Despair and Deliverance

Know about the book -

Despair and Deliverance is written by Benjamin Beit-Hallahmi and published by State University of New York Press. It's available with International Standard Book Number or ISBN identification 079149618X (ISBN 10) and 9780791496183 (ISBN 13).

The author examines the varieties of religious and secular salvation that have recently appeared in Israel as evidence for Israelis' willingness to embrace private salvation in the face of immense cultural upheavals. Drawing on interviews, field observations, clinical data, and media reports collected over ten years, he surveys four roads to private salvation: the return to Judaism, new religions (sects or cults), psychotherapy movements such as est, and occultism. These dramatic forms of conversion are unique to Israeli society within the last decade, and Beit-Hallahmi provides a social history and social psychology of this transformation.