This book is the story about a teacher, a scholar, a philosopher, and an eyewitness to history, Sari Nusseibeh, one of our most urgent and articulate authorities on the conflict in the Middle East. From his time teaching side by side with Israelis at the Hebrew University through his appointment by Yasir Arafat to administer the Arab Jerusalem, he has held fast to the principles of freedom and equality for all, and his story dramatizes the consequences of war, partition, …

Scholem was a giant in the scholarly study of mysticism, responsible for bringing the Kabbalah in particular to the attention of academia. However, the letters David presents here reveal more of Scholem as a person than as a scholar. Scholem saw the two as intimately connected and would likely argue that these documents do aid in understanding his work. The decision to focus on the personal has the benefit of unearthing several fascinating firsthand accounts of critical events in 20th-century …

It is the year 1930. The Benedictine monk, philosopher, and photographer Dr. Arno Stolz has spent the last ten years on the backs of horses and mules, exploring the deserts and mountains of Palestine. But his life and work are about to change forever. He is sent on a mission back to his native Germany to expose a former pupil whose supposed embrace of Nazi ideology is infiltrating an ancient monastery and poisoning the mind of Arno’s own brother.  The former pupil is suspected of secretly working as an informant for Reinhard Heydrich, the head of the SS.   Back in Germany …

Salman Schocken (1877-1959) led an extraordinary life. An East European, he flourished as a businessman and cultural entrepreneur in Germany, Palestine, and the United States. His great marketing insight was that common people desired quality goods, so long as they were affordable. Before WWI and into the 1920s, he turned a small retail shop into a modern department store chain, following the most efficient business principles and commissioning the great modernist architect Erich Mendelssohn to design his flagship store. But …