A CHRONOLOGY OF VOICES, FROM THE BIRTH OF ZIONISM UNTIL TODAY THEODOR HERZL, AHAD HA’AM, MARTIN BUBER, ALBERT EINSTEIN, HANNAH ARENDT, YESHAYAHU LEIBOWITZ, NOAM CHOMSKY, TANYA REINHART, ZEEV STERNHELL, URI AVNERY, TIKVA-HONIG PARNASS, SHLOMO SAND, TOM SEGEV, SIMHA FLAPAN, BARUCH KIMMERLING, BENNY MORRIS, AVI SHLAIM, ILAN PAPPE, GIDEON LEVY, AMIRA HASS, AND MICHEL SFARD Portrayals of Israel in mainstream Western media as the “homeland of the Jews” and “the only democracy in the Middle East” are commonplace. Since the realities behind them are rarely shown, these truisms have become habitual assumptions underlying news coverage, public policy, and ordinary conversation. At the same time, while criticism of a government’s policies is considered an essential right and safeguard of democracy, criticism of Israeli policy is persistently attacked as anti-Zionist—or even anti-Semitic—by a majority of Israelis and by those outside the country who claim to be Israel’s friends. The views of independent Israelis and Jews who examine, challenge, or oppose extreme Israeli governments and policies are rarely heard. This book attempts to recover a history of dissent. In Wrestling with Zionism: Jewish Voices of Dissent, Daphna Levit amplifies the voices of twenty-one Jewish and Israeli thinkers—scholars, theologians, journalists, lawyers, activists—who have grappled with the evolution of Zionism since its inception on political, religious, cultural, ethical, or philosophical grounds. Beginning in the late-nineteenth century, well before the founding of the State of Israel, and surveying pioneering figures up until the present, she introduces, examines, and brings together a range of contrasting viewpoints into a single historical conversation. As well, with these portraits she honors a tradition of courageous intellectual inquiry and activism, rooted in Jewish ethical imperatives. Drawing on her own lifetime of activism and research, Levit has assembled a foundational text, enabling us to consider the relationship of modern political Zionism and Judaism today, in revealing historical light.

The most comprehensive Zionist collection ever published, The Zionist Ideas: Visions for the Jewish Homeland--Then, Now, Tomorrow sheds light on the surprisingly diverse and shared visions for realizing Israel as a democratic Jewish state. Building on Arthur Hertzberg's classic, The Zionist Idea, Gil Troy explores the backstories, dreams, and legacies of more than 170 passionate Jewish visionaries--quadruple Hertzberg's original number, and now including women, mizrachim, and others--from the 1800s to today. Troy divides the thinkers into six Zionist schools of thought--Political, Revisionist, Labor, Religious, Cultural, and Diaspora Zionism--and reveals the breadth of the debate and surprising syntheses. He also presents the visionaries within three major stages of Zionist development, demonstrating the length and evolution of the conversation. Part 1 (pre-1948) introduces the pioneers who founded the Jewish state, such as Herzl, Gordon, Jabotinsky, Kook, Ha'am, and Szold. Part 2 (1948 to 2000) features builders who actualized and modernized the Zionist blueprints, such as Ben-Gurion, Berlin, Meir, Begin, Soloveitchik, Uris, and Kaplan. Part 3 showcases today's torchbearers, including Barak, Grossman, Shaked, Lau, Yehoshua, and Sacks. This mosaic of voices will engage equally diverse readers in reinvigorating the Zionist conversation--weighing and developing the moral, social, and political character of the Jewish state of today and tomorrow.

WINNER OF THE ARAB AMERICAN BOOK AWARD • NAMED ONE OF THE BEST BOOKS OF THE YEAR BY NPR The stunning debut of a brilliant nonfiction writer whose vivid account of his grandparents' lives in Egypt, Tunisia, Palestine, and Los Angeles reclaims his family's Jewish Arab identity There was a time when being an "Arab" didn't mean you were necessarily Muslim. It was a time when Oscar Hayoun, a Jewish Arab, strode along the Nile in a fashionable suit, long before he and his father arrived at the port of Haifa to join the Zionist state only to find themselves hosed down with DDT and then left unemployed on the margins of society. In that time, Arabness was a mark of cosmopolitanism, of intellectualism. Today, in the age of the Likud and ISIS, Oscar's son, the Jewish Arab journalist Massoud Hayoun whom Oscar raised in Los Angeles, finds his voice by telling his family's story. To reclaim a worldly, nuanced Arab identity is, for Hayoun, part of the larger project to recall a time before ethnic identity was mangled for political ends. It is also a journey deep into a lost age of sophisticated innocence in the Arab world; an age that is now nearly lost. When We Were Arabs showcases the gorgeous prose of the Eppy Award–winning writer Massoud Hayoun, bringing the worlds of his grandparents alive, vividly shattering our contemporary understanding of what makes an Arab, what makes a Jew, and how we draw the lines over which we do battle.

Today Jews face a choice. We can be loyal to the ethical imperatives at the heart of Judaism—love the stranger, pursue justice, and repair the world. Or we can give our unconditional support to the state of Israel. It is a choice between Judaism as a religion and the nationalist ideology of Zionism, which is usurping that religion. In this powerful collection of personal narratives, thirty-nine Jews of diverse backgrounds tell a wide range of stories about the roads they have traveled from a Zionist world view to activism in solidarity with Palestinians and Israelis striving to build an inclusive society founded on justice, equality, and peaceful coexistence. Reclaiming Judaism from Zionism will be controversial. Its contributors welcome the long overdue public debate. They want to demolish stereotypes of dissenting Jews as “self-hating,” traitorous, and anti-Semitic. They want to introduce readers to the large and growing community of Jewish activists who have created organizations such as Jewish Voice for Peace, IfNotNow, and Open Hillel. They want to strengthen alliances with progressives of all faiths. Above all, they want to nurture models of Jewish identity that replace ethnic exclusiveness with solidarity, Zionism with a Judaism once again nourished by a transcendent ethical vision. An introduction and afterword by Carolyn L. Karcher set the narratives in historical context. Contributors include: Joel Beinin • Sami Shalom Chetrit • Ilise Benshushan Cohen • Marjorie Cohn • Rabbi and Cantor Michael Davis • Hasia R. Diner • Marjorie N. Feld • Chris Godshall • Ariel Gold • Noah Habeeb • Claris Harbon • Linda Hess • Rabbi Linda Holtzman • Yael Horowitz • Carolyn L. Karcher • Mira Klein • Sydney Levy • Ben Lorber • Shoshana Madmoni-Gerber • Carly Manes • Moriah Ella Mason • Seth Morrison • Eliza Rose Moss-Horwitz • Hilton Obenzinger • Henri Picciotto • Ned Rosch • Rabbi Brant Rosen • Alice Rothchild • Tali Ruskin • Cathy Lisa Schneider • Natalia Dubno Shevin • Ella Shohat • Emily Siegel • Rebecca Subar • Cecilie Surasky • Rebecca Vilkomerson • Rachel Winsberg • Rabbi Alissa Wise • Charlie Wood

Theodor Herzl: Old New Land. (AltNeuLand) First print Leipzig 1902. Translated by Dr. David Simon Blondheim, Federation of American Zionists, 1916 Vollständige Neuausgabe. Herausgegeben von Karl-Maria Guth. Berlin 2015. Umschlaggestaltung von Thomas Schultz-Overhage unter Verwendung des Bildes: Paul Gauguin, Am Fusse des Berges, 1892. Gesetzt aus Minion Pro, 11 pt.