William F. S. Miles – författare

The first book about the only two Reform Movement kibbutzim in Israel.2007 Runner Up of the National Jewish Book Award in Modern Jewish Thought & Experience Zion in the Desert speaks to the millions of Jewish American baby boomers who at one time in their youth flirted with moving to Israel and may still wonder: "What would have happened to me? Who would I have become?" These questions are particularly poignant at a time when many American Jews are reassessing the role of Israel as a model state for the Jewish people. This book helps them encounter, beyond the numbing headlines of Middle East conflict, their middle-aged alter egos.William F. S. Miles explores these core questions of identity by following a group of young American Jews-including one of his own Long Island high school classmates-who in the 1970s and 1980s established the only two Reform Movement kibbutzim in Jewish history. Miles provides a firsthand account of these young pioneers, who were not only drawn to Israel out of post-Holocaust Zionism, but were also inspired by the progressive spirituality of Reform Judaism and the enticements of communal living to settle utopian kibbutzim in the remote Israeli desert. Zion in the Desert illustrates who these people have become a quarter of a century later and what their lives say to their fellow non-Orthodox brethren who once toyed with the idea but never made the Zionist and kibbutz leap.

The first book about the only two Reform Movement kibbutzim in Israel.2007 Runner Up of the National Jewish Book Award in Modern Jewish Thought & Experience Zion in the Desert speaks to the millions of Jewish American baby boomers who at one time in their youth flirted with moving to Israel and may still wonder: "What would have happened to me? Who would I have become?" These questions are particularly poignant at a time when many American Jews are reassessing the role of Israel as a model state for the Jewish people. This book helps them encounter, beyond the numbing headlines of Middle East conflict, their middle-aged alter egos.William F. S. Miles explores these core questions of identity by following a group of young American Jews-including one of his own Long Island high school classmates-who in the 1970s and 1980s established the only two Reform Movement kibbutzim in Jewish history. Miles provides a firsthand account of these young pioneers, who were not only drawn to Israel out of post-Holocaust Zionism, but were also inspired by the progressive spirituality of Reform Judaism and the enticements of communal living to settle utopian kibbutzim in the remote Israeli desert. Zion in the Desert illustrates who these people have become a quarter of a century later and what their lives say to their fellow non-Orthodox brethren who once toyed with the idea but never made the Zionist and kibbutz leap.

How have different forms of colonialism shaped societies and their politics? William F. S. Miles focuses on the Hausa-speaking people of West Africa whose land is still split by an arbitrary boundary established by Great Britain and France at the turn of the century.In 1983 Miles returned as a Fulbright scholar to the region where he had served as a Peace Corps volunteer in the late 1970s. Already fluent in the Hausa language, he established residence in carefully selected twin villages on either side of the border separating the Republic of Niger from the Federal Republic of Nigeria. Over the next year, and then during subsequent visits, he traveled by horseback between the two places, conducting archival research, collecting oral testimony, and living the ethnographic life.Miles argues that the colonial imprint of the British and the French can still be discerned more than a generation after the conferring of formal independence on Nigeria and Niger. Moreover, such influences persist even in the relatively remote countryside: in the nature of economic transactions, in local education practices, in the practice of Islam, in the operation of chieftaincy. In Hausaland as throughout the world, the border illuminates the vital differences between otherwise similar societies.

How have different forms of colonialism shaped societies and their politics? William F. S. Miles focuses on the Hausa-speaking people of West Africa whose land is still split by an arbitrary boundary established by Great Britain and France at the turn of the century.In 1983 Miles returned as a Fulbright scholar to the region where he had served as a Peace Corps volunteer in the late 1970s. Already fluent in the Hausa language, he established residence in carefully selected twin villages on either side of the border separating the Republic of Niger from the Federal Republic of Nigeria. Over the next year, and then during subsequent visits, he traveled by horseback between the two places, conducting archival research, collecting oral testimony, and living the ethnographic life.Miles argues that the colonial imprint of the British and the French can still be discerned more than a generation after the conferring of formal independence on Nigeria and Niger. Moreover, such influences persist even in the relatively remote countryside: in the nature of economic transactions, in local education practices, in the practice of Islam, in the operation of chieftaincy. In Hausaland as throughout the world, the border illuminates the vital differences between otherwise similar societies.