Product Description: The goals and challenges that face the people of Israel are vividly illustrated by the country's many folk stories. Here Haya Bar-Itzhak presents these tales-gathered from the early settlers of the kibbutz, from immigrants who arrived in Israel after independence, and from ethnic groups-to create a panoramic view of a fascinatingly complex society...read more

(view table of contents)

This study presents a unique selection of folk narratives of Moroccan Jews in Israel. The narratives were recorded as part of a research project undertaken in the development town of Shlomi, Israel. Jewish Moroccan Folk Narratives from Israel focuses on two central elements: textual research to examine the aesthetic qualities of the narrative, their division into genres, the various versions and their parallels, and acculturation in Israel; and contextual research to examine the performance art of the narrator and the role of the narrative as a communicative process in the narrating society. The collection includes twenty-one narratives by twelve storytellers; an account of the narrators' lives and a commentary have been applied to each. In contrast to most anthologies of Jewish folktales, the texts in this book were recorded in the natural context of narration and in the language of origin (Judaeo-Arabic), meeting the most vigorous standards of current folklore scholarship.