April 23, 2013
12:43 pm
12:43 pm
Topic: Book of the Times
April 9, 2013
4:08 pm
4:08 pm
King Of The Class: By Gila Green
Eve is only partly paying attention. She never could understand the way the kibbutz worked and she certainly never wanted to get involved with the national politics leading to the civil war; especially not the religious issues. “Moving Yom Kippur to the first of May to coincide with Worker’s Day,” Jordi continues, knowing very well that Eve isn’t going to respond. “Tell me if you’ve ever heard of anything so ridiculous?” “Whatever,” Eve answers, too preoccupied with her missing fiancé to care, let alone the fact that she doesn’t know anything about the Worker’s Day holiday the kibbutz rejuvenated after the split between the two countries.
March 8, 2013
12:57 pm
12:57 pm
Half Life: Reflections from Jerusalem on a Broken Neck, by Joshua Prager
“Am I paralyzed? Am I going to die?” Those were the questions Joshua Prager asked a paramedic on May 16, 1990, after the minibus he’d been traveling in during a visit to Israel was blindsided by a runaway truck. He had been an exuberant, athletic nineteen-year-old, an aspiring doctor and an all-star baseball player who loved the Yankees. The accident, in which Prager suffered a broken neck, instantly turned his life from “before” to “after.”
February 14, 2013
1:36 pm
1:36 pm
A Zionist among Palestinians, by Hillel Bardin
Hillel Bardin, a confirmed Zionist, was a reservist in the Israeli army during the first intifada when he met Palestinians arrested by his unit. He learned that they supported peace with Israel and the then-taboo proposal for a two-state solution. Bardin began to organize dialogues between Arabs and Israelis in West Bank villages, towns, and refugee camps.
January 11, 2013
12:34 pm
12:34 pm
The People of Forever are not Afraid, by Shani Boianjiu
Yael, Avishag, and Lea grow up together in a tiny, dusty Israeli village, watching ‘Sex and the City’ and ‘Dawson’s Creek’ like all typical teenagers. When they are conscripted into the army, their lives change in unpredictable ways, influencing the women they become and the friendship that they struggle to sustain
December 17, 2012
1:00 pm
1:00 pm
Enfold Me, by Steven Greenberg
Precipitated by a massive earthquake and an Iranian-led attack, Israel’s fall rips Daniel Blum from his happy rural life and a thriving career at a prestigious biological research facility. Torn from his family and deeply scarred both physically and psychologically, he journeys from the terror of Iranian-controlled Northern Liberated Palestine, through the perils of no-man’s-land deep under the Carmel mountains, into earthquake-ravaged Tel Aviv, and ultimately to fulfill a mission in the ruins of the Israeli governmental research complex in Nes Ziona
November 12, 2012
2:40 pm
2:40 pm
Baghdad Fixer, by Ilene Prusher
Nabil al-Amari is an English teacher in Baghdad, in Saddam’s Iraq, when a chance encounter with Samara Katchens, an American journalist covering the war, changes his life forever. It is April 2003 and American and British forces have recently invaded Iraq. Samara, or Sam for short, is ambitious, cynical and determined. Nabil is both fascinated and bewildered by her, and he’s keen to show her things she doesn’t notice in her rush to cover the news. In her determination to uncover the truth, she takes one gamble too many
October 28, 2012
11:53 am
11:53 am
What’s Next for the Startup Nation? by Uri Goldberg
‘What’s Next for the Startup Nation?’ examines the future of Israel’s phenomenal economic growth. The country’s position as a center for groundbreaking technological innovation has been a result of forward thinking government policies and unique historical circumstance. Now, as global and domestic challenges are threatening to wipe out Israel’s economic achievements, old policies are unlikely to remain effective. Focusing on Israel, this book offers a blueprint for fostering a strong environment of innovation while sustaining a vibrant economy
October 2, 2012
3:46 pm
3:46 pm
Rereading Israel: The Spirit of the Matter, by Bonna Devora Haberman
‘Rereading Israel: The Spirit of the Matter’ refreshes current conversations about Israel, while setting aside vitriolic debates and worn postures. This book opens Jewish sources to interpret Israel in critical, innovative, and inspiring ways. Rereading Israel presents an opportunity to engage ethically, intellectually, and emotionally — challenging us to apply our finest resources to grapple honestly and creatively with land and people, history, text, and spirit. Especially when Israel is embattled, this book peels open fruitful and compelling perspectives
September 2, 2012
3:56 pm
3:56 pm
The Promise of Israel, by Daniel Gordis
Israel’s critics in the West insist that no country founded on a single religion or culture can stay democratic and prosperous—but they’re wrong. In ‘The Promise of Israel,’ Daniel Gordis points out that Israel has defied that conventional wisdom. It has provided its citizens infinitely greater liberty and prosperity than anyone expected, faring far better than any other young nation. Given Israel’s success, it would make sense for many other countries, from Rwanda to Afghanistan and even Iran, to look at how they’ve done it
August 15, 2012
2:47 pm
2:47 pm
A Kosher Dating Odyssey, by Van Wallach
A Kosher Dating Odyssey: One Former Texas Baptist’s Quest for a Naughty & Nice Jewish Girl tracks the progress of the author’s jolting changes in belief as he enters the world of dating pre- and post-Internet. Van Wallach is the product of a small-town Texas upbringing, a Princeton education and years of New York City and posh Connecticut living. The stories of his pursuit of romance — from Brooklyn to Brazil and beyond — provide a wry, revealing, and distinctly male perspective on Jewish online dating
July 3, 2012
3:43 pm
3:43 pm
Jacob’s Return, by Andrew Tertes
Jacob Goldman is a deeply conflicted man. Having dismissed his own Jewish heritage as uninspiring and irrelevant, Jacob has struggled to find meaning through his affinity with the natural world and through his wife Sheila’s deep alliances to her own Native American tribe and culture. When Sheila is struck with a motorboat while on vacation in Hawaii, Jacob’s already crumbling world is shattered. We enter Sheila’s consciousness while she witnesses her life fluttering away as she is lying comatose in her hospital bed
May 30, 2012
6:04 pm
6:04 pm
Hiding Places, by Diane Wyshogrod
What’s it like to spend sixteen months in hiding, crouching in a tiny cellar, during the dark years of World War II? To know that many of your friends and relatives have either been shot or sent to concentration camps? In ‘Hiding Places,’ Dr. Diane Wyshogrod traces the process of discovery and self-discovery as she researched the experiences of her mother, Helen Rosenberg, who as a teenager hid in just such a cellar, in Zhovkva, Poland
May 20, 2012
3:27 pm
3:27 pm
The Aleppo Codex, by Matti Friedman
In an age when physical books matter less and less, here is a thrilling story about a book that meant everything. This true-life detective story unveils the journey of a sacred text — the tenth-century annotated bible known as the Aleppo Codex — from its hiding place in a Syrian synagogue to the newly founded state of Israel. Based on the independent research of The Times of Israel reporter Matti Friedman, documents kept secret for fifty years, and personal interviews with key players, the book proposes a new theory of what happened when the codex left Aleppo, Syria, in the late 1940s and eventually surfaced in Jerusalem, mysteriously incomplete
April 29, 2012
10:46 am
10:46 am
Second Person Singular, by Sayed Kashua
Acclaimed novelist Sayed Kashua, the creator of the groundbreaking Israeli sitcom, ‘Arab Labor,’ has been widely praised for his literary eye and deadpan wit. His new novel is considered internationally to be his most accomplished and entertaining work yet. Translated by The Times of Israel’s military correspondent, Mitch Ginsburg, ‘Second Person Singular’ is a deliciously complex psychological mystery and a searing dissection of the individuals that make up a divided society
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