JRB | Israel
TABLE OF CONTENTS
Introduction
Rereading Herzl’s Old-New Land
A bad novel, but an important and prescient book.
The Kibbutz and the State
How the position of the kibbutz in Israeli society has changed, and why.
Athens or Sparta?
Accused by Patrick Tyler of unfairness, Morris presses on.
The Poet from Vilna
Avrom Sutzkever and Max Weinreich, a memoir.
Walkers in the City
Herman Melville was unimpressed with Jerusalem in 1857, but what would he say if he were a saunterer on Mamilla or King George today?
Moses Mendelssohn Street
Immortality in Jerusalem.
Walking the Green Line
New books about the settlers and the settlements and depth and nuance to the discussions about their existence.
One State?
Sari Nusseibeh’s recent book is a new formulation of an old proposal.
Fathers & Sons
This summer, as the current Askhenazi chief rabbi was being investigated for corruption, and issues of religion and state dominated public debate, new Ashkenazi and Sephardi chief rabbis were elected. The process was messy, complicated, and ugly. The result? Sixty-eight votes apiece for the sons of two previous chief rabbis. What does a broken rabbinate mean for Israel?
Yehuda Amichai: At Play in the Fields of Verse
Yehuda Amichai was an exuberant person with a lively, impish sense of humor. He was, at the same time, a melancholy man. Both traits are present in his poetry.
Israel’s Arab Sholem Aleichem
Sayed Kashua’s new novel presents a characteristic depiction of the dual identities of Israel’s Arabs.
Riding Leviathan: A New Wave of Israeli Genre Fiction
A new batch of Israeli fantasy books may not contain Narnias, but they pound on the wardrobe, rattling the scrolls inside.
Hope, Beauty, and Bus Lanes in Tel Aviv
From the floor of Tel Aviv’s City Council, Israel’s future looks more promising than many would think.
Suggested Reading
Israel’s Sea Change
The first Zionist ship was a refurbished English vessel with 20 years of rough service behind her, including the wartime evacuation of Singapore in 1941.
Seventy Years in the Desert
At the 1965 International Bible Contest, David Ben-Gurion posed some of the questions. He also asked two to the entire audience: “How many of you are ready to make aliyah to the Land of Israel?” And then, more specifically, “How many of you are ready to come and live with me in the Negev?”
Desire and Power: Adam and Eve in Genesis 1–3
What did Eve really want and what did Adam need?
Sharansky’s Exodus
Witnessing the modern exodus of Jews from Ethiopia to Israel—different than his own but no less stirring—reminded Sharansky of what he’d told himself in his darkest days in prison: “Your history did not begin with your birth or with the birth of the Soviet regime. You are continuing an exodus that began in Egypt. History is with you.”
