What Jerusalem Means to Us: Jewish Perspectives and Reflections:

WHAT JERUSALEM MEANS TO US: JEWISH PERSPECTIVES AND REFLECTIONS

 

Jerusalem is a distinctive city for Judaism, Christianity, and Islam and their adherents. It is equally special for Jews and Arabs, Israelis and Palestinians, having been their home for decades, if not centuries and millennia.

What Jerusalem Means to Us: Jewish Perspectives and Reflections addresses the intimate and unique connections among Jews, Judaism, and Jerusalem along a variety of dimensions - religious, spiritual, historical, cultural, political, psychological, and social. These are manifested through the perspectives and reflections of sixteen Jewish authors representing different backgrounds. The resultant essays present a rich array of personal and professional transformations, extraordinary love and hope for Jerusalem, as well as an honest appraisal of some of the challenges of daily living.

What Jerusalem Means to Us: Jewish Perspectives and Reflections is published by the Jerusalem Peace Institute, which highlights Jerusalem as humanity's shared gift governed by two peoples and cherished by three faiths, and its centrality for a just peace. It complements well the successful What Jerusalem Means to Us: Christian Perspectives and Reflections (2018) and What Jerusalem Means to Us: Muslim Perspectives and Reflections (2020), which were published by HCEF.

Edited by:

Dr. Saliba Sarsar

Co-Founder/President, The Jerusalem Peace Institute

Professor of Political Science, Monmouth University

and

Dr. Carole Monica C. Burnett

Co-Chair, HCEF Research & Publication Committee and

Editor of the Church and Fathers of the Church Mediaeval Continuation,

The Catholic University of America Press

Dr. Saliba Sarsar is co-Founder and President of the Jerusalem Peace Institute. He is Professor of Political Science at Monmouth University and Visiting Research Collaborator at Princeton University. His teaching and scholarly interests focus on the Middle East, Palestinian-Israeli affairs, Jerusalem, and peacebuilding. His most recent authored books are Peacebuilding in Israeli-Palestinian Relations and Jerusalem: The Home in Our Hearts. His most recent edited books are The Holy Land Confederation as a Facilitator for the Two-State Solution and What Jerusalem Means to Us: Christian Perspectives and Reflections. His most recent co-edited books are Inequality and Governance in an Uncertain World: Perspectives on Democratic & Autocratic Governments; Democracy in Crisis Around the World; Continuity and Change in Political Culture: Israel and Beyond, and What Jerusalem Means to Us: Muslim Perspectives and Reflections. Dr. Sarsar is the recipient of the Award of Academic Excellence from the American Task Force on Palestine, the Global Visionary Award and the Stafford Presidential Award of Excellence from Monmouth University, the Humanitarian Award from the National Conference for Community and Justice, and the Holy Land Christian Ecumenical Foundation Award.

Dr. Carole Monica C. Burnett serves on the Board of Directors of the Jerusalem Peace Institute. She is the Advocacy Outreach Coordinator at the Holy Land Christian Ecumenical Foundation (HCEF) and the co-Chair of the HCEF Research and Publication Committee. She is the editor of the Fathers of the Church series, an expanding collection of early Christian texts translated from Greek, Latin, and Syriac, published by the Catholic University of America Press. Burnett is co-editor of What Jerusalem Means to Us: Muslim Perspectives and Reflections. She has retired from teaching Church History at the Ecumenical Institute of Theology of St. Mary's Seminary & University in Baltimore, as well as Greek and Latin at the Dominican House of Studies in Washington, D.C.

Dr. Yael S. Aronoff holds the Michael and Elaine Serling and Friends Endowed Chair in Israel Studies and serves as the director of the Michael and Elaine Serling Institute for Jewish Studies and Modern Israel at Michigan State University, and a professor of Political Science at James Madison College at Michigan State University. Her primary research and work focus on Israeli politics and foreign policy, Israeli society and culture, the Israeli-Palestinian conflict and efforts to resolve it, and Israel's asymmetric wars. She is particularly interested in peace negotiations and the conditions under which wars end, as well as the means and limits of war. Among Aronoff's publications are the book, The Political Psychology of Israeli Prime Ministers: When Hard Liners Opt for Peace, and the co-edited book, Continuity and Change in Political Culture: Israel and Beyond. Her current book project is titled, The Dilemmas of Asymmetric Conflicts: Navigating Deterrence and Democratic Constraints. Dr. Aronoff has published in Foreign Policy, Israel Studies, Israel Studies Review, and Political Science Quarterly; she is past President of the Association of Israel Studies and has given over 100 public lectures.