Publisher's Synopsis
In the Zionist view of Israeli history, the Old Yishuv of Jerusalem - the Jewish community of the 19th and early 20th centuries - was "a lifeless body ruled by hypocrites, cheats and unschooled rabbis", and its importance was downplayed and ignored in this study of the Old Yishuv, Dr Halper uncovers the personalities, issues, and events that formed this unique Jewish community, the most diverse of any in the modern era. An historical ethnography, this book aims to illustrate not only the critical role the Yishuv played in the emergence of a modern Israeli society, but also the degree to which the Yishuv was representative of broad streams of Jewish culture.
