Coming Together, Coming Apart: A Memoir of Heartbreak and Promise in Israel

by Daniel Gordis

Overview

Praise for Coming Together, Coming Apart


"Interesting conversation is Israel's most ingratiating commodity, and this is an especially interesting one. To read Coming Together, Coming Apart is to be engaged in an ongoing dialogue with one of Israel's most thoughtful observers--an American who made Israel his home, despite its imperfections and dangers. Gordis's conversational narrative is irresistible."
--Alan dershowitz, author of The Case for Israel

"Whether describing a walk through Jerusalem in snow, a hike in the desert, or a farewell family drive to the Gaza settlements, Gordis manages to capture the essential details that tell us the larger meaning of our Israeli lives. There is much irony in this book, and also anger, especially against those who unfairly judge Israel in its most desperate and noble times. Most of all, though, this book is the chronicle of a love story--of an immigrant family in Jerusalem falling in love with Israel and, through that love, discovering the strength to cope with life on the front lines of a jihadist war. As a fellow Jerusalemite, I feel a profound debt to Gordis for explaining what it means to raise a family in the middle of a terror zone, and the courage that average Israelis instinctively display in maintaining the pretense of normal life. Those of us who share his passion are fortunate to be so well represented by this book."
--Yossi Klein Halevi, Foreign Correspondent, The New Republic

Product Details

ISBN-13:	9781118040812
Publisher:	Trade Paper Press
Publication date:	12/07/2010
Sold by:	Barnes & Noble
Format:	eBook
Pages:	272
File size:	380 KB

About the Author

Daniel Gordis is vice president of the Mandel Foundation–Israel. His work has appeared in a variety of journals, including the New York Times, Tikkun, the Forward, and the New York Times Magazine. He is the author of several books, including If a Place Can Make You Cry: Dispatches from an Anxious State.

Table of Contents

Prologue.

A HAVEN, A BATTLEGROUND.

What Did You Learn in School Today?

I Wonder If This Is What Peace Is Like?

On Reentries.

The Masks We Wear.

No Other Land.

It’s All about Questions.

AN ENDING, A BEGINNING.

Nine Things Worth Remembering.

When Magical Thinking Will Not Suffice.

A Place Where Life Goes through You.

The Bearable Lightness of Peace.

Shattered.

In That Split Second.

What’s a Disengagement?

LOST, AND FOUND.

Plus Ça Change, N’est-Ce Pas?

Difficult Choices, Irreparable Losses.

Coming Home.

A Plane, A Bus, and a Trial.

The Morning After.

Unacceptable. Unjust.

Tell Shlomo.

An Ode to Ambivalence.

Three Girls, Three Graves, One Torah.

WOUNDED, AND HEALING.

Born Again.

And the Land Was Tranquil.

What Divides Us.

To Hell in a Handbasket.

Even the Victors Ought to Mourn.

A Reprieve.

A Talmudic Warning.

This Is Why We’re Here.

A WAGER, AND A PRAYER.

Lucky, Don’t You Think?

Yeah, Right.

The Bird’s Nest in Shul.

A Rock and a Hard Place.

Exodus(es), Redux.

Child’s Play.

Good, As Good As Can Be.

Coming Attractions?

One Ribbon Has to Go.

Reengagement.

There Are No Words.

Acknowledgments.

Credits.

What People are Saying About This

From the Publisher

"Whether describing a walk through Jerusalem in snow, a hike in the desert or a farewell family drive to the Gaza settlements, Gordis manages to capture the essential details that tell us the larger meaning of our Israeli lives. There is much irony in this book, and also anger, especially against those who unfairly judge Israel in its most desperate and noble times. Most of all, though, this book is the chronicle of a love story - of an immigrant family in Jerusalem falling in love with Israel and, through that love, discovering the strength to cope with life on the front lines of a Jihadist war. As a fellow Jerusalemite, I feel a profound debt to Gordis for explaining what it means to raise a family in the middle of a terror zone, and the courage that average Israelis instinctively display in maintaining the pretense of normal life. Those of us who share his passion are fortunate to be so well represented by this book."
—Yossi Klein Halevi, Foreign Correspondent, The New Republic

"Interesting conversation is Israel's most ingratiating commodity, and this is an especially interesting one. To read Coming Together, Coming Apartis to be engaged in an ongoing dialogue with one of Israel's most thoughtful observers - an American who made Israel his home, despite its imperfections and dangers. Gordis's conversational narrative is irresistible."
—Alan Dershowitz, author of The Case for Israel