Gershom Gorenberg, Th e Accidental Empire: Israel and the Birth of the Settlements, 1967–1977 (New York: Times Books, 2006).
Idith Zertal and Akiva Eldar, Lords of the Land: The War over Israel’s Settlements in the Occupied Territories (New York: Nation Books, 2007).
Hagai Huberman, Against All Odds: Forty Years of Settlement in Judea and Samaria, 1967–2007 (Ariel: Netzrim Publishing, 2008 [in Hebrew]).
The positive feedback we have received since the appearance of the first issue of the (renamed) Israel Studies Review last May has exceeded our expectations, and we are grateful to everyone who responded. Of course, we have built on the work of the previous Editorial Board and the support of the Association for Israel Studies. We are appreciative that the innovations we introduced, including the Forum section and the review essays of books published in a particular field in Hebrew, have received such approbation. We encourage all of our readers and friends to continue sending us more ideas for topics, sections, and issues to deal with.
On 17 June 2014, in the heart of the Etzion Bloc (Gush Etzion) in the West Bank, the site of the abduction of three Israeli teens by Palestinian terrorists the week before, an unusual event took place. Several Jewish-Israeli and Palestinian peace activists, a few rabbis, and a Muslim Sufi sheikh gathered in order to pray for the safe return of the kidnapped youths. The group prayed both in Hebrew and Arabic, reciting psalms and Quran-based Muslim prayers. “Our hearts are torn at this moment, and my heart goes out the mothers of these children,” said Sheikh Ibrahim Abu Al-Hawa, before reciting the first chapter of the Quran, the Fatiha. He continued, “There is a wall between our two nations, and we hope to remove the wall separating the hearts of humans” (Miller 2014). He concluded his speech by proclaiming “God is One” in Arabic and Hebrew, followed by the young Rabbi Yossi Froman (son of the late Rabbi Menachem Froman), who stood beside him.
PUBLICATIONS
Anatoly M. Khazanov and Günther Schlee (eds.) (2011), Who Owns the Stock? Collective and Multiple Property Rights in Animals (New York/Oxford: Berghahn Books), "Integration and Conflict Studies", Max Planck Institute for Social Anthropology, Halle/Saale, vol. 5, 332 pp., 8 maps, 19 tables, 66 fig., biblio., index.
Motzafi-Haller, Pnina (2012), In the Cement Boxes: Mizrahi Women in the Israeli Periphery (The Hebrew University Magnes Press), pp. 276, ISBN: 978- 965-493-650-7.
Helie, Anissa and Hoodfar, Homa (eds.) (2012), Sexuality in Muslim Contexts: Restrictions and Resistance (London: Zed Books), Pb., glossary, xiv + 346 pp., index, ISBN: 978-1-78032-286-8.
FILMS
What is Farhâdi Trying to Portray of Iranian Everyday Life and Iranian Characters in His Films?
CONFERENCES
Encounters and Engagements: Creating New Agendas for Medical Anthropology, 12–14 June 2013, EASA/SMA/URV Joint International Conference, Tarragona, Spain.
This article focuses on the practices that led to the elimination of the possibility of establishing an independent academic sector—professional-academic colleges—in the first years after the founding of the State of Israel in 1948. This sector, the "service tradition" of non-university institutions, focuses on meeting economic and social needs through professional and vocational education. The only academic model in Israel that evolved under the control of the Hebrew University of Jerusalem (HUJ) was the comprehensive university model. By describing the ongoing problems of the School of Law and Economics (SLE) in Tel-Aviv, we can learn about the close relations that were established between politicians and the HUJ and the paradox that has resulted in the rapid growth of the SLE but also its integration with the comprehensive university.
This article deals with the relation of Micha Yosef Ben Gurion (Berdichevski)—one of the central formulators of the Zionist idea and of modern Hebrew literature—to the Zionist political sphere. As a wordly Jewish intellectual, Berdichevski attempted to establish a kind of Zionism that would allow Jewish individuals to engage in it as an act of their desires. In exploring how his carnal inclinations affected his vision of the political, I argue that Berdichevski's perception fails qualitatively by transposing its guiding sensual approach to the formulation of the new Jewish political sphere. As this article will show, Berdichevski's relation to the Jewish political revolution reveals a sometimes limited perception regarding the possibilities of freedom inherent in political activity and often contradicts his own aspiration to nurture the liberty of Jewish individuals.
This paper examines the presentation of female characters in dramatic roles, in which they appear as representatives of marginalized Jewish immigrants to Israel (olim hadashim, to use the Hebrew term). The two plays examined here were written as criticisms of Israel's double standards concerning the actual acceptance and assimilation of the 'welcomed and longed-for' immigrants, and have hitherto been examined from this perspective. A reading of these plays from the perspective of feminist critique shows that the representation of the central female characters suffers from a pattern of double stereotypical characterization; these characters are stigmatized and stereotyped both in the category of 'women' and in the category of 'unwelcome immigrants'. Thus, in some cases, counterproductively to the playwright's attempt to criticize Israeli institutions and hegemonic society, these representations reveal the stereotypical tendencies inherent in the playwright's own 'transparent' or 'unconscious' world view when it comes to female representation.
The Zionist ethos is commonly described as pro-rural and anti-urban, with the imagined Zionist space perceived as being rural and the Zionist drama as a reflection of the life of the pioneers in Palestine. Recent studies of early Hebrew cinema shared this view. This article analyzes two Jewish films from inter-war Palestine, Vayehi Bimey (In the Days of Yore) (1932, Tel Aviv) and Zot Hi Ha'aretz (This Is the Land) (1935, Tel Aviv), to suggest a more complex view of the Zionist ethos and spatial imagery in the context of the relationship between the urban and the rural. A thematic and formal analysis of the films shows their sources of Soviet influence and reveals the presentation of the city as a nationalist space.
Menachem Mautner, Law and the Culture of Israel Review by Gad Barzilai
Nadav G. Shelef, Evolving Nationalism: Homeland, Identity, and Religion in Israel, 1925–2005 Review by Ilan Peleg
Susan A. Glenn and Naomi B. Sokoloff, eds., Boundaries of Jewish Identity Review by Kirsten Fermaglich
Arieh Bruce Saposnik, Becoming Hebrew: The Creation of a Jewish National Culture in Ottoman Palestine Review by Nina S. Spiegel
King Abdullah II, Our Last Best Chance: The Pursuit of Peace in a Time of Peril Review by Saliba Sarsar
Leslie Stein, The Making of Modern Israel: 1948–1967 Review by Pierre M. Atlas
Joyce Dalsheim, Unsettling Gaza: Secular Liberalism, Radical Religion, and the Israeli Settlement Project Review by Myron J. Aronoff
Beverley Milton-Edwards, The Israeli-Palestinian Conflict: A People’s War 180 Review by Raphael Cohen-Almagor
Shai Ginsburg, Rhetoric and Nation: The Formation of Hebrew National Culture, 1880–1990 Review by Sidra DeKoven Ezrahi
Anat Helman, Becoming Israeli: National Ideals & Everyday Life in the 1950s Review by Dafna Hirsch
Madelaine Adelman and Miriam Fendius Elman, eds., Jerusalem: Conflict and Cooperation in a Contested City Review by Shlomo Hasson
Adam Rovner, In the Shadow of Zion: Promised Lands Before Israel Review by Michael Brenner
Fran Markowitz, Stephen Sharot, and Moshe Shokeid, eds., Towards an Anthropology of Nation Building and Unbuilding in Israel Review by Russell Stone
Guy Ziv, Why Hawks Become Doves: Shimon Peres and Foreign Policy Change in Israel Review by Oded Haklai
R. Amy Elman, The European Union, Antisemitism, and the Politics of Denial Review by Alona Fisher
Rachel S. Harris, An Ideological Death: Suicide in Israeli Literature Review by Adia Mendelson-Maoz
David Ohana, The Origins of Israeli Mythology: Neither Canaanites Nor Crusaders Review by Ian S. Lustick
