Demonstrating his political skills in adolescence, he became immersed in paramilitary operations against the British, and was a crucial part of the 1948 war for independence. A protégé of David Ben-Gurion, Peres not only helped create modern Israel, but would shape it in the years to come as the first director general of its Defense Ministry, as prime minister (twice), as the head of other key ministries—including foreign affairs, transportation, and finance—and until 2014, as president. Under his visionary stewardship, Israel became a formidable military power and global leader in high-tech. Peres was also instrumental in growing Israel's population—facilitating the immigration of millions of Jews worldwide-and in securing peace with its enemy the Palestinian Liberation Organization, which earned him the Nobel Prize.In this, his final testimonial, finished in the last weeks of his life, this man of war and peace reflects on key events and fundamental Israeli principles to provide an understanding of his nation's rise and the challenges it faces. No Room for Small Dreams spans decades, events, and places—from Jerusalem and Tel Aviv to Washington, D.C. and Gaza; from the Arab riots in the wake of World War I and the success of Israeli spy operations to the creation of Israel's nuclear program and the birth of its astonishing high tech industry; from its controversial wars and contentious peace treaties to the early kibbutz movement and today's extremist settlers. In looking back Peres also looks forward, offering a provocative meditation on Jewish success, the difficulties and sacrifices of making peace, and the courage necessary to emerge from the dark shadows of history into the bright promise of tomorrow.

    His whole family died in Auschwitz. He barely survived. Now he spends his nights haunted by nightmares and his days solving cases the police won’t handle.Hired to find a missing boy, Adam thinks the case is hopeless. But he can’t turn down a mother searching for her only child.What Adam doesn’t realize is that this case will soon put him in mortal danger. For at the root of the mystery lies a double murder that has stayed unsolved for ten long years.Adam must untangle a web of lies and betrayal to get to the truth. And he’d better watch his back because some of the suspects are willing to kill to keep their dark secrets buried.

    In this groundbreaking and controversial book he examines ten of the most contested ideas concerning the origins and identity of the contemporary state of Israel. Once and for all he explodes the myths that justify the rights of the Israeli state, asking, - Was Palestine an empty land at the time of the Balfour Declaration? - Were the Jews a people without a land? - Is there no difference between Zionism and Judaism? - Is Zionism not a colonial project of occupation? - Did the Palestinians leave their homeland voluntarily in 1948? - Was the June 1967 War a war of -no choice-? - Is Israel the only democracy in the Middle East? - Were the failed Oslo negotiations of 1992 the PLO's fault? - Was it a question of national security to bomb Gaza? - Is the Two States Solution still achievable? Written for the general reader, this book will prompt a huge, and necessary, debate.

     Golda Meir was a world figure unlike any other. Born in czarist Russia in 1898, she immigrated to America in 1906 and grew up in Milwaukee, where from her earliest years she displayed the political consciousness and organizational skills that would eventually catapult her into the inner circles of Israel's founding generation. Moving to mandatory Palestine in 1921 with her husband, the passionate socialist joined a kibbutz but soon left and was hired at a public works office by the man who would become the great love of her life. A series of public service jobs brought her to the attention of David Ben-Gurion, and her political career took off. Fund-raising in America in 1948, secretly meeting in Amman with King Abdullah right before Israel's declaration of independence, mobbed by thousands of Jews in a Moscow synagogue in 1948 as Israel's first representative to the USSR, serving as minister of labor and foreign minister in the 1950s and 1960s, Golda brought fiery oratory, plainspoken appeals, and shrewd deal-making to the cause to which she had dedicated her life--the welfare and security of the State of Israel and its inhabitants. As prime minister Golda negotiated arms agreements with Richard Nixon and Henry Kissinger, agonized over the mixed signals being sent by newly installed Egyptian president Anwar Sadat, and had dozens of clandestine meetings with Jordan's King Hussein in the unsuccessful pursuit of a land-for-peace agreement with Israel's neighbors. But her time in office ended in tragedy, when Israel was caught off guard by Egypt and Syria's surprise attack on Yom Kippur in 1973. Resigning in the war's aftermath, Golda spent her final years keeping a hand in national affairs and bemusedly enjoying international acclaim. Francine Klagsbrun's superbly researched and masterly recounted story of Israel's founding mother gives us a Golda for the ages.

    In 2017, best-selling Israeli author Micah Goodman published a balanced and insightful analysis of the situation that quickly became one of Israel’s most debated books of the year. Now available in English translation with a new preface by the author, Catch-67 deftly sheds light on the ideas that have shaped Israelis’ thinking on both sides of the debate, and among secular and religious Jews about the Israeli-Palestinian conflict.Contrary to opinions that dominate the discussion, he shows that the paradox of Israeli political discourse is that both sides are right in what they affirm—and wrong in what they deny. Although he concludes that the conflict cannot be solved, Goodman is far from a pessimist and explores how instead it can be reduced in scope and danger through limited, practical steps. Through philosophical critique and political analysis, Goodman builds a creative, compelling case for pragmatism in a dispute where a comprehensive solution seems impossible.

    The Weapon Wizards shows how this tiny nation of 8 million learned to adapt to the changes in warfare and in the defense industry and become the new prototype of a 21st century superpower, not in size, but rather in innovation and efficiency—and as a result of its long war experience. Sitting on the front lines of how wars are fought in the 21st century, Israel has developed in its arms trade new weapons and retrofitted old ones so they remain effective, relevant, and deadly on a constantly-changing battlefield. While other countries begin to prepare for these challenges, they are looking to Israel—and specifically its weapons—for guidance. Israel is, in effect, a laboratory for the rest of the world. How did Israel do it? And what are the military and geopolitical implications of these developments? These are some of the key questions Yaakov Katz and Amir Bohbot address. Drawing on a vast amount of research, and unparalleled access to the Israeli defense establishment, this book is a report directly from the front lines.

    Through these incisive, perceptive, and poignant essays, readers will gain unique insight into the narratives behind the litany of grim destruction broadcasted nightly on the news, as well as deeper understanding of the conflict as experienced by the people who live in the occupied territories. Together, these stories stand witness to the human cost of the occupation.

    They were a small group, fewer than 150. Many were World War II veterans; most of them knowingly violated their nations’ embargoes on the shipment of arms and aircraft to Israel. The airmen risked everything—their careers, citizenship, and lives—to fight for Israel. The saga of the volunteer airmen in Israel’s war of independence stands as one of the most stirring—and little-known—war stories of the past century.

    Some see Israel's creation as a dramatic act of justice for the Jewish people. Others insist that it was a crime against Palestine's Arabs. Author David Brog untangles the facts from the myths to reveal the truth about the Arab-Israeli conflict. In Reclaiming Israel's History you'll learn how the Jewish people have maintained a continual presence in the Land of Israel for over 3,000 years—despite centuries of Roman, Byzantine, and Muslim persecution; how the Romans invented the word "Palestine" as a way to sever the connection between the Jewish people and their land (and how subsequent conquerors doubled down on this strategy); how modern Jewish immigration to Palestine did not displace Arabs but instead sparked an Arab population boom; and the largely untold story of how the leader of Palestine's Arabs collaborated with the Nazis to murder Jews in Europe before they could reach their ancestral homeland. You'll also learn why most of Palestine's Arabs never identified themselves as "Palestinians" until after the 1967 War; the extraordinary lengths to which Israel's military goes to protect Palestinian civilians (and the high price Israel's soldiers pay for this morality), and how the Palestinians have on separate occasions rejected Israel's offers of a Palestinian state in virtually all of the West Bank and Gaza. Brog frankly admits to Israel's "sins both large and small," but notes that in any fair-minded analysis these have been far out- weighed by Israel's commitment to Western values, including freedom, democracy, and human rights. Honest, provocative, and timely, especially given rising anti-Semitism and the aggressive delegitimization of Israel, David Brog's Reclaiming Israel's History is the book for every reader who wants to understand what is really happening in the Middle East.

    Hired as a promising young historian, he soon becomes a leading expert on Nazi methods of extermination at concentration camps in Poland during World War II and guides tours through the sites for students and visiting dignitaries. He hungrily devours every detail of life and death in the camps and takes pride in being able to recreate for his audience the excruciating last moments of the victims’ lives. The job becomes a mission, and then an obsession. Spending so much time immersed in death, his connections with the living begin to deteriorate. He resents the students lost in their iPhones, singing sentimental songs, not expressing sufficient outrage at the genocide committed by the Nazis. In fact, he even begins to detect, in the students as well as himself, a hint of admiration for the murderers—their efficiency, audacity, and determination. Force is the only way to resist force, he comes to think, and one must be prepared to kill. With the perspicuity of Kafka’s The Trial and the obsessions of Delillo’s White Noise, The Memory Monster confronts difficult questions that are all too relevant to Israel and the world today: How do we process human brutality? What makes us choose sides in conflict? And how do we honor the memory of horror without becoming consumed by it?

    . . Dear Zealots is not just a brilliant book of thoughts and ideas—it is a depiction of one man’s struggle, who for decades has insisted on keeping a sharp, strident and lucid perspective in the face of chaos and at times of madness.” — David Grossman, winner of the Man Booker International Prize From the incomparable Amos Oz comes a series of three essays: on the universal nature of fanaticism and its possible cures, on the Jewish roots of humanism and the need for a secular pride in Israel, and on the geopolitical standing of Israel in the wider Middle East and internationally.Dear Zealots is classic Amos Oz—fluid, rich, masterly, and perfectly timed for a world in which polarization and extremism are rising everywhere. The essays were written, Oz states, "first and foremost" for his grandchildren: they are a patient, learned telling of history, religion, and politics, to be thumbed through and studied, clung to even, as we march toward an uncertain future.

    But planning a meaningful trip in a place so filled with significant sites is an imposing task. Most travel guides are not prepared to link the Bible and land in an accurate and meaningful way because they are written for people of all faiths. So how can a Christian traveler prepare a trip that will illuminate God's Word and reveal the Lord's presence? In The Holy Land for Christian Travelers, John A. Beck provides a guide to the Holy Land for Christians with explanations of the biblical significance of important sites. The entries provide key Scripture references for reflection and a guide to the land that will encourage communion with God and a genuine spiritual experience for travelers as they walk in the footsteps of Jesus. A trip to the Holy Land can be a worship-filled, once-in-a-lifetime spiritual journey. This book puts a biblical scholar and experienced Holy Land guide at the reader's side.

    When almost half of all Europeans believe that Israel treats the Palestinians just like the Nazis treated the Jews, when leading politicians assert that the Arab-Israeli conflict is the central cause of violence in the world, and when prominent intellectuals argue that Israel is an apartheid state, the unfortunate reality is that the lies are winning.As a result, Israel has become the devil incarnate in the eyes of many otherwise good and reasonable people - people who genuinely want to see peace but inadvertently contribute to the continuation of the Israeli-Arab conflict. The tragedy is that they are neither helping the Palestinians nor promoting agreement or reconciliation. Instead, they lend legitimacy to the most fallacious claims of the most extreme activists, empowering not moderates but the worst of the radicals who have no interest in attaining peace.Israel is not free from flaws. However, this book draws a clear distinction between legitimate criticism and the industry of lies that has emerged from two unlikely sources - the media and academia - undermining their reputation as bastions of truth and knowledge. Ben-Dror Yemini presents an in-depth analysis of the many inaccurate and malicious accusations leveled against Israel and refutes them one by one in this thought-provoking and well-researched volume that invites us to rethink the causes and consequences of the Israeli-Arab conflict.Praise for Industry of LiesBen-Dror Yemini’s book is a must-read for readers of independent mind. A brilliant and creative Israeli writer-scholar, Yemini is a realistic centrist of high integrity who believes in the two-state solution. In Industry of Lies, he exposes the deliberate fakery of the anti-Israel propaganda industry. Ehud Barak, former Prime Minister of Israel In a world where we’re trying to sort out the truth, the forgotten facts that Ben-Dror Yemini has assembled should be known by all those trying to resolve the Israel-Palestine conflict. Robert Bernstein, former president of Random House and founder of Human Rights Watch This book ... reveals and explains the big and small lies that underpin contemporary anti-Zionist and anti-Israeli discourse. Yemini himself is a critic of current Israeli policy and believes in a two-state solution. But he asserts that the distortions purveyed in Western university campuses and in the Western media about Israel and the history of the Arab-Israeli conflict are actually an impediment to Arab-Israeli peace. Professor Benny Morris, author and historian Ben-Dror Yemini ... criticizes Israel’s settlement policy and advocates a rapprochement with the Palestinians through the two-state solution. Nevertheless, he takes up arms against the anti-Israel web of outlandish lies and vitriolic propaganda and exposes them for what they truly are: a sophisticated form of hate speech directing its all too familiar venom against the Jewish state and the Zionist idea. This book should be read by all truth-seeking people. Professor Amnon Rubinstein, former Israeli Education Minister on behalf of Meretz Ben-Dror Yemini and I have some fundamental differences of opinion. And yet, I think his new book on the global rise of anti-Israeli propaganda is important, thorough, and thought-provoking. For too long, too many good people have been swayed by the derisive campaign that describes the Jewish-democratic state in a distorted, pernicious manner. Industry of Lies offers a robust rebuttal to this campaign.

    That, in part, is exactly why Leon McCarron did it.From Jerusalem, McCarron followed a series of wild hiking trails that trace ancient trading and pilgrimage routes and traverse some of the most contested landscapes in the world. In the West Bank, he met families struggling to lead normal lives amidst political turmoil and had a surreal encounter with the world's oldest and smallest religious sect. In Jordan he visited the ruins of Hellenic citadels and trekked through the legendary Wadi Rum. His journey culminated in the vast deserts of the Sinai, home to Bedouin tribes and haunted by the ghosts of biblical history.McCarron's journey led him back through time, from the quagmire of current geopolitics to the original ideals of the faithful, through the layers of history, culture and religion that have shaped the Holy Land. Along migration and trade routes, pilgrimage trails and Bedouin paths, he found connection rather than division, hope instead of hatred and, ultimately, a shared humanity that borders and politics will never diminish.

    Laying the historical groundwork in the final decades of the Ottoman era, when the first Zionist settlers arrived in the Holy Land, Black draws on a wide range of sources--from declassified documents to oral histories to his own vivid on-the-ground reporting--to recreate the major milestones in the most polarizing conflict of the modern age, and from both sides. In the third year of World War I, the seed was planted for an inevitable clash: Jerusalem governor Izzat Pasha surrendered to British troops and foreign secretary Lord Balfour issued a fateful document promising the establishment of "a national home for the Jewish people." The chronicle takes us through the Arab rebellion of the 1930s; the long shadow of the Nazi Holocaust; the war of 1948--culminating in Israel's independence and the Palestinian Nakba (catastrophe); the "cursed victory" of the Six-Day War of 1967 and the Palestinian re-awakening; the first and second Intifadas; the Oslo Accords; and other failed peace negotiations and continued violence up to 2017. Combining engaging narrative with historical and political analysis and cultural insights, Enemies and Neighbors is both an accessible overview and a fascinating investigation into the deeper truths of a history that continues to dominate Middle Eastern politics and diplomacy, and which has preserved Palestinians and Israelis as unequal enemies and neighbors, their bitter conflict unresolved as prospects for a two-state solution have all but disappeared.

    While the gate would provide immediate relief for the farmer, would it not also confer legitimacy on the wall and on the court that deems it legal? The defense of human rights is often marked by such ethical dilemmas, which are especially acute in Israel, where lawyers have for decades sought redress for the abuse of Palestinian rights in the country's High Court--that is, in the court of the abuser.In The Wall and the Gate, Michael Sfard chronicles this struggle--a story that has never before been fully told-- and in the process engages the core principles of human rights legal ethics. Sfard recounts the unfolding of key cases and issues, ranging from confiscation of land, deportations, the creation of settlements, punitive home demolitions, torture, and targeted killings--all actions considered violations of international law. In the process, he lays bare the reality of the occupation and the lives of the people who must contend with that reality. He also exposes the surreal legal structures that have been erected to put a stamp of lawfulness on an extensive program of dispossession. Finally, he weighs the success of the legal effort, reaching conclusions that are no less paradoxical than the fight itself.Writing with emotional force, vivid storytelling, and penetrating analysis, Michael Sfard offers a radically new perspective on a much-covered conflict and a subtle, painful reckoning with the moral ambiguities inherent in the pursuit of justice. The Wall and the Gate is a signal contribution to everyone concerned with the Israeli-Palestinian conflict and human rights everywhere.

    The conventional story is that these well-meaning attempts at peacemaking were repeatedly, perhaps terminally, thwarted by violence.Through a rich interweaving of reportage, historical narrative, and powerful analysis, Nathan Thrall presents a startling counter-history. He shows that force--including but not limited to violence--has impelled each side to make its largest concessions, from Palestinian acceptance of a two-state solution to Israeli territorial withdrawals. This simple fact has been neglected by the world powers, which have expended countless resources on initiatives meant to diminish friction between the parties. By quashing any hint of confrontation, promising an imminent negotiated solution, facilitating security cooperation, developing the institutions of a still unborn Palestinian state, and providing bounteous economic and military assistance, the United States and Europe have merely entrenched the conflict by lessening the incentives to end it. Thrall's important book upends the beliefs steering these failed policies, revealing how the aversion of pain, not the promise of peace, has driven compromise for Israelis and Palestinians alike.Published as Israel's occupation of East Jerusalem, the West Bank, and Gaza reaches its fiftieth anniversary, which is also the centenary of the Balfour Declaration that first promised a Jewish national home in Palestine, The Only Language They Understand advances a bold thesis that shatters ingrained positions of both left and right and provides a new and eye-opening understanding of this most vexed of lands.

    Instead of succumbing to hate and despair, Tyra and Noureen reach across the divide to form a friendship that becomes a beacon of hope and inspires others to bridge decades of loathing. Together they take the first steps toward the creation of a new narrative for a better future.

    In the early 1990s, both South Africa and Israel began negotiating with their colonized populations. South Africans saw results: the state was democratized and black South Africans gained formal legal equality. Palestinians, on the other hand, won neither freedom nor equality, and today Israel remains a settler-colonial state. Despite these different outcomes, the transitions of the last twenty years have produced surprisingly similar socioeconomic changes in both regions: growing inequality, racialized poverty, and advanced strategies for securing the powerful and policing the racialized poor. Neoliberal Apartheid explores this paradox through an analysis of (de)colonization and neoliberal racial capitalism. After a decade of research in the Johannesburg and Jerusalem regions, Andy Clarno presents here a detailed ethnographic study of the precariousness of the poor in Alexandra township, the dynamics of colonization and enclosure in Bethlehem, the growth of fortress suburbs and private security in Johannesburg, and the regime of security coordination between the Israeli military and the Palestinian Authority in the West Bank. The first comparative study of the changes in these two areas since the early 1990s, the book addresses the limitations of liberation in South Africa, highlights the impact of neoliberal restructuring in Palestine, and argues that a new form of neoliberal apartheid has emerged in both contexts.

    But that’s what happens to Michael Bassin, enrolled for a semester exchange at the American University of Sharjah in the United Arab Emirates. When Michael, despite advice to the contrary, reveals his Jewish identity to his new classmates, students, faculty, and the secret police respond with shock and suspicion.In between visiting Egypt, Jordan, Lebanon, Syria, and northern India, Michael develops die-hard enemies and loyal allies on campus. He is thrown into the role of reluctant ambassador for the Jewish people, for America, and for Israel as he responds to the conspiracies and threats made against him. Nevertheless, he finds his efforts to promote understanding are not in vain. As he develops genuine friendships, he sees the positive effects of face-to-face interaction with people who had never met a Jew before.But Michael’s fight for peace doesn’t end with his university experience. He moves to Israel and joins the Israeli army as a combat Arabic translator. There he becomes the face and voice of his unit, during both friendly and hostile interactions with Palestinians in the West Bank.While enforcing an occupation about which he feels conflicted, Michael again finds that person to person relationships provide the best path to peace in the Middle East.

    This is the first book in English that focuses on one of the most important fixtures of the Israeli-Palestinian conflict. Filled with new details and based on interviews with key figures in Ramallah, Jerusalem, and Washington, this book weaves together a fascinating story that will interest both veteran observers of the conflict and readers new to Israeli-Palestinian history. The authors, one a research fellow at a nonpartisan Washington think tank and the other an award-winning diplomatic correspondent for Israel's largest news website, tell the inside story of Abbas's complicated multi-decade relationship with America, Israel, and his own people. They trace his upbringing in Galilee, his family's escape from the 1948 Israeli-Arab war, and his education abroad. They chart his rise to prominence as a pivotal actor in the Oslo peace process of the 1990s and his unsuccessful attempt to offer a nonviolent alternative to the Second Intifada. The authors pay special attention to the crucial years of 2005 to 2014, exploring such questions as: How did Abbas lose control of half of his governing territory and the support of more than half of his people? Why was Abbas the most prominent Palestinian leader to denounce terrorism? Why did Abbas twice walk away from peace offers from Israel and the U.S. in 2008 and 2014? And how did he turn himself from the first world leader to receive a phone call from President Obama to a person who ultimately lost the faith of the American president? Concluding that Abbas will most likely be judged a tragic figure, the authors emphasize that much of his historical importance will depend on the state of the peace process after he is gone. Only the future will determine which of the emerging schools of Palestinian political thought will hold sway and how it will affect the Israeli-Palestinian conflict."

    Blank Bible Verse BookGet Your Copy Today!Portable Size 6 inches by 9 inchesEnough Spaces for writingInclude sections for:Blank Lined pagesBuy One Today

    But while the political situation in Israel and Palestine is complex, peace is not impossible. Wahat al-Salam/Neve Shalom (Oasis of Peace), an intentional community of Jews and Palestinians (Christians and Muslims), has become known the world over for its unique approach to conflict and interfaith dialogue. Receiving tens of thousands of visitors a year, this community has learned what it means to live in harmony despite long-standing differences between cultures and deep-seated strife in the surrounding area. Despite its success, little has been written about the Oasis of Peace—until now. Rayek R. Rizek, one of its founding members, has served his community in government, public relations, and now the written word. In a memoir that is not to be missed, Rizek pulls back the curtain on the Israeli-Palestinian conflict and demonstrates that, with fellowship and diligence, even entrenched discord can be overcome. Rabbi Dr. Marc Gopin of George mason University,Arlington VA, wrote: Rayek Rizek's Masterful Volume is a unique contribution to the story of the Israeli-Palestinian conflict like none I have ever read before. I have been studying,writing and working inside this conflict for 32 years. Never have I seen this combination of insights about the past, the presence and the future, about the self in the context of conflict, about the central importance of story, the taking of personal responsibility, and the inescapable unity of the land and its peoples. If you seek a spell-binding story,an odyssey into the soul, and a beacon of hope beyond war, enter here. Emeritus Professor Oliver Ramsbotham of Bradford University UK, wrote: Rayek Rizek's book is essential reading, not only for those wanting to find out about the unique Oasis of Peace voluntary experiment in Jewish/Palestinian cohabitation, where the author has lived for 33 years, but also about the wider conflict. The Anteater and the Jaguar is that rare thing - a book that offers the reader the fruits of a lifetime of action, study and commitment by a principled and highly impressive participator.

    What did Noah’s Ark really look like? Who was David and whom did he fight? How did 1st century citizens of Jerusalem live? Each two-page spread is filled with images that bring history alive and drawings that help bring life to people and places that we can only read about. With fascinating, brief text and full-color captivating images, this is a reference that kids will come back to again and again. A great addition to any home or school library.

    Taking readers from his boyhood in Los Angeles as the son of Holocaust escapees, through his coming of age amidst the upheavals of 1960s America, to his move to Israel and controversial career in journalism, Derfner explores Israel’s moral decline through the lens of his own experiences. This provocative book blends memoir, reportage, and commentary in a riveting narrative of a society whose mentality of fear and aggression has made it increasingly alien to Jewish liberals.

    When she arrives in Israel, she is a wide-eyed immigrant hoping to survive on Zionism. But instead of working the land on a kibbutz or being swept off her feet by a strong, sensitive Israeli soldier, Jessica is faced with a barrage of ridiculous obstacles. She overcomes notorious Israeli bureaucracy, makes embarrassing mistakes learning Hebrew, serves in an army of teenagers, and dates cocky Israelis, until she finally meets one obstacle, rooted in the very ideology that brought her to Israel, that tests the core of her identity. With self-deprecating wit, Jessica takes us on a personal journey through these challenges, weaving a humorous yet heartbreaking tale about losing and finding identity, and offering a seldom-before-seen snapshot of Israeli culture.

    Starting with the core components of Peoplehood, and ending with his ideas about the future of the Jewish People.

    Rabinovich—a scholar with an abiding commitment to historical accuracy—from presenting a portrait of his friend in full."—Elliott Abrams, Wall Street Journal "Ties the arc of Rabin’s life to the course of Israel’s history from the pre-State period to the 1990s."—Dennis Ross, Jewish Review of Books Winner of the 2017 Washington Institute Book Prize Gold Medal  More than two decades have passed since prime minister Yitzhak Rabin’s assassination in 1995, yet he remains an unusually intriguing and admired modern leader. A native-born Israeli, Rabin became an inextricable part of his nation’s pre-state history and subsequent evolution. This revealing account of his life, character, and contributions draws not only on original research but also on the author’s recollections as one of Rabin’s closest aides.   An awkward politician who became a statesman, a soldier who became a peacemaker, Rabin is best remembered for his valiant efforts to resolve the Israeli-Palestinian conflict and for the Oslo Accords. Itamar Rabinovich provides extraordinary new insights into Rabin’s relationships with powerful leaders including Bill Clinton, Jordan’s King Hussein, and Henry Kissinger, his desire for an Israeli-Syrian peace plan, and the political developments that shaped his tenure. The author also assesses the repercussions of Rabin’s murder: Netanyahu’s ensuing election and the rise of Israel’s radical right wing.About Jewish Lives:  Jewish Lives is a prizewinning series of interpretative biography designed to explore the many facets of Jewish identity. Individual volumes illuminate the imprint of Jewish figures upon literature, religion, philosophy, politics, cultural and economic life, and the arts and sciences. Subjects are paired with authors to elicit lively, deeply informed books that explore the range and depth of the Jewish experience from antiquity to the present. In 2014, the Jewish Book Council named Jewish Lives the winner of its Jewish Book of the Year Award, the first series ever to receive this award.More praise for Jewish Lives: "Excellent." –New York Times "Exemplary." –Wall Street Journal "Distinguished." –New Yorker "Superb." –The Guardian

    Nine easy-to-follow itineraries explore the region's most interesting areas-from the dramatic mountaintop fortress of Masada to bustling Tel Aviv-while reviews of the best hotels, shops, and restaurants will help you plan your perfect trip.True to its name, DK Eyewitness Travel Guide: Top 10 Israel and Petra covers all the major sights and attractions in easy-to-use "top 10" lists that help you plan the vacation that's right for you.+ Itineraries help you plan your trip.+ Top 10 lists feature off-the-beaten-track ideas, along with standbys like the top attractions, shopping, dining options, and more.+ Maps of walking routes show you the best ways to maximize your time.The perfect pocket-size travel companion: DK Eyewitness Travel Guide: Top 10 Israel and Petra.

    God is fulfilling His Word in our generation!   If you want to understand what God is doing in these last days, you must understand what He is doing with Israel. It is here that the Bible’s prophecies regarding the end of the age will all unfold. Jonathan Bernis, host of the internationally popular television program Jewish Voice With Jonathan Bernis, with this fascinating book unlocks a greater knowledge about the last days. The book explores questions such as: What crucial role does Israel play in the last days?Why is anti-Semitism on the rise worldwide, and what is at its root?What is the seed promise, and why is Satan so angry about it?What profound promise did God make to Abraham that applies to you today?

    Holy land to Jews, Christians, and Muslims, this is where biblical places like Jerusalem and Galilee come alive. Colorful features in Fodor's Essential Israel help travelers experience all of this and more: awe-inspiring ancient cities, delicious food and wine, and a vibrant contemporary culture.This travel guide includes:· Dozens of full-color maps · Hundreds of hotel and restaurant recommendations, with Fodor's Choice designating our top picks· Multiple itineraries to explore the top attractions and what’s off the beaten path· Coverage of Jerusalem, Jaffa, Bethlehem, Tel Aviv, the Dead Sea, Eilat, the Negev, Haifa, Nazareth, Tiberias, the Sea of Galillee, the Golan Heights, Beersheva, and Petra in Jordan

    Comprising 15 percent of the settler population today, these immigrants have established major communities, transformed domestic politics and international relations, and committed shocking acts of terrorism. They demand attention in both Israel and the United States, but little is known about who they are and why they chose to leave America to live at the center of the Israeli-Palestinian conflict.In this deeply researched, engaging work, Sara Yael Hirschhorn unsettles stereotypes, showing that the 1960s generation who moved to the occupied territories were not messianic zealots or right-wing extremists but idealists engaged in liberal causes. They did not abandon their progressive heritage when they crossed the Green Line. Rather, they saw a historic opportunity to create new communities to serve as a beacon a city on a hilltop to Jews across the globe. This pioneering vision was realized in their ventures at Yamit in the Sinai and Efrat and Tekoa in the West Bank. Later, the movement mobilized the rhetoric of civil rights to rebrand itself, especially in the wake of the 1994 Hebron massacre perpetrated by Baruch Goldstein, one of their own.On the fiftieth anniversary of the 1967 war, Hirschhorn illuminates the changing face of the settlements and the clash between liberal values and political realities at the heart of the Israeli-Palestinian conflict."

    Except she drives a light rail train, and today is a special day. It's Israel's Independence Day! Arielle works all day taking people to their holiday destinations--but how will Arielle celebrate? Her brother Ezra, a pilot in the Israeli Air Force, has something special in mind.

    Agnon's short stories, published in commemoration of the 50th anniversary of his Nobel Prize in Literature, surveys the major theme in his writing: the epic transformations in the life of the Jewish people both in Europe and in the Land of Israel. In new and revised translations, these 39 fully annotated stories bring to life the full gamut of the modern Jewish experience in fiction, and invite readers into the rich and brilliantly multifaceted world of one of the great writers of the last century. Includes Agnon's 1966 speech to the Royal Swedish Academy on the occasion of his receipt of the Nobel Prize, the first and only Hebrew author so decorated. Agnon declared before the King of Sweden and the other assembled dignitaries: "As a result of the historic catastrophe in which Titus of Rome destroyed Jerusalem and Israel was exiled from its land, I was born in one of the cities of the Exile. But always I regarded myself as one who was born in Jerusalem."

    The Israeli attack killed 34 US Servicemen, and wounded 171—but, incredibly, failed to sink the ship.This riveting book—prepared by one of the USS Liberty survivors, and drawing upon interviews with other eye-witness survivors and participants—tells the true story of the attack.Included in this book for the first time is the story of how the Jewish lobby in America has tried to suppress the story of the attack on the USS Liberty being told, even to the point of psychical attacks and threats against the survivors and their children. It is a story of deceit, betrayal, and terror which will forever shame the establishment.

    Condition Critical presents key blog posts and analytical essays that explore everyday life in Israel, East Jerusalem, the West Bank, and Gaza up close and with searing honesty. These eyewitness reports and intimate stories depict the critical condition of a region suffering from decades-old wounds of colonization and occupation. Condition Critical dares (and inspires) its readers to examine the painful consequences of Zionism and Israeli expansion and to bend the arc of the moral universe towards justice.

    In a collection of insightful, poignant, and often humorous essays, Lapid takes on the topics that have shaped his country: the conflict with the Palestinians, anti-Semitism, terrorism, and the legacy of the Holocaust.A popular newspaper columnist and TV host before he entered politics, Lapid for the first time shares with American readers the tough-minded but hopeful vision that won over so many voters, bringing a calm, levelheaded voice to topics usually dominated by vitriol and denunciation. A fervent secularist who attends synagogue, Lapid addresses hot-button issues such as the role of religion in Israeli society. A devoted father with a passion for history, Lapid also reflects on the personal and family milestones that reflect Israel’s differences from other countries, such as watching his oldest son join the army and seeing four generations attend the same Passover seder.Lapid assesses his country’s greatest accomplishments and most horrific failures, its miraculous survival and the gathering threats it faces, the burdens of the past and reasons to think a bright future lies ahead.

    But what was it like on the home front?Here in the pages of an on-the-spot diary is the warm and human story of an American Jewish Family who lived through those frantic and awesome days.This is an honest and candid portrayal, without frills or embellishments. Here you will relive it as it was: the fear, agony, and despair, as well as the joy, triumph, and laughter. And you will meet the Israelis as they were, not romanticized or idealized, but as flesh-and-blood: the heretics and the pious, the sinners and the saints, the cowards and the brave.In this deeply moving volume you will weep and laugh as you live this exciting moment in history which takes you from the brink of disaster to that moment of miraculous triumph which stunned the world on the 28th of Iyar.Newly designed and updated, this riveting account by Rabbi Emanuel Feldman now includes a prologue with perspectives on the 50th anniversary of the Six Day War.