Dec. 23, 2009 Dear Friends and Colleagues,
Academic Studies Press is pleased to announce the publication of the English language edition of Yoram Bilu's Bahat prize winning book, The Saints' Impresarios: Dreamers, Healers and Holy Men in Israel's Periphery. We look forward to hearing your comments about this title. We work with all library wholesalers. For more information about Academic Studies Press or to order this title directly, please visit our website at www.academicstudiespress.com. ISBN 978-1-934843-71-0 (cloth) $57.00 / £47.50 416 pp., December 2009 Series: Israel: Society, Culture, and History Topic Areas: Israel and Jewish Studies, Kabbalah / Mysticism, Folk Religion, Cultural Anthropology and Moroccan History Bibliographic Information: 1. Zaddikim -- Israel. 2. Zaddikim -- Morocco. 3. Jews, Moroccan -- Israel -- Social life and customs. 4. Shrines -- Israel. I. Title. Summary: The astonishing revival of saint worship in contemporary Israel was ignited by Moroccan Jews, who had immigrated to the new country in the 1950s and 1960s. The Saint's Impresarios charts the vicissitudes of four new domestic shrines, established by Moroccan-born men and women in peripheral development towns, following an exciting revelation involving a saintly figure. Each of the case studies discussing the life stories of the "saint impresarios" elaborates on a distinctive theme: dreams as psycho-cultural triggers for revelation; family and community responses to the initiative; female saint impresarios as healers; and the alleviation of life crises through the saint's idiom. The initiatives are evaluated against the historical background of Jews in Morocco and the sociopolitical and cultural changes in present-day Israeli society. The original Hebrew edition garnered the coveted Bahat Prize for best academic book in 2006. Author: Yoram Bilu (Ph.D. Hebrew University, 1979) is a professor of anthropology and psychology at the Hebrew University of Jerusalem. His main publications include Grasping Land: Space and Place in Contemporary Israeli Discourse and Experience (SUNY Press 1997, co-edited with Eyal Ben-Ari) andWithout Bounds: The Life and Death of Rabbi Ya'aqov Wazana (Wayne State University Press 2000). Reviews: "These case studies of pilgrimage sites appearing on the margins of society touch on the quest for revitalization in the midst of individual and collective hardships, caused by migration and loneliness. The author portrays a unique class of religious virtuosi, the emissaries of forgotten holiness that haunts them in their dreams. Then, the dreamers become doers and manage to create a rebirth of lost traditions. We encounter here something that always lives at the heart of living religion, a mystery of seeming simplicity and innocence that manages to transform objective social barriers." Benjamin Beit-Hallahmi, Haifa University "Yoram Bilu's work on the "cult of saints" (tzaddiquim), a system of religious practice common among Israel's North African immigrants, represents a model of ethnographic research. His participant observations of pilgrimages -- principally in the Negev and Galilee - to the tombs of the saints, the courts of their descendants and the sites of the newly venerated, together with his revealing interviews with custodians and devotees of these venues, offer a rich understanding of the cultural, social, and psychological forces that underpin this practice. Bilu examines the evolution and reinvigoration of this tradition through the proclamation of new heroes for worship and sites for veneration. His book is a must reading for anyone interested in the cultural and social dynamics that continue to shape Israeli society." -- Moshe Shokeid, Tel-Aviv University Table of Contents: I. The Folk-Veneration of Saints in Morocco and Israel a. Dream Portal 1 b. Roots in the West: The Cult of Saints in Morocco 17 c. From West to East: Moroccan Jewry in Israel 28 d. Native Saints and Immigrant Saints: The "Sacred Geography" of Moroccan Jews in Israel 41 II. Avraham Ben-Hayyim and Rabbi David U-Moshe a. A Dream Journey to the Saint 59 b. A Saint in the Next Room: Rabbi David u-Moshe and the Ben- Hayyim Family 98 c. The Abode of Rabbi David u-Moshe at the Dawn of the 21st Century 117 III. Ya'ish Ohana, Elijah the Prophet and the Gate of Paradise a. The Road to Paradise 127 b. Dreamers in Paradise 151 c. Paradise Lost 182 IV. Alu Ezra and Rabbi Avraham Aouriwar a. Early and Late Revelations 193 b. Life Story as Folktale: The Cinderella of Beit She'an 217 c. Twenty Years Later 223 V. Esther Suissa and Rabbi Shimon Bar-Yohai a. From Patient to Healer 229 b. Written in the Egg Yolk: The Healing Art of Female Saint's Impresarios 243 The Saint's Impresarios: Dreamers, Healers, and Holy Men in Israel's Urban Periphery Table of Contents (cont'd): c. Esther and Rabbi Shimon: A Return Visit 266 VI. The Cult of Saints from a Comparative Perspective: Symbol, Narrative, Gender and Identity a. Crosscutting Stories: The Saint's Impresarios from a Comparative Perspective 271 b. Personal symbols and Mythic Narratives 284 c. Gender and Sanctity: The Female Way to the Tsaddiq 301 d. Migrating Traditions: The Historic Timing and the "Shelf Life" of the New Shrines 308 e. The Cult of Saints as an Israeli and Local Phenomenon 312 Bibliography 325 Index 345 All the best, Christa Kling Sales and Marketing Academic Studies Press 617.782.6290 www.academicstudiespress.com --- Messages and opinions expressed on Hasafran are those of the individual author and are not necessarily endorsed by the Association of Jewish Libraries (AJL) =========================================================== Submissions for Ha-Safran, send to: hasaf...@osu.edu SUBscribing, SIGNOFF commands send to: Listproc @ lists.acs.ohio-state.edu Questions, problems, complaints, compliments;-) send to: galron.1 @ osu.edu Ha-Safran Archives: Current: http://www.mail-archive.com/hasafran%40lists.acs.ohio-state.edu/maillist.html History: http://www.mail-archive.com/hasafran%40lists.acs.ohio-state.edu/history.html AJL HomePage http://www.JewishLibraries.org
