In this era of globalization, Jewish diversity is marked more than ever by transnational expansion of competing movements and local influences on specific conditions. One factor that still makes Jewish communities one is the common reference to Israel. Today, however, differentiations and discrepancies in identification and behavior generate plurality and ambiguities about Israel-Diaspora relationships. Moreover the Judeophobia now rife in Europe and beyond as well as the spread of the Palestinian cause as a civil religion make Israel the world's "Jew among nations." This weighs heavily on community relations - despite Israel's active presence in the diaspora. In this context, the contributions to this volume focus on Jewish peoplehood, religiosity and ethnicity, gender and generation, Israelophobia and world Jewry, and debate the perspectives that are most pertinent to confront the question: how far is the Jewish Commonwealth (Klal Yisrael) still an important code of Jewry today?

Holy Women Icons wouldn't be a book without first being a series of paintings. So, I am grateful for those galleries that have hosted them: Shell Ridge, Karma, Blue Lotus/Woven Soul, and Barnhills. I'm also tremendously grateful for all the people who have supported my art by purchasing or commissioning an original icon or buying a print. It means a great deal for someone to find enough value in my paintings to actually hang them in their home. The fact that these Holy Women are scattered all over the world, providing inspiration for friends, family, colleagues, and strangers is a gift. And these paintings would have never been written about had Xochitl Alvizo not invited me to become a regular writer on Feminism and Religion, featuring one icon each month and expounding upon her story. Xochitl would not have discovered these paintings if Kittredge Cherry had not interviewed me about my beloved queer saints on Jesus in Love. So, I am grateful to these two women who have helped my icons find voices in the wider public. And I am grateful to the Feminism in Religion community for offering encouragement, constructive feedback, and inspiration along the way.

Israel Celebrates is about the intersection where Israeli inventiveness and Jewish tradition meet: the holidays. It employs the anthropological history of four Jewish holidays as celebrated in Israel in order to track the naturalization of Jewish rituals, myths, and symbols in Israeli culture throughout "the long twentieth century" of Zionism and on to the present, and to demonstrate how a new strand of Judaism developed in Israel from the grassroots. But could this grassroots Israeli culture develop into a shared symbolic space for both Jews and Arabs? By probing the political implications of the minutiae of life, the book argues that this popular culture might come to define Jewish identity in Israel of the 21st century.