Showing titles in Israel & Palestine

In Going Home, Raja Shehadeh, the Orwell Prize-winning author of Palestinian Walks, takes us on a series of journeys around his hometown of Ramallah. Set in a single day - the day that happens to be the 50th anniversary of Israel’s occupation of the West Bank - the audiobook is a powerful and moving record and chronicle of the changing face of his city.

On May 14, 1948, the British Mandate officially expired. That same day, the Jewish National Council issued the Declaration of the Establishment of the State of Israel. About 10 minutes later, President Truman officially recognized the State of Israel, and the Soviet Union also quickly recognized Israel. However, the Palestinians and the Arab League did not recognize the new state, and the very next day, armies from Egypt, Syria, Lebanon, and Iraq invaded the former British Mandate to squelch Israel, while Saudi Arabia assisted the Arab armies.

Das Gebiet, in dem der heutige Staat Israel liegt, gilt als Wiege des Judentums. Die späteren abrahamitischen Religionen, das Christentum und der Islam, haben dort ihren historischen Ursprung. Seit 63 v. Chr. stand die Region 700 Jahre lang unter römischer Herrschaft. Auf die Römer folgten die Byzantiner, dann die Araber und Osmanen sowie schließlich die Briten. Die dort seit mehreren tausend Jahren ansässigen Juden wurden mehrfach vertrieben und verteilten sich weltweit in der sogenannten Diaspora.

It's a great irony that Israel was more secure as an idea than its ever been as a nation with an army. In AD 70, when the Second Temple was destroyed, a handful of visionaries saved Judaism by reinventing it - by taking what had been a national religion, identified with a particular place, and turning it into an idea. Jews no longer needed Jerusalem to be Jews.

David Ben-Gurion cast a great shadow during his lifetime, and his legacy continues to be sharply debated to this day. There have been many books written about the life and accomplishments of the Zionist icon and founder of modern Israel, but this new biography by eminent Israeli historian Anita Shapira strives to get to the core of the complex man who would become the face of the new Jewish nation. Shapira tells the Ben-Gurion story anew, focusing especially on the period after 1948, during the first years of statehood.

Nephi puts us on notice in his very first sentence that The Book of Mormon was written by temple worshippers and for temple worshippers. He and the other prophets of The Book of Mormon, who called themselves the visionary men and the peaceable followers of Christ, knew and practiced a mystery, an ordinance by which they ascended through the temple and entered into the presence of God. This ordinance was embodied in a dramatic representation of the expulsion of Adam and Eve from Eden and their return to it, in which initiates played the roles of Adam and Eve or their descendants.

From “the Chuck D of Palestinian hip-hop” (Los Angeles Times), a memoir of three generations of one family of Palestinians up against loss, oppression, and a shape-shifting past, present, and future, in a work of stunning originality and kinetic energy 3Gs tells the stories of a father, his...

Decolonizing Palestine challenges the weaponization of biblical texts to support the current settler-colonial state of Israel. Raheb argues that some of the most important theological concepts—Israel, the land, election, and chosen people—must be decolonized in a paradigm shift in Christian theological thinking about Palestine. 

Say the word Israel today and it sparks images of walls and rockets and a bloody conflict without end. Yet for decades the symbol of the Jewish State was the noble pioneer draining the swamps and making the deserts bloom: the legendary kibbutznik. So what ever happened to the pioneers' dream of founding a socialist utopia in the land called Palestine? Chasing Utopia: The Future of the Kibbutz in a Divided Israel draws listeners into the quest for answers to the defining political conflict of our era.

When we picture the first Advent, we see Mary and Joseph huddled by a manger. We picture Gabriel, magi, and shepherds tending their flocks. A shining star against a midnight sky. But this harmonized version has lifted the Advent story out of its context--those who experienced the first Advent had to travel through great darkness to reach the hope that shining star announced. Trusted scholar and community organizer Kelley Nikondeha takes us back, to where the landscape of Palestine is once again the geographic, socioeconomic, and political backdrop for the Advent story.

While Israel is a modern and largely secular country, it is one steeped in biblical history - a place where religion still plays an active role in public life. In 70 years, it has grown from a sparsely populated strip of land into a vigorous democracy and regional superpower. Often called the Startup Nation, Israel is a world leader in a number of high-tech industries. Its democratic institutions, despite political and social polarization in recent years, are among the most enlightened in the world.

Can We Talk About Israel? is the story of the Israeli-Palestinian conflict, grappling with a century-long struggle between two peoples that both perceive themselves as, and indeed are, victims. And it's an attempt to explain why the Israeli-Palestinian conflict inspires such extreme feelings.

Improbable, if not impossible. How could a people who’d been scattered for two millennia reestablish a homeland on their ancient soil? Against all odds, an irresistible desire to return grew in courageous Jewish men and women who set out to rebuild their decimated homeland. Help came first through Great Britain’s pledge to restore Palestine to the Jews. Britain, however, nearly reneged on that promise just as the Jews faced the Nazi Holocaust.

Written by a member of the International Advisory Board for a Northern Israel Research and Education Center, this fascinating narrative reveals the more than century-long story of a Jewish nation being rebuilt along Israel’s northern borders where it once flourished. Through intimate profiles of many residents in multiple border communities, combined with thorough research, listeners will meet people who settled the region, dealt with its tribulations, and that still struggle to live normal lives in a land that remains challenging.

Brought to you by Penguin. For more than two decades, Marwan Barghouti has been held in an Israeli prison cell, much of that time in total isolation. Yet his voice has never been forgotten. Described by the Economist as ‘the world’s most important prisoner’ and often referred to as...

On November 10, 1975, the General Assembly of United Nations passed Resolution 3379, which declared Zionism a form of racism. Afterward, a tall man with long, graying hair, horned-rim glasses, and a bowtie stood to speak. He pronounced his words with the rounded tones of a Harvard academic, but his voice shook with outrage: "The United States rises to declare, before the General Assembly of the United Nations, and before the world, that it does not acknowledge, it will not abide by, it will never acquiesce in this infamous act."

Access to water has played a pivotal role in the Israel-Palestine dispute. Israel has diverted the River Jordan via pipes and canals to build a successful modern state. But this has been at the expense of the region's cohabitants. Gaza is now so water-stressed that the United Nations has warned it could soon become uninhabitable; its traditional water source has been ruined by years of over-extraction and mismanagement, the effects exacerbated by years of crippling blockade.

Was it one of the war’s most memorable feats of valor or an act of desperation, even madness? In Out of the Sky, Matti Friedman unravels one of the strangest episodes of World War II: In 1944, a team of young women and men who had escaped the Holocaust made the inconceivable choice to...

Explore the heart of the Israel-Palestine conflict through a powerful lens of transformation and truth. In Wake Up and Reclaim Your Humanity, author and narrator Richard Forer—once a passionate supporter of Israel—shares his remarkable spiritual awakening that redefined his identity and opened his eyes to the shared humanity between Israelis and Palestinians.

Light in Gaza is a seminal, moving, and wide-ranging anthology of Palestinian writers and artists. It constitutes a collective effort to organize and center Palestinian voices in the ongoing struggle. As political discourse shifts toward futurism as a means of reimagining a better way of living, beyond the violence and limitations of colonialism, Light in Gaza is an urgent and powerful intervention into an important political moment.