The ancient teachings of Jewish mysticism--Kabbalah--speak of the urgent need to rectify the world, instructing us how to mend the tattered fabric of our lives, as individuals and as active contributors to humanity's destiny. Today, the dream of Jewish security and cultural revival in Israel seems to be threatened as never before. After nearly two thousand years of exile, the Zionist dream--return to their homeland by the Jewish people--is fraught with challenge. Rabbi Ginsburgh analyzes the current crisis from a Kabbalistic perspective, and offers solutions that are both practical and in keeping with a spiritual approach to the problem. In this book, he outlines a practical program for healing the ills of the State of Israel in its approach to reestablishing a homeland. The proposals are at once profound and down-to-earth, and permeated by an optimism and love for the Jewish people and all humanity. Includes glossary, footnotes, and index.

A PopMatters Best Book of the Year A perceptive study of how Israel’s actions, which run counter to the traditional historical values of Judaism, are putting Jewish people worldwide in an increasingly untenable position, now with a new introduction. More than a decade ago, the historian Tony Judt considered whether the behavior of Israel was becoming not only “bad for Israel itself” but also, on a wider scale, “bad for the Jews.” Under the leadership of Benjamin Netanyahu, this issue has grown ever more urgent. In The State of Israel vs. the Jews, veteran journalist Sylvain Cypel addresses it in depth, exploring Israel’s rightward shift on the international scene and with regard to the diaspora. Cypel reviews the little-known details of the military occupation of Palestinian territory, the mindset of ethnic superiority that reigns throughout an Israeli “colonial camp” that is largely in the majority, and the adoption of new laws, the most serious of which establishes two-tier citizenship between Jews and non-Jews. He shows how Israel has aligned itself with authoritarian regimes and adopted the practices of a security state, including the use of technologies such as the software that enabled the tracking and, ultimately, the assassination of Saudi Arabian journalist Jamal Khashoggi. Lastly, The State of Israel vs. the Jews examines the impact of Israel’s evolution in recent years on the two main communities of the Jewish diaspora, in France and the United States, considering how and why public figures in each differ in their approaches.

Internationally known historian and rabbi Arthur Hertzberg, best known for his classic The Zionist Idea, challenges us to reexamine the case for the legitimacy of the state of Israel from a secular point of view. He argues that the religious blinders of absolute thinking and hatred have obscured our vision. In this time of great turmoil in the Mideast, when conflict represents a potential nuclear threat to the region and to the world, it is an argument that is more relevant and urgent than ever. Charting a pragmatic middle path between the Israeli right wing and critics like Edward Said and Noam Chomsky, Hertzberg chronicles the conflict between the original secular vision of Israel and the illusions that came in the subsequent riptide of Israeli triumphalism and the myths of messianism. The deep need of the Israeli people for both power and security has created a paradox, one that can only be solved when the deeper question of legitimacy is addressed in a clear-eyed, secular fashion, away from the growing threat of clashing right wings and religious violence. Hertzberg calls us to go back to the future, to the original idea behind the founding of Israel -- that a people persecuted, marginalized, and murdered under state sanction need a safe land, a place to be independent and free. Between the growing religiously motivated blindness of the right wing (Arab, Jewish, and American Christian), and the one-sided blindness of the Western liberal intelligentsia, it has become difficult to see the future. Hertzberg calls on the United States to use its power and influence to help recover the original Zionist intent and settle the questions of legitimacy and coexistence for both Israelis and Palestinians. During his entire career, Hertzberg has been at once supportive of the right to existence of the state of Israel but also a fierce critic of some of its policies -- particularly the abuse of religious sentiments in the social arena. Realistic about the Palestinian injustice that is precipitated, Hertzberg offers a framework for a hopeful solution in a post-religious Zionist realpolitik.

As the Middle East conflict enters its most violent phase, Tom Segev offers a lively, contentious polemic against cherished and rigid notions of Israel's national unity and culture. In his many works of history, Tom Segev has challenged the entrenched understanding of crucial moments in Israel's past. Now, in a short, sharp, polemical book, Segev has turned his sights from Israeli history to confront some revered assumptions about the country today. Drawing on personal experience as well as all kinds of artifacts from Israeli popular culture -- shopping malls, fast food, public art, television, religious kitsch -- Segev offers a controversial point of view: the sweeping Americanization of the country, rued by most, has had an extraordinarily beneficial influence, bringing not only McDonald's and Dunkin' Donuts but the virtues of pragmatism, tolerance, and individualism. And, in the fierce battle over the future of Zionism, Segev welcomes the diffusion of national identity and ideology that has taken place in the last decade as a harbinger of a new spirit of compromise and openness. At a time of crisis, as Israelis and Palestinians retreat to their most embattled positions, Segev's colorful, provocative book is sure to spark heated debate. " ... this slender book will be indispensable to anyone trying to understand current events in Israel and the Middle East." - Publishers Weekly

The phrase, "A Jewish state in the Land of Israel" plucks at the deepest heartstrings of every yearning Jew. For generations, since the destruction of the Temple and the exile to the diaspora, we have believed and hoped, prayed and dreamed about the ingathering of the exiles and our return to living in our Land standing tall, asking God to "break the yoke of the nations from over our necks and lead us to our land standing tall." The ultimate goal of our yearning is the complete redemption, the arrival of Mashiach and the construction of the Temple. There is no doubt that a Jewish state is an essential and central component of the grand picture of the redemption of the Jewish People. Yet, it is clear that the state that was established on 5th Iyar 5708 (1948), as it stands today, is still a far cry from that dreamlike vision that has warmed our hearts for almost two thousand years. It is not difficult to understand why many Torah and mitzvah observant Jews are reluctant to identify themselves with the state and its symbols. Attesting to this problem are the festivities of Yom Ha'atzmaut, around which rages a long and intense controversy within the religious community in Israel. One might suppose that the differences of opinions will not end in the near future. However, we can and must arise above them and join together when it comes to the main issue, which is: what type of state do we want and what are we doing to achieve it? This is a constructive and positive activity that not only relates to what has been and what currently exists, but mainly turns its face to the future with the goal of rectifying and healing reality.

The one intelligent overview of Israeli politics that addresses the paradox at the heart of Israeli statehood: How can Israel be both a Jewish state and a democratic state?

Prominent Israeli journalist GershomGorenbergoffers a penetrating and provocativelook at how the balance of power in Israel has shifted toward extremism,threatening the prospects for peace and democracy as the Israeli-Palestinianconflict intensifies. Informing his examination using interviews in Israel andthe West Bank and with access to previously classified Israeli documents, Gorenberg delivers an incisive discussion of the causes andtrends of extremism in Israel’s government and society. Michael Chabon, Pulitzer Prize-winning author of The AmazingAdventures of Kavalier and Clay, writes, "until I read The Unmaking of Israel, I didn't think it could bepossible to feel more despairing, and then more terribly hopeful, about Israel,a place that I began at last, under the spell of GershomGorenberg's lucid and dispassionate yet intenselypersonal writing, to understand."