Contemporary Israel

Like any complicated country, Israel is a land of myths and realities. In this volume, Frederick Greenspahn has assembled an outstanding collection of essays that will help readers to distinguish between the two. Israel has changed enormously over its sixty-some years of statehood. As the chapters demonstrate, many images inherited from the past, frozen into the memories of people who pay attention to the country, no longer conform to everyday reality. This volume is a good place to start in making sense of Israel as it is, not as an idealized or mythical entity but as a country coping with an astonishing array of social challenges. ~Kenneth D. Wald,Samuel R. "Bud" Shorstein Professor of American Jewish Culture & Society, University of Florida

One of the best new anthologies in the burgeoning field of Israel Studies. For both those unfamiliar with the interdisciplinary study of modern Israel, and those more versed in this scholarship, the books authorsall leading researchers in the fieldoffer a wealth of information and insight on Israels diverse population, its contested national and sub-national identities, and its transforming public and private spaces. . . . A refreshing volume that steers clear of the stale partisan polemics that characterizes much of the current discourse on Israel, this work offers a rich, complex, and deep grasp of Israels multifaceted society and its relationship with both state institutions and the Jewish diaspora. ~Miriam Elman,Syracuse University