This volume of original research papers from the Israeli GAFA seminar during the years 1996-2000 not only reports on more traditional directions of Geometric Functional Analysis, but also reflects on some of the recent new trends in Banach Space Theory and related topics. These include the tighter connection with convexity and the resulting added emphasis on convex bodies that are not necessarily centrally symmetric, and the treatment of bodies which have only very weak convex-like structure. Another topic represented here is the use of new probabilistic tools; in particular transportation of measure methods and new inequalities emerging from Poincaré-like inequalities.