The Road Taken
eBook - PDF

The Road Taken

An Archaeologist’s Journey to the Land of the Bible

  1. English
  2. PDF
  3. Available on iOS & Android
eBook - PDF

The Road Taken

An Archaeologist’s Journey to the Land of the Bible

About this book

In this fascinating book, Seymour (Sy) Gitin recounts his life's journey, from his childhood in 1940s Buffalo, New York, to a storied career as an archaeologist working and living in Israel.

Over the course of his life, Sy served as a rabbi in Los Angeles and as US Air Force Chaplain, starred in an Israeli movie, trained as an archaeologist, and eventually became the Director of the W. F. Albright Institute of Archaeological Research in Jerusalem, an institution he led for thirty-four years. As an archaeologist, Sy encouraged American participation in the archaeology of ancient Israel, fostered the development of the Palestinian archaeological community, and conducted valuable field work at Tell Gezer and Tel Miqne-Ekron. His tale is full of entertaining vignettes involving the people that he encountered along the way, including many of the pioneers in the field—W. F. Albright, Nelson Glueck, Yigael Yadin, Benjamin Mazar, and Trude Dothan, as well as current protagonists William G. Dever, Israel Finkelstein, and Amihai Mazar.

Readers will enjoy Sy's humorous and engaging stories: rationing out seder wine on a military base following the great Alaskan earthquake only to learn that soldiers were threatening to use it to brush their teeth, encounters with Senator Daniel Patrick Moynihan and US Ambassador Thomas Pickering, and the many colorful experiences he had with fellow scholars through the years.

An engaging and entertaining recounting of a remarkably lived life, The Road Taken is a revealing look at being Jewish in America and Israel from the 1940s through today and an eye-opening look at the often controversial development of biblical archaeology.

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Yes, you can access The Road Taken by Seymour (Sy) Gitin in PDF and/or ePUB format, as well as other popular books in Social Sciences & Social Science Biographies. We have over one million books available in our catalogue for you to explore.

Table of contents

  1. COVER Front
  2. Copyright Page
  3. Table of Contents
  4. Acknowledgments
  5. Chapter 1: Early Years , 1936–1956
  6. Notes to Chapter 1
  7. Chapter 2: Rabbinic Studies in Cincinnati and Israel , 1956–1962
  8. Notes to Chapter 2
  9. Chapter 3: Into the Real World:The Military and Civilian Rabbinate , 1962–1967
  10. Notes to Chapter 3
  11. Chapter 4: A New Direction , 1967–1970: The Road to Archaeological Studies
  12. Notes to Chapter 4
  13. Chapter 5: Doctoral Studies and Excavations in Israel , 1970–1979
  14. Notes to Chapter 5
  15. Chapter 6: Albright Institute:A New Beginning and a Vision for the Future , 1979
  16. Notes to Chapter 6
  17. Chapter 7: Albright Institute: First Decade , 1980–1989
  18. Notes to Chapter 7
  19. Chapter 8: Albright Institute: Second Decade , 1990–1999
  20. Notes to Chapter 8
  21. Chapter 9: Albright Institute: Third Decade, 2000–2009
  22. Notes to Chapter 9
  23. Chapter 10: Albright Institute: Fourth Decade, 2010–2014
  24. Notes to Chapter 10
  25. Notes
  26. Index