Israel: A Concise History of a Nation Reborn

Whether you are openly antisemitic, quietly biased, or solidly pro-Israel, no one can rationally deny the impact the State of Israel has made on the international scene since its creation in 1948. In the years following WWII, about a hundred new sovereign countries have emerged, but only a handful of them are democracies, and none of them can boast the economic success of Israel. No other country occupies the concerns of the UN, aiming more than a third of its total resolutions at Israel. No other sovereignty ignites controversy with quite the intensity as Israel.

On the threshold of the hundred year anniversary since the Balfour Declaration, you will find volumes of material detailing Israel’s creation and history; however, none of them is as succinct as Gordis’s most recent contribution. You will appreciate the organization, maps, glossary of “non-English terms,” and the mini-biographies of key figures. More critically, you will enjoy the fluid motion of Gordis’s writing style, which somehow condenses thousands of details into memorable, thought-provoking passages.

“Living in Israel meant knowing that there was no keyhole through which to glimpse the future”. Nevertheless, Gordis grants us more than a peek at the past and present.