Bücher von Shalom Goldman

From the days of steamship travel to Palestine to today's evangelical Christian tours of Jesus's birthplace, the relationship between the United States and the Holy Land has become one of the world's most consequential international alliances. While the political side of U.S.-Israeli relations has long played out on the world stage, the relationship, as Shalom Goldman shows in this illuminating cultural history, has also played out on actual stages. Telling the stories of the American superstars of pop and high culture who journeyed to Israel to perform, lecture, and rivet fans, Goldman chronicles how the creative class has both expressed and influenced the American relationship with Israel.The galaxy of stars who have made headlines for their trips includes Frank Sinatra, Johnny Cash, Leonard Bernstein, James Baldwin, Barbra Streisand, Whitney Houston, Madonna, and Scarlett Johansson. While diverse socially and politically, they all served as prisms for the evolution of U.S.-Israeli relations, as Israel, the darling of the political and cultural Left in the 1950s and early 1960s, turned into the darling of the political Right from the late 1970s. Today, as relations between the two nations have only intensified, stars must consider highly fraught issues, such as cultural boycotts, in planning their itineraries.

This book tells the stories of twentieth century Jewish intellectuals and activists who converted to Islam. Some were motivated by religious reasons, others by political considerations. The book reveals whether the geopolitical events of the twentieth century confirmed, complicated, or refuted their aspirations.

This book is an exploration of what would seem to be a simple question, but is actually the object of a profound quest';who is a Jew?' This is a deeply complex issue, both within Judaism, and in interactions between Jews and Christians. JewishChristian Difference and Modern Jewish Identity: Seven Twentieth-Century Converts contends that in the twentieth century the JewishChristian relationship has changed to the extent that definitions of Jewish identity were reshaped. The stories of the seven influential and creative converts that are related in this book indicate that the borders dividing the Jewish and Christian faiths are, for many, more fluid and permeable than ever before.