Israel: Is It Good for the Jews?
A very personal journey through Jewish history (and Cohen’s own), and a passionate defense of Israel’s legitimacy.

Richard Cohen’s book is part reportage, part memoir—an intimate journey through the history of Europe’s Jews, culminating in the establishment of Israel. A veteran, syndicated columnist for The Washington Post, Cohen began this journey as a skeptic, wondering in a national column whether the creation of a Jewish State was “a mistake.”

As he recounts, he delved into his own and Jewish history and fell in love with the story of the Jews and Israel, a twice-promised land—in the Bible by God, and by the world to the remnants of Europe’s Jews. This promise, he writes, was made in atonement not just for the Holocaust, but for the callous indifference that preceded World War II and followed it—and that still threatens.

Cohen’s account is full of stories—from the nineteenth century figures who imagined a Zionist country, including Theodore Herzl, who thought it might resemble Vienna with its cafes and music; to what happened in twentieth century Poland to his own relatives; and to stories of his American boyhood.

Cohen describes his relationship with Israel as a sort of marriage: one does not always get along but one is faithful.
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Israel: Is It Good for the Jews?
A very personal journey through Jewish history (and Cohen’s own), and a passionate defense of Israel’s legitimacy.

Richard Cohen’s book is part reportage, part memoir—an intimate journey through the history of Europe’s Jews, culminating in the establishment of Israel. A veteran, syndicated columnist for The Washington Post, Cohen began this journey as a skeptic, wondering in a national column whether the creation of a Jewish State was “a mistake.”

As he recounts, he delved into his own and Jewish history and fell in love with the story of the Jews and Israel, a twice-promised land—in the Bible by God, and by the world to the remnants of Europe’s Jews. This promise, he writes, was made in atonement not just for the Holocaust, but for the callous indifference that preceded World War II and followed it—and that still threatens.

Cohen’s account is full of stories—from the nineteenth century figures who imagined a Zionist country, including Theodore Herzl, who thought it might resemble Vienna with its cafes and music; to what happened in twentieth century Poland to his own relatives; and to stories of his American boyhood.

Cohen describes his relationship with Israel as a sort of marriage: one does not always get along but one is faithful.
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Israel: Is It Good for the Jews?

Israel: Is It Good for the Jews?

by Richard M. Cohen
Israel: Is It Good for the Jews?

Israel: Is It Good for the Jews?

by Richard M. Cohen

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Overview

A very personal journey through Jewish history (and Cohen’s own), and a passionate defense of Israel’s legitimacy.

Richard Cohen’s book is part reportage, part memoir—an intimate journey through the history of Europe’s Jews, culminating in the establishment of Israel. A veteran, syndicated columnist for The Washington Post, Cohen began this journey as a skeptic, wondering in a national column whether the creation of a Jewish State was “a mistake.”

As he recounts, he delved into his own and Jewish history and fell in love with the story of the Jews and Israel, a twice-promised land—in the Bible by God, and by the world to the remnants of Europe’s Jews. This promise, he writes, was made in atonement not just for the Holocaust, but for the callous indifference that preceded World War II and followed it—and that still threatens.

Cohen’s account is full of stories—from the nineteenth century figures who imagined a Zionist country, including Theodore Herzl, who thought it might resemble Vienna with its cafes and music; to what happened in twentieth century Poland to his own relatives; and to stories of his American boyhood.

Cohen describes his relationship with Israel as a sort of marriage: one does not always get along but one is faithful.

Product Details

ISBN-13: 9781416584278
Publisher: Simon & Schuster
Publication date: 09/16/2014
Sold by: SIMON & SCHUSTER
Format: eBook
Pages: 288
File size: 3 MB

About the Author

Richard Cohen is the author of By the Sword, Chasing the Sun, and How to Write Like Tolstoy. The former publishing director of two leading London publishing houses, he has edited books that have won the Pulitzer, Booker, and Whitbread/Costa prizes, while twenty-one have been #1 bestsellers. He has written for most UK quality newspapers as well as for The New York Times Book Review and The Wall Street Journal, and is a Fellow of the Royal Society of Literature. Connect with him on Facebook @RichardCohenAuthor and Twitter @AboutRichard.     

Table of Contents

1 The Great Mistake 1

2 The Founder 12

3 Anti-Semitism: A Gift to the Jews 25

4 Yiddishe Kops Everywhere You Look 39

5 Thirty-Nine Steps Toward World Domination 45

6 Rudolph the Shirtmaker Dies in the Bronx 55

7 Jew, Jew, Who's a Jew? 64

8 Democracy: Is It Good for the Jews? 78

9 Anti-Semitism Among the Semites 89

10 A Sensation at Saratoga 102

11 Twenty Thousand Charming Children, Twenty Thousand Ugly Adults 115

12 You Can't Go Home Again 126

13 A Bald-Headed Son of a Bitch to the Rescue 137

14 Ethnic Cleansing for a Better World 156

15 Nakba… or Not 168

16 Two Grandmothers and a Lake 185

17 Jabotinsky Was Right 193

18 Jabotinsky Was Wrong 204

19 Dinner with Sinatra and Tracy 217

20 The Man on the Beach 237

Acknowledgments 245

Note on Sources 247

Bibliography 251

Index 263

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