Israel guidebook for a demanding traveler?
 

It's the same story before every trip: I can't seem to find a decent (let alone a good) guidebook, though I'm reading English, German, Italian, and if need be also French. Most modern guidebooks need just half a page to tell "everything" about even the world's most important treasures of art & architecture. Some venerable old-fashioned guide book editions (like notably the German-language Du Mont series) value art as high as appropriate, but won't write a single line about restaurants, hotels, getting around... Yes, I've done many trips with actually two guidebooks, one for practicalities, one for sights. Sigh! (Of course, it would be preferable by far to carry but one.)
But for Israel, next on my travel schedule, there doesn't seem to be one single decent guidebook for the sights. For practicalities, maybe Fodor's or Frommer's (any insight on this?). But for the sights, zilch. I've checked about 12 or 15 books in various languages, but NONE told anything of any relevance on, for example, the White City of Tel Aviv (i.e. the Bauhaus architecture).
Browsing the Forum archives here, I'm finding a question about the "Israel Travel Guide" by Oscar Israelowitz that nobody could answer at the time. Any new insight on this book? Amazon's description sounds good, and there is a new (June 2008) edition. Or any hints for other Israel guidebooks? Help would be much appreciated!

Lonely Planet (notwithstanding its reputation as a "budget" guidebook, it is much more informative than other guidebooks, although is devotes less attention to hotels and restaurants).

Although Israel is a tiny country, it has so many sights and most books that cover the whole country can't do justice to interests like architecture, fine arts etc.
The Eyewitness Guides are very good visually and usually include things like descriptions of inside historic sites. I think they have a whole separate book for Jerusalem as well as one for the whole country.
The Insight Guides series ia also strong visually and has some background articles on the country, people, culture.

In the bookstores in Israel (Steimatsky is a well known chain) you will find many books published in Israel (in English) about specific types of sites.
Of course in Hebrew you will find many more, including whole books on crafts and artisans, wineries, etc.

Other than the White City info. what are you looking for?

Thank you, AlexA. My main interests are art & architecture, which, in Israel, includes archeology, of course; information on islamic sights, as well, would be fine since I love islamic art (I know there are not too many of them in Israel, but as far as I've seen, several guidebooks tend to underweight, due to the political situation, either Jewish or islamic sights); and food, on the other hand, i.e. restaurants particularly. Unfortunately, I don't read or speak Hebrew.

I put together a list of some book reommendations for a friend last year.

For food info in Tel Aviv, I can recommend this book (I had the older edition) Its a guide to interesting restaurants, stores and neighborhoods in Tel Aviv
http://www.amazon.com/City-Guide-Avi.../dp/9659099738

Time Out Magazine is published weekly in Tel Aviv, but they have an occasional (monthly?) English language version. It focuses on Tel Aviv (arts/entertainment/culture/food) but also covers Jerusalem
http://digital.timeout.co.il/activem.../israel_14.asp

Off the beaten track in Israel (by Ori Dvir)--good book, but 20 years old

Eretz Magazine (Like an Israeli "National Geographic") did a book about 10 years ago, but check out the magazine website that has extensive dowloadable guides to different regions http://www.eretz.com/NEW/index.shtml

Hope this helps!

That's great, thank you so much. I'll admit that I'm still clueless about Eretz' website (I click on the "download" section, but don't see any possible downloads, let alone downloadable regional guides - ???), but there is actually good news: their guide of 10 years ago that you've been mentioning is being republished in November! And I've also found antiquarian copies of Dvir's book (which should still be interesting enough, notwithstanding its publication date - temples and other sites don't change much in 20 years). Thanks again!

However, I'm still curious about the Israelowitz book, as well. Anyone?

Franco, it looks like Eretz redesigned its site--it used to be very easy to find and download the guides!
I found a link to some of them here
http://www.eretz.com/NEW/PDFIntro.shtml

On the left side, I see "regional guides" Jerusalem, Safed and Upper Galilee. You enter an name and email address, and then you can read and download the guides.
Some of the other sections say that the guides will be available online "in a few days time". Some others can be purchased for around $5 US

I haven't seen the newest Israelowitz guide, but I've used some of his other guides.

There are mostly geared toward religious Jewish travelers and include some practical information on restaurants, synagogues etc and sites. The guides I saw did not have impressive photography (mostly black and white) but the info was OK. I'm not sure if they would suit your purposes in terms of having detailed information on the kind of sites you are interested in.

I hope someone else can offer you info, too!.
I just noticed that this post is not "tagged" with Israel (you have to do that when you first post) so I think it might be lost amidst all the Africa posts on this board--when you search just for the Israel postings, this one doesn't come up
:(

Thank you again, I'll continue to look for the guides to reappear on Eretz' website. On my computer, the thread appears among the Israel threads, and the tag "Israel" appears also on top of the thread (tagging it was the first thing I did when creating it), so hopefully others will be able to trace it, too. Thank you also for the info on Israelowitz - sounds like the Eretz guide will be preferable for me!

Hi
I found myslf in a similar situation when I began researching my trip to Israel. I bought the Insight Guide for much of the historical information but did not take it with me. I used both the Fodors and Frommers guides to Israel as they complemented each other. Each had strong points and weakness'.

for archeological sights:
"The Holy Land: An Oxford Archaeological Guide", by Jerome Murphy-O'Connor.

Thank you both! As far as the general guidebook, I hope the Eretz guide would be able to substitute both Fodor's and Frommer's (I've seen both, and both didn't entirely attract me). JoyceL, the archeological guide seems very interesting!