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America and Zion
Essays and Papers in Memory of Moshe Davis

Edited by Eli Lederhendler and Jonathan D. Sarna

 		Moshe Davis was a prominent scholar of contemporary Jewish history and a recognized leader in the field of bicultural American/Jewish studies. These wide-ranging essays, many of which were presented at a colloquium that Professor Davis had organized but did not live to attend, honor him by exploring the theme of Zion as an integral part of American spiritual history and as a site of interfaith discourse.
American attitudes toward the land of the Bible reflect values that arose from Jewish abiding attachment to Zion and the uniquely American Christian vision of Zion as a utopian, pre-industrial, pre-urban, pre-secularized world. Whereas American Christians expected to be lifted out of their ordinary lives when they visited the Holy Land, Jews saw in their affinity for Zion a strong link to their everyday American environment. Jews viewed America's biblical heritage as a source of practical values including fair play, equality, social vision, and covenantal politics. 		"Moshe Davis would have relished the diversity of the essays, their intellectual depth, and the individual personalities of the authors. This is without question a valuable contribution to the America-Holy Land field, and it crowns the career of the field's chief facilitator and mentor."
—Les Vogel, Office of Scholarly Programs, the Library of Congress

Eli Lederhendler is Associate Professor of American Jewish History and Institutions at the Avraham Harman Institute of Contemporary Jewry, The Hebrew University of Jerusalem.

Jonathan D. Sarna is the Joseph H. and Belle R. Braun Professor of American Jewish History at Brandeis University.
 
$31.95s cloth / ISBN 0-8143-3034-7

232 pages / 6 x 9
2 illustrations / 1 map

2002

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