Y&S Nazarian Center Research Scholar Nili Alon Amit has a new book offering insights on great thinkers of human happiness, from the Hebrew Bible and Greek philosophy to contemporary writings. The book, "Happiness, Stability and Transcendence in Western Religion, Philosophy and Poetry" (Cambridge Scholars Publishing, 2021), includes primary sources on happiness in their original ancient languages along with their scholarly translations into English.

A new book by Y&S Nazarian Center Research Scholar Nili Alon Amit offers insights on great thinkers of human happiness, from the Hebrew Bible, Greek philosophy, medieval mysticism, early modern philosophy, 19th century transcendentalism, the 20th century Harlem Renaissance and early Hebrew poetry, to contemporary writings.

In her book, Happiness, Stability and Transcendence in Western Religion, Philosophy and Poetry (Cambridge Scholars Publishing, 2021), Dr. Alon Amit includes primary sources on happiness in their original ancient languages, including Aramaic, Hebrew, Greek and Latin, along with their scholarly translations into English. Alon Amit presents prescriptions for happiness appearing in ancient to modern religious, philosophical, mystical and poetic writings, and discusses a common theme that unites them all, stemming from the very first verse of the Hebrew Bible (to which she also offers a novel reading). A final chapter of the book is dedicated to pre- and early- State of Israel writings, with Alon Amit’s new translations of an excerpt by A. D. Gordon, and a poem and essay by Rachel Bluwstein Sela. A section of the book about early 20th century Hebrew poetry appears here on Google Books.

Alon Amit is a Visiting Scholar at the UCLA Nazarian Center, 2020-22. During the 2019-20 academic year, she served as an Israel Institute Visiting Assistant Professor at the UCLA Y&S Nazarian Center for Israel Studies. She received her Ph.D. in Ancient Philosophy from Haifa University in 2014.