From Jerusalem to Ghana to Katrina-ravaged New Orleans, a woman reclaims her history in a “beautifully written and thought-provoking” memoir (Dave Eggers, author of A Hologram for the King and Zeitoun). A biracial woman from a country still divided along racial lines, Emily Raboteau never felt at home in America. As the daughter of an African American religious historian, she understood the Promised Land as the spiritual realm black people yearned for. But while visiting Israel, the Jewish Zion, she was surprised to discover black Jews. More surprising was the story of how they got there. Inspired by their exodus, her question for them is the same one she keeps asking herself: have you found the home you’re looking for? In this American Book Award–winning inquiry into contemporary and historical ethnic displacement, Raboteau embarked on a ten-year journey around the globe and back in time to explore the complex and contradictory perspectives of black Zionists. She talked to Rastafarians and African Hebrew Israelites, Evangelicals and Ethiopian Jews—all in search of territory that is hard to define and harder to inhabit. Uniting memoir with cultural investigation, Raboteau overturns our ideas of place, patriotism, dispossession, citizenship, and country in “an exceptionally beautiful . . . book about a search for the kind of home for which there is no straight route, the kind of home in which the journey itself is as revelatory as the destination” (Edwidge Danticat, author of The Farming of Bones).

In reggae song after reggae song Bob Marley and other reggae singers speak of the Promised Land of Ethiopia. Repatriation is a must they cry. The Rastafari have been travelling to Ethiopia since the movement originated in Jamaica in 1930s. They consider it the Promised Land, and repatriation is a cornerstone of their faith. Though Ethiopians see Rastafari as immigrants, the Rastafari see themselves as returning members of the Ethiopian diaspora. Ina Visions of Zion, Erin C. MacLeod offers the first in-depth investigation into how Ethiopians perceive Rastafari and Rastafarians within Ethiopia and the role this unique immigrant community plays within Ethiopian society. Rastafari are unusual among migrants, basing their movements on spiritual rather than economic choices. This volume offers those who study the movement a broader understanding of the implications of repatriation. Taking the Ethiopian perspective into account, it argues that migrant and diaspora identities are the products of negotiation, and it illuminates the implications of this negotiation for concepts of citizenship, as well as for our understandings of pan-Africanism and south-south migration. Providing a rare look at migration to a non-Western country, this volume also fills a gap in the broader immigration studies literature."

Focusing on the teachings of Tsevi Hirsch Kalischer, this study examines the modern revival of the belief among religious Jews that they are duty-bound to hasten messianic redemption.

From the late nineteenth century through the post-Holocaust era, the world was divided between countries that tried to expel their Jewish populations and those that refused to let them in. The plight of these traumatized refugees inspired numerous proposals for Jewish states. Jews and Christians, authors and adventurers, politicians and playwrights, and rabbis and revolutionaries all worked to carve out autonomous Jewish territories in remote and often hostile locations across the globe. The would-be founding fathers of these imaginary Zions dispatched scientific expeditions to far-flung regions and filed reports on the dream states they planned to create. But only Israel emerged from dream to reality. Israel’s successful foundation has long obscured the fact that eminent Jewish figures, including Zionism’s prophet, Theodor Herzl, seriously considered establishing enclaves beyond the Middle East. In the Shadow of Zion brings to life the amazing true stories of six exotic visions of a Jewish national home outside of the biblical land of Israel. It is the only book to detail the connections between these schemes, which in turn explain the trajectory of modern Zionism. A gripping narrative drawn from archives the world over, In the Shadow of Zion recovers the mostly forgotten history of the Jewish territorialist movement, and the stories of the fascinating but now obscure figures who championed it. Provocative, thoroughly researched, and written to appeal to a broad audience, In the Shadow of Zion offers a timely perspective on Jewish power and powerlessness. Visit the author's website: http://www.adamrovner.com/.

Explores Jewish emigration from Palestine and Israel during the critical period between 1945 and the late 1950s by weaving together the perspectives of governments, aid organizations, Jewish communities and the personal stories of individual migrants.

An extraordinary, deeply inspirational photo essay follows elite wheelchair racer and wrestler and Netflix documentary star Zion Clark. This stunning photographic essay showcases Zion Clark’s ferocious athleticism and undaunted spirit. Cowritten by New York Times best-selling journalist James S. Hirsch, this book features striking, visually arresting images and an approachable and engaging text, including pieces of advice that have motivated Zion toward excellence and passages from Zion himself. Explore Zion’s journey from a childhood lost in the foster care system to his hard-fought rise as a high school wrestler to his current rigorous training to prepare as an elite athlete on the world stage. Included are a biography and a note from Zion. This first in a trilogy of books to be written by world-class athlete Zion Clark.