Michael Evenari's biography unfolds his exciting, manifold life: his life of botany, the confrontation with political events as a youngster and his thrilling experience of helping in the development of Israel. Evenari takes us on his exciting expeditions in the company of his beloved wife. He tells us of his meetings with many personalities and about his farm in the Negev. The discovery of long forgotten floodwater irrigated farm systems from the times of King Solomon and their reconstruction became a successful experiment which led him to teach this approach of runoff agriculture in many parts of the world, initializing progress in the development of various arid areas.

This study describes the contribution of the British Administration to the development of Palestine between 1917-1929. It deals with the relation between a new modern government and changes in the landscape. The special character of the British Administration in Palestine helped to create a new state in the Middle East, a modern state with a geographic “iconography” that reflected British taste and input. This view differs from other works on the British in Palestine which deal mainly with the political history of the area rather than its historical geography.

This work reveals the role, contribution and modus operandi of Zionist private enterprise in the Jewish rural and urban settlement of Palestine between the start of the century and the outbreak of the First World War. The book demonstrates that the role of private enterprise was extensive both in terms of land purchases and in terms of settlement activities. The author recapitulates these efforts, categorizes these activities as unique and identifies the underlying rationale of "national capitalism". The private investors and companies employed economic-commercial means to secure national-Zionist objectives. They were willing to be content with limited profits and received in compensation the emotional gains accruing from their contribution to building the Land of Israel.

This volume deals with an eventful period in the modern history of Palestine. It provides new insights into the role of the US consuls in the Ottoman Middle East in the special context of the Holy Land. The motivations and functioning of the American consuls in Jerusalem, and of the consular agents in Jaffa and Haifa, are analyzed as part of the US diplomatic and consular activity throughout the world, and of Western involvement in the Ottoman Empire and in Palestine during the century preceding WWI. The processes of cultural, demographic, economic, environmental and settlement change – sometimes at the expense of the local population – and the contribution of the US consuls and American settlers, both Christian and Jewish, to development and modernization of Palestine are discussed.

For over forty years Prof. Shmuel Safrai published studies on the history of Erez Israel during the Second Temple period and the Talmud period, the history of Jewish culture and society in Erez Israel and the Diaspora and the relationship between the two. A majority of the studies in this collection revolve around elementary problems in this crucial period: the worship of god in the temple and synagogue, the Jewish city and its institutions, pilgrimage during the Second Temple period and after its destruction, the Hassidic movement during the Second Temple period and the Tannaim period, and the deeds of Rabbi Yohanan ben Zakkai. These studies are essential to the understanding of the Erez-Israeli history of the period.

The purpose of this work is to provide a scholarly but also readable account of the economic activities of the Jews – as well as their attitudes to labor in general during the Biblical and Talmudic periods. As far as possible, the entire source material, scattered as it is in the Bible, the Apocrypha, the Talmud and Midrash, has been utilized to present a comprehensive picture of this important but relatively neglected subject. The book comprises chapters in the occupational structure of the Talmudic rabbis and their views on physical labor as well as descriptions of Jewish commercial and industrial activities and vocational training in ancient times.