Encyclopedia of Modern Jewish Culture

Edited by Glenda Abramson

Two Volumes

The Encyclopedia provides an analytical overview, according to its own definition of modern Jewish culture, covering wide geographical, intellectual, and artistic areas, and offering material for every kind of reader, from the scholar to the casual browser. Although the book is not encyclopedic, its detailed bibliographies provide the means of probing more deeply into the topic and figures treated here. The Jewish culture represented in the previous Encyclopedia was Ashkenazi; those individual writers, scholars and artists of Sephardi origin who were included were those who entered the mainstream of Ashkenazi-Western culture. Beginning in the 1950s, a vast immigration to Israel from Arabic-speaking countries in the Middle East and North Africa created a new dichotomy in Israel which has been largely ignored until recently. Now it is leading to a re-evaluation of Zionism itself and the politics of identity previously viewed almost exclusively from the Ashkenazi (European) standpoint. In a comprehensive collection of biographical entries and essays, Reuven Snir has provided this volume with a substantive discussion of Arab-Jewish culture and also of its development in Israel.