"Amy Horowitz brings us a sonic snapshot of a dynamic music culture that is constantly evolving-one that she claims had already changed its contours before she wrote the last sentence of this book. The music, a hybrid outpouring from Israel's ethnic ghettos, is at the core of an emerging community identity. Horowitz brilliantly creates a multilayered hybrid weave-a story that, like the music it presents, is cultural, aesthetic, and political in its breadth."—Bernice Johnson Reagon, " her compelling book successfully presents a loving and nuanced portrait of contemporary Israeli society and culture unfortunately all too rare in academic and popular writing about Israel The products of extensive research, Horowitz's book and its accompanying CD are a must for those interested in a fuller understanding of Israeli and Jewish music and culture."— "Mediterranean Israeli Music ultimately brings to fruition a rich and extended research project, introducing important ideas about the community dynamics that brought a new musical form into a nation's soundscape. It also provides a valuable blueprint for further study of this music's shifting place within Israeli identity and culture."—Judah M. Cohen, "Throughout the book Horowitz is aware that she is writing for a mixed readership, addressing an audience who may not be educated in music, musical forms, or the characteristics that are particular to Mediterranean music. She explains these aspects carefully with pronounced clarity, as well as providing contextual information about the cultural and historical forces at play for Mizrachi Jews within Israel. The final sections of the book which accompany the CD (with 19 illustrative tracks) offer the lyrics in transliteration and translation, as well as information about each song in terms of musical style, instruments, language, and other pertinent information. These additions are extremely useful in understanding the musical ideas explained within the text, furthering the importance of this text for those outside her field. Certain chapters are accessible to undergraduates, and as a teaching tool this book is incomparable to anything available in English."—Rachel S. Harris, "Horowitz's significant contribution to this discourse should be of lasting value to students and scholars of Jewish and Israeli society and culture. This is a substantive and worthwhile study of a diverse and multifaceted musical genre, which emerged from and continues to reflect the complex historical, sociopolitical, and multicultural contexts of a particular moment in time and place."— "In Mediterranean Israeli Music and the Politics of the Aesthetic, Amy Horowitz beautifully unravels and describes many of the interesting and unique processes that explain how, why, and by whom Mizrahim rearticulated their aesthetic experience."—Edwin Seroussi, Emanuel Alexandre Professor of Musicology at the Hebrew University of Jerusalem "Mediterranean Israeli Music and the Politics of the Aesthetic is a thoughtful and timely study on the relationship between politics, identity, and art."—Karen Armstrong, Author of the Case for God