Israel Books

It took me a while to actually start reading this book, but once started, I could not stop reading. The first chapter was a summary of the Zionist Movement's main events and characters leading to 1943's Pre-Israel's Palestine. Nothing particularly interesting here, but very informative.

Then, while very young (14 yrs old) Amnon joins the Haganah. Since the beginning he demonstrates leadership qualities that let him use his own creativity to command a group of young men through a series of succesful events. The book is never boring, and you are always yearning to know what will happen next.

For Jewish People, this book will enhance their Jewish Identity. For Non-Jewish People, it will give them some understanding of why the State of Israel is so important for the Jews, and will partly help understand how the thoughts and feelings of Jewish people regarding their historic land. Although war is never nice, the world would be a much better one if all soldiers would think & behave like Amnon.

I am making all my family read this book, and highly recommend it to anyone.

History and tradition combine to give us a picture of the earliest missionaries of the Christian faith to the southern part of France. We find many well known characters from the New Testament who sowed the seeds of the Gospel to the peoples of Provence and elsewhere.

The history of this period is often criticised because it is compounded both of written records and local legends. This book shows with absolute clarity that legends and records dovetail in together, each being substantiated by the other. Of particular interest are the references culled from Churches founded by the Saints who were companions of Jesus during His ministry. Such evidences can only be obtained in the places concerned, and the pilgrimage made by the author to the Churches of France and nearby countries have produced most impressive proof of the antiquity of the Church planted among the Celts of Western Europe and Britain.

Because of his strict devotion to detail and much time spent in travel to those sites where his subject matter was located the author was able to, within the pages of this excellent work, combine history and tradition to give us a picture of the earliest missionries of Christian Faith to the southern part of France. It depicts their selfless devotion, their achievements, and in some cases their martyrdom for the sake of the Faith of Christ.

Here, in this Faith strengthening book, we find the names of such well known characters from the New Testament as the two Maries, Martha, Lazarus, Zaccheus, and others, who sowed the seeds of the Gospel to the people of Provence, and elsewhere.

The novel was very informative in the area of successuful leveraged buyouts. This novel would be an excellent textbook for students in business programs. In fact, some college finance groups, found it better than the actual prescribed textbook, in identifying the key factors involved in a leverage buyouts and the examples brought the information to a more understandable level. The company examples used allowed a case style approach, which is what most business schools use at present. The chapters explained, in detail, the process to evaluate LBO's and determine whether they are acceptable or not. It was an excellent, well written, informative book!

This work defines and explains major concepts of Judaism in a clear and understandable way. It is a highly valuable introduction to Jewish thought.

Rabbi David Hartman is one of those Jewish spiritual leaders who has acted in accordance with his own teachings and convictions. His building and achievements in Jewish education in Israel have few equals. In this stimulating book of essays he examines the spiritual life of Israel. He argues passionately for a more open, a more responsible Judaism. He dialogues with his great teachers Rabbi Joseph Dov Baer Soloveitchik, Yeshayahu Leibowitz, Mordechai Kaplan and respectfully differs on various questions in Jewish thought. He above all shows a true devotion to Israel as a Jewish society . These essays should be read by all who care for the future of the Jewish people and Israel.

Weldon Matthews, an Assistant Professor of History at Oakland University in Michigan, has written a fascinating book on the growth of nationalism in 1930s Palestine under British rule. This is a brilliant study of the methods of British colonial rule, especially of divide and rule, in response to the activities of the Arab Istiqlal (Independence) Party, Palestine's first true nationalist party.

Founded in 1932, this party mobilised the Palestinian people for an independent and sovereign Palestine, against the British administration and against the Zionist project. It sought Arab unity and promoted non-cooperation with the administration. It supported the demonstrations by organised workers against the sharp increase in Jewish immigration in 1933. (The Zionists used immigration to undermine the Palestinian nation.) It also organised the six-month general strike in 1936, which started the three-year rebellion. It mobilised the people through newspapers, mass education and mass action. These actions succeeded in destroying the British system of colonial control.

British methods of rule in Palestine, as in its colonies and protectorates across Asia and Africa, derived from the Raj. They were designed to keep the colonies as non-nations. The administration proposed advisory and legislative councils, composed of government appointees and leaders of the religious `communities'. These were `mock parliaments', as Egypt's ruler Lord Cromer sneered.

The administration treated Palestine as a collection of religious communities, itself posing as the indispensable umpire. It refused to recognise the executive committee of the Palestinian Arab Congress, preferring confidential and personal relations with `community leaders' of `faith groups', especially with the mufti Hajj Amin, and it regularly funded his Supreme Muslim Council. Its censuses categorised the Palestinians as Muslims, Christians and Jews: there was no category of Arab.

The administration ran down the education service: only a fifth of Palestinian children attended school. It privatised education, devolving responsibility for schools to religious institutions. It opposed mass education because schools produced what Lord Cromer derided as the `political charlatan' with `perfervid eloquence and political quackery'. It controlled the press and all expressions of popular dissent.

The administration consistently backed Zionism. It secretly installed shotguns in sealed armouries in the Zionist settlements, taught Zionist settlers how to shoot, and collaborated with Zionists to spy on, harass and arrest Arab nationalists.

College students are bound to have opinions about politics, religion, human rights, and all sorts of other topics. And it is no surprise that there may be a wide variety of views about the Middle East. Still, when it comes to what colleges teach about Israel, there is so much anti-scholarly material that I feel obliged to take a stand. All I ask is some respect for truth as a value. And I'm not seeing much of it.

Now, what does Robert Johnson have to say about all this?

To his credit, he tells us a little about the problem at Columbia University, where Joseph Massad has "dismissed Arab antisemitism as 'a Zionist-inspired propagandistic claim' while terming Israel 'a racist state that does not have a right to exist.'" Of course, Massad is not the only one at Columbia to present not just an unbalanced but, in my opinion, anti-scholarly point of view about Israel.

The author also discusses Alan Dershowitz, who speculates that Israel may be serving as a proxy for the criticism of American foreign policy.

Now we get to an interesting point: Duke's history department has 32 Democrats and 0 Republicans. Does this mean that there will be uncountered gratuitous attacks on non-Democratic Party positions? It could. Is this lack of balance a threat? It certainly could be. Could this lack of balance extend to other areas, such as Israel? Yes. And could this lack of balance be reflected in the substitution of politics for scholarship in some areas? It sure could.

The author shows us how completely misleading and false claims by Ed Said are infecting Middle East studies in many universities. There is a discussion of Evergreen College (which the infamous Rachel Corrie attended) and its very biased and unscholarly course offerings that deal with Israel. And given that an Ivy League school such as Columbia has serious problems in this area, it ought not surprise us that on the other side of the country, the University of California at Berkeley does as well.

All this has led to the federal government becoming interested in the problem. Johnson tells of the Hoekstra bill, which stressed the need to educate Americans to serve their nation as well as for academic programs to reflect diverse perspectives and represent the full range of views on international affairs.

I'm not surprised that some people regard such ideas as "McCarthyism." After all, there is a threat of the government interfering in academic affairs. The author does not get into this. But I will. I think the federal government is out of line when it tells academics what points of view to teach. It is doing its job if it rules against outright sedition. But other than that, it ought to stay out of this. I even think that a request that the academic world supply a full range of views is strange. The academic world ought to be far more interested than the government in doing this!

I think the true problem is bad scholarship, and the substitution of highly biased political propaganda for scholarship. That is not something the government can rule against directly: we do have freedom of speech. But the government can set some standards for accrediting programs and universities, and programs that fail to meet such academic standards can be flagged. Given what Johnson has told us, that's what I think we need to do.

What was seemingly a dry and re-hashed subject has been revitalized by Mr. Teslik. Providing brilliant insight to the framework of our country's foreign policy, Teslik gives a revolutionary perspective on the Arab boycott of Israel. We could have gotten minced meat but he gave us filet mignon. I have grown to value the viewpoints of distinguished writers over the years as a discriminatory reader. Even though this is the first work I have read by Kennan Lee Teslik, I extend an enthusiastic applause to his efforts. Kudos.

Contested Holiness: Jewish, Muslim And Christian Perspectives On The Temple Mount In Jerusalem by Rivka Gonen (formerly Senior Curator of the Department of Jewish Ethnography at the Israel Museum, Jerusalem, and a participant in the Temple Mount Excavations) is a straightforward survey and history enhanced with modern-day perspectives on the Temple Mount in Jerusalem. Presenting Christian, Muslim, and Jewish viewpoints on this highly disputed and universally identified holy site, Contested Holiness studies events of history, philosophies of thought, and the political debate as well as the sad reality of violence as varying groups continue striving to pray upon the Temple Mount, while others consider it a service to both ancient Jewish tradition (which considers the grounds of the Temple Mount itself forbidden to Jews), as well as the public peace, to restrict worship upon the Temple Mount. Also available in a hardcover edition (0881257982, $29.50), Contested Holiness is an enthusiastically recommended, easy-to-understand, and informatively thoughtful examination of a complex social and religious issue.

This is another publication of stamps and seals from biblical times. This one is by professor Navigad who initiated the work and by Benjamin Sass, who revised and completed it. It is one the most thorough volume of its kind.

The introductory material of nearly 50 pages deal with anything and everything surrounding the seals. It discusses the selection process, cataloging, paleography, iconography, nationality (the seals in this volume are not restricted to Hebrew seals only), vocalization and more. It also discusses the ancient practice of sealing and storing official documents, includes illustrations of the process and relates it to the biblical accounts of such practices, such as those recorded in chapters 32 and 36 of the Book of Jeremiah.

The next part of the books deals with the actual artifacts, which are grouped by nationality. Within each section, there is some introductory material followed by (whenever applicable) Kings, officials, men with titles, women, untitled men, blessings, etc. The grouping of seals or stamps by nationality is as follows:
1. Hebrew seals
2. Hebrew bullae and other seals
3. Hebrew jar-handle impressions
4. Phoenician seals
5. Aramaic seals
6. Ammonite seals
7. Moabite seals
8. Edomite seals
9. Moabite or Edomite seals (uncertain origin)
10. Possible Philistine seals
11. Hebrew-Phoenician seal
12. Hebrew-Aramaic seals
13. Hebrew-Ammonite seal
14. Hebrew or Moabite (or Edomite?) seals
15. Phoenician or Aramaic (or Ammonite) seals
16. Aramaic or Ammonite seals
17. Undefined seals
18. Seals with pseudo-script
19. Questionable and forged seals: a selection
20. West Semitic attribution doubtful: a selection

The last section of the book is devoted to the names and inscriptions from the seals. It first discusses words other than personal names, such as titles, professions, deities, various phrases and formulas, blessings and more. The next part of this section deals with the actual names and this is a very thorough and valuable resource, especially for onomastic research. It discusses the use or prefixes, suffixes, hypocoristic endings, gender and much more. It also discusses names by nationality or rather etymology, such as West Semitic, Mesopotamian, Egyptian and norther names, such as Hittite, Luwian or Hurrian.

It also discusses other seals and bullae which are unpublished, has an extensive bibliography, references to other publications of the kind and a number of indexes and lists. These are always a very useful resource and include names with transliterations by nationality, legends, foreign names and words, and citations from the Bible and the Apocrypha. Once again, it is a very thorough and a very useful resource, which offers a unique and somewhat personal view to the lives of the people living in Biblical lands during Biblical times. I highly recommend it.