11/15/2018
Award-winning Israeli author Oz (A Tale of Love and Darkness) presents a collection of three essays seeking "the listening ear of those whose opinions differ from" his own. The first piece, from which the book's title is taken, begins by considering the rise of both Islamic and Jewish fanaticism. The second, "Many Lights Not One Light," refers to a range of religious literature in describing Oz's understanding of Judaism as a culture rather than a religion or nationality. He concludes that Israel and the Jews would be better off when they recognize that Judaism has evolved over the years, and suggests that the nation and its residents should change as the world changes. The last section, "Dreams Israel Should Let Go of Soon," deals directly, as the first two did more generally, with the need for a two-state solution. Oz is perhaps the most eloquent of a number of contemporary Israeli writers in advocating for a two-state solution to the Israeli-Palestinian conflict and bringing reason to the situation. VERDICT An important collection on how to listen and live with our neighbors. For all interested in the future of Israel.—Joel Neuberg, Santa Rosa Junior Coll. Lib., CA
★ 08/13/2018
Readers unfamiliar with Israeli author and public intellectual Oz (Judas) will find this collection of three essays, adapted from a series of lectures, a good introduction to his nuanced perspective. The title entry, about “the nature of fanaticism and the ways we might curtail it,” will have the broadest appeal; Oz examines zealotry in general terms, noting that it predates Judaism, Christianity, and Islam and is not currently limited to radical Islam. His unabashed willingness to discuss “the fanaticism in almost all of Jewish-Israeli society” stems from his experiences while growing up in British-ruled Jerusalem. There, along with other children, he threw stones at the occupying troops in what Oz provocatively terms the “original intifada.” His refusal to exempt himself from the label of fanatic suggests a way forward—of individuals embracing the responsibility of “handling the little fanatic who hides, more or less, inside each of our souls.” Oz is similarly clear-eyed in the other two essays, “Many Lights, Not One Light,” an analysis of Judaism, and “Dreams Israel Should Let Go of Soon.” Providing a worthy companion volume to Yossi Klein Halevi’s Letters to My Palestinian Neighbor, Oz’s book leaves readers with a strong message about the need for a greater societywide openness to doubt and ambiguity. (Nov.)
A Finalist for the National Jewish Book Award—Modern Jewish Thought and Experience “Daring ridiculousness may be American Judaism’s most important survival tool, the willingness to reach deep and to search both within the tradition and outside it in order to make the religion feel alive...the Israeli novelist Amos Oz praises this quality of Jewishness, the ‘anarchist core, the rebellious gene’ that prompts constant interpretation, reinterpretation and counterinterpretation.”—Gal Beckerman, New York Times Book Review "Amos Oz is one of Israel’s most prolific, celebrated writers, capturing the past and exploring the present in more than 30 novels, dozens of essays and hundreds of articles. But his latest book, Dear Zealots: Letters from a Divided Land, may contain his most urgent message yet."—Ruth Eglash, Washington Post "Readers unfamiliar with Israeli author and public intellectual Oz will find this collection of three essays, adapted from a series of lectures, a good introduction to his nuanced perspective...Clear-eyed...Providing a worthy companion volume to Yossi Klein Halevi’s Letters to My Palestinian Neighbor, Oz’s book leaves readers with a strong message about the need for a greater societywide openness to doubt and ambiguity."—Publishers Weekly, Starred Review "Three passionate lectures about the state of politics in Israel. In this rumination about the country he loves and whose policies make him ashamed, novelist and peace activist Oz sounds humorous, mournful, enraged, and uplifting...Oz maintains there's rarely been a better moment to make peace than now...Slender but forceful."—Kirkus Reviews “Concise, evocative . . . Dear Zealots is not just a book of thoughts and ideas—it is a depiction of one man’s struggle, who for decades has insisted on keeping a sharp, strident and lucid perspective in the face of chaos and at times of madness.”—David Grossman "Celebrated Israeli novelist Oz writes nonfiction, too, including the three essays collected here, relevant to our polarized, populist world: they treat the nature of fanaticism, the Jewish roots of humanism (and the need for a secular appreciation of Israel), and Israel’s geopolitical standing. Oz says he wrote them for his grandchildren, but they’re good for us all."—Barbara Hoffert, Library Journal Pre-Pub Alert —
2018-07-31
Three passionate lectures about the state of politics in Israel.
In this rumination about the country he loves and whose policies make him ashamed, novelist and peace activist Oz (Judas, 2016, etc.) sounds humorous, mournful, enraged, and uplifting. In the title essay, "Dear Zealots," the author argues, noncontroversially, that zealotry can be found among all peoples, places, and religions. Oz particularly bemoans not only Islamic fanaticism, but Jewish fanaticism. In one of the book's sharpest insights, he suggests that Jewish-Israeli fanaticism is increasing in part because while the Holocaust and Stalinism seemed to have infused people, for a few decades, with a fear of extremism, that "gift" is fading as the years pass. The second piece locates the "heart of Judaism" in the call to protect, and demand justice for, the weak and the oppressed. Oz argues that Israel is moving further away from that heart and that the left has too readily accepted the idea that real Judaism is the possession of the ultra-Orthodox or the settlers, not of the justice-seeking secularists. In one of the book's most memorable lines, which could serve as a fitting slogan for the Zionist left and its allies around the world, the author declares, "what occurs inside the borders is exponentially more important than what their outline should be." In the final essay, Oz urges a two-state solution, the national equivalent, writes the author, of a duplex. If that doesn't happen soon, there will be "an Arab state from the Mediterranean to the Jordan" preceded by "a racist regime" of "fanatic Jews" trying to prevent said Arab state and possibly by a bloodbath. It's a pessimistic prophecy, but Oz maintains there's rarely been a better moment to make peace than now. And while a peace treaty won't make everything perfect, without one, "things will be worse."
Slender but forceful.
