New Book: Kreiger, The Dead Sea and the Jordan River

Kreiger, Barbara. The Dead Sea and the Jordan River. Bloomington: Indiana University Press, 2016.

 

 

For centuries travelers have been drawn to the stunning and mysterious Dead Sea and Jordan River, a region which is unlike any other on earth in its religious and historical significance. In this exceptionally engaging and readable book, Barbara Kreiger chronicles the natural and human history of these storied bodies of water, drawing on accounts by travelers, pilgrims, and explorers from ancient times to the present. She conveys the blend of spiritual, touristic, and scientific motivations that have driven exploration and describes the modern exploitation of the lake and the surrounding area through mineral extraction and agriculture. Today, both lake and river are in crisis, and stewardship of these water resources is bound up with political conflicts in the region. The Dead Sea and the Jordan River combines history, literature, travelogue, and natural history in a way that makes it hard to put down.

 

Table of Contents

• Part I. This Strange Water
  1. Some Early History, Travellers, Myths
• Part II. Nineteenth-Century Exploration
  2. Three Sailors, and a River
  3. Along the Briny Strand
• Part III. Origins and Evolution
  4. The Life of a Lake
• Part IV. Further Exploration
  5. Gentleman from Siberia
  6. A Lake Divided
• Part V. The Twenty-First Century
  7. The River and Lake in Distress
  8. Reclamation, and a Vision of the Future
• Afterword

 

BARBARA KREIGER is Creative Writing Concentration Chair and Adjunct Associate Professor in the Master of Arts in Liberal Studies program at Dartmouth College. Her other publications include Divine Expectations: An American Woman in Nineteenth-Century Palestine. Her work has appeared in the New York Times, Boston Globe, Smithsonian Magazine, and other publications.

New Article: Tal, The Sustainability of Israel’s Irrigation Practices in the Drylands

Tal, Alon. “Rethinking the Sustainability of Israel’s Irrigation Practices in the Drylands.” Water Research 90 (2016): 387-94.

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URL: http://dx.doi.org/10.1016/j.watres.2015.12.016

 

Abstract

Broad utilization of drip irrigation technologies in Israel has contributed to the 1600 percent increase in the value of produce grown by local farmers over the past sixty-five years. The recycling of 86% of Israeli sewage now provides 50% of the country’s irrigation water and is the second, idiosyncratic component in Israel’s strategy to overcome water scarcity and maintain agriculture in a dryland region. The sustainability of these two practices is evaluated in light of decades of experience and ongoing research by the local scientific community. The review confirms the dramatic advantages of drip irrigation over time, relative to flood, furrow and sprinkler irrigation and its significance as a central component in agricultural production, especially under arid conditions. In contrast, empirical findings increasingly report damage to soil and to crops from salinization caused by irrigation with effluents. To be environmentally and agriculturally sustainable over time, wastewater reuse programs must ensure extremely high quality treated effluents and ultimately seek the desalinization of recycled sewage.

 

 

 

New Article: Waterman, Ideology and Events in Israeli Human Landscape Revisited

Waterman, Stanley. “Ideology and Events in Israeli Human Landscape Revisited.” Jewish Journal of Sociology 57.1-2 (2015).

 

URL: http://dx.doi.org/10.5750/jjsoc.v57i1/2.107

 

Abstract

This paper casts a retrospective gaze at an article written as a beginning academic who had immigrated to Israel just two years prior, some 40 years ago. Not wanting to alter anything I had written, it was subsequently published nearly five years later. In that paper, I observed a deep abyss between the Israel I “understood”—mainly through reading—before I immigrated and which I thought I “knew”, and the Israel I was experiencing following my arrival. This chasm led me to identify Israeli myths contra an Israeli reality and caused me to pose what were for me, at the time of writing, some disturbing questions about Israeli landscape and society. I did this by choosing three iconic landscapes — new towns, kibbutzim and the desert — and picking away at misunderstandings about them and the way in which we perceived Israel. Four decades on, I ask whether I had been impulsive in writing that paper then with so little experience and if a similar paper in a similar vein were to be written, set in 2015 rather than 1974, what questions might be asked about Israel now and what would they say about Israeli society and culture?

 

 

New Book: Burla and Lawrence, eds. Australia and Israel

Burla, Shahar, and Dashiel Lawrence. Australia and Israel. A Diasporic, Cultural and Political Relationship. Eastbourne: Sussex Academic Press, 2015.

 

 

Australia and the State of Israel have maintained a cordial if at times ambiguous relationship. The two countries are geographically isolated: strategic, economic and cultural interests lie increasingly with Asia for one, and with the US and the EU for the other. But for all that divides the two states, there is also much they share. Australia played an important role in the Jewish state’s establishment in 1948, and is home to the most Zionist centered Jewish diaspora globally. Jewishness for most Australian Jews has been shaped and defined by engagement with and support for Israel. At the heart of this engagement is a small but thriving Israeli community within the larger multicultural Australia.

Australia and Israel: A Diasporic, Cultural and Political Relationship draws attention to the important historical and contemporary nexus between this diaspora and its imagined homeland. The collection also considers the ways in which these two states mobilise national myths and share environmental challenges. In recent time relations between the two states have been tested by the illegal use of Australian passports in 2010, the mysterious death of dual national Ben Zygier, and growing disquiet within the ranks of the Australian Labor Party and the Australian Greens over Israel’s handling of the Israel-Palestinian conflict. One prominent world-wide issue is the Palestinian BDS (Boycotts, Divestments and Sanctions) movement, which has attracted sympathy and support that has brought about substantive differences of opinion regarding its legitimacy within the Jewish Australian community. These issues demonstrate the multifaceted and complex picture of two very different nations, that nevertheless share an abiding connection.

 

Table of Contents

Acknowledgements
Introduction: Why the Book?
Shahar Burla and Dashiel Lawrence

Part One Australia and Israel – Diasporic Relationship

1 Rewriting the Rules of Engagement: New Australian Jewish
Connections with Israel
Dashiel Lawrence

2 The Personal, the Political and the Religious: Bnei Akiva
Australia and its Relationship with Israel
Ari Lander

3 Israeli Government and Diaspora Mobilisation: The Flotilla
to Gaza and the Australian Jewry as a Case Study
Shahar Burla

4 The Place of Hebrew and Israel Education in Australian
Jewish Schools
Suzanne Rutland and Zehavit Gross

5 The Ausraeli Approach: the Diasporic Identity of Israelis
in Australia
Ran Porat

Part Two Australia and Israel – Political and Cultural Relationship

6 Overcoming Water Scarcity and Inequity in Arid Lands:
Comparing Water Management in Australia and Israel
Dominic Skinner and Stephanie Galaitsi

7 Ben Zygier’s Story and Australia–Israel Relations
Ingrid Matthews

8 A Fight Worth Having: Rudd, Gillard, Israel and the
Australian Labor Party
Alex Benjamin Burston-Chorowicz

9 An Alliance of Forgetting: National Narratives of Legitimacy
on the Occasion of Israel–Australia’s Joint Stamp Issue
Commemorating the Battle of Beersheba
Micaela Sahhar

Part Three Australia, Israel and the Boycott Divestment and
Sanction Scheme

10 The Australian Greens and the Israeli–Palestinian Conflict
Philip Mendes

11 Academic Boycott, Divestment and Sanctions: Implications
for Australian–Israeli Relations
Ingrid Matthews and James Arvanitakis

Conclusion: First Cousinhood, Political Unease, and the Limits
of Comparison
Fania Oz-Salzberger

The Editors and Contributors
Index

 

Shahar Burla is a research Associate at the Sydney Jewish Museum. He is the author of Political Imagination in the Diaspora: The Construction of a Pro-Israeli Narrative (2013). He has received several awards, including a President’s Fellowship for outstanding PhD student, Bar-Ilan University and the Menahem Begin Foundation academic award.

Dashiel Lawrence is a doctoral candidate at the School of Historical and Philosophical Studies, University of Melbourne. His research interests include Jewish diaspora–Israel contemporary relations, and Jewish critics of Israel.

 

 

New Article: Tesdell, Territoriality and the Technics of Drylands Science in Palestine and North America

Tesdell, Omar Imseeh. “Territoriality and the Technics of Drylands Science in Palestine and North America.” International Journal of Middle East Studies 47.3 (2015): 570-573.

 
URL: http://dx.doi.org/10.1017/S0020743815000586

 
Abstract
At the turn of the 20th century, agricultural experts in several countries assembled a new agro-scientific field: dryland farming. Their agricultural research practices concomitantly fashioned a new agro-ecological zone—the drylands—as the site of agronomic intervention. As part of this effort, American scientists worked in concert with colleagues in the emerging Zionist movement to investigate agricultural practices and crops in Palestine and neighboring regions, where nonirrigated or rainfed agriculture had long been practiced. In my larger manuscript project, I consider how the reorganization of rainfed farming as dryfarming is central to the history of both the Middle East and North America, where it was closely related to modern forms of power, sovereignty, and territoriality. I suggest that American interest in dryfarming science emerged out of a practical need to propel and sustain colonization of the Great Plains, but later became a joint effort of researchers from several emerging settler enterprises, including Australia, Canada, and the Zionist movement. In contrast to a naturally ocurring bioregion, I argue that the drylands spatiality was engineered through, rather than outside, the territorialization of modern power.

 

 

New Book: Yosef and Hagin, eds. Trauma and Memory in Israeli Cinema

Yosef, Raz and Boaz Hagin. Deeper than Oblivion. Trauma and Memory in Israeli Cinema. New York and London: Bloomsbury Academic, 2013.

 

URL: http://www.bloomsbury.com/us/deeper-than-oblivion-9781441199263/

 

In this collection, leading scholars in both film studies and Israeli studies show that beyond representing familiar historical accounts or striving to offer a more complete and accurate depiction of the past, Israeli cinema has innovatively used trauma and memory to offer insights about Israeli society and to engage with cinematic experimentation and invention. Tracing a long line of films from the 1940s up to the 2000s, the contributors use close readings of these films not only to reconstruct the past, but also to actively engage with it. Addressing both high-profile and lesser known fiction and non-fiction Israeli films, Deeper than Oblivion underlines the unique aesthetic choices many of these films make in their attempt to confront the difficulties, perhaps even impossibility, of representing trauma. By looking at recent and classic examples of Israeli films that turn to memory and trauma, this book addresses the pressing issues and disputes in the field today.

Table of Contents

Acknowledgments

Chapter 1: Sweet on the Inside: Trauma, Memory, and Israeli Cinema Boaz Hagin and Raz Yosef

Chapter 2: Postscript to Israeli Cinema: East/West and the Politics of Representation Ella Shohat

Chapter 3: Gender, the Military, Memory, and the Photograph: Tamar Yarom’s To See If I’m Smiling and American Films about Abu Ghraib Diane Waldman

Chapter 4: The Event and the Picture: David Perlov’s My Stills and Memories of the Eichmann Trial Anat Zanger

Chapter 5: The Agonies of an Eternal Victim: Zionist Guilt in Avi Mograbi’s Happy Birthday, Mr. Mograbi Shmulik Duvdevani

Chapter 6: Traces of War: Memory, Trauma, and the Archive in Joseph Cedar’s Beaufort Raz Yosef

Chapter 7: Memory of a Death Foretold: Fathers and Sons in Assi Dayan’s “Trilogy” Yael Munk

Chapter 8: Queering Terror: Trauma, Race, and Nationalism in Palestinian and Israeli Gay Cinema during the Second Intifada Raya Morag

Chapter 9: “Our Traumas”: Terrorism, Tradition, and Mind Games in Frozen Days Boaz Hagin

Chapter 10: History of Violence: From the Trauma of Expulsion to the Holocaust in Israeli Cinema Nurith Gertz and Gal Hermoni

Chapter 11: Last Train to the Holocaust Judd Ne’eman and Nerit Grossman

Chapter 12: Passages, Wars, and Encounters with Death: The Desert as a Site of Memory in Israeli Film Yael Zerubavel

Chapter 13: “Walking through walls”: Documentary Film and Other Technologies of Navigation, Aspiration, and Memory Janet Walker

Notes on Contributors

Index

 

ToC: Israel Affairs 19,2 (2013)

Israel Affairs, Vol. 19, No. 2, 01 Apr 2013 is now available on Taylor & Francis Online. This new issue contains the following articles: Original Articles Anti-Semitism and anti-Zionism in Iran Rusi Jaspal Pages: 231-258 DOI: 10.1080/13537121.2013.778085   In defence of the idea of a Jewish state Mordechai Nisan Pages: 259-272 DOI: 10.1080/13537121.2013.778088 : 273-289 DOI: 10.1080/13537121.2013.778089   The status of Arabic in the discourse of Israeli policymakers Dafna Yitzhaki Pages: 290-305 DOI: 10.1080/13537121.2013.778091   Oversight by the State Control Committee in the Israeli parliament: form of accountability under stress Chen Friedberg Pages: 306-320 DOI: 10.1080/13537121.2013.778083   Israeli stamps 1948–2010: between nationalism and cosmopolitanism Einat Lachover & Dalia Gavriely Nuri Pages: 321-337 DOI: 10.1080/13537121.2013.778086   Advertising as a semiotic system of space: image of the desert in Israeli advertising, 1967–2004 Avivit Agam Dali Pages: 338-352 DOI: 10.1080/13537121.2013.778082   The transformation of the Israeli Civil Guard into a police force Yaffa Moskovich Pages: 353-363 DOI: 10.1080/13537121.2013.778087   Between self-interest and international norms: legitimizing the PLO Ogen S. Goldman Pages: 364-378 DOI: 10.1080/13537121.2013.778084     Book Reviews   Sharon: the life of a leader David Rodman Pages: 379-380 DOI: 10.1080/13537121.2013.778092   A lasting reward: memoirs of an Israeli diplomat David Rodman Pages: 380-381 DOI: 10.1080/13537121.2013.778093 The horsemen of Israel: horses and chariotry in monarchic Israel (ninth-eighth centuries BCE) David Rodman Pages: 381-382 DOI: 10.1080/13537121.2013.778095   In the sands of the Sinai: a physician’s account of the Yom Kippur war David Rodman Pages: 382-383 DOI: 10.1080/13537121.2013.778096   Israel’s silent defender: an inside look at sixty years of Israeli intelligence David Rodman Pages: 383-384 DOI: 10.1080/13537121.2013.778097   Brothers at war: Israel and the tragedy of the Altalena David Rodman Pages: 385-386 DOI: 10.1080/13537121.2013.778098   Israel: an introduction David Rodman Pages: 386-387 DOI: 10.1080/13537121.2013.778099   Only Israel west of the river: the Jewish state and the Palestinian question David Rodman Pages: 387-388 DOI: 10.1080/13537121.2013.778100   Israel and the United States: six decades of US–Israeli relations David Rodman Pages: 388-389 DOI: 10.1080/13537121.2013.778101   Nine lives of Israel: a nation’s history through the lives of its foremost leaders David Rodman Pages: 390-391 DOI: 10.1080/13537121.2013.778102   Israel’s Palestinians Raphael Cohen-Almagor Pages: 391-392 DOI: 10.1080/13537121.2012.751734 Enjoy FREE ONLINE ACCESS to all Routledge articles published on the Arab Spring in the last year. Start reading now.

 

Cite: Zerubavel, Desert and Settlement

Zerubavel, Yael. “Desert and Settlement: Space Metaphors and Symbolic Landscapes in the Yishuv and Early Israeli Culture,” in Jewish Topographies. Visions of Space, Traditions of Place (Brauch, Julia, Anna Lipphardt, and Alexandra Nocke, eds.; Aldershot, UK / Burlington, Vt.: Ashgate, 2008) 121 ff.

New Publication: Hare and Kressel, Desert Experience in Israel

 

Hare, A. Paul and Gideon M. Kressel, eds. The Desert Experience in Israel: Communities, Arts, Science, and Education in the Negev. Lanham, Md. : University Press of America, 2009.

 

Table of Contents

Preface vii

1 The Desert Experience A. Paul Hare Gideon M. Kressel 1

Part I Communities in the Desert 7

2 A Call for Desert Communities and Science David Ben-Gurion 9

3 The First Days at Kibbutz Revivim Yonat Alexander Sened 13

4 The Pioneer at Kibbutz Sde Boqer John Krivine 19

Part II What is a Desert? 25

5 Midbar, Shmama, and Garbage Can Michael Feige 27

6 The Conquest of the Desert and the Settlement Ethos Yael Zerubavel 33

7 The Perception of the Four Winds Gideon M. Kressel 45

Part III Inspiration 53

8 Religion and the Desert Yigal Granot 55

9 The Arts 59

Photographs Arie Bar Lev 59

Angels in the Desert 64

A visit with Binah Kahana Gretel Rieber

Translated from the German Wolfgang Motzafi-Haller

Theater Ofra Faiman 67

Literature Chaim Noll 71

Sculpture Ezra Orion 76

Sculpture Dalia Meiri 77

Poetry Elaine Solowey 81

Poetry Arie Issar 84

Bedouin Poetry Alexander Borg 86

10 Linguistic and Ethnographic Observations on the Color Categories of the Negev Bedouin Alexander Borg 91

Part IV Research 117

11 Founding of the Institute for Desert Research Amos Richmond 119

12 Desert Research 139

Solar Power Plants David Faiman 139

Solar Surgery Daniel Feuermann 143

Fossil Water Arie S. Issar 147

Microalgae Zvi Cohen 151

Runoff Agriculture Pedro Berliner 155

Fish Samuel Appelbaum 157

Desert Architecture David Pearlmutter 160

Apology for Architecture, or The Planner’s Craft Isaac Meir 163

Part V Education and Scholarship 171

13 Environmental High School Sol Brand 173

14 Field School Eran Doron 177

15 Ben-Gurion Research and Heritage Institutes Allon Gal 181

References 189

Name Index 203

Subject Index 207

About the Contributors 209