost completely forgotten by the public and academic consciousness, is based on an initial study of several public and local archives, as well as a thorough study of dozens of primary and secondary sources of various types: press clippings, academic and autobiographical sources, oral interviews and others. Beside presenting the history of the community itself, which includes the unique challenges it experienced during its fifty years of existence and the organizational and ideological processes which characterized it, the study is also a base for a better assessment and understanding of the several small Jewish communities that existed during this period in a number of Arab cities and towns: Be'er Sheva, Ramle, Nazareth, Samakh, Jericho and others. This is accomplished by comparing the events in Beit She' an to those which took place in other communities, while trying to identify the factors that led to the collapse of these communities during the Mandate period, and to the withdrawal of the Zionist movement from its substantial support to their continued existence. The book also deals with different questions of ethnic and national Jewish identity, the relations between marginal communities and the leading national institutions, and issues relating to Zionist historiography over the past century.

Geniza Collection in Geneva Some 350 large vellum sheets, originating from the Cairo Geniza, were uncovered this May by Professor David Rosenthal of the Hebrew University at the Bibliothèque publique et universitaire in Geneva. The Cairo Geniza is an immense depository of Jewish texts, first discovered in the late nineteenth century by Professor Zalman Schechter in the synagogue of Fustat, Cairo. The Geneva collection had apparently been acquired in the same year by a Geneva university papyrologist, Professor Jules Nicole, supplementarily to papyri he had purchased. Following a preliminary examination of the material, it was apparent that the Geniza collection in Geneva included many new fragments of great interest, pertaining to various fields of Jewish studies. Bible : A copy of the Bible carries a dedicatory inscription on the front page of Genesis: “Dedicated to the Synagogue of the Jerusalemites, cursed be he who steals this, cursed be he who sells this, cursed be he who knowingly buys this.” The book was owned by the community of the synagogue of Fustat, which followed the tradition of Eretz Yisrael (i.e. Jerusalem). Indeed, there were also a number of fragments belonging to an assemblage of haftarot. These reflect the practice of a three-and-a-half-year Torah reading cycle in the tradition of Eretz Yisrael. A Masoratic text that was in this collection concludes with a message referring to the renowned masora authorities Ben Naphtali (9th-10th centuries) and adds a name to the geneological roster of this celebrated family. He provides the traditional vocalization and cantillation symbols but deals with counting the verses as well. Talmud : The Geneva collection includes fragments of Mishna, Talmud Bavli and Midrash, as well as two fragments of the Talmud Yerushalmi. The latter, preserved in only one medieval manuscript ) the Leiden Ms.), is therefore of particular interest: the fragment of Yerushalmi Bikkurim amends the traditional text, while the other is an abridged version of Yerushalmi Kiddushin . Halakha : A number of fragments of Geonic texts were found, including a copy of Halakhot Gedolot , Rav Sa’adya Ga’on’s Sefer Mizevot in Arabicand fragments of halakhot of Alfasi and Maimonides. Of special interest are two pages of previously unknown responsa of the geonim Rav Sherira and Rav Hai, addressed to the community of Egypt (10th century). Also found was a fragment of Sefer haGalui , a polemical treatise by Rav Sa’adya Ga’on against the Exilarch and against the head of the Babylonian academy. This text, previously preserved in Hebrew and in Arabic, was found in Geneva on two joined folios. It includes a new passage of the Hebrew version and a previously published (1891) passage of the Arabic version, but here the copiers had excised Rav Sa’adya’s pungent attacks against his adversaries. Liturgy and Prayer : Liturgical verses of HaQalir, previously known in corrupted versions, appear here. Completely new material was also discovered, such as an important liturgical poem from a rare book of piyyutim by Rav Sa'adya Gaon. A laudatory poem by Dunash ben Labrat (10th century) to Hisdai ibn Shaprut, as well as new liturgical poems, have now become available to us. Historical Documents : Found in the new collection are a bill of divorce written in Fustat in 1166, and four letters of correspondence written by and to the leaders of the community. These include a response ruling on financial matters, written in Arabic by R. Elhanan ben R. Hushiel (Qayrawan, first half of 11 th century), of whom only two letters were previously known. This find helps clarify a scholarly debate regarding the identification of this scholar with Rabenu Hananel Berabi Hushiel, the great commentator of the Talmud.

Two opposite arguments are heard in political and academic discourse in Israel about the status of the Israel Defense Forces (IDF): One argument is that the IDF possesses too much power and that military thought governs political thought. Others contend that the military is over-supervised by civilian groups such as parents, civil rights groups, and other organizations, thereby limiting its space of operation. Can both these arguments be right at the same time? How can the contradiction between them be reconciled? This is the problematic at the heart of this book. In Who Governs the Military , Yagil Levy proposes a distinction between two modes of civilian control over military affairs: control of the armed forces – focused on military doctrine, weapons systems, operational performance, recruitment policies and the resources allocated to the military – and control of militarism, which focuses on political culture and the level of legitimation it awards to the use of force. Levy argues that inverse relations have developed since the early years of the state; namely, increase in control of the IDF dovetailed with a decrease in control of militarism. This distinction is useful in analyzing key issues that have attracted scholarly attention in recent years, among them: - The political implications of changes in the social composition of the IDF. - The sources and implications of casualty-averse policies. - The impact of extra-institutional control; namely, the actions taken by social movements and interest groups, in the public and judicial arenas, in an attempt to restrain the military. - The significance of the military's permeability to the market society. - The complex role played by the press in controlling the military.

Argonautica (the voyage of the ship Argo), is a Hellenistic epic poem by Apollonius of Rhodes written in the third century BCE. It is one of the few remaining epic poems of ancient Greece, recounting the adventures of Jason and the Argonauts who sailed aboard the Argo to Colchis in order to retrieve the Golden Fleece. Much importance has been attributed to this work owing to its artistic qualities and complex narrative. Argonautica has had an immense influence on prominent Roman and modern writers alike, including Ovid, Virgil, and Robert Graves. The Hebrew translation retains the original meter of the work and accurately reflects the content and spirit of the original Greek.

This book represents a first attempt to examine in a systematic manner televised humor in Israel. It focuses on the Israeli “comic canon” – a bunch of sketches, characters and programs that were produced between the early 1970’s and late 1990’s. In the course of the years, these texts have accuiraed a unique status and became part of the cultural DNA of many Israelies. The analysis investigates the interrelationship between humor and six prominent social cleavages in Israeli society: national, ethnic, class, political, religious and gender. A close reading of the texts shows that “a joke is never just a joke” – the social, political and economic dramatic transformations that Israel has undergone in the last three decades are capsulated in televised humor. Moreover, humor has served as a sensitive seismograph, capturing processes in early formative stages and sometimes even functioned as an actor in socio-political transformations. The book uncovers the polysemic, or multi-meaning, qualities of popular televised humor, which make it unifying and dividing, conservative and subversive. These qualities enable the “comic canon” to contain the set of paradoxes underlying the Israeli society without resolving them. This polysemity also allows the comic texts to serve as a “cultural core” – shared by different, opposing groups, each of which interprets the texts according to its own needs and perspective.

Homer's Odyssey is a grand epic poem of voyage and adventure. It recounts Odysseus' return to his native island of Ithaca after twenty years of war and wandering. We also encounter his son Telemachus, who has just come of age, as well as his wife, Penelope, sorrowful for her absent husband yet cunningly avoiding her boisterous and arrogant suitors. Having overcome the man-eating Cyclops Polyphemos, the bewitching Circe and the harrowing phantoms of the Underworld, as well as other perils, Odysseus finally arrives in Ithaca to reclaim his kingdom. Yet the Odyssey is not merely a tale of high adventure and a hero's triumphant return, it is also a story of man's inner confrontations and his encounter with the vicissitudes of fate. As with Arouetty's previous translation of the Iliad, the new prose translation of the Odyssey aims at precision and clarity. It strictly adheres to the Greek original, attempting to retain its nobility of language and style.

Distinguished philosopher Hilary Putnam, who is also a practicing Jew, questions the thought of three major Jewish philosophers of the twentieth century – Franz Rosenzweig, Martin Buber, and Emmanuel Levinas – to help him reconcile the philosophical and religious sides of his life. An additional presence in the book is Wittgenstein, who, although not a practicing Jew, thought about religion in ways that Putnam juxtaposes to the views of Rosenzweig, Buber and Levinas. Putnam explains the leading ideas of each of these great thinkers, bringing out what, in his opinion, constitutes the decisive intellectual and spiritual contributions of each of them. Although the religion discussed is Judaism, the depth and originality of these philosophers, as incisively interpreted by Putnam, make their thought nothing less than a guide to life. Origonally published by Indiana University Press.

The Iliad of Homer is a powerful poem of force and heroism. It is the earliest of epics in Western Civilization and, since its appearance in the 8 th century BCE, has inspired subsequent literary works. It tells of the final year of the Trojan War, one of the central stories in Greek mythology, and of the wrath of Achilles and its horrendous consequences. This is the first Hebrew prose translation of this great work. It has been done with meticulous care both to accuracy and style, aiming to preserve as far as possible the literary richness and charm of the original. As the Iliad belongs originally to the oral tradition, it is meant rather to be listened to than read; hence the translation aims at a greater musicality of Hebrew and simplicity of expression – both important characteristics of the Greek original. The translator has added a concise introduction and comprehensive notes to enhance readers’ understanding of this timeless poem. An index was added in the second edition.

The book Biblisch- talmudische Medizin , first published in Berlin, in 1911, is a unique life's work bringing together a comprehensive knowledge in medicine, Jewish and general sources. The various chapters include a broad review of the world of medicine in the Bible and the Talmud in light of Jewish law, a detailed description of the biological organs, diseases of body and mind, deformities, gynecological and sexual. There are chapters on legal medicine, preventative medicine, health cures and dietetics. The material is also based on in-depth study of Bible, Mishnah, Talmudic and Rabbinic literature, Midrash, the External Books, the works of Joseph Ben Matityahu, the New Testament, as well as ancient and modern legal literature, Likewise illuminating sources from Greek and Latin literature, western medical literature, referencing hundreds of publications from the eighteen and nineteen hundreds were used. The writer Dr. Julius Preuss (1861-1913) was born in a small town in Prussia, in which his parents' house was the only Jewish family. He studied medicine in Berlin and was close to the orthodox Jewish community, where he acquired much of his extensive knowledge in Judaism. Over the years Preuss published over thirty articles on medicine and Judaism in various scientific journals, all the while maintaining a medical practice in the town of his birth and afterward in Berlin. He passed away two years after publishing his book in German, based on his articles. Preuss' book was translated into English by Dr. Fred Rosner (Biblical and Talmudic Medicine ) and was published in the United State in 1978. At a conference on Jewish and medical law, which took place in Jerusalem in 1998, the book was quoted and it was indicated that a translation into Hebrew was sorely needed. The translator into Hebrew, Uri Wurzburger , remained loyal to the original German, at the same time expanding the quoted references appearing in the book and adding modern interpretations.

L a Divina Commedia (Devine Comedy) is an epic poem written by Dante Alighieri between c. 1308 and his death in 1321. It is widely considered the preeminent work of Italian literature, and is seen as one of the greatest works of world literature. The poem's imaginative and allegorical vision of the afterlife is representative of the medieval world-view as it had developed in the Western Church by the 14th century. It helped establish the Tuscan dialect, in which it is written, as the standardized Italian language. It is divided into three parts: Inferno, Purgatorio, and Paradiso . On the surface, the poem describes Dante's travels through Hell, Purgatory, and Heaven; but at a deeper level, it represents, allegorically, the soul's journey towards God. At this deeper level, Dante draws on medieval Christian theology and philosophy, especially Thomistic philosophy and the Summa Theologica of Thomas Aquinas. Consequently, the Divine Comedy has been called "the Summa in verse ". (Wikipedia) This new Hebrew translation presents the three parts of the Devine Comedy where opposite to every Hebrew line its original Italian equivalent. Each page contains annotations relevant to the verses printed in that page. Translated and annotated by Reuven Cohen.

In 1915 Albert Einstein started writing this booklet in an attempt to provide readers who do not necessarily possess knowledge of theoretical physics with an accurate understanding of one of the highest intellectual achievements of the human mind, the theory of the relativity. This friendly brain-challenge is written in the form of a dynamic dialogue, yet it also requires a substantial intellectual effort from the reader. In this important scientific document, the reader is taken on a journey through Einstein’s special and general relativity theories.

One of the world's most celebrated scholars, Stephen Greenblatt has crafted both an innovative work of history and a thrilling story of discovery, in which one manuscript, plucked from a thousand years of neglect, changed the course of human thought and made possible the world as we know it. Nearly six hundred years ago, a short, genial, cannily alert man in his late thirties took a very old manuscript off a library shelf, saw with excitement what he had discovered, and ordered that it be copied. That book was the last surviving manuscript of an ancient Roman philosophical epic, On the Nature of Things , by Lucretius—a beautiful poem of the most dangerous ideas: that the universe functioned without the aid of gods, that religious fear was damaging to human life, and that matter was made up of very small particles in eternal motion, colliding and swerving in new directions. The copying and translation of this ancient book-the greatest discovery of the greatest book-hunter of his age-fueled the Renaissance, inspiring artists such as Botticelli and thinkers such as Giordano Bruno; shaped the thought of Galileo and Freud, Darwin and Einstein; and had a revolutionary influence on writers such as Montaigne and Shakespeare and even Thomas Jefferson.

Smocza is the biography of a street in Warsaw that was completely destroyed in World War II. The book reveals the story of a Jewish microcosm between two world wars. It is based on historical and literary sources that piece together a multicultural mixture of a society in transition, where orthodox Jews, Bundists, Zionists, shoemakers, tailors, poets, actors, prostitutes, and others lived side by side.

The book presents a broad and varied picture of Islam. It covers a wide range of topics, including faith and jurisprudence, theology and philosophy, mysticism, culture and society, from the dawn of Islam in the seventh century to contemporary times. Geographically, the book encompasses such regions as the Middle East, North Africa, the Indian subcontinent, East Asia and Europe/West . The book traces lines of continuity and change in Islam throughout the ages on such complex and sensitive issues as religion and state, the concept of jihad, Islamic attitudes to religious minorities or to Western Christian culture. These issues became hotly debated in the modern era, especially from the late 18th century, when Muslim societies were forced to contend with European colonialism, political upheavals, social and economic schisms, and identity crises . There is a clear need for a comprehensive and up-to-date introduction book in Hebrew for students and readers alike so that the appearance of the book is timely. Apart from containing new materials, the book also contains many insights, and in some cases reexamines and revisits prevailing scholarly approaches.

The book breaks with Nietzsche's previous essay style (as in The Birth of Tragedy). It is a collection of aphorisms, largely concerned with human psychology. He criticizes social Darwinism in it: Wherever progress is to ensue, deviating natures are of greatest importance. Every progress of the whole must be preceded by a partial weakening. The strongest natures retain the type, the weaker ones help to advance it. Something similar also happens in the individual. There is rarely a degeneration, a truncation, or even a vice or any physical or moral loss without an advantage somewhere else. In a warlike and restless clan, for example, the sicklier man may have occasion to be alone, and may therefore become quieter and wiser; the one-eyed man will have one eye the stronger; the blind man will see deeper inwardly, and certainly hear better. To this extent, the famous theory of the survival of the fittest does not seem to me to be the only viewpoint from which to explain the progress of strengthening of a man or of a race.§224 Nietzsche also distinguishes in this work the obscurantism of the metaphysicians and theologians from the more subtle obscurantism of Kant's critical philosophy and modern philosophical skepticism, claiming that obscurantism is that which obscures existence rather than obscures ideas alone: "The essential element in the black art of obscurantism is not that it wants to darken individual understanding but that it wants to blacken our picture of the world, and darken our idea of existence" (Vol. II, Part 1, 27).