Credits

Farid Abu Shakra was born in the town of Umm el-Fahm in 1963 where he lives today. He studied at the Kalisher School of Art in Tel Aviv and is a painter, sculptor and exhibition curator. He has participated in many group and solo exhibitions, including at the Israel Museum, Jerusalem, and the Tel Aviv Museum of Art.

Yehuda Amichai was born in Würzberg, Germany, in 1924 and died in Jerusalem in 2001. Israel's most widely read and loved poet, his works have been translated into more than 20 languages. Among many awards and honorary doctorates, he received the Israel Prize for Literature in 1982.

D'vora Ben-Shaul came to Israel from the US in 1959. She is a biologist and nature writer with a PhD from the University of Texas, and has spent many years studying Israel's natural life. She writes extensively on topics concerning nature, biology and the environment.

Tom Berman was born in Czechoslovakia and grew up in Scotland. He come to Israel in 1952 and is a member of Kibbutz Amiad in the Galilee. He is an acquatic microbiologist and Director of the Kinneret (Sea of Galilee) Limnological Laboratory.

Shoshana Gabbay was born in Israel and educated in New York. She has an MA in English Literature from the Hebrew University, Jerusalem, and has been editor of the Israel Environment Bulletin since 1978. She has collaborated in preparing numerous documents, as well as three books on the policy of environmental issues in Israel.

Daniel Gavron was born in Britain in 1935 and came to Israel in 1961. He lived on a kibbutz and was later one of the first residents of the new town of Arad in the Negev. A writer and journalist, his latest book is "The Kibbutz: Awakening from Utopia," published in 2000.

Amir Gutfreund was born in Haifa in 1963. He has an MSc in applied mathematics from the Technion, Haifa, and is a regular officer in the Israel Air Force. "Our Holocaust" is his first book.

Shmuel Moreh is professor of Arabic Language and Literature at the Hebrew University, Jerusalem. He was born in Baghdad, Iraq, in 1933, and arrived in Israel in 1951. His MA is from the Hebrew University and his PhD from the School of African and Oriental Studies at London University. He was awarded the Israel Prize in 1999.

Ronny Someck was born in Baghdad in 1951 and came to Israel as a baby. He has published seven collections of poems. He was a recipient of the Prime Ministers' Prize for Literature in 1989.

Bezalel Yannai was born in the US in 1944 and came to Israel in 1968. He is a graduate of the University of California, Berkley and the Hebrew University, Jerusalem. He has a longstanding interest in music and plays the trumpet. He is Deputy Director of the Department of Foreign Relations of the Ministry of Agriculture and Rural Development.

Dan Yardeni was born in Israel in 1941 and is a graduate of the Technion in Haifa as a mechanical engineer. He owns and manages industrial and trading companies and is an ardent collector of books, especially early Hebrew printed and bibliophile editions.

The Museum on the Seam for Dialogue, Understanding and Coexistence, Jerusalem, and its curator, Raphie Etgar.

The poems by Yehuda Amichai were originally published in Hebrew by Schocken Publishing House, Tel Aviv.

The article by Dan Yardeni on the "Crown of Jerusalem" was originally published in Hebrew in Ha'aretz daily newspaper.

"Our Holocaust" by Amir Gutfreund was published in Hebrew by Zmora, Bitan Publishers, Tel Aviv, 2001. The English translation is published by arrangement with the Harris/Elon Agency, Jerusalem.

The Uri and Rami Nechushtan Museum of Art, Kibbutz Ashdot Ya'akov and the Museum Curator, Ruth Shadmon, for "A Stitch in Time and Place."

Nahum Ben-Zvi and the Ben-Zvi Institute, Jerusalem, for the pages from the Aleppo Codex and the new "Crown of Jerusalem" edition of the Bible.

The map of Israel's river system on page 38: copyright © Carta, Jerusalem.

The review by Ioram Melcer of the book on Najib Mahfuz by Menahem Milson was first published in Hebrew in the Ma'ariv daily newspaper in 1999.