Rowman & Littlefield Publishers
Pages: 240
•
Trim: 6⅜ x 9⅜
978-0-7425-6615-6 • Hardback • July 2009 • $62.00 • (£48.00)
978-0-7425-6617-0 • eBook • July 2009 • $58.50 • (£45.00)
Jerold S. Auerbach is professor of history at Wellesley College. His books include Explorers in Eden: Pueblo Indians and the Promised Land, Are We One? Jewish Identity in the United States and Israel, Jacob's Voices, Rabbis and Lawyers, Justice Without Law? and Unequal Justice. His articles and reviews have appeared in numerous journals, including The New Republic, The Nation, Harper's, and The New York Times.
Table of Contents
Acknowledgments
Introduction
Chapter 1. Biblical Hebron
Chapter 2. Holy Site
Chapter 3. Community
Chapter 4. Catastrophe
Chapter 5. Return
Chapter 6. Renewal
Chapter 7. Crisis
Chapter 8. Endurance
Chapter 9. Legitimacy
Afterword: Memory
Epilogue
Bibliography
About the Author
Auerbach gives a passionate account of the Jewish presence in Hebron, and in reading the book the reader can truly comprehend what lures Jews to that dangerous place....This is a worthwhile achievement. His book is a long-needed contribution of a serious scholar to an ongoing academic debate, in which the Hebron Jews were left without a decisive, unapologetic, systematically argued voice.
— Shofar: An Interdisciplinary Journal Of Jewish Studies
It has been said that historians are more powerful than the gods because the latter cannot change history. But American historian Jerold S. Auerbach has done something even more powerful; he has demonstrated a clairvoyance which is quite astonishing in abook that he began researching years ago. Hebron Jews...while focusing initially on the coordinates of Hebron from the Biblical era to yesterday opens up a broad and stimulating inquiry on the settler movement in general and its reverberations on the chasm between the right and the left in the current Israeli political spectrum. It is a tribute to the author's competence in matters historical....In this lively literary pilgrimage Auerbach shows what many have forgotten ? that Hebron was a vital Jewish centre comparable even to Jerusalem....Auerbach's book is a model of disinterested research which, through the alchemical process of fine writing and passionate advocacy of the truth, delivers a highly readable sage about the travail of modern Zionism..
— Chicago Jewish Star
Auerbach deftly develops the history of Hebron and examines the motivations of settlers who choose to live there. The reader comes away understanding how significant elements of a peace process that are bandied about as feasible, such as resigning all ofHebron to the Palestinians, impacts on real people with serious historical and political arguments....
— Jewish Book World
Broad and stimulating.... Intriguing and revalatory.... Auerbach's book is a model of disinterested research which, through the alchemical process of fine writing and passionate advocacy of the truth, delivers a highly readable saga about the travail of modern Zionism.
— Midstream: A Quarterly Jewish Review
This lyrical, passionate, and engaged volume should be required reading for anyone who seeks to understand the Jews of Hebron on their own terms. Absorbing, sometimes infuriating, and always informative.....
— Jonathan D. Sarna, University Professor and Joseph H. & Belle R. Braun Professor of American Jewish History, Brandeis University
Auerbach cuts through reams of distortion and misrepresentation to provide an indispensable account of Jews in Hebron from the time of biblical Abraham to the contentious present. Scrupulously researched, the book illumes the contemporary Middle East andthe workings of collective memory, all the while engaging the casual reader who is looking for a riveting story....
— Ruth Wisse
Broad and stimulating.... Intriguing and revalatory.... Auerbach's book is a model of disinterested research which, through the alchemical process of fine writing and passionate advocacy of the truth, delivers a highly readable saga about the travail of modern Zionism....
— Dr. Arnold Ages