Recommended Books

General

Josephus's The Jewish Wars is on every English-speaking Israeli's bookshelf. A Jewish general in the Galilee during the revolt against Rome in A.D. 66 -- and an eventual traitor -- Josephus was also a historian who provided volumes of historical commentaries and anecdotes about almost every area you'll see in Israel. The Earthly Jerusalem, by Norman Kotker (Scribner's, 1972), is a graceful, wryly intelligent history of Jerusalem from earliest to modern times; Jerusalem: City of Mirrors, by Amos Elon, is another highly readable history of that city. Jerusalem on Earth, by Abraham Rabinovich (Macmillan, New York and London, 1988), contains wonderful real-life stories about people in contemporary Jerusalem by one of the Jerusalem Post's finest human-interest writers.

Archeology

Yigael Yadin, the Israeli archaeologist whose father, Professor E. L. Sukenik of Hebrew University, identified the first fragments of the Dead Sea Scrolls in 1947, has written a beautifully photographed, thrilling book about the final archaeological search of the Dead Sea Caves in the early 1960s. The book, Bar-Kokhba (Harper & Row, 1971), reads almost like a novel, is available in bookstores throughout Israel and in most American libraries. Perhaps no other book allows you to share the excitement of each amazing discovery and lets you understand what archaeology means to those who love Israel. Yigael Yadin is also the author of books on the Masada and Hazor archaeological projects.

Other recommended books about archaeology include Judaism in Stone, by Hershel Shanks (Harper & Row, New York and London, 1979), a heavily illustrated survey of ancient synagogues in Israel and the Middle East; and In the Shadow of the Temple, by Meir Ben-Dov (Harper & Row, New York, 1985), a lavishly illustrated and photographed volume that details recent archaeological discoveries in the Jewish Quarter of Jerusalem.

Fiction & Poetry

The Source, by James Michener, is a blockbuster composed of short stories about what life might have been like in a Galilee village over thousands of years of history. Written in 1964, it's filled with insights that match up with recent literary and psychological analyses about the ways women may have shaped early Judaism. It's also on the mark about many issues in contemporary Israeli society.

Among the Israeli writers most accessible to English-speaking readers are Amos Oz, whose early novel, My Michael, with its delicate narrative voice, has been beautifully translated into English; and Yehuda Amichai, whose poetry is personal, yet filled with evocative Israeli locales, imagery, and a graceful wit. Try Amichai's Poems of Jerusalem (Harper & Row, 1988) and Even a Fist Was Once an Open Palm with Fingers (Harper Books, 1991). Mystery buffs will enjoy Batya Gur, the Agatha Christie of Israel -- her books are filled with interesting details of Israeli life. Look for her books in the Michael Ohayon series: The Saturday Morning Murder; Murder on a Kibbutz, and Bethlehem Road Murder. S. Y. Agnon, Israel's first Nobel Prize-winning writer, worked in a disciplined Hebrew that drew intensively on a knowledge of east European legends and Jewish intellectual and religious history; try his novel The Bridal Canopy. Aharon Appelfeld's novels of a European world vanishing into the Holocaust are powerful and ghostly -- look for Katerina; The Iron Tracks; and The Conversion. Other outstanding modern Israeli novels are The Smile of the Lamb, by David Grossman, and A Late Divorce, by A. B. Yehoshua; and Arabesques, by Anton Shamas.

Art & Photography

Documentors of the Dream: Pioneer Jewish Photographers of the Holy Land, by Vivienne Silver-Brody (Magnes Press, 2005), available through Steimatzky's, contains a striking collection of photographs from the first half of the 20th century. If you visit the artists' colony of Ein Hod, be sure to visit Ms. Silver-Brody's Silver Print Gallery, which contains an excellent collection of photographs from British Mandate era Palestine. Jerusalem Through My Father's Eyes, by Kevork Kahvedjian, is a beautiful collection of black and white photographs of Jerusalem and its surroundings taken in the 1920s through the 1960s; it is available at the Elia Photo Service Studio, 14 Al Khanka St., Christian Quarter, Old City. There are a number of interesting recent editions of the paintings and lithographs by the 19th-century artist David Roberts that capture the beauty and mystery of the area as it was 150 years ago. The Holy Land: 123 Colored Facsimile Lithographs and the Journal from His Visit to the Holy Land, by David Roberts, contains the classic, romantic 19th-century illustrations that made Jerusalem's landmarks familiar to the Western world. The Holy Land, Yesterday and Today, by David Roberts, contains both David Roberts's beautiful, charismatic portrayals of 19th-century Jerusalem, and photographs of what these sites actually look like. A reasonably priced paperback edition, David Roberts: Travels in Egypt & the Holy Land, records this exceptional artist's impressions of the entire region.

Other Books

Footloose in Jerusalem, by Sarah Fox Kaminker (a former American who held a seat on the Jerusalem City Council and led a movement for neighborhood preservation), and Jerusalemwalks, by Nitza Rosovsky, are two books filled with detailed, interesting guided walking tours in Jerusalem. Ms. Rosovsky is from an old Jerusalem family, and her book is filled with historical and personal anecdotes.