The harsh reality of the Israeli-Palestinian conflict is that it has been traumatic for the Israelis as well. But before we can evaluate the possibility of peace in the Middle East, we must understand the facts. Author Alan B. Katz defends the Israeli cause by revealing its side of the story. Beyond the headlines and talking heads lies a complex reality that the media studiously avoid. The Israelis are not the monsters that journalists have made them out to be. Indeed, "more sinned against than sinning," they are a compassionate, fair, and law-abiding nation who have faced far more pain and desolation than the world has been led to believe. With no wish to seek a public relations victory, the Israelis let nature take its course. In Fighting Back: Letters from the Diaspora, Mr. Katz humanizes the Israeli-Palestinian conflict to show the sacrifices, pain, and courage of the Israelis, and exposes the hypocrisy of the media and the true nature of the Palestinians. Through a series of letters to the editor and personal essays, Katz delves into the heart of the Israeli-Palestinian conflict and brings a deeply human element to the images the world views on television. Fighting Back: Letters from the Diaspora is a timely contribution to the events happening in the Middle East today and brings a perspective sorely lacking in the current debate.

This book re-thinks the relationship between the world of the traditional Jewish study hall (the beit midrash) and the academy: Can these two institutions overcome their vast differences? Should they attempt to do so? If not, what could two methods of study seen as diametrically opposed possibly learn from one another? How might they help each other reconceive of their interrelationship, themselves, and the broader study of Jews and Judaism? This book begins with three distinct approaches to these challenges. The chapters then follow the approaches through an interdisciplinary series of pioneering case studies that reassess a range of topics including: religion and pluralism in Jewish education; pain, sexual consent, and ethics in the Talmud; the place of reason and devotion among Jewish thinkers as diverse as Moses Mendelssohn, Jacob Taubes, Sarah Schenirer, Ibn Chiquitilla, Yair Ḥayim Bacharach, and the Rav Shagar; and Jewish law as a response to the post-Holocaust landscape. The authors are scholars of rabbinics, history, linguistics, philosophy, law, and education, many of whom also have traditional religious training or ordination. The result is a book designed for learned scholars, non-specialists, and students of varying backgrounds, and one that is sure to spark debate in the university, the beit midrash, and far beyond.

It’s time for bed, and you plop down on your pillow. But would you plop down on your pillow if it was made from glass? Glass is all around you. It’s used to make the windows in your house to decorations on your shelves. Find out about different types of glass, how glass is made and decide if it’s really possible to make a pillow from it.

Books are made with paper. But what if we tried to make a book with metal? Copper, tin, gold, silver - would any of those materials work to make a book? Find out more about metal, its properties and how it is produced. Then decide if you really could make a book out of metal.

A coat is made from different types of fabric, but could it be made with wood? It seems impossible, but wood has many advantages and is used for everything from building houses to making toys. Learn more about different types of wood and their many uses. Could it really be used to make a coat?

Lots of toys are made of plastic. But what if a toaster was made out of plastic? Would it actually work? Plastic is in lots of items you use every day. Find out about different types of plastic, what they are used for and if you could really make a toaster from it.

For much of the twentieth century, most religious and secular Jewish thinkers believed that they were witnessing a steady, ongoing movement toward secularization. Toward the end of the century, however, as scholars and pundits began to speak of the global resurgence of religion, the normalization of secularism could no longer be considered inevitable. Recent decades have seen the strengthening of Orthodox movements in the United States and in Israel; religious Zionism has grown and radically changed since the 1960s, and new and vibrant nondenominational Jewish movements have emerged. Secularism in Question examines the ways these contemporary revivals of religion prompt a reconsideration of many issues concerning Jews and Judaism from the early modern era to the present. Bringing together scholars of history, religion, philosophy, and literature, this volume illustrates how the categories of "religious" and "secular" have frequently proven far more permeable than fixed. The contributors challenge the problematic assumptions about the development of secularism that emerge from Protestant European and American perspectives and demonstrate that global Jewish experiences necessitate a reappraisal of conventional narratives of secularism. Ultimately, Secularism in Question calls for rethinking the very terms that animate many of the most contentious debates in contemporary Jewish life and far beyond. Contributors: Michal Ben-Horin, Aryeh Edrei, Jonathan Mark Gribetz, Ari Joskowicz, Ethan B. Katz, Eva Lezzi, Vivian Liska, Rachel Manekin, David Myers, Amnon Raz-Krakotzkin, Andrea Schatz, Christophe Schulte, Daniel B. Schwartz, Galili Shahar, Scott Ury.

Proponents of education reform are committed to the idea that all children should receive a quality education, and that all of them have a capacity to learn and grow, whatever their ethnicity or economic circumstances. But though recent years have seen numerous reform efforts, the resources available to children in different municipalities still vary enormously, and despite landmark cases of the civil rights movement and ongoing pushes to enact diverse and inclusive curricula, racial and ethnic segregation remain commonplace. "Public Education Under Siege" examines why public schools are in such difficult straits, why the reigning ideology of school reform is ineffective, and what can be done about it."Public Education Under Siege" argues for an alternative to the test-driven, market-oriented core of the current reform agenda. Chapters from education policy experts and practitioners critically examine the overreliance on high-stakes testing, which narrows the content of education and frustrates creative teachers, and consider how to restore a more civic-centered vision of education in place of present dependence on questionable economistic models. These short, jargon-free essays cover public policy, teacher unions, economic inequality, race, language diversity, parent involvement, and leadership, collectively providing an overview of the present system and its limitations as well as a vision for the fulfillment of a democratic, egalitarian system of public education.Contributors: Joanne Barkan, Maia Cucchiara, Ansley T. Erickson, Eugene E. Garcia, Eva Gold, Jeffrey R. Henig, Tyrone C. Howard, Richard D. Kahlenberg, Harvey Kantor, Michael B. Katz, David F. Labaree, Julia C. Lamber, Robert Lowe, Deborah Meier, Pedro Noguera, Rema Reynolds, Claire Robertson-Kraft, Jean C. Robinson, Mike Rose, Janelle Scott, Elaine Simon, Paul Skilton-Sylvester, Joi A. Spencer, Heather Ann Thompson, Tina Trujillo, Pamela Barnhouse Walters, Kevin G. Welner, Sarah Woulfin.

For Michael B. Katz, the term "welfare state" describes the intricate web of government programs, employer-provided benefits, and semiprivate organizations intended to promote economic security and to guarantee the basic necessities of life for all citizens: food, shelter, medical care, protection in childhood, and support in old age. In this updated edition of his seminal work "The Price of Citizenship," Katz traces the evolution of the welfare state from colonial relief programs through the war on poverty and into our own age, marked by the "end of welfare as we know it."Katz argues that in the last decades, three great forces--a ferocious war on dependence, which has singled out the most vulnerable; the devolution of authority within both government and the private sector; and the application of market models to social policy--have permeated all aspects of the social contract. "The Price of Citizenship" shows how these changes have propelled America toward a future of increased inequality and decreased security as individuals compete for success in an open market with ever fewer protections against misfortune, power, and greed. A new chapter, written for this edition, explains how these trends continue in the post-9/11 era and how the response to Hurricane Katrina exposed the weaknesses of America's social safety net.Offering grounds for modest optimism, the new chapter also points to countervailing trends that may modify and even partially reverse the effects of recent welfare history.