Moshe Davis was a preeminent scholar of contemporary Jewish history and the rounding head of the Institute of Contemporary Jewry at the Hebrew University of Jerusalem. A recognized leader in the field of bicultural American/Jewish studies, he was a mentor to educators and academics in both Israel and North America and an active colleague of American Christian scholars involved in interfaith study and dialogue. These wide-ranging essays, many of them presented at a colloquium that Professor Davis had planned but did not live to attend, honor him by exploring the theme of Zion as an integral part of American spiritual history and as a site of interfaith discourse. Not only do these essays stress the role of individuals in history, but they also incorporate views outside those of mainstream religions. American attitudes toward the land of the Bible reflect both Jewish values that arose from their abiding attachment to Zion and the uniquely American Christian vision of a utopian pre-industrial, pre-urban, pre-secularized world. Whereas American Christians expected to be lifted out of their ordinary lives when they visited the Holy Land, Jews saw in their affinity for Zion a strong link to their American environment. Jews viewed America's biblical heritage as a source of practical values such as fair play and equality, social vision and political covenant. In inviting such comparisons, these essays illuminate the relationship of Judaism to America and the richness of American religious experience overall.

DIV The Bible has always been an integral part of American political culture. Yet in the years before the Civil War, it was the Old Testament, not the New Testament, that pervaded political rhetoric. From Revolutionary times through about 1830, numerous American politicians, commentators, ministers, and laymen depicted their young nation as a new, God-chosen Israel and relied on the Old Testament for political guidance. In this original book, historian Eran Shalev closely examines how this powerful predilection for Old Testament narratives and rhetoric in early America shaped a wide range of debates and cultural discussions—from republican ideology, constitutional interpretation, southern slavery, and more generally the meaning of American nationalism to speculations on the origins of American Indians and to the emergence of Mormonism. Shalev argues that the effort to shape the United States as a biblical nation reflected conflicting attitudes within the culture—proudly boastful on the one hand but uncertain about its abilities and ultimate destiny on the other. With great nuance, American Zion explores for the first time the meaning and lasting effects of the idea of the United States as a new Israel and sheds new light on our understanding of the nation’s origins and culture during the founding and antebellum decades. /div

Scholarly survey covers Old World origins; profiles of New World cultures of German and Eastern European Jews; the effects of changing political and economic climates; and immigrant settlement on the Lower East Side settlement.

"A deep, fascinating dive into a uniquely American brand of religious zealotry that poses a grave threat to our national parks, wilderness areas, wildlife sanctuaries, and other public lands. It also happens to be a delight to read." —JON KRAKAUER American Zion is the story of the Bundy family, famous for their armed conflicts in the West. With an antagonism that goes back to the very first Mormons who fled the Midwest for the Great Basin, they hold a sense of entitlement that confronts both law and democracy. Today their cowboy confrontations threaten public lands, wild species, and American heritage. BETSY GAINES QUAMMEN is a historian and conservationist. She received a doctorate in Environmental History from Montana State University in 2017, her dissertation focusing on Mormon settlement and public land conflicts. After college in Colorado, caretaking for a bed and breakfast in Mosier, Oregon, and serving breakfasts at a cafe in Kanab, Utah, Betsy has settled in Bozeman, Montana, where she now lives with her husband, writer David Quammen, three huge dogs, an overweight cat, and a pretty big python named Boots.

The continuing relationship between America and the Holy Land has implications for American and Jewish history which extend beyond the historical narrative and interpretation. The devotion of Americans of all faiths to the Holy Land extends into the spiritual realm, and the Holy Land, in turn, penetrates American homes, patterns of faith, and education. In this book Davis illuminates the interconnection of Americans and the Holy Land in historical perspective, and delineates unique elements inherent in this relationship: the role of Zion in American spiritual history, in the Christian faith, in Jewish tradition and communal life, and the impress of Biblical place names on the map of America as well as American settlements and institutions in the State of Israel. The book concludes with an annotated select bibliography of primary sources on America and the Holy Land.

From New Zion to Old Zion analyzes the migration of American Jews to Palestine between the two World Wars and explores the contribution of these settlers to the building of Palestine. American Aliyah (immigration to Palestine) began in the mid-nineteenth century fueled by the desire of American Jews to study Torah and by their wish to live and be buried in the Holy Land. His movement of people-men and women-increased between World War I and II, in direct contrast to European Jewry’s desire to immigrate to the United States. Why would American Jews want to leave America, and what characterized their resettlement? From New Zion to Old Zion analyzes the migration of American Jews to Palestine between the two world wars and explores the contribution of these settlers to the building of Palestine. From New Zion to Old Zion draws upon international archival correspondence, newspapers, maps, photographs, interviews, and fieldwork to provide students and scholars of immigration and settlement processes, the Yishuv (Jewish community in Palestine), and America-Holy Land studies a well-researched portrait of Aliyah.

The first major history of Mormonism in a decade, drawing on newly available sources to reveal a profoundly divided faith that has nevertheless shaped the nation. The Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-day Saints was founded by Joseph Smith in 1830 in the so-called “burned-over district” of upstate New York, which was producing seers and prophets daily. Most of the new creeds flamed out; Smith’s would endure, becoming the most significant homegrown religion in American history. How Mormonism succeeded is the story told by historian Benjamin E. Park in American Zion. Drawing on sources that have become available only in the last two decades, Park presents a fresh, sweeping account of the Latter-day Saints: from the flight to Utah Territory in 1847 to the public renunciation of polygamy in 1890; from the Mormon leadership’s forging of an alliance with the Republican Party in the wake of the New Deal to the “Mormon moment” of 2012, which saw the premiere of The Book of Mormon musical and the presidential candidacy of Mitt Romney; and beyond. In the twentieth century, Park shows, Mormons began to move ever closer to the center of American life, shaping culture, politics, and law along the way. But Park’s epic isn’t rooted in triumphalism. It turns out that the image of complete obedience to a single, earthly prophet—an image spread by Mormons and non-Mormons alike—is misleading. In fact, Mormonism has always been defined by internal conflict. Joseph Smith’s wife, Emma, inaugurated a legacy of feminist agitation over gender roles. Black believers petitioned for belonging even after a racial policy was instituted in the 1850s that barred them from priesthood ordination and temple ordinances (a restriction that remained in place until 1978). Indigenous and Hispanic saints—the latter represent a large portion of new converts today—have likewise labored to exist within a community that long called them “Lamanites,” a term that reflected White-centered theologies. Today, battles over sexuality and gender have riven the Church anew, as gay and trans saints have launched their own fight for acceptance. A definitive, character-driven work of history, American Zion is essential to any understanding of the Mormon past, present, and future. But its lessons extend beyond the faith: as Park puts it, the Mormon story is the American story.