2011: A Year in Books

The holidays are over, the coffee-table books have all been unwrapped and set aside, and winter isn't going anywhere for a while. In short, it's time to settle in for some good reading. The literary critic D. G. Myers here presents the 38 best Jewish books of 2011, all of which merit your attention.

2010: A Year in Books  D.G. Myers,  Jewish Ideas Daily.  From the popular to the scholarly, a reader's and buyer's guide to 34 of the best books of 2010.  SAVE

Retrieving American Jewish Fiction  D.G. Myers,  Jewish Ideas Daily.  A historical symposium of some neglected classics, and an introduction to the avot and imahot of American Jewish writing.  SAVE

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The Dead Sea Scrolls, Alive in Times Square

In the basement of a converted theater on West 44th Street, tucked between the legendary Sardi's restaurant and a bowling alley, a block from Times Square and across the street from the musical Memphis, is Discovery Times Square.

A Dead Issue?  Elli Fischer,  Jewish Ideas Daily.  Since the electrifying discovery of the Dead Sea Scrolls at Qumran in the late 1940's, the scholarly consensus has been that they were produced by the Essenes. But is this true?  SAVE

Virtual Qumran Tour  Orion Center, Hebrew University.  Take a virtual tour of the Qumran community and the caves in which the Dead Sea Scrolls were found.  SAVE

Digital Dead Sea Scrolls  Israel Museum.  This digital gallery allows viewers to examine the Dead Sea Scrolls in unprecedented detail.  SAVE

Old and New Tools  Jean Duhaime,  H-Net.  In a collection of essays, scholars consider and reconsider their methods of understanding the Dead Sea Scrolls and the world in which they were composed.  SAVE

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Menorah carved on stone, found in a 2,000-year-old tunnel to Jerusalem.

Mysteries of the Menorah

On the eve of Tisha b'Av, 2011, archeologists revealed artifacts newly unearthed from the great Jewish revolt against Rome (67–70 C.E.), including coins minted by the rebels and a stone incised with a sketch of the Temple menorah. But what is the menorah, and what does it symbolize?

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Mourning, Memory, and Art

David Roberts (1796–1864) was a Scottish painter who in the late 1830's traveled extensively in the Levant and Egypt documenting "Orientalist" sites in drawings and watercolors. Among Roberts's paintings was a massive 1849 work, The Destruction of Jerusalem.

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Digging at Khirbet Qeiyafa.

The New Biblical Archeology

Every summer, the Israel Antiquities Authority holds a reception for foreign archeological teams excavating in Israel. This year's reception was attended by over 200 archeologists, who are investigating sites ranging in age from the Paleolithic through Islamic periods.

The Eye of the (Archeological) Storm  Israel Finkelstein,  Forward.  Whatever the controversial expeditions in the City of David turn out to have revealed, they have definitively exposed the baselessness of Palestinian claims about the site.  SAVE

Digging the Bible’s Bad Guys  Associated Press.  Excavations at Goliath-the-giant's hometown of Gath are helping to paint a more nuanced portrait of the Philistines, perennial enemies of the Israelites.  SAVE

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