Contents -- List of Illustrations -- Foreword (by David Ohana) -- Acknowledgements -- Prologue: Israel and I -- Toward the Sea: An Approach -- Chapter One Introduction: Point of Departure -- 1. Longing to Find a Place -- a) The Israeli Place -- b) The Popularity of Yam Tikhoniut -- 2. State of Research and Sources -- a) The Annales and Fernand Braudel: A French Historiographical Revolution -- b) Orientalism: The Mental Map of the Orient -- c) How to Capture Yam Tikhoniut? -- Chapter Two Tracing Yam Tikhoniut in Contemporary Israel -- 1. Yam Tikhoniut in Academic Discussions -- 2. Art and Popular Culture -- a) Music and the Emergence of Locality -- b) Literature -- c) Visual Arts -- 3. Lived Yam Tikhoniut -- a) Climate -- b) Architecture -- c) Cuisine -- d) Advertisement -- Chapter Three Mapping Yam Tikhoniut -- 1. Personal Yam Tikhoniut: "It is home, the origin of my parents and the air that I breathe" -- 2. Locality Model: "Hold on to what there is" -- 3. Synthesis Model: "A cultural bridge enhancing political dialogue" -- 4. Socioeconomic Model: "To turn points of friction into points of partnership" -- 5. Critical Voices -- a) Romanticized Model: "An invention by outside observers and imposed on Israeli society" -- b) Escapism: "A Mediterranean Pleasure Cruise" -- c) Fear of Levantinization: "We will be lost within a terrible Levantine dunghill " -- d) Diluted Mizrahiut: "Polishing up the Mizrahi Image" -- e) Yam Tikhoniut as Anti-Americanism? "Resistance to global 'McDonaldization' " -- Conclusion -- Chapter Four Perceptions of the Mediterranean Region -- 1. Real and Imagined Places: Mediterranean, Orient, and Levant -- 2. Zionism and Its Perceptions of the 'East' -- 3. Zionism Reconsidered -- 4. Looking Back: Revival of the Past -- a) The Canaanite Movement -- b) Regional Parallels: The Phoenicians -- c) Jaqueline Kahanoff.

5. Political Locus: The Barcelona Process -- Conclusion -- Mediterraneanism is Taking Shape-An Outlook -- Appendix -- Remarks on Transliteration, Translation, and Quotation -- Table of Interview Partners -- Glossary -- Bibliography -- Index -- Plates.