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Via Dolorosa is a procession dance created in 1983 by the Israeli choreographer Amir Kolben with Ramla Dance Theater. A reenactment by Galia Lever in 2019 introduced a new dimension by incorporating a diverse group of dancers with varied backgrounds. In the context of the changing Israeli political landscape, where discussions around refugees, borders, and community are often highly charged, the reenactment of Via Dolorosa serves as a powerful tool for interrogating and understanding cultural and political complexities. Lever's reenactment not only challenges established interpretations of the dance but also encourages a more inclusive and nuanced understanding of Israeli identity and history. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

As the State of Israel defined citizenship rights for its Jewish population after independence in 1948, it also began to articulate the rights of those affected by disabilities of the mind—i.e. psychiatric, cognitive, and learning disabilities—by issuing, for example, the "Law for the Management of Institutes" (1952) and the "Law for the Treatment of the Mentally Ill" (1955). Due to haphazard state-building and insufficient funding, however, this process was slow and uneven. In the meantime, people with mental and cognitive disabilities often remained vulnerable to abuse and sexual violence in domestic and institutional spaces and suffered from a lack of proper care and accommodation. Operating on the assumption that disability of the mind could be transmitted from generation to generation, some medical professionals contemplated sterilization as a way to prevent the reproduction of mental disability in the children of affected parents, but the lingering trauma caused by the Holocaust and Nazi racial hygiene hindered their plan. This article examines a 1954 case involving a cognitively disabled woman who was brought to court for neglecting her children. Due to her delinquent parenting, she was slated to undergo sterilization, but her legal incompetence raised a host of ethical questions that tested the psychiatrists' and judicial authorities' assumptions about cognitive competence, civic fitness, and reproductive autonomy. By examining contemporary press reports of the legal proceedings, their larger context, and their consequences, this article shows how the woman remained hostage to male-dominated power structures that devalued her dual status as a mother and as a cognitively impaired citizen. While this case study shows how easily overridden were the liberties and protections of those affected by disabilities of the mind, it can also be viewed as a situation that impelled the Israeli public to contemplate the rights of the cognitively disabled, foreshadowing later movements aimed at expanding the boundaries of society to include members of many degrees of ability. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

The essay delves into the intricate German-Jewish authorship and enduring legacy of the iconic Israeli musical, "King Solomon and Shalmai the Cobbler," which premiered in Tel Aviv in 1943. Following its success, a contentious debate arose, overshadowing Sammy Gronemann's rightful credit as the playwright, subsequently replaced by the prominence of his Hebrew translator, Nathan Alterman. This essay meticulously examines Gronemann's pivotal contribution, illuminating his collaborative journey with Alterman from the vibrant cabaret scene of pre-state Tel Aviv to their lasting impact on contemporary Israeli culture and theater. By dissecting their creative partnership, it becomes evident that while Gronemann's playwright prowess shone brightly and set new standards, Alterman's adept translation skills bolstered the play's success, thereby etching its indelible mark in Israeli theatrical history. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

The article "Glimpse into the Abyss. An Israeli Diary" by Saul Friedländer describes the political events in Israel up to July 2023. Friedländer, a prominent researcher of the history of the Holocaust, keeps a diary about the judicial reform of the government of Benjamin Netanyahu, which led to mass protests. The book also reflects on the history of Israel and the challenges in the Israeli-Palestinian conflict. [Extracted from the article]

This review considers the state of historical studies of ancient Israel in light of the publication of two recent books on the subject. While this recent scholarship nuances and advances our understanding of the history of the southern Levant, it also reveals ongoing methodological tensions due to the field's long-running commitments to post-Enlightenment, European (especially German) approaches to the historical analysis of biblical texts. Simultaneously, these two histories point towards some productive ways in which we might move forward in the study of the history of ancient Israel. These productive potentials include reevaluating our historical methods across specialties and approaches and seeking alternative approaches to history writing that make space for fragmentation, multiplicity, and irresolution. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

The book of Joshua is a book-length crux interpretum. Its cultivation of two concurrent narratives that contradict one another has fascinated commentators since antiquity. This is only one of its hermeneutically challenging features. Most modern commentaries attribute these features to an uneven process of redaction. Focusing on chapters 1–12, this essay argues that incongruity, ambiguity, and disjunction are essential elements of a rhetorical strategy in which form and content are imaginatively correlated, and that the text contains many cryptic clues that are necessary to elucidate its meaning. It contends that Joshua is the product of a bold literary innovation that is motivated by a sustained and uncompromising determination to unsettle facile assumptions about YHWH and Israel's history. It concludes that the book challenges us to re-evaluate not only the answers we thought it gave, but even the questions we ask of it. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

This essay argues that the book of Ruth's reopening of Israel's history and national mythology functions in such a way as to redeem, as it were, the plight of the subaltern Moabite—a plight begun with the daughters of Lot in Genesis 19. A parallel is then drawn with the 1619 Project, the recent journalistic project which posits the entire historical sweep of African slavery in North America since 1619 as the defining arc of the United States' founding. As theoretical frames, the essay draws on the work of literary critic Gayatri Chakravorty Spivak (including her concept of "moral love") and political philosopher Arash Abizadeh. In so doing, the essay illustrates how a "functionalist" approach to biblical ethics that balances the content of the biblical narrative with attention to how the text functions in its broader context can provide guidance for contemporary ethical application. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

This article examines the various forms of reenactment in contemporary Israeli documentary cinema. It argues that current documentary reenactments challenge—along the axes of nationalism, gender, class, and ethnicity—the traditional distinctions between past and present, documentary and fiction, reference and representation. They offer the possibility of bringing the past into the present, and simultaneously awarding a new aesthetic form to the historical event appearing on the screen for the first time. The reenactments give presence to the past, while at the same time showing the impossibility of returning to it in its entirety. They put into question the very borders of documentary cinema as well as raising ethical issues about the ontological status of documentary “truth.” Moreover, through reenactments, contemporary documentaries aspire to retrieve lost voices and bodies, forgotten testimonies and histories of Israeli society’s Others, and to give them new visual form so that they can find new listeners. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

The goal of this study is to try to understand how history teachers in Arab high schools in Israel navigate their way between the official curriculum and their Palestinian-Arab identity. I examine how they broach learning material that contradicts their beliefs and their understanding of recent history in the region. To this end I used qualitative research based on interpretative phenomenological analysis. The participants included Arab teachers, both men and women, who we interviewed using in-depth open interviews. In the literature review and from the findings we can see that the state, through the education system in general and through history teaching in particular, tries to disconnect the Palestinian-Arabs from their history, their people, and their national identity. These practices fit the descriptions of settler-colonialists' behavior toward indigenous populations. The findings show that the teachers use one of three approaches to deal with the state's educational policy. One group of teachers focuses on achievement using the material they are given in order to stay out of trouble. Another group finds creative ways to cautiously expose the students to the Arab narrative. The third group faces the challenge head on, presenting the students with the Palestinian narrative in addition to the Jewish Zionist one. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

The article explores the events of October 7th, 2023 in Israel, which had a significant impact on Jewish history. It discusses the violence and death that occurred on that day, as well as the failure of the state to protect its citizens. The article also examines the responses to the attack and the criticisms of Israel that emerged, highlighting the complexity of the relationship between criticism of Israel and antisemitism. It raises questions about language, knowledge, and the need for clarity moving forward. The article concludes by emphasizing the importance of recognizing the ambivalence and complexity of Jewish history and the establishment of Israel in order to challenge simplistic categorizations. [Extracted from the article]

The following article represents the former section of a larger study regarding religious aniconism practiced in Ancient Israel. The aniconic movement is an alternative to the iconographic expression of divinity. Aniconism understands the configuration of the divine in a symbolic and abstract way, apart from the anthropomorphic and the theriomorphic representation. In this sense, the props used were stone and wood, especially unwrought, in their crude form, so that later, thanks to his insatiable aesthetic appetite, man could manufacture finished pillars, ornate columns, seals, chariots, thrones, obelisks, temples and pyramids, sacralized empty spaces. The aniconist movement is found throughout the Near East, mostly in Phoenicia and Syria, but aniconic artifacts are also found in Ancient Palestine too, according to archaeological findings. Thus, the history of Ancient Israel does not strike a discordant note in this cultural-religious course, on the contrary, although the official post-exilic propaganda was as prohibitive as possible towards these manifestations, considering them alien and idolatrous. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Israel Studies is a rather recent and fragmented discipline in the Italian academic system. Nonetheless, the interest in Israel's geopolitical history has progressively emerged from Middle East and International Relations scholars as well as from some non-academic actors seeking to understand the Israeli-Arab conflict and later on Israel's own sociopolitical complexity. Universities such as Venice and Pisa include Israeli history in various academic curricula while Florence University offers a specific course on Israel's History. The article reconstructs the development of Israel Studies in Italy by examining the decentralized academic dynamics and by contextualizing it within local academia and society. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

While Israeli academia houses numerous research centers that explore German history and culture, German universities stand out for the near absence of Israel Studies as an institutionalized discipline. At present, there is not a single permanent professorship for Israel Studies at Germany's large research universities. The article analyzes this blind spot by contextualizing it within the unique nature of German-Israeli academic relations, established in the shadow of the Shoah. We argue that the attempt to recover and reclaim the German-Jewish past in the Federal Republic of Germany was accompanied by a systemic blindness vis-à-vis the Israeli present. By contrasting the German case to Anglo-Saxon academia, the article points out that the core components for institutionalizing Israel Studies as a scholarly field are missing in Germany so far – both in terms of means (public and private funding), motive (mobilization by pro-Israel actors), and opportunity (interest by neighboring fields). Following a historical overview of research on Zionism and Israel in German academia, the article discusses the slow emergence of Israel Studies in recent years: While small clusters of systematic research into Israeli history are developing, the research field of Israel Studies is facing an uphill battle in its struggle for academic institutionalization. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Aviad Tabory's book, "State of Halakha: Israel's History in Jewish Law," provides a comprehensive survey of the halakhic (Jewish legal) issues that have arisen in Orthodox Judaism since Israel's independence in 1948. The book covers a wide range of topics, including the 1948 Declaration of Independence, wars and military operations, peace treaties, immigration, and political events. Tabory explores how these issues challenged Jewish legal scholars to develop appropriate halakhic responses without the benefit of earlier precedents. The book also discusses the integration of Jewish law into the Israeli legal system, particularly in the areas of rabbinical courts and family law. The author suggests that halakha (Jewish law) will continue to play a role in addressing ongoing issues in Israeli society, such as gender equality and the nature of democracy. [Extracted from the article]

This study makes the case that within the books of Samuel-Kings as a whole, the book of Samuel presents two nested iterations of paradigmatic history, each of which anticipates the subsequent monarchic history with a distinct thematic focus. The more detailed of these two iterations—the story of Saul's and David's reigns in 1 Sam 9– 2 Sam 24—typologically anticipates the subsequent history of the kingdoms of Israel and Judah as narrated in 1 Kgs 12–2 Kgs 25. This paradigmatic "preview" of the fates of Israel and Judah is further condensed in the stories about Eli and Samuel in 1 Sam 1–8, which anticipate elements from 1 Sam 9–2 Sam 24, the book of Kings, and beyond. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

This study argues that, historically, televised media events managed to become prominent in the public agenda, not only through their live broadcast on television, but also through their long-term, continuous visibility in the print media. This, both on the level of the intensity of their press coverage; and also on the level of their framing as important and significant events for society. In other words, media events have enabled a contentbased "coexistence" between print media and television. Through a thematic-qualitative analysis, the study describes how two Israeli, popular and elite newspapers promoted the public discourse on two of the most famous media events in Israel's history: the 1979 and 1999 Eurovision Song Contests in Jerusalem. Findings reveal an intensive print media coverage of the two shows, from both "soft" (gossip) and "hard" (politics) perspectives. In addition, differences were found in the historical coverage of the contests in popular newspapers, compared to elite ones. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

The article "Quo vadis Israel? History - current conflicts - directions for the future" deals with the political situation in Israel. After the elections in November 2022, Benjamin Netanyahu formed a government considered right-wing, which led to protests and a division in society. The article sheds light on Israel's history since its founding in 1948 and the Middle East conflict. The current government plans to reshape the legal system and redistribute the separation of powers in favor of the executive branch. The threat to democracy in Israel is described, and it is pointed out that anti-democratic laws have already been passed. The protest movement is mainly driven by liberal, secular, and Ashkenazi middle-class supporters. Various political options for Israel's future are discussed, emphasizing that the political debates demonstrate the vitality of Israeli civil society. [Extracted from the article]

The term neo-Zionism can be used to group ideologically much of contemporary Hebrew literature. However, since neo-Zionism shares similar critical tools with post-Zionism, while also sharing a common political vision with Zionism, it has been difficult to find the definitive signifiers of neo-Zionis! writing. This paper offers a way to determine the nuanced ideological inclination of Hebrew literature: the presentation of time. First, this paper recognizes the metamorphosis of time in Israeli literary history that reflects the writers' historical view of the Zionist agenda. Zionist Hebrew literature was engaged ir re-establishing Jewish historical time by emphasizing the relationship between time and events. Post- Zionist writers fragmented, subverted, or eliminated historical time in their works to loosen the commitment to historical specificity. In the neo-Zionist literary generation, timelines are reassembled as the writers try to reinterpret the Zionist ideology that shapes the person, the nation, and the relationship between the two. Erich Auerbach's observation that the Old Testament introduced realist writing to Western literature suggests two benchmarks to read neo-Zionist literature as realist writing: the first one is the writers' moral duty and sense of responsibility to write reality; the second is the restoration of the omniscient narrator. This article uses these two parameters to further interpret the neo-Zionist historical narrative. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

"Hollywood and Israel: A History" by Tony Shaw and Giora Goodman is a comprehensive and well-illustrated book that explores Hollywood's relationship with Israel from 1925 to the present. The authors challenge the notion that Jews control Hollywood and instead provide a nuanced account of celebrity activism and the economic forces that have influenced the Hollywood-Israel relationship. The book also addresses the portrayal of Palestinians in Hollywood and the impact of Hollywood on the Arab-Israeli conflict. Overall, "Hollywood and Israel" is a highly praised and essential volume that examines the cultural, political, and diplomatic significance of the Hollywood-Israel connection. [Extracted from the article]

This paper considers the case of the Karaite sect in modern-day Israel as an instance where an insular and marginalized religious community reshaped official law through its members' religious performances. Despite their failing political and legal campaigns to change Israeli family law to accommodate their distinct Judaism, the religiously committed Karaite community brought about official legal change. They did so by mimicking official law, embedding it into their sacred order, and living their original jurisprudence daily. Drawing on primary historical sources, this study reenacts the ways by which official state law and local religious law reciprocally change each other under a plural normative setting. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Resilience is a concept of concern to researchers of humanitarian disasters and crises as well as relief organizations and agencies. Compelling findings in recent studies demonstrate the centrality of social networks and connections, among individuals and groups, in powering rehabilitation processes after disasters and crises. Derived from this perspective is the concept of community resilience, based on Ozawa's definition as groups and individuals working together to minimize the adverse consequences of crisis. This study aims to demonstrate that the postulate that communities can attain their objectives if only they "work together", irrespective of their material resources, remains valid in situations of protracted crisis such as economic distress or lengthy struggle against economically or politically powerful elements. I wish to substantiate and prove this hypothesis by micro-historical reconstruction and analysis that sheds light on practices used by local neighborhood committees in view of protracted crises resulting from severe poverty and clearance plans. The article is based on two case studies harvested from the history of Israel. The first looks at Nahalat Ahim, a neighborhood in the southern segment of the Nahlaot cluster of neighborhoods in central Jerusalem, and the second, at the Shemen Beach (Hof Shemen) neighborhood of Haifa. The advantage of historical research, which by nature deals with matters already concluded, lies in its retrospective gaze on ways members of a community in crisis coped. An after-the-fact contemplation such as this, allows us to identify additional variables that may enhance our understanding of the community-resilience phenomenon in current contexts as well. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

On June 6, 1982, Israel invaded Lebanon with the aim of destroying the military infrastructure of the Palestine Liberation Organization (PLO), which was serving as a launching pad for terrorist infiltrations and Katyusha attacks into northern Israel. From its outset, the Israeli public considered the war an exceptional case and a deviation from the "proper" course of Israeli history. Allegedly, unlike other Israeli wars, the 1982 War did not relate to Israeli security concerns but instead to the political aims and whims of Menachem Begin and Ariel Sharon. Also, it is often described as an unjust war of choice, which Israel initiated while it was not facing an existential threat. The claim that the 1982 Lebanon War was exceptional and a deviation from original Israeli principles is the main interest of this article. To determine whether the Lebanon War was a breach of Israeli history or a deviation from Israeli foundational political-moral principles, one must analyze the core tenets of Israel's security strategy to which it adhered in most of its battles. Using the security doctrine as a guide map reveals that the conflict was neither unique nor a deviation but rather a fulfillment of long-standing Israeli security principles. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

In many regions, the frequency and extent of wildfires has increased in recent years, a trend which is expected to continue. Hence, there is a need for effective fire management strategies. Such strategies need to be based on accurate and complete data on vegetation condition and post-fire effects, collected in the field as well as by remote sensing approaches. Unfortunately, wildfire databases are often incomplete in terms of their spatial and temporal coverage, as well as the documentation of fire outcomes. The aim of this study was to devise a methodology to construct a comprehensive national wildfire database. We developed and tested this methodology for Israel, as a case study. The methodology combines data on wildfires in Israel from two sources: remote sensing and field data collected by governmental agencies, representing the period between 2015 and 2022. The resulting database contains 2276 wildfires larger than 10 ha with information (where and when available) on their occurrence date, fire duration, ignition cause, and more. The methodology presented here provides a blueprint for developing large-scale and comprehensive fire databases elsewhere, and facilitates future studies on wildfire risk by providing a robust, unified database of the fire history of Israel from 2015 onwards. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Women have been active as architects in Israel since 1921, designing projects of varied types and scales, including synagogues. The first woman to design a modern synagogue in the country was Judith Segall Stolzer, who in 1935, won a prestigious competition for Hadera's central synagogue. A few decades later Genia Averbuch designed three synagogues in a remarkably innovative modern style. These female architects were noteworthy partners in the endeavor to develop a local style in the design of synagogues. This article engages with four synagogues designed by two of the country's first female architects and explores their symbolic style against the built environment of the day. It examines the architectural planning process—references, concepts, and ideas—as well as the unusual commissioning of women as architects for these projects, with an emphasis on their contribution to Israeli culture, the development of a local style in modern architecture, and synagogue design. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

The Book of Kings uses a particular synchronistic framework to present the parallel histories of the kingdoms of Israel and Judah in 1 Kings 14–2 Kings 17. Some Ancient Near Eastern chronographic compositions (synchronistic king lists, the Neo-Babylonian chronicle, the so-called Synchronistic History) also record chronological relationships between ruler sequences in neighboring kingdoms. This paper distinguishes between synchronized dating and synchronistic compositions, offers a comparison between these compositions and the Book of Kings, and discusses aspects of the latter's characteristics and pragmatics. The extant Mesopotamian synchronistic compositions presuppose and express a special connection between Assyria and Babylonia. It seems that a similar idea—applied to Israel and Judah—also stands behind the synchronistic composition in 1 Kings 14–2 Kings 17. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

This article analyses the connection between gender and fatherhood in Labour Zionist children's literature during the formative years of the Zionist project which preceded the establishment of the state of Israel in 1948. Contrary to most similar social movements in the interwar period, Labour Zionism was leading a settler‐colonial project with the imperative to expand the Jewish presence throughout the country, making the category of space particularly relevant to the success of its hegemonic project. This article contributes to the understanding of the role of gender in the process of Zionist settlement and colonisation, and at the same time calls for more attention to the entanglement of gender and masculinity with space in the study of colonial history. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

The renowned historian Moshe Zimmermann published the book "Never Peace? Israel at a Crossroads" in response to the conflict along the border between the Gaza Strip and Israel. He sheds light on Israel's history since the Six-Day War in 1967 and emphasizes the need to find ways out of the cycle of violence. Zimmermann criticizes both the Israeli government and the Palestinian side, and despite resistance, continues to advocate for a two-state solution. [Extracted from the article]

Iconic photographs are symbolically dense images characterized by broad circulation over time and recognition by large publics. Following this definition, we track the republication and reframing, over nearly 70 years, of 15 news photographs previously identified as most recognized by the Israeli public. Distinguishing between "discrete icons" (singular photographs of particular scenes) and "aggregate icons" (where several variants of the same event are continually reproduced), our quantitative and qualitative analyses show that iconic images are both resistant to the passing of time and kept in motion through renewed media use. We identify four "iconic modalities," corresponding to different ways in which iconic status and meanings are achieved, transformed, or denied through republishing and reframing. This concept improves our understanding of iconicity as a fluctuating material and symbolic process, whereby the circulation of images not only produces shifts in meaning, but constructs powerful aggregative frameworks of collective visual memory. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

The article presents the genealogy and maps Iconographic Exegesis or Biblische Ikonographie. From social-material lenses, it addresses the foundation and development of the perspective, often construed as the explanation of the Bible with contemporary pictorial material. Starting with Othmar Keel and the Fribourg Circle's works and reaching scholars from other academic environments, such as South Africa, Germany, the United States, and Brazil, the paper describes the transformation of the perspective from research interest to research circle and its formalization as a subspecialization within Biblical Studies. The outlook highlights commonalities and particularities of the perspective and its enabling factors and comments on its characterization and definition. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

The book "For the Love of Zion: Israel, the Church, and God's Faithfulness" by Franklin Ferreira addresses the relationship between Israel and the church, defending the theological and historical importance of Israel. The author presents a comprehensive research on the relationship between the church and Israel throughout history, highlighting moments of love and also of anti-Semitism. The book also discusses theological themes, such as the future salvation of Israel and the church's relationship with God's promises to the nation. The author concludes that Israel is still God's chosen people and that the return of the Jews to their land and the establishment of the State of Israel are fulfillments of divine promises. The book is recommended for theologians and Christians interested in the subject. [Extracted from the article]

Dealing with biblical prophetism invariably involves approaching the contingent relationship between religious experience and history. Thus, when approaching the book of Hosea, this article recognizes the need to see the historical, social and political confluences that permeate its texts. However, when the apparent impossibility of treating such a work as if it were circumscribed in a single context becomes apparent, the task of examining the characteristics of the different moments that are latent in his pericopes and that marked his editorial process. Therefore, a critical reading of the so-called Deutoronomist History was adopted as a method, in constant dialogue with recent advances in archeology. At first, the beginnings of the monarchy in Israel are resumed, focusing on the rise, governmental peak and decline of the omrids. In sequence, the monarchical apex experienced by Jeroboam II and the weakening of the state with his successors were analyzed, in parallel with the development of the Jewish royalty, with emphasis on Josiah. Finally, specific attention was directed to the concreteness of social life during the reigns of these two monarchs. From this perspective, the prophetism in Hosea was seen in the complexity of its relationship with the different dimensions of the history that surrounded it. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

In October 1952, a mysterious man boarded a ship sailing from Marseille to Haifa. In the previous several years he had been living in France, where he was known as "Monsieur Chouchani" and taught Talmud to Elie Wiesel and Emmanuel Levinas, among others. Once in Israel, he went by the name "Ben Shoushan." In neither country did anyone know his true identity, but all who met him were astounded: Chouchani/Ben Shoushan appeared practically omniscient, he spoke an astonishing number of languages, and he gave the impression of someone who had come from a different time in history. In this article, I reconstruct Monsieur Chouchani/Ben Shoushan's time in Israel between 1952–56. I claim that in order to understand his story fully, one needs to read it against three contexts: Israeli history of the early 1950s, the biographies of the people Chouchani/Ben Shoushan attracted, and the ancient legend of Ahasuerus, the Wandering Jew. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

The aim of this article is to offer a unifying element of the Christian narrative that connects creation, Jesus and the Holy Spirit. The study reveals that the traditional elements of the Christian narrative are not interconnected, specifically ignoring the role and function of the Holy Spirit. Traditionally, the Christian narrative has been constructed with a focus on sin and salvation. This Christocentric approach has significant limitations, namely, it does not provide a full and correct theological understanding of the Trinity and it does not give a logical connection between the beginning and the end of the Christian message, that is, between the creation, the coming of Christ and the giving of the Holy Spirit. This article offers a new perspective, where the holiness of God is used as an adequate unifying principle that connects creation, salvation and sanctification. The approach proposed in this article not only overcomes the traditionally Christomonic orientation, but also incorporates into the Christian narrative the history of the people of Israel, including the temple and the Sabbath – centre of their religious life, the life of Jesus, and the life of Jesus’ followers. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Luke-Acts is a theocentric narrative. It tells how God in and through Jesus acts out of faithfulness to the covenant on behalf of Israel. This article uses this fundamental claim to offer a post-supersessionist reading of Luke-Acts. It contends that genealogical Israel (the Jewish people) remains God's people because of election. God turns to Israel offering forgiveness and salvation. The people struggle to respond. All Israel, including Jesus's disciples, stumbles. Some Jewish people are more faithful, others less. Together they comprise the less-than-faithful people of God to whom God is faithful. Luke's Jesus and Paul embody this dynamic. Jesus recapitulates Israel's history, acting faithfully on its behalf for its salvation. He dies in solidarity with the Jewish people, faithful and unfaithful alike. He is raised, proleptically guaranteeing their restoration. Paul embodies how God remains loyal to recalcitrant Israel. Apart from repentance from Paul, an encounter with the risen Lord transforms this "God-fighter" simply because he is a "chosen vessel". In Paul, Luke narrates God's radical fidelity to Israel. God will restore Israel, opening blind eyes to see Jesus as messiah. The article distills the author's forthcoming monograph Reading Luke-Acts after Supersessionism: The Salvation of Israel and the Nations in Accordance with the Scriptures. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

The perennial scourge of xenophobic violence in South Africa raises some questions about the nation's hospitality to immigrants. Unexpectedly, Christians are also torn between loyalty to the prevailing anti-immigrant sentiments and the obligation to be hospitable to foreigners. This article, therefore, seeks to explore this tension, and the objective is achieved by surveying pertinent literature. Having traced the history of xenophobic violence from the dawn of South Africa's independence in 1994 to the present day, the article discusses the involvement of Christians in xenophobic violence, which can be viewed as a paradox. Thus, the article thoroughly reflects on God's mission to foreigners and how the Church, a God-ordained community, fulfils that mission, which began in the Old Testament, when God anointed Israel as the vehicle of redemption for the world. Unfortunately, Israel failed to accomplish the mission, which was ultimately fulfilled by Jesus Christ, who ordained the Church as the new covenant community that would fulfil the aforesaid mission. This study reveals that all people, including foreign nationals, bear the image of God, who indiscriminately loves and cares for all of them. God's legislation in Israel's history and the New Testament Church attest to that. The article concludes by exposing the tension experienced by South African Christians, as well as proposing a thrust for Christians to participate in God's mission by practising sacrificial love and hospitality to foreigners. Intradisciplinary and/or interdisciplinary implications: This is an interdisciplinary article that looks at theological and sociological issues of co-existence. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

This paper reviews the taxonomies and characteristics of Israel education articulated by Benji Davis and Dr. Hanan Alexander while suggesting that their specific educational philosophy, Mature Zionism, ought not be siloed only to educating about Israel but rather extended to Jewish education writ large. Developing a framework of Israel literacy provides an opportunity for Israel educators to develop skills and knowledge about Israel while applying it to the context of Israeli history and society. Futhermore, this paper proposes reclaiming the ethnos identity of Jews, as a tribe or a people, allowing for this concept to be integrated more fluidly within Jewish educational contexts. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Everyone seems to agree that Israel education is complex. But all too often, the concept of "complexity" becomes a euphemism for the existence of unpleasant truths about Israel that challenge students' preconceived notions. I propose that instead of focusing on cutlivating attachemnt to Israel, Israel educators should offer students an account of Israeli history grounded in careful historical research while preserving a vision of the Jewish future that remains compatible with national pride. Drawing on the work of Richard Rorty, Maxime Rondinson and James Baldwin, I suggest a new perspective on some of the tensions in israel education. National pride can be maintained by presenting a narrative that honestly acknowledges a nation's past, but inspires students to strive for a better future. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

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This article presents the history of the administration of courts in Israel, from 1948 to circa 1995, unearthing a series of tensions that undergirded the management of Israeli courts throughout their history. It illustrates that judiciary-executive tensions, as well as intra-judiciary and other extra-judiciary tensions, informed the trajectory of Israeli court administration. Furthermore, the article singles out two outstanding figures in the history of the Israeli judiciary, chief justices Yitzhak Olshan and Meir Shamgar, whose lesser-known preoccupation with the administration of courts – alongside the work of even lesser-known Israeli jurists who "managed" Israeli courts for decades – is revealed in the article. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Israel's creation also had an effect on Jews in Hollywood, most of whom had been traumatized by the Holocaust. Indeed, that movie, which depicts the creation of Israel, had an incredible impact on American Jews young and old. Off-screen, at a time when Jewish immigration to the US remained a highly sensitive political issue, "Louis B. Mayer and other Hollywood bosses were fundraising and promoting schemes to resettle German Jews in places like Cuba" (p. 20). [Extracted from the article]

Google Scholar Crossref Search ADS Google Preview WorldCat COPAC 11 Kus, Susan. Google Scholar Crossref Search ADS Google Preview WorldCat COPAC 23 Stager, Lawrence E. 1998. Google Scholar Crossref Search ADS Google Preview WorldCat COPAC 18 Smith, Mark S. 2001. The possibility that Yahweh was originally a deified ancestor has been considered by scholars in the past - for instance, by Karel [25], 914) in his I Dictionary of Deities and Demons in the Bible i entry on Yahweh from over two decades ago - but most have found it unlikely (or at least have found insufficient data to make the case) as a result of the generally limited purview of ancestral deities. [Extracted from the article]

In this article, I argue that contemporary Israeli literary criticism posits the nation as its horizon of interpretation, which has eroded Israeli literary criticism's ability to detect newness in its objects of inquiry, and to present Israeli literary history as advancing through engagement with new social problems. I examine three literary works: A.B. Yehoshua's 1963 novella "Facing the Forests," Etgar Keret's Missing Kissinger (1994), and Rutu Modan's Exit Wounds (2007). For each, I show how critical commentary puts the nation as the center of interpretation. I then elaborate a critical position that sees the nation not as the point of critique's termination,but as means toward trying to solve, in imagination, real social contradictions of its time. Thus, I argue that the fire in "Facing the Forests" is a figure for the threat of proletarian revolution under welfare-state capitalism; and that the fusion of realist narrative and its interpretive code in Keret's Missing Kissinger signals a crisis of historicity whose origin is the proletarianization of Palestinians after the 1967; and lastly that Exit Wounds reestablishes Israeli historicity, using events of national significance – such as Palestinian suicide bombings – to represent the experience of precarious labor under neoliberal capitalism. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]