This is a Festschrift for Professor Moshe Piamenta, a great linguist, scholar and researcher, who has contributed to the field of Arabic and Hebrew language and culture for more than six decades. The book is divided into two parts: studies on Arabic and Hebrew, concerning aspects of both the dialects and literary register of Arabic, including lexicological issues. Part II deals with culture as manifest in Jerusalem.Part I: H. Amit Kokhavi, Introducing Register Competence into Teaching Arabic as a Foreign Language in Israeli Hebrew-Speaking SchoolsP. Behnstedt, Notes on the Arabic Dialects of Eastern North-Yemen (ilGawf, Sirwah, Marib, Bani Dabyan)J. Blau, Theory and Practice in Middle Arabic: Two Cases of Deficient Self-KnowledgeFurther articles by: A. Borg, O. Jastrow, M. Nevo, Y. Ratzaby, J. Rosenhouse, H. Shehadeh, A. Shivtiel, S. Shrayboym-Shivtiel, and R. TalmonPart II: M. Maoz, Jerusalem in the Modern Era: Political and Social ChangesA. Cohen, A Tale of Two Women: A Jewish Endowment in the 19th Century JerusalemFurther articles by: A. Elad-Bouskila, and R. Sni

This Liber Amicorum discusses topics on the history of Arabic grammar, Arabic linguistics, and Arabic dialects, domains in which Kees Versteegh plays a leading role.

How to be a "democrat" and a "Muslim" at the same time is the subject of ongoing contests. This book maps out the variety of voices contesting "Islam" and "democracy" in the Arab world, insisting that neither category can be taken as unitary or fixed. In the Arab Middle East, the contest is over "which", "whose", and "how much" democracy takes place within an existing contest over "which", "whose", and "how much" Islam must be given pre-eminence in the political and cultural sphere. There is a "Democracy" and there are "democracies." There is an "Islam" and there are "islams." Larbi Sadiki deploys the conceptual tools of contemporary Western political philosophy and theory to articulate and defend some provocative theses. The book challenges Eurocentric conceptions of democracy that all-too-frequently display a lack of concern for specificity and context; analyzes and interrogates Orientalist and Occidentalist discourses on democracy; and considers some of the justifications for democracy in the global arena, giving space for self-representation by women and Islamists, among others. Using interviews with Muslims from every social and economic stratum, the book shows how Arabs themselves understand, imagine, and view democracy.