Menachem Mendel

I have three book recommendations for this week. The first is 1948: A History of the First Arab-Israeli War by Benny Morris. I can’t think of any other book that gives such a blow-by-blow description of the battle fought to establish the State of Israel. For reviews of Morris’s book see here and here. Another book is Martin Gilbert’s Israel: A History. I haven’t finished Gilbert’s book, but it has been an enjoyable read so far. I would have liked footnotes and more documentation, but the book is not meant for the footnote-addicted community. It is extremely difficult to describe in some detail sixty years of Israel, but I think that Gilbert has done a very commendable job. See here for a review of Gilbert’s book.

Lastly, I want to recommend Hillel Halkin’s Yehuda Halevi. The entire book is worth reading, but the last chapter is really why I think you should read it. In this last chapter Halkin addresses modern interpretations of Yehuda Halevi’s life and work. How writers and scholars have addressed the question of the Jewish poet who wrote in Arabic, left his birthplace, and eventually made his way to the Land of Israel. Did he abandon the Jewish-Arab Convivencia, or did he live true to his people’s destiny. During high school I first read Halkin’s Letters to an American Jewish Friend: A Zionist’s Polemic and it forever changed my life. Then I didn’t agree with everything that he wrote, nor do I today, but it has never left me. That it is out-of-print says something. Towards the end of Halkin’s new book on Yehuda Halevi he returns to his earlier book, Letters, tying the two of them together. I am sure that many will find Halkin’s Zionism too much for them, or disagree with his conclusions, but better to be bothered than complacent.

יהי רצון…

Posted on April 18th, 2010 under Book Reviews, Israel, Jewish History • RSS 2.0 feed • Both comments and pings are currently closed