The Military Government was established during the war and operated within the army, but it promoted political and ideological objectives. In July 1948, David Ben Gurion established it as body intended to govern the Palestinians who remained in Israel. Its main objectives were threefold: to facilitate the transfer of Palestinian land into Jewish hands; to exclude Palestinians from the labor market and prevent them from organizing on a national basis. The Military Government promoted these objectives through a bureaucratic mechanism that prevented the Palestinians citizens of Israel from leaving their place of residence without the governor's approval. The supporters of the Military Government were well aware of the fact that its existence makes Israel a non-democratic state. They supported its existence because they believed it was necessary to maintain Israel's Jewish character. The Military Government was controversial in the political system in Israel, but the intensity of the opposition to its existence was sometimes contingent on the partisan and ideological interests of the opponents, both from the left and the right. The book describes the factors that shaped the political system's relationship with the Military Government and traces the changing strength of the debate surrounding it. The book seeks, among other things, to answer the question of whether Prime Minister Levi Eshkol's decision to abolish the Military Government in December 1966 was due to the struggle of the opponents or rather from the recognition that the Military Government had fulfilled its objectives.

Setting Tables: Eating, Social Boundaries, and Intercultural Transfers is a first-of-its-kind collection of Hebrew articles exploring commensality and various practices associated with shared eating, whether with acquaintances or strangers. This volume examines how meals—though routine—function as significant normative anchors in different societies and historical periods, delineating hierarchies within and between social groups and cultural categories. Shared eating can occur in everyday settings or in political and ceremonial contexts. Participants may adhere to contemporary etiquette, engage in discussions, remain silent, focus solely on the meal, or manage social impressions. Regardless of time or place, shared eating consistently signifies both divisions and connections, shaping and reflecting intricate social identities. The volume offers a range of case studies, from Assyrian royal banquets through the Roman world, to Jewish and Arabic sources from the Islamic world and addresses current issues like municipal conflicts over falafel vendors in Mandatory Tel Aviv, sustainable consumption at weddings and the rise of personalized microbial diets. It investigates the characteristics of this complex social interaction and reveals the connections between the material aspects of meals and their cultural meanings.

The book offers a new reading of Israeli prose written primarily in the 1980s and 1990s. During these decades, Hebrew literature freed itself from the aspiration to address a general (male) audience and began cultivating a new, more diverse readership. This audience was constructed through the direct address of literary texts to their readers. For women, who are often culturally directed to identify with the position of the (seemingly) passive listener of the story rather than the protagonist, this strategy offers a vital mode of engagement. Through close readings of contemporary Hebrew literature—including works by Orly Castel-Bloom, Yoel Hoffmann, Lea Aini, Yuval Shimoni, and Eda Zoritte—the book reclaims this position and demonstrates how it can be both productive and active.

A Ramble in the Hive is an eco-philosophical text that deals with the relationship between humans and honeybees from the dawn of humanity to the present day, interlinking mythology, folklore, literature, art and science from different historical periods. A Ramble in the Hive works as both popular science and philosophy, combining a study of the history of beekeeping and its multitude of inventions, with a philosophical and poetic view of the human encounter with honeybees as reflected in the imagination of our culture. It suggests approaching the hive as an archetype of living mythology that works on our collective imagination. A Ramble in the Hive presents the planetary honeybee crisis as a fascinating window through which to observe wide-ranging ecological issues. How did the honeybee get such a lofty and critical role – holding responsibility for both the future of humanity and the earth? What do the bees tell us in their current state? This book is an attempt to answer these questions.

The Emergence of the Mizrahi Middle Class in Israe l focuses on the historical and social conditions that gave rise to the Mizrahi academic mobility movement, with attention to some of its cultural effects and political costs, which socially construct the boundaries of mobile Mizrahi’s’ ethnic behavior. The book deals with the historical and social conditions in which this mobility movement takes place, with an emphasis on the stories of agencies that were involved in blocking mobility or in trying to effect a breakthrough.

This is the story of an adventurous journey into a magical, unknown and incomprehensible world where nature is alive and has a psyche, including trees. Do trees have a spirit? Does a tree have a soul? Scientists may question the notion that trees have a mind, soul or spirit, but there are cultures where trees have a soul and a mind of their own. The book describes the mind-blowing experience of entry into a world of spirits and trees, a world of animism – the field of anthropology that ascribes a psyche to all natural elements. Written in the form of travel log accompanied by illustrations, the book reveals the wisdom and sensitivities of villagers in northern Burma, who opened their home, their trees and their hearts to the author, allowing him to touch and understand their beliefs, and through them understand his own self.

According to the conventional understanding, the ultimate goal of Zionism as a national political movement was the establishment of a nation-state. In his new book on the history of the Zionist political imagination from the beginning of the idea of modern Zionism to the establishment of the State of Israel, Dimitri Shomsky challenges a deterministic view by examining unknown writings by the founding fathers of Zionism and by re-examining the known sources, which were interpreted in a tendentious and ahistorical way in the classical literature on Zionism. The author reveals that the leaders of Zionism envisioned the realization of Jewish self-determination in the Land of Israel within a multinational framework. First, they envisioned an autonomous province in the multinational Ottoman Empire, and then - during the British Mandate - a multinational democracy. The book shows that the models of a Jewish state, which were established and developed by the founding fathers of the State of Israel, included recognition of a collective national existence of the Arabs of the Land of Israel. Such political patterns were not the property of marginal figures among Zionists (such as the "Brit Shalom" people), but on the contrary, were presented by the most mainstream Zionists: Yehuda Leib Pinsker, Benjamin Ze'ev Herzl, Ahad Ha'am, Ze'ev Jabotinsky and David Ben-Gurion. The book focuses on these five figures and presents them and their views in an innovative way, which is known to have an impact on contemporary Israeli discourse.

In 1491 the renowned goldsmith Salomone da Sesso converted to Catholicism. Born to a Jewish family in Florence, Salomone later settled in Ferrara, where he was regarded as a virtuoso artist. But rumors circulated about Salomone’s behavior, scandalizing the Mantuan Jewish community, who turned him over to the civil authorities. Salomone was condemned to death for sodomy but agreed to renounce Judaism to save his life. He was baptized, taking the name Ercole “de’ Fedeli” (“One of the Faithful”). Drawing on newly discovered archival sources, Tamar Herzig traces the dramatic story of his life, half a century before ecclesiastical authorities made Jewish conversion a priority of the Catholic Church. The book explores the Jewish world in which Salomone was raised; the glittering objects he crafted, and their status as courtly hallmarks; and Ercole’s relations with his wealthy patrons. Herzig also examines the response of Jewish communities and Christian authorities to allegations of sexual crimes, and attitudes toward homosexual acts among Christians and Jews. In Salomone/Ercole’s story we see how precarious life was for converts from Judaism, and how contested was the meaning of conversion for both the apostates’ former coreligionists and those tasked with welcoming them to their new faith.

Empathy is often conceptualized as the experience of walking in someone else’s shoes. This experience comprises of a cognitive aspect – the ability to identify, understand and adopt the perspective of another, and an affective aspect – sharing the emotions of others, while remaining distinct. Empathy has been widely recognized as central to cognitive and social development, and a key to nurturing interpersonal relationships and encouraging pro-social action. But empathy has drawbacks as well: Its boundaries, limitations and even potential damage have also been recognized and investigated. The articles in this book take multiple perspectives to studying empathy. They discuss how empathy is developed and how it is bounded, and focus on both its positive and negative implications. The articles in the first part of the book take a social sciences perspective to empathy. They define empathy, describe its development from very early age and throughout the life-span, and examine how it affects intra-personal, interpersonal and social processes. The second part of the book discusses the role of empathy in the humanities. The articles in this part address empathy in history, literature and the arts. Together, the articles in this book point to the vast scope of empathy as a phenomenon in both the social sciences and the humanities.