Presentations of offerings to the emperor-king on anniversaries of his accession became an
important imperial ritual in the court of Franz Joseph I. This book explores for the first time
the identity constructions of Orthodox Jewish communities in Jerusalem as expressed in their
gifts to the Austro-Hungarian Kaisers at the time of dramatic events. It reveals how the
beautiful gifts their dedications and their narratives were perceived by gift-givers and
recipients as instruments capable of acting upon various social cultural and political
processes. Lily Arad describes in a captivating manner the historical narratives of the
creation and presentation of these gifts. She analyzes the iconography of these gifts as having
transformative effect on the self-identification of the Jewish communities and examines their
reception by the Kaisers and in the Austrian and the Palestinian Jewish press. This
groundbreaking book unveils Jewish cultural and political strategies aimed to create local
Eretz-Israel identities demonstrating distinct positive communal identification which at times
expressed national sentiments and at the same time preserved European identification.
