Challenging the established view that the civilian sector in Israel has been predominant over its security sector since the state's independence in 1948, this volume critically and systematically reexamines the relationship between these sectors and provides a deeper, more nuanced view of their interactions. Individual chapters cast light on the formal and informal arrangements, connections, and dynamic relations that closely tie Israel's security sector to the country's culture, civil society, political system, economy, educational system, gender relations, and the media. Among the issues and events discussed are Israel's separation barrier, the impact of Israel's military confrontations with the Palestinians and other Middle Eastern states -- especially Lebanon -- and the impact of the wars in Iraq and Afghanistan. The Israeli case offers insights about the role of the military and security in democratic nations in contemporary times.

Inspired by the author's preparation of two major commentaries on Isaiah, these essays range from comprehensive to specific, and from popular to scholarly. They first appeared in biblical dictionaries, scholarly journals, and popular periodicals. Gathered here together for the first time, they display in various ways how the authors sees the various parts of Isaiah functioning together to give a coherent message to the church. The opening chapters lay out Oswalt's understanding of the overall message of the book of Isaiah. Subsequesnt chapters consider such themse as holiness and righteousness as they function in that larger structure.

Yiddish in Israel: A History challenges the commonly held view that Yiddish was suppressed or even banned by Israeli authorities for ideological reasons, offering instead a radical new interpretation of the interaction between Yiddish and Israeli Hebrew cultures. Author Rachel Rojanski tells the compelling and yet unknown story of how Yiddish, the most widely used Jewish language in the pre-Holocaust world, fared in Zionist Israel, the land of Hebrew. Following Yiddish in Israel from the proclamation of the State until today, Rojanski reveals that although Israeli leadership made promoting Hebrew a high priority, it did not have a definite policy on Yiddish. The language's varying fortune through the years was shaped by social and political developments, and the cultural atmosphere in Israel. Public perception of the language and its culture, the rise of identity politics, and political and financial interests all played a part. Using a wide range of archival sources, newspapers, and Yiddish literature, Rojanski follows the Israeli Yiddish scene through the history of the Yiddish press, Yiddish theater, early Israeli Yiddish literature, and high Yiddish culture. With compassion, she explores the tensions during Israel's early years between Yiddish writers and activists and Israel's leaders, most of whom were themselves Eastern European Jews balancing their love of Yiddish with their desire to promote Hebrew. Finally Rojanski follows Yiddish into the 21st century, telling the story of the revived interest in Yiddish among Israeli-born children of Holocaust survivors as they return to the language of their parents.

"Israel Finkelstein is perhaps the best-known Israeli archaeologist in the world [...] His work has greatly changed the face of archaeological and historical research of the biblical period. His unique ability to see the comprehensive big picture and formulate a broad framework has inspired countless scholars to reexamine long-established paradigms. His trail-blazing work covering every period from the beginning of the Early Bronze Age through the Hasmonean period, while sometimes controversial, has led to a creative new approach that connects archaeology with history, the social sciences, and the natural and life sciences [...] This volume, dedicated to Professor Finkelstein's accomplishments and contributions, features 36 articles written by his colleagues, friends, and students in honor of his decades of scholarship and leadership in the field of biblical archaeology"--back cover.

Tel-Aviv, the First Century brings together a broad range of disciplinary approaches and cutting-edge research to trace the development and paradoxes of Tel-Aviv as an urban center and a national symbol. Through the lenses of history, literature, urban planning, gender studies, architecture, art, and other fields, these essays reveal the place of Tel-Aviv in the life and imagination of its diverse inhabitants. The careful and insightful tracing of the development of the city's urban landscape, the relationship of its varied architecture to its competing social cultures, and its evolving place in Israel's literary imagination come together to offer a vivid and complex picture of Tel-Aviv as a microcosm of Israeli life and a vibrant modern global city.

Jewish studies has been a vibrant academic discipline for many decades, and since the establishment of the Association for Israel Studies in 1985 to engage in research on the history, politics, society, and culture of the modern state of Israel, the two disciplines have worked along parallel tracks in universities. This book focuses on the vibrant academic field of Israel studies and its complex and dynamic relations and intersections with its “older sibling” Jewish studies. Scholarly contributions from around the globe illustrate that the ongoing and growing interest in Israel studies, in particular since the early 2000s, must be analyzed and understood in its relationship to Jewish studies. Only this will allow scholarship to reflect on not only the intersections between the two fields but also on the prospects of cross-pollination between the disciplines for research and teaching. This will become ever more vital in an increasingly globalized world with shifting concepts, borders, and identity concepts.

Introduces the cutting edge issues and current scholarship in the interdisciplinary field of Israel Studies.

As one of the smallest and most densely populated countries in the world, the State of Israel faces serious land policy challenges and has a national identity laced with enormous internal contradictions. In Land Law and Policy in Israel, Haim Sandberg contends that if you really want to know the identity of a state, learn its land law and land policies. Sandberg argues that Israel's identity can best be understood by deciphering the code that lies in the Hebrew secret of Israeli dry land law. According to Sandberg, by examining the complex facets of property law and land policy, one finds a unique prism for comprehending Israel's most pronounced identity problems. Land Law and Policy in Israel explores how Israel's modern land system tries to bridge the gaps between past heritage and present needs, nationalization and privatization, bureaucracy and innovation, Jewish majority and non-Jewish minority, legislative creativity and judicial activism. The regulation of property and the determination of land usage have been the consequences of explicit choices made in the context of competing and evolving concepts of national identity. Land Law and Policy in Israel will prove to be a must-read not only for anyone interested in Israel but also for anyone who wants to understand the importance of land law in a nation's life.

Selected contents of this volume (1998), collected in honor of Anson F. Rainey, include: Daniel Sivan, "The Use of QTL and YQTL Forms in the Ugaritic Verbal System"; Edward L. Greenstein, "New Readings in the Kirta Epic"; Alan Millard, "Books in the Late Bronze Age in the Levant"; Richard S. Hess, "Occurences of "Canaan" in Late Bronze Age Archives of the West Semitic World"; Gershon Galil, "Ashtaroth in the Amarna Period"; Jun Ikeda, "The Akkadian Language of Emar: Texts Related to a Diviner's Family"; Agustinus Gianto, "Mood and Modality in Classical Hebrew"; Masamichi Yamada, "The Family of Zu-Ba la the Diviner and the Hittites"; Mario Liverani, "How to Kill Abdi-Ashirta: EA 101, Once Again"; M. Dietrich and O. Loretz, "Amurru, Yaman, und die Agaischen Inseln nach den Ugaritischen Texten"; Ran Zadok, "Notes on Borsippean Documentation of the 8th-5th Centuries B. C."; Zipora Cochavi-Rainey, "A Note on the Coordinating Particle -ma in the Old Akkadian Letter Greeting Formula"; Ignacio Marquez Rowe, "Notes on the Hurro-Akkadian of Alalah in the Mid-Second Millennium B.C.E." Israel Oriental Studies has ceased publication with volume 20.

For over a hundred years, demography has been at the heart of the Zionist project, reflected in the goal of creating and maintaining a Jewish majority in Israel and in ensuring the physical continuation of the Jewish people. Demography continues to be an essential issue in the current struggle between Israel and Palestine. Yet in academic discourse, demography is treated as a minor, largely technical side-issue in the social sciences, with little theoretical consideration given to population processes as social processes. Israel's Destiny: Fertility and Mortality in a Divided Society brings together important recent work in this area. The contributions to Israel's Destiny focus on the influence of religion, religiosity, nationalism, and ethnicity on fertility and mortality in Israel. Israel's Destiny is divided into four sections: the first focuses on fertility, particularly Israel's apparently high birth rate when compared with other countries with a similar standard of living; the second looks at patterns of nuptiality and contraception and the way marriage patterns are shaping group boundaries; the third looks at mortality, particularly among men; and the fourth looks at social policy effects of the demographic process. The main focus is that differential reproduction of the population by national and ethnic group, as well as social class--through fertility and mortality--and the social structuring of the population--through marriage patterns--are critical elements in the creation and evolution of Israeli society. The editors' introduction places all these studies in a wider perspective of current demographic research. The volume provides a concise population history of the state of Israel to help the reader put the studies in their proper local and historical context.