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The astonishing revival of saint worship in contemporary Israel was ignited by Moroccan Jews, who had immigrated to the new country in the 1950s and 1960s. The Saints' Impresarios charts the vicissitudes of four new domestic shrines, established by Moroccan-born men and women in peripheral development towns, following an exciting revelation involving a saintly figure. Each of the case studies discussing the life stories of the saint impresarios elaborates on a distinctive theme: dreams as psychocultural triggers for revelation; family and community responses to the initiative; female saint impresarios as healers; and the alleviation of life crises through the saints idiom. The initiatives are evaluated against the historical background of Jews in Morocco and the sociopolitical and cultural changes in present-day Israeli society. For readers interested in Israel and Jewish Studies, folk religion and mysticism, cultural and psychological anthropology, and Moroccan Jews. ... Read more

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An introduction to the geography, history, economy, culture, and people of Israel, a holy place to three of the world's major religions. ... Read more

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Shakespeare in Rehab takes an introspective look at how Western culture is changing traditions within both the education system as well as artistic expression, ultimately resulting in a world where aesthetic awareness is slowly dissipating.At age seven, child prodigy Akiva Israel began nurturing his love of philosophy, and he tells a fascinating story of the history of art, as well as the failures of the United States public education system, to adequately teach future generations about the masterpieces of Western culture. Dividing his observations into several parts, Israel opens by providing historical reconstructions of several major artistic revolutions and retraces the history of ideas concerning the arts and how deep thinkers like Socrates and Plato understood art. In later sections, Israel presents a fundamental problem, prescribes a solution, and includes answers to several questions that center around the subjects of analyzing art and our awareness of its importance in today's world culture.This in-depth exploration of the history of art, both past and present, reexamines the same complex issues that our great thinkers once contemplated. Its contents will surely encourage lively and intellectual discussions about the answer to the question, "Is life still worth living without beauty?" ... Read more

Customer Reviews (1)

An ABSOLUTE MUST READ GEM!
Wow!Where does one start with a book that could change the world?

There are so many brilliant concepts, words, stories and questions that many readers without a full membership in GDL* may get lost.But that is the point, not to lose them, but to incite a riot of intellectual activity to transform our lives.You MUST read this book.In the context of the Bard you will have to seriously consider: Beauty, Art, Philosophy, History, God, Genius, Physics, Language, Politics and Education for starters.

You will learn new words, redefine old ones, be angered, surprised, disturbed, provoked and challenged.At first I was disappointed that the journey, which I had to take in small doses to contemplate, research, puzzle over and savor, came to an end.But that is the catch, life does not end.Akiva Israel is just righteously incensed that for most of us it never begins and he pledges in a manner that many will recognize, as an absolute commitment to continue the dialog.Engage him, challenge him and try and outthink him if you can.The gauntlet has been thrown to you... your move!

A must read for all cognizant sentient beings.I look forward to future installments.If you like his word-smithing as much as I did, I recommend you get a copy of his previous book Scholar by the Warsaw Fire!

David A. Crow

*Genius Defense League

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This book, based on 25 months of anthropological fieldwork, examines activists and activism in Palestinian nongovernmental organizations in Israel. It concentrates on the ways organizations enable certain processes of self-identification based on activists' constructions of modernity. ... Read more

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In recent decades, a group of second generation religious Zionist West Bank settlers have turned away from the collectivist political messianic ideology of the first generation of settlers and have begun to explore poetry as a mode of individual self expression. Based on interviews of eight key figures in this new trend and an analysis of fifty works by these poets, Beyond Political Messianism: The Poetry of Second Generation Religious Zionist Settlers tells the story of how they revolutionized the religious Zionist settler culture by moving poetry writing into the mainstream of that culture, and how they introduced into the world of secular Israeli literature images and language styles drawn from their lives as religiously observant Jews. Among the themes central to these poets concerns are: the formation of a religious identity based on faith and ritual observance, the relationship of the contemporary Jew to the Bible and to traditional Jewish texts, appropriate ways to write about erotic experience, and the Israeli-Palestinian conflict. ... Read more

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In this riveting autobiography, Colonel Muki Betser, Israel's premier special-warfare commander and counterterrorist for 25 years, recounts the inner workings of Israel's elite forces which until now no high-ranking military officer has been allowed to reveal. A natural leader, Betser counseled his country's most eminent leaders (Meir, Begin, Shamir, Rabin), then executed their most crucial missions. ... Read more

Customer Reviews (8)

Head and shoulders above the rest
I'm reading this book for the second time now, and I have to agree with all the praise of my pre-reviewers. It is a very gripping read, emotional but never sentimental, and Muki Betser comes across as a man of great integrity, a truly gifted leader of men. I felt actually reminded of the Old Testament heroes of King David's time. I highly recommend this.

Wonderful Book
Muki Betser tells an intense account of his experiences as one of Israel's greatest commandos.Awesome book highly recommended.I read it in one day - couldn't put it down.Covers his experience in Shaked, Tsanchanim, and Sayeret Matkal - bascially starting from 1967.Despite the fact that his political views are outdated, (i wonder if he still thinks the same) this is a man who gave his entire life for the state of Israel.

Read this a while ago...
I read this one a while ago, but recent events brought it back into the forefront of the mind.I remember that this was a really good book and gave me a perspective of the Israeli military that I never saw before.I knew they were very good, but I had no idea.
I just hope that we don't have to resort to the level of security that they have in Israel or Northern Ireland.Also, this book makes me want to read other books about the Israeli military.

a great read
in this turn pager muki betser reveals the secretive world of isrel'selite special operation units. told with great credability and a cockyattitude muki guides the reader through israel's wars , terrorist attacksand fight for survival. revealing not only succeses but also failures andtragedy.

One of the best , if not the best
As good as Marciko's Rough Warrior. True account no holds barred combat stories. Get it! ... Read more

Customer Reviews (1)

In Depth study of previous political culture in Israel
This study is slightly dated but provides a thorough examination of concepts such as zionism, government tendencies gender etc as they were at the time of writing.Israeli culture is continually developing, so I foundthat the book contributes to a study of historical political tendencies inIsrael, since the current situation has changed quite a bit. The authorseems to exclude the essential traits of Palestinian political culturewhich in my opinion cannot be ignored in reference to her type of study. However it does prove an interesting in depth read for anyone interested inthe specific Israeli side of the politics of the Eighties.Very valuablestatistics are also included. ... Read more

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“From the outside, no matter what the gradations of my mixed heritage, the shadow of Indian brown in my skin caused others to automatically perceive me as Hindu or Muslim. . . . Still, I trekked through life with the spirit of a Jew, fleshed out by the unique challenges and wonders of a combined brown and white tradition.”

In the politics of skin color, Carmit Delman is an ambassador from a world of which few are even aware. Her mother is a direct descendant of the Bene Israel, a tiny, ancient community of Jews thriving amidst the rich cultural tableau of Western India. Her father is American, a Jewish man of Eastern European descent. They met while working the land of a nascent Israeli state. Bound by love for each other and that newborn country, they hardly took notice of the interracial aspect of their union. But their daughter, Carmit, growing up in America, was well aware of her uncommon heritage.

Burnt Bread and Chutney is a remarkable synthesis of the universal and the exotic. Carmit Delman’s memories of the sometimes painful, sometimes pleasurable, often awkward moments of her adolescence juxtapose strikingly with mythic tales of her female ancestors living in the Indian-Jewish community. As rites and traditions, smells and textures intertwine, Carmit’s unique cultural identity evolves. It is a youth spent dancing on the roofs of bomb shelters on a kibbutz in Israel—and the knowledge of a heritage marked by arranged marriages and archaic rules and roles. It is coming of age in Jewish summer camps and at KISS concerts—and the inevitable combination of old and new: ancient customs and modern attitudes, Jewish, Indian, and American.

Carmit Delman’s journey through religious traditions, family tensions, and social tribulations to a healthy sense of wholeness and self is rendered with grace and an acute sense of depth. Burnt Bread and Chutney is a rich and innovative book that opens wide a previously unseen world. ... Read more

Customer Reviews (13)

intriguing read
I liked this book a lot... quite unique, interesting and intriguing.
I highly recommend this book!

Repetitive, Uninformative, and Uninspiring
Burnt Bread and Chutney is not an inside look at a culture clash. It's a 250 page whine about growing up with parent who have no money. Dellman is the daughter of an Ashkenazi Jew and an Indian Bene Israel Jew, so she's a minority within a minority group. There have been other autobiographies about similar lives, but this is by far the worst. She doesn't focus on any particular incident in her life that would illustrate her struggle. She just moans on and on about not having what other kids have.

Diversity's Idiosyncrasies
Backtracking through my own heredity only a few generations past, the details of an heirloomed passport lead me to research the history of Indian Jews; the Jews of Cochin, the Baghdadi Jews and the Bene Israel or Children of Israel. I journeyed into a distinctive pocket of the past and along the way, I stumbled upon Burnt Bread and Chutney.

Depicting an interesting movement in ethnicity, Delman sheds light on the Bene Israel population found in western India and Mumbai, a community connected to the ancient Kingdom of Israel once occupied by ten of the renowned Twelve Tribes (Bible times).

Her memoir is simple and comprehensible. In plain style, she writes about her own life and the accounts of her deceased grandmother as discovered in an old dairy. She describes the modern-day domestics of a household caught between Jewish and Indian influences exposing the unequal gender relations of the past and present, the pettiness commonly associated with extended family and the larger community, and her learned appreciation of family. The book has neither rock-hard beginning nor end and it really doesn't attempt to shock with an impact. Instead, it could almost be viewed as the ongoing thought processes of an Indian Jewish girl as she portrays the world around her.

Quotes for Thought:

"Especially as we moved from one congregation to another and found, in each one, that even a minority population needs to set aside a minority of it's own."

"Daily we tried to impress the mainstream Jewish community with the fact that brown skin or white skin, we Jews were all the same. But in truth this kind of thing would never have happened in modern day Ashkenazi Jewish culture, with its cookie-cutter family units."

Dull and Uninspiring
I would not recommend this book - it is trite and uninteresting.I did not learning anything new about the jewish indian experience

Not as Culturally intriguing as expected
This book was definitely a quick read and very interesting as the other reviewers have stated. The only "issue" I had with this book is that there were a bit too many sensual allusions that seemed were meant to appeal to a trash novel reader.I expected this book to speak of much more "Bene-Israel" traditions but instead it addressed mostly the rebellion of the writer against tradition and not much specifics on the traditions.
I do give this book 4 stars though since it encaptured me immensely but not 5 stars since I expected it to be more wholesome.
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Animal Husbandry in Ancient Israel demonstrates four diverse and innovative perspectives on the study of caprine and cattle husbandry in the Southern Levantine Bronze and Iron Age. The first perspective is a comparative analysis of zooarchaeological and ethnographic data from 70 sites and strata as well as wide-ranging anthropological resources on economic strategies, pastoral-nomadism and sedentism. The comparative analysis proposes new insights on primary aspects of animal husbandry in the Southern Levant such as the sheep/goat ratio, caprine/cattle ratio and utilization of caprine products. The second perspective is spatial. It is founded on GIS (Geographic information system) analysis of spatial distribution of faunal remains in stratum II at Tel Beer-Sheba, Israel. This study sheds light on the intra-site social stratification as reflected by food refuse left behind by the inhabitants of the site. The third perspective is sagittal and founded on taphonomic analysis investigating pre-depositional and post-depositional agents that might have altered the zooarchaeological assemblage in stratum II of Tel Beer-Sheba. The taphonomic processes span four major phases from the time animals were consumed by man to the time they were uncovered by archaeologists. The fourth perspective is ethnographic. It is founded on copious statistical data on livestock holding in Mandatory Palestine in the 1940s. This study contributes to our understating of the component of animal husbandry in human diet. All four perspectives point to a common denominator - the paramount strategy held by most nomadic, rural and urban Southern Levantine populations in the Bronze and Iron Age was a survival subsistence strategy rather than a market-oriented strategy. Trade transactions were rare and the common household maintained a conservative and a self-sufficient economy. The zooarchaeological record demonstrates how the survival subsistence strategy focused on preserving stability, minimizing risks and sustaining a long-term survival rather than specializing in animal products or trading them. ... Read more

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In 1948 many Palestinians became citizens of an alien country. This book examines the struggle of the Palestinian community in Israel through local community iniatitives. ... Read more

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The Levantine corridor sits at the continental crossroads of Africa and Eurasia, making it a focal point for scientific inquiry into the emergence of modern humans and their relations with Neanderthals. The recent excavations at Kebara Cave in Israel, undertaken by an international, interdisciplinary team of researchers, has provided data crucial for understanding the cognitive and behavioral differences between archaic and modern humans.

In this first of two volumes, the authors discuss site formation processes, subsistence strategies, land-use patterns, and intrasite organization. Hearths and faunal remains reveal a dynamic and changing settlement system during the late Mousterian period, when Kebara Cave served as a major encampment. The research at Kebara Cave allows archaeologists to document the variability observed in settlement, subsistence, and technological strategies of the Late Middle and early Upper Paleolithic periods in the Levant.

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A decade of zooarchaeological fieldwork (1992-2001) went into Mary Stiner's pathbreaking analysis of changes in human ecology from the early Mousterian period through the end of Paleolithic cultures in the Levant. Stiner employs a comparative approach to understanding early human behavioral and environmental change, based on a detailed study of fourteen bone assemblages from Hayonim Cave and Meged Rockshelter in Israel's Galilee. Principally anthropological in outlook, Stiner's analysis also integrates chemistry, foraging and population ecology, vertebrate paleontology, and biogeography. Her research focuses first on the formation history, or taphonomy, of bone accumulations, and second on questions about the economic behaviors of early humans, including the early development of human adaptations for hunting large prey and the relative "footprint" of humans in Pleistocene ecosystems of the Levant.

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Biography, in its purer form, confined to the ended lives of the true
and brave, may be held the fairest meed of human virtue--one given and
received in entire disinterestedness--since neither can the biographer
hope for acknowledgment from the subject, nor the subject at all avail
himself of the biographical distinction conferred.

Download Israel Potter Now! ... Read more

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Social and ethnic identity are nowhere more enmeshed with language than in Israel.Words and Stones explores the politics of identity in Israel through an analysis of the social life of language. By examining the social choices Israelis make when they speak, and the social meanings such choices produce, Daniel Lefkowitz reveals how Israeli identities are negotiated through language. Lefkowitz studies three major languages and their role in the social lives of Israelis:Hebrew, the dominant language, Arabic, and English. He reveals their complex interrelationship by showing how the language a speaker chooses to use is as important as the language they choose not to use - in the same way that a claim to an Israeli identity is simultaneously a claim against other, opposing identities.The result is a compelling analysis of how the identity of "Israeliness" is linguistically negotiated in the three-way struggle among Ashkenazi (Jewish), Mizrahi (Jewish), and Palestinian (Arab) Israelis. Lefkowitz's ethnography of language-use is both thoroughly anthropological and thoroughly linguistic, and provides a comprehensive view of the role language plays in Israeli society. His work will appeal to students and scholars of sociolinguistics, anthropology,and linguistic anthropology, as well as students and scholars of Israel and the Middle East. ... Read more