Book Reviews for JPSR Fall 2013, Volume 25, Numbers 3–4
Book Reviews Wolfgang G. Schwanitz, Islam in Europa, Revolten in Mittelost: Islamismus und Genozid von Wilhelm II. und Enver Pascha über Hitler und al-Husaini bis Arafat, Usama bin Ladin und Ahmadinejad sowie Gespräche mit Bernard Lewis [Islam in Europe, Revolts in the Middle East: Islamism and Genocide from William II and Enver Pasha through Hitler […]
Mending the World
To understand how the concept of tikkun olam arose, we have to travel back in time to one of the turning-points in Jewish history: the Spanish expulsion and its aftermath.
Tikkun Olam, Israel and a Just World Order
Several months before he was elected president, Barack Obama invoked the term “tikkun olam” (literally, repairing the world) in order to create a common bond with his American Jewish audience.
Tikkun Olam: A Case of Semantic Displacement
The term “tikkun olam” has become the shibboleth of American Jewry, and like other Jewish words such as “chutzpah” it has entered English vocabulary without translation.
Africa and Israel, A Unique case of Radical Changes in Foreign Policy, by Arye Oded
Africa Ve’Israel, Yehudiut Vetahapuhot Be’Yehase Hutz shel Israel [Africa and Israel, A Unique case of Radical Changes in Foreign Policy], by Arye Oded, Magnes Press, Hebrew University of Jerusalem, 2011, (in Hebrew). Reviewed by Yosef Govrin In his new work, Ambassador Arye Oded has enriched the historiography of Israel’s foreign policy in general and of […]
Heroes, Hucksters, and Storytellers: On the Jewish Military Union (ŻZW)
This book is written by two historians, one a Pole, Dariusz Libionka, and the other an Israeli, Laurence Weinbaum.
Zionism in the Shadow of the Pyramids: The Zionist Movement in Egypt: 1918–1948, by Ruth Kimche
Zionism in the Shadow of the Pyramids: The Zionist Movement in Egypt: 1918–1948, by Ruth Kimche, Am Oved Publishers, 2009, 850 pp. (in Hebrew) Reviewed by Michelle Mazel This important work, yet to be translated into English, covers thirty fateful years in the long history of the Jews of Egypt. Zionism in the Shadow of […]
Evangelical Anti-Zionism as an Adaptive Response to Shifts in American Cultural Attitudes
INTRODUCTION Since the founding of the Jewish state in 1948, Evangelical Protestants in the United States have been regarded—with good reason—as Israel’s most reliable supporters. In 2008, Jody C. Baumgartner and a number of other researchers reported that Evangelicals are “more likely than other Americans to have sympathy for Israel in its dispute with the […]
Charles Taylor and Jewish Identity in the Twenty-First Century
INTRODUCTION: THE CHALLENGE OF DIVERGENCE The Jewish world is losing its ability to discuss its cultural differences. Our intra-Jewish dialogue is becoming less coherent. Indeed, the very ideas underlying our Jewish identities, ideas shaped by our language of values, are diverging. The language we use to describe our values is becoming more specific to the […]
‘Land Swaps’ and the 1967 Lines
Where did the idea of land swaps come from? True, they have been part of the Israeli discourse among peace process experts for years, but were they legally required?
Battle for our Minds: Western Elites and the Terror Threat, by Michael Widlanski, Threshold Editions, Simon and Schuster
Battle for our Minds: Western Elites and the Terror Threat, by Michael Widlanski, Threshold Editions, Simon and Schuster. 373 pp. Reviewed by Lela Gilbert Western reactions to Islamist terror attacks inevitably range from disbelief to horror. Author Michael Widlanski knows a great deal about terrorism, and his response is outrage. He makes this perfectly clear […]
Saturday People, Sunday People: Israel through the Eyes of a Christian Sojourner, by Lela Gilbert
The title of Gilbert’s book alludes to an oft-repeated slogan of radical Muslims: “On Saturday we kill the Jews, on Sunday we kill the Christians.”
The Eichmann Trial, by Deborah E. Lipstadt
Deborah E. Lipstadt is a professor of Modern Jewish History and Holocaust Studies at Emory University.
FDR and the Jews. by Breitman, Richard and Allan J. Lichtman
On the one hand, critics of FDR condemn the then-president for having stood by while Hitler and the Nazis persecuted the Jews of Germany and subsequently attempted to carry out their “Final Solution.”
Louis Marshall and the Rise of Jewish Ethnicity in America, A Biography, by M. M. Silver
M. M. Silver, an American-Israeli historian who teaches at the Max Stern College of Emek Yezreel in Israel, has produced an extensively researched and heavily documented study of Louis Marshall, the early twentieth-century American-Jewish leader.
