Powerful…. a textured, beautifully written narrative…. There is much to admire in this book, especially Mr. Halevi’s skill at getting inside the hearts and minds of these seven men.” — Ethan Bronner, New York Times
“Mr. Halevi’s masterly book brings us into [the]…debate and the lives of those who live it, not through fiction but through a factual account illuminated by his own intelligence and empathy.” — Elliott Abrams, Wall Street Journal
“Brilliant.” — David Laskin, USA Today
“Like Dreamers is a big book, perhaps the big book on Israel we have been waiting for…. [It] is a remarkable feat of reporting, thrilling, painful, and brilliantly recounted, and an unparalleled portrait of Israel’s last five decades.” — Don Futterman, Daily Beast
“A magnificent book, one of the two or three finest books about Israel I have ever read…. Nothing explains more eloquently why Israel, more than most any other country, lives or dies based on the power and justice of its animating ideas.” — Jeffrey Goldberg, Bloomberg News
“Yossi Klein Halevi has written the Israeli epic.” — Michael Oren, best-selling author of Six Days of War and Israeli Ambassador to Washington
“Like Dreamers is quite simply the best book about modern Israel I have ever read.” — Jonathan Rosen, author of Joy Comes in the Morning .
“Yossi Klein Halevi has long been the most incisive and eloquent journalist writing from Israel for an American audience. This is his masterpiece. ” — Samuel G. Freedman, author of Jew vs. Jew
“Like Dreamers is at once magisterial and enthralling, observed with the sharp eye of a master journalist, the patience of a serious historian and the style of an exceptional storyteller.” — Zev Chafets, author of Roger Ailes: Off Camera
“A fascinating study of modern Israel.” — New York Post
“Halevi’s book is executed with imagination, narrative drive, and, above all, deep empathy for a wide variety of Israelis, and the result is a must-read for anyone with an interest in contemporary Israel and the Israeli-Palestinian conflict.” — Publishers Weekly (starred review)
“[Halevi] tracks the…lives of seven of the Brigade 55 members.… [He] succeeds in his broader goal of linking these men and their families to Israel’s history during the past five decades. This is a beautifully written and sometimes heartbreaking account of these men, their families, and their nation.” — Booklist (starred review)
“An artful, affecting blend of history, biography, political science, and religion and an illustration of how small lights can illuminate a large landscape.” — Kirkus Reviews
“Like Dreamers is an eye-opening, beautifully written account, told through the lives of seven iconic Israeli paratroopers, of the shaping of the state we live in.” — Times of Israel
“Brilliant…. It would make a terrific movie, or even a new book in the Bible…” — Jewish Week
“As a work of political, cultural, and religious history, Like Dreamers is a triumph.” — Jewish Voice
“With compassion and moral imagination, Mr. Halevi helps us see why each side came to the conclusions that it did. In the process, he gives us an unforgettable taste of what he calls ‘the agonizing complexity of Israel’s dilemmas’.” — NY1, video review
“Like Dreamers is a sweeping work… a rich and complex narrative…. And it reads like a novel.” — Tower magazine
“Yossi Klein Halevi’s brilliant account of Israel’s left-right divide is a spellbinding story of people’s evolving views and of conquest’s mixed blessings.” — American Jewish World News
“In his new, magisterial book about Israel, Like Dreamers …Yossi Klein Halevi has… captured the complexity of Israel in human terms.” — New Jersey Jewish News
Powerful…. a textured, beautifully written narrative…. There is much to admire in this book, especially Mr. Halevi’s skill at getting inside the hearts and minds of these seven men.
Brilliant.
A magnificent book, one of the two or three finest books about Israel I have ever read…. Nothing explains more eloquently why Israel, more than most any other country, lives or dies based on the power and justice of its animating ideas.
A fascinating study of modern Israel.
Yossi Klein Halevi has written the Israeli epic.
Like Dreamers is at once magisterial and enthralling, observed with the sharp eye of a master journalist, the patience of a serious historian and the style of an exceptional storyteller.
Like Dreamers is an eye-opening, beautifully written account, told through the lives of seven iconic Israeli paratroopers, of the shaping of the state we live in.
[Halevi] tracks the…lives of seven of the Brigade 55 members.… [He] succeeds in his broader goal of linking these men and their families to Israel’s history during the past five decades. This is a beautifully written and sometimes heartbreaking account of these men, their families, and their nation.
Booklist (starred review)
With compassion and moral imagination, Mr. Halevi helps us see why each side came to the conclusions that it did. In the process, he gives us an unforgettable taste of what he calls ‘the agonizing complexity of Israel’s dilemmas’.
Yossi Klein Halevi’s brilliant account of Israel’s left-right divide is a spellbinding story of people’s evolving views and of conquest’s mixed blessings.
American Jewish World News
As a work of political, cultural, and religious history, Like Dreamers is a triumph.
A fascinating study of modern Israel.
[Halevi's] meticulous, sensitive, detailed reporting…is incredibly effective at making the small big. Over and over again, anecdotes about one religious settler or one secular kibbutznik resonate as powerful metaphors for the state's challenges…the ways these former soldiers' experiences intertwine with better-known names and historical events turn the book from a riveting narrative into a primer on Israel's problematic reality…compared with so many books about Israel, Like Dreamers …is not a polemic, or even an argument. It is refreshingly free of prescriptive language and judgment about a subject too often overwhelmed by people screaming past one another. Halevi depicts the religious Zionists who flouted the law to build early West Bank settlements with the same care and understanding as he does the secular businessmen and artist-peaceniks who see the settlements as immoral obstacles to progress.
The New York Times Book Review - Jodi Rudoren
Mr. Halevi…has created a textured, beautifully written narrative by focusing on seven men…who served in the paratroop brigade that conquered the Old City of Jerusalem in the 1967 war. The seven took distinct paths, a few becoming settler leaders, others active on the left, and in the arts and music…By accompanying these men across the decades we gain a close understanding of many of the country's internal debates. There is much to admire in this book, especially Mr. Halevi's skill at getting inside the hearts and minds of these seven men. He writes with precision and economy, and is especially good at descriptions.
The New York Times - Ethan Bronner
★ 08/26/2013
Mr. Halevi’s masterly book brings us into [the]…debate and the lives of those who live it, not through fiction but through a factual account illuminated by his own intelligence and empathy.
Like Dreamers is quite simply the best book about modern Israel I have ever read.
Yossi Klein Halevi has long been the most incisive and eloquent journalist writing from Israel for an American audience. This is his masterpiece.
Like Dreamers is a big book, perhaps the big book on Israel we have been waiting for…. [It] is a remarkable feat of reporting, thrilling, painful, and brilliantly recounted, and an unparalleled portrait of Israel’s last five decades.
In his new, magisterial book about Israel, Like Dreamers …Yossi Klein Halevi has… captured the complexity of Israel in human terms.
Like Dreamers is a sweeping work… a rich and complex narrative…. And it reads like a novel.
Brilliant…. It would make a terrific movie, or even a new book in the Bible…
2013-08-15At the Entrance to the Garden of Eden: A Jew's Search for God with Christians and Muslims in the Holy Land , 2001, etc.) relates the history of Israel from 1967 to the present by focusing on a handful of individuals from the old 55th and interweaving their divergent and arresting stories. There are, of course, somewhat detailed accounts of wars (1967, 1973--maps included), terrorist attacks, the assassination of Yitzhak Rabin, and negotiations with the PLO and others, but for the most part, Halevi allows his cast members to tell their stories. Among them are Yisrael Harel, who became a journalist; Avital Geva, who eventually had a career in art that dovetailed with his kibbutz life; Yoel Bin-Nun, a Zionist and kibbutz leader; Arik Achmon, whose career varied from aviation to business consultation and politics; Meir Ariel, who became "the greatest Hebrew poet-singer of his generation," then segued into religious studies; Udi Adiv, who became an active anti-Zionist, spent 12 years in prison and then earned a doctorate in London before returning to Israel to teach. Halevi also follows the personal lives of his principals, covering marriages, divorces, family relationships, and children, and he shows how some of them became political and religious opponents. Among the most divisive issues: the surrender of lands (the Sinai, the West Bank) gained in 1967, the issue of settlements in disputed territories, and the debate about "peace at any cost" and Zionism itself. An artful, affecting blend of history, biography, political science, and religion and an illustration of how small lights can illuminate a large landscape.
