The Hidden Land Of Israel

What is the spell of the land of Israel? What makes this semi-arid piece of land a focal point for millions of tourists from every corner of the world? What has made Israel a point of contention for thousands of years? The land of Israel holds within it spiritual forces, the forces that create all of life. Israel’s unique geography reflects these forces, causing the landscape in this tiny country to change every few dozen miles. The Hidden Land of Israel: A Spiritual Journey in Time takes us through these places and reveals the forces hidden behind them. The book is a fascinating journey through sceneries, as much as it is a journey through the soul. No other book reveals so vividly the secrets of this ancient land. The book is based on a series of documentaries by Michael Sanilevich, directed by Semion Vinokur. Scan the QR code to watch the trailer.

What is a homeland and when does it become a national territory? Why have so many people been willing to die for such places throughout the twentieth century? What is the essence of the Promised Land? Following the acclaimed and controversial The Invention of the Jewish People, Shlomo Sand examines the mysterious sacred land that has become the site of the longest-running national struggle of the twentieth and twenty-first centuries. The Invention of the Land of Israel deconstructs the age-old legends surrounding the Holy Land and the prejudices that continue to suffocate it. Sand’s account dissects the concept of “historical right” and tracks the creation of the modern concept of the “Land of Israel” by nineteenth-century Evangelical Protestants and Jewish Zionists. This invention, he argues, not only facilitated the colonization of the Middle East and the establishment of the State of Israel; it is also threatening the existence of the Jewish state today.

Rachel Shabi was born in Israel to Jewish Iraqi parents. When she was a child her family emigrated to the United Kingdom in 1974. Their leaving reversed the spiritual trek of the Jewish Diaspora, around the world whose members wistfully repeat at the Passover tables, "Next year in Jerusalem." Years later, in fact, Shabi went back to visit and to live for an extended period, but her attitude toward her former homeland is conflicted by the longstanding discrimination suffered by Arab Jews in Israel. Shortly after its creation, Israel accepted close to one million Jews from Arab lands-from Yemen, Egypt, Morocco, Syria, Tunisia, Algeria, Iraq, Iran, and Turkey. Mizrahi (Middle Eastern) Jews now make up around 50% of Israel's population. Yet Ashkenazi Jews have traditionally disparaged the Mizrahi as "backward" and have systematically limited their opportunities in the classroom and the workplace. "There is a class split," writes Shabi, "that runs on ethnic lines." She traces the history of how the Jewish Disapora lived alongside Muslims and Christians for centuries, and how the dream of Jewish solidarity within Israel in the mid-20th century was fractured by ethnic discrimination as pernicious as racism in the United States, Great Britain, and other parts of the world. Shabi combines scholarly research with intimate oral history to shed light on ethnic injustice, and her personal story and passion make We Look Like the Enemy a stunning, unforgettable book.

The conflict between Israel and Palestine has raised a plethora of unanswered questions, generated seemingly irreconcilable narratives, and profoundly transformed the land’s physical and political geography. This volume seeks to provide a deeper understanding of the links between the region that is now known as Israel and Palestine and its peoples—both those that live there as well as those who relate to it as a mental, mythical, or religious landscape. Engaging the perspectives of a multidisciplinary, international group of scholars, it is an urgent collective reflection on the bonds between people and a place, whether real or imagined, tangible as its stones or ephemeral as the hopes and longings it evokes.

'Shabi's important book is a wake-up call to modern Israeli society' Jewish Chronicle Mention Israel and internal conflict, and most people immediately think of the seemingly insoluble Palestinian problem. However, as Rachel Shabi explains in this acclaimed book, there is another crucial division within Israeli society: between Ashkenazi Jews, whose families come from Europe, and Sephardic or Mizrahi Jews, who come from the Arab countries of the Middle East. Herself from an Iraqi Jewish family, Shabi explores the history of this relationship, tracing it back to the first days of the new state of Israel. In a society desperate to identify itself with Europe, immigrants who spoke Arabic and followed Middle Eastern customs were seen as inferior. Sixty years later, such prejudices are still in force. As Shabi demonstrates, Mizrahis are strikingly less successful than Ashkenazis, condemned, often, to substandard education, low-quality housing and mockery for their accents, tastes and lifestyles. Not only does this damage Mizrahi lives and hopes; it also reflects a wider Israeli rejection of the Middle East and its culture that makes it impossible for Israel ever to become integrated within its own region. 'an eye-opening book ... 'Not the Enemy' is a disturbing and important document, which should be read by everyone worried about what its author calls the 'corrosive, entrenched polarity' of the Middle East.' Gerald Jacobs, Daily Telegraph 'Shabi's account of the Mizrahis' vibrant culture is fascinating. So too is her investigation of the discrimination Mizrahis have suffered.' Financial Times Winner of the Sephardic Culture Mimi S. Frank Award, US National Jewish Book Awards Rachel Shabi was born in Israel to Iraqi parents and grew up in England. A journalist, she has written for a variety of national and international newspapers, including the Guardian, the Sunday Times, and the Independent.

A compelling analysis of Jewish thought from ancient times to the present on the issue of the gift of the land of Israel and the fate of the Canaanites.

"The Aramaic Dead Sea New Jerusalem Text (NJ) survives in seven fragmentary copies: 1Q32, 2Q24, 4Q554, 4Q554a, 4Q555, 5Q15, and 11Q18. Lorenzo DiTommaso presents an edition of the 4Q NJ fragments, including a reconstruction of the text preserved in overlapping copies. He also discusses the genre of the NJ and the order of its material, its antecedents and parallels in ancient urban design, and its place among the many ancient Jewish and Christian literary expressions of the New Jerusalem. Finally, he examines the eschatological horizon of the NJ, its possible date of composition, and its relationship with other Dead Sea texts which describe the New Jerusalem or New Temple."--BOOK JACKET.

A broad, systematic account of one of the most original and creative kabbalists, biblical interpreters, and Talmudic scholars the Jewish tradition has ever producedRabbi Moses b. Nahman (1194–1270), known in English as Nahmanides, was the greatest Talmudic scholar of the thirteenth century and one of the deepest and most original biblical interpreters. Beyond his monumental scholastic achievements, Nahmanides was a distinguished kabbalist and mystic, and in his commentary on the Torah he dispensed esoteric kabbalistic teachings that he termed “By Way of Truth.”This broad, systematic account of Nahmanides’s thought explores his conception of halakhah and his approach to the central concerns of medieval Jewish thought, including notions of God, history, revelation, and the reasons for the commandments. The relationship between Nahmanides’s kabbalah and mysticism and the existential religious drive that nourishes them, as well as the legal and exoteric aspects of his thinking, are at the center of Moshe Halbertal’s portrayal of Nahmanides as a complex and transformative thinker.