Pygmalion was claimed by Shaw to be a didactic drama about phonetics, and its antiheroic hero, Henry Higgins, is a phonetician, but the play is a humane comedy about love and the English class system. The play is about the training Higgins gives to a Cockney flower girl to enable her to pass as a lady and is also about the repercussions of the experiment’s success.

The Erudite Comedy introduces the Hebrew reader to three saucy Italian comedies. These comic gems were written in the first quarter of the 16th century, the period in which Western classical theatre was reborn. Each of them possesses unique historical and artistic values: Ludovico Ariosto’s ‘La Cassaria’ (1508) is well-known as ‘The first modern play’; Bernardo Dovizi’s ‘La Calandra’ (1513) is remarkable for its ingenious plot, bold erotic allusions and surprisingly feminist soliloquies; Niccolo Machiavelli’s ‘Clizia’ (1525) contains autobiographical elements, reflecting the aging Renaissance genius’ love affair with a well-known young courtesan .

Two Plays by Miguel de Cervantes Saavedra: The Bathes of Algeria The Great Sultana Dona Catalina de Oviedo A bilingual book in Spanish and Hebrew. Full symmetry of meter and Rhyme of both languages.

The book Habima in Berlin delineates the net of interconnections between Habima, a Hebrew theater troupe, and the German Jewish cultural and economical elite, that were woven together in the years 1926-1931. It analyzes how Berlin Jews, among them renowned theater artists, Zionist activists, intellectuals, wealthy businessmen, industrialists and bankers, formed a coalition to support Habima and how they shaped its Hebrew-Zionist artistic profile.

The Latin Iliad is a concise adaptation of the Homeric Iliad. The identity of its author remains uncertain but the work is attributed to Baebius Italicus, a Roman dignitary of the second half of the first century CE. The Hebrew translation of this short epic retains the unique poetic language of the original as well as its meter.

This play is a love story in the shape of a parody. The god Jupiter, father of the gods and humans, a relentless womanizer who never grew up and has a never ending stock of passion. He desired the wife of the warlord Amphitruo who left the city to fight in a war. Jupiter takes Amphitruos' shape and makes love to his wife. When Amphitruo comes back from battle then starts a comedy of mistakes which ends in Amphitruos' wife giving birth to two sons - one for each man.

Mandragola – known in English as The Mandrake – is Niccolo Machiavelli’s most renowned comedy. It is widely considered the greatest stage play of the Italian Renaissance, and one of the most brilliant comedies ever written. Mandragola is admired for its blunt and sober portrayal of human nature and the prominent role of deceit in the shaping of reality. This new Hebrew translation is accompanied by a comprehensive introduction and interpretative notes. The introduction documents the rebirth of western theatre in the Italian Renaissance, and examines the relation between Machiavelli’s comedy and his ‘serious’ writings.

The Chronographia is a historical account of the rule of fourteen Byzantine emperors (11 emperors and three empresses), chronologically, from 976 to 1077. Michael Psellos, who served the Byzantine emperors for over thirty years as a senior minister, described in these fourteen biographies the emperors as humans, with all their faults and merits. Psellos lived in a society which underwent dramatic changes: he lamented the citizen's growing greediness, the loss of values and order, the Nouveau Riches of his days and warned against the inflation of honorary titles and benefactions which were offered to the citizenry by weak emperors who sought the population's political support. The eleventh century was a watershed in the history of the Byzantine empire. At the beginning of the century, Byzantium stood at the height of its political and cultural strength. Prosperity began to decline when the Seljuq Turks started raiding eastern Anatolia in the 1030's. The rule of the central government in the eastern parts of the empire declined until these areas were finally lost in the wake of the Manzikert battle of 1071. Although Psellos did not focus on the description of battles but rather on the imperial court and the capital's politics, the Chronographia is one of the important sources of 11th century Byzantium . A literary, no less than a historical work, the Chronographia brings to life emperors and empresses, lovers, mistresses, rebels and even the ordinary people of Constantinople , in an unwavering effort to reveal the human traits of its heroes. Translated from the Greek with introduction and Notes by Shay Eshel

A collection of war stratagems selected from ancient historians, arranged according to their content in four books, with an introduction and a commentary, and an appendix of selected passages from the books of Julius Caesar and Livius. Frontinus, an outstandingly talented man, made his name and career under five Roman emperors (1st and 2nd century AD), he fought with distinction in Britania, was a senator, managed provision of water for Rome, was a writer and intellectual. He wrote several books, but only two of them survived entirely, The Aqueducts of Rome and The Stratagems , a sequel to his technical book on warfare that was lost. In the preface to Stratagems he writes: 'I feel obliged, in order to complete the task, to summarize excelent operations of generals, examples of wisdom and foresight, to serve and foster the generals' power to conceive and execute stratagems of their own, and not to fear their result , if they could be compared with achievements already successful. Introduced, translated from Latin and annonated by Prof. Dwora Gilula.

The biographies in this volume comprise the concluding part of the Scriptores Historiae Augustae. Their main subjects are the events of the Roman Empire during the years 235-284. These were the days of the so called Illyrian Caesars on the throne of Rome. The Empire was compelled in those days to face too often and too dangerous incursions of barbarians, as well as tireless efforts of various provincials trying to free themselves from Roman mastery. Rome was forced to recruit more and more barbarians to fill up the ranks of her soldiery and officers. Rome even experienced a strong shortage of silver and gold metals to coin her Denarii and Aurei. These deficiencies revealed Rome's weakness abroad and caused disquiet and instability within the borders of the Empire. However in spite of inflation, overtaxing and blackmailing bureaucracy the people of Israel in their country managed to continue their recovery due to the failed uprising in the century passed. The author-editor of these biographies remains anonymous. Although one may presume he had been a fifth century Roman of the senatorial circles. The author-editor did not pretend to be a professional biography writer. Nevertheless, it is clear that he had been a man of letters who made great efforts to provide a vivid and reliable account of those stormy days, the last generations of pagan Rome.

The interconnections among music and the visual arts have been a source of inspiration in Western culture for hundreds of years. The medium difference caused artists and theoreticians to investigate analogies, connections and mutual influences among them in diverse artistic and historical contexts. Modernism and technology saw the birth of new ways in combining music, sound and image and open new horizons in the age of multimedia and internet. The interconnections among music and picture are the subject of an extensive research at the last two decades in Israel and abroad. The discourse calls for a wide variety of disciplines, among them the history of art, musicology, philosophy, technology, and cognition, and creates fruitful and updated collaborations. The anthology Ear Sees, Eye Hears: On the Interconnections among Sound and Picture in Art – the first book in Hebrew dedicated to that field – is an example of such a discourse. It contains nine articles, written by expert scholars from Israel and abroad, and four shorter essays written by artists who describe their own creative process. Thus, the book gives a panoramic view of the cutting-age research and combines theory and practice. The book concentrates on Modernism, avant-garde and contemporary art, on the background of wider historical and theoretical contexts, and offers answers as well as questions regarding painting, music, performance art, voice art, cinema, animation, visual music, and multimedia. It is written for scholars, students, teachers, artists of different media and art lovers, and opens a door for additional learning.