Let Shepherding Endure

Addresses how shepherding communities in Israel and the Middle East might be preserved.Examining the crucial problems confronting present-day livestock breeders, principally Bedouin and Jews in Israel, but also pastoral nomads in neighboring Middle Eastern countries, Let Shepherding Endure proposes new ways for these governments to enhance and sustain the long-term future development of shepherding communities. Adopting a broad historical and anthropological perspective on the topic, and assessing various pastoral relief programs, Kressel proposes an alternative program whereby the region's states would promote a brand of pastoralism that preserves rangeland herding while keeping in step with the contemporary cultural and political context. This truly visionary set of recommendations would have several dividends, especially for the Bedouin: their cultural legacy, in danger of obsolescence, would be preserved while at the same time enhancing both their pastoral skills and ability to secure a livelihood from herding.Gideon M. Kressel is Professor of Anthropology and Oriental Sciences at Ben-Gurion University of the Negev, Israel. He is the author of several books, including Ascendancy Through Aggression: The Anatomy of a Blood Feud Among Urbanized Bedouins and coeditor (with A. Paul Hare) of Israel as Center Stage: A Setting for Social and Religious Enactments.