Bursting with lush, vibrant photographs, Passage to Israel is a timeless tribute to one of the world’s most soulful, resolute, and newsworthy countries. Divided into sections such as Soul, Spirit, Awe, Quiet, and Unity, the stunning images featured inside capture Israel’s glorious landscapes, its city life, its culture, and its people. From an enchanting sunset over the Dead Sea to the lively city life of Tel Aviv, from colorful marketeers to families in prayer at the Western Wall, this incredible volume moves full-steam ahead past the typical postcard images of the country to showcase the character of its people and the sanctity of the land they’re so resolute in preserving. Contributors to Passage to Israel include twenty-five iconic and groundbreaking photographers, acclaimed artists such as Markus Gebauer and Amit Geron, and more than 150 of their images are featured inside. As a precursor to the images is an enlightening introduction by the author, a renowned cultural critic and curator, that provides a fascinating frame for the photographs to come. Throughout, explanatory captions are featured side-by-side with the images. For a country roughly the size of New Jersey and only formally declared a state in 1948, not too long ago, Israel is easily the world’s most controversial land, one that’s withstood regular suicide bombing, violent attacks, and political pressure. Yet its people refuse to be silenced; they will protect their borders and they will continue to persevere. For those who’ve been to Israel and those who’ve yet to make the trip there, here, at last, is a truly immersive experience, an inspiring visual connection to a remarkable, but faraway land

"Listening to the story is even more dramatic than reading it. It should be purchased by every public and school library." - School Library Journal

NEW YORK TIMES BESTSELLER • A NEW YORK TIMES BOOK REVIEW AND ECONOMIST BEST BOOK OF THE YEAR “A deeply reported, deeply personal history of Zionism and Israel that does something few books even attempt: It balances the strength and weakness, the idealism and the brutality, the hope and the horror, that has always been at Zionism’s heart.”—Ezra Klein, The New York Times Winner of the Natan Book Award, the National Jewish Book Award, and the Anisfield-Wolf Book Award Ari Shavit’s riveting work, now updated with new material, draws on historical documents, interviews, and private diaries and letters, as well as his own family’s story, to create a narrative larger than the sum of its parts: both personal and of profound historical dimension. As he examines the complexities and contradictions of the Israeli condition, Shavit asks difficult but important questions: Why did Israel come to be? How did it come to be? Can it survive? Culminating with an analysis of the issues and threats that Israel is facing, My Promised Land uses the defining events of the past to shed new light on the present. Shavit’s analysis of Israeli history provides a landmark portrait of a small, vibrant country living on the edge, whose identity and presence play a crucial role in today’s global political landscape.

This study challenges the conventional view of scholars like E. P. Sanders that Late Second Temple Judaism was theologically nationalistic, offering in its place a theory which argues that the intertestamental writings do not anticipate the salvation of all Jews but only of a faithful remnant within Israel. Working carefully with the major books of the pseudepigrapha and the Dead Sea Scrolls, Mark Adam Elliott shows that the authors of such works anticipated an imminent - and scathing - judgment of Israel that would exclude many, or even most, Israelites from the saved community. This provocative finding not only confronts accepted perspectives on Late Second Temple Judaism but also suggests important implications for our reading of Paul and the New Testament.

Offers a visual and accessible history of Israel's complex past, politics and people through 100 cartoons.

A comparison of three major views on the relationship between Israel and the church The relationship between Israel and the church is a longstanding debate in Christian theology, and Romans 9–11 are the most important chapters for understanding it. How one interprets these chapters determines how one understands biblical theology, how the New Testament uses the Old Testament, and how the old and new covenants are related. To help readers draw their own conclusion, four leading scholars on this issue present a case for their viewpoint, followed by a response and critique from the others. Michael Vlach argues for a future mass conversion and a role for ethnic Israel in the church. Fred Zaspel and Jim Hamilton present a case for a future mass conversion that does not include a role for ethnic Israel. And Benjamin Merkle contends that Romans 9–11 promises neither a future mass conversion nor a role for ethnic Israel. General editor Andrew David Naselli helpfully sets the debate in its larger biblical-theological context in the introduction, while Jared Compton provides a useful summary of the views and interactions at the end of the volume.