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.

Modern Investment Theory is the only book published in Hebrew on this central topic for students and practitioners of business and economy. The book opens with a review of the investment environment and the structure and institutions of the Israeli capital market, as well as a description of the assets traded in the equity, debt, and derivative markets. Since Israel is a small economy, its interactions with global financial markets is highlighted. The core concepts are presented by order of their evolution and contribution to the field: from rational and behavioral decision-making in states of risk, to Portfolio Theory, the CAPM, and advanced theoretical and empirical models, including five-factor models. Three chapters are devoted to fixed income pricing and risk, and two chapters address derivative assets and their pricing. Some of the chapters introduce for the first time in Hebrew financial crises and their impact on the real economy and on society, private capital, behavioral finance, and international finance. Many of the concepts of modern investment theory were developed by prominent researchers; some won Nobel or other prestigious prizes. To sixteen of these outstanding researchers, seven of whom are Israeli, I devote special boxes entitled "Figures from the Hall of Fame," highlighting their contribution to the field. Pedagogically, the book follows the American model where each chapter is accompanied by a Powerpoint presentation file, the chapter is briefly summarized, has a list of key terms, and between twenty to forty questions. Teachers can access all chapter solutions.

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.

‏‏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. ‎

Few articles in this issue: Gilad Shapira | Hermenautics as Poetics: The Case of Midrash HaGadol Moshe Shoshan | The Road to Lydda: A Survivor's Story: Rabban Yohanan ben Zakkai's Flight from Jerusalem According to Eicha Rabba 1:5 Richard Hidary | Why Are There Lawyers in Heaven?: Rabbinic Aggadot on the Divine Courtroom Kedem Golden | Solving a Riddle of Judah Halevi Idit Einat-Nov | 'Everybody wants to live': A Literary Reading of the Maqama by Yehuda Al-Harizi, 'The Rooster'

The book traces contested visions and representations of al-Andalus/Sepharad in modern Jewish discourse through an in-depth analysis of the work of Sephardi intellectual network in the turn of the twentieth century Palestine/Land of Israel. Against the backdrop of the tumultuous political and social events of that period, and processes of national, ethnic, and religious partitions, the book explores the ways in which these Sephardi intellectuals fundamentally challenged the nationalistic and monolingual ideologies and looks at their efforts to establish a shared Jewish-Arab society based on a symbolic return to the Sephardi/Andalusian medieval legacy of Hebrew-Arabic bilingualism and a Judeo-Muslim joint cultural heritage. By exploring these contested representations of Sephardi identity and culture the book re-examines some fundamental issues that emerged at the turn of the twentieth century and which still accompany us to this day: the national conflict between Jews and Palestinians, the contacts and splits between Hebrew and Arab culture and the formation of ethnic hierarchies between Ashkenazim and Mizrahim. The book aims to contribute to the growing interest in modern Sephardi and Middle Eastern Jewish history and to broaden the scope of “Jewish studies” beyond the European Jewish experience.

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.

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.

This is the first comprehensive introduction to India’s history and civilization in Hebrew. It reflects decades of teaching by both authors, often together, at the Hebrew University, as well as long periods of residence in India. The book is structured chronologically, from prehistoric times to the twenty-first century, and includes, within a historical framework, numerous anecdotes, stories, and poems never before translated into Hebrew. Taken together, these are meant to give the lay readers--backpackers, couch travelers, India lovers, and other curious minds - a savory taste of India’s rich cultural menu.

The Hebrew Bible is the cornerstone of Judaism and Jewish culture; as such, it also provides the foundation for the other two monotheistic religions, Christianity and Islam. It is a book that embodied numerous revolutions, the most prominent of which was the Monotheistic Revolution, the replacement of polytheism with the belief in one all-powerful God who both created the world and governs it. Among the other revolutionary ideas that are put forward by the Bible we find the establishment of the Sabbath, the granting of one city — Jerusalem — a monopoly over holiness, the opposition to human kingship, and the moral dimensions of prophecy, to name just a few. Over the centuries and millennia, these revolutionary ideas have continued to attract and inspire readers, believers, interpreters and artists.