Essays on Travels to the Holy Land: Perceptions, Representations and Narratives

Available online at Quest. Issues in Contemporary Jewish History, "Travels to the 'Holy Land': Perceptions, Representations and Narratives" is a collection of thoughtful studies, edited by Serena Di Nepi and Arturo Marzano, on travel to the Holy Land from the nineteenth century to the present, though with an emphasis on 19th-century travel. The starting point for the essays in this collection is the realization that, at the basis of all travel literature, is the duality between real experience and imagination. While each half of this duality is represented by its own genre (namely, "odeporic" or real and imagined travel writing), Holy Land travel writing often represents a combination of the real and imagined, the experiential and the notional. With this observation in mind, the focus shifts from using travel literature for historical reconstruction to an appreciation of perception and creative synthesis in the work of the writer or, in the case of visual representation, the artist. The essays follow Turkish Muslim, Catholic, Protestant, and Jewish travelers, and though there is an emphasis on the learned and sophisticated travel writer (such as Mark Twain), there is also consideration of folk-art ("Visions of the Holy Land in Romanian Synagogues"). Especially interesting, though not easily categorized, are the essays on graphic novels exploring an "(Un-)Holy Land" and on "changes in the iconic representation of Jerusalem in the 21st century." -- The essays can be downloaded or read online.      

Conflict and cooperation in a new volume on contemporary Jerusalem

Forthcoming with Syracuse University Press, Jerusalem. Conflict and Cooperation in a Contested City  is a volume edited by Madelaine Adelman and Miriam Fendius Elman that includes contributions originally presented at a conference on Jerusalem "across the disciplines" held at Arizona State University in 2007. The focus is mostly on contemporary issues, including Jerusalem since the Oslo Accords of 1993, but there are some surprising subjects covered here as well, such as the city's "diverse communities of secular and orthodox Jewry and Christian Palestinians; religious and political tourism and the 'heritage managers' of Jerusalem; the Israeli and Palestinian LGBT community and its experiences in Jerusalem; and visual and textual perspectives on Jerusalem, particularly in architecture and poetry." (Quotation from the publisher's website.) I have a chapter in this book as well, which offers suggestions for scholars and educators on how to approach Jerusalem from a religious studies perspective.