Fathom

Latest Issue Spring / 2023

Diary from Jerusalem | Calev Ben-Dor | Israel’s Rebellion

By Calev Ben-Dor
 Fathom deputy editor Calev Ben Dor reflects on a tumultuous few days in Israel and tries to make... Read more > March 2023

Book Review | Everyday Hate: How Antisemitism Is Built Into Our World and How You Can Change It

By Sarah Brown
 Everyday Hate’s clarity and engaging style make it an invaluable introduction to antisemitism; however, it also has plenty... Read more > March 2023

‘I am one of those liberals who got mugged by reality’: An Interview with Gadi Taub

By Gabriel Noah Brahm
 When Fathom launched we promised there would likely be a piece in every issue with which you would... Read more > March 2023

For Political Compromise, and then Judicial Reform

By Donna Robinson Divine
 Judicial reform is necessary, but if there is no compromise on its character the full measure of damage... Read more > March 2023

‘A lachrymose conception of 20th century North African Jewish history’: A Rejoinder to Lyn Julius

By Sam Shube
 In the previous issue of Fathom we carried Sam Shube’s analysis of Israel’s ethno-political divide and a critical... Read more > March 2023

‘The Mizrahim recognised that the antisemitism fuelling the conflict between Israelis and Arabs was the same as that which they...

By Lyn Julius
 Lyn Julius replies again to Sam Shube. For their earlier exchanges see here, here and here.   Sam... Read more > March 2023

Culture Wars, Ethnicity and the Future of Israel’s Democracy

By Sam Shube
 ‘Second Israel’ is the key to modern Israeli politics not just to Netanyahu’s victory in 2022. These Israelis,... Read more > March 2023

Fallacies about Mizrahi Jews and Israeli Politics | A Reply to Sam Shube

By Lyn Julius
 Lyn Julius is the author of Uprooted: How 3000 Years of Jewish Civilization in the Arab World Vanished Overnight... Read more > March 2023

Book review | Everyday Hate: How Antisemitism Is Built Into Our World and How You Can Change It

By Kathleen Hayes
   ‘The past is never dead. It’s not even past.’ – William Faulkner In the early hours of... Read more > March 2023

Opinion | Ben-Gvir is no Begin

By Jonah Naghi
 Jonah Naghi is the Chair of Israel Policy Forum's IPF Atid Steering Committee in the city of Boston.... Read more > March 2023

‘This is an attempt to change the structure of Israel from a constitutional democracy to a regime where, once political...

By Amichai Cohen
 With debate in Israel raging over the government’s proposed judicial reforms and with President Herzog’s compromise proposals yet... Read more > February 2023

Winter / 2022

Book Review | Kreisky, Israel, and Jewish Identity

By Liam Hoare
 On 28 September 1973, two Palestinian terrorists from the Syrian Ba’athist faction As-Sa'iqa hijacked a train near Marchegg... Read more > February 2023

Book Review | British Trade Unions, the Labour Party, and Israel’s Histadrut

By Luke Akehurst
 Ronnie Fraser has been bravely fighting a sometimes lonely battle against antisemitism and anti-Zionism in the British trade... Read more > February 2023

Opinion | Western Democracies Face Two Threats: The Tyranny of the Majority and The Tyranny of the Minority

By Alan Johnson
 Alan Johnson is the editor of Fathom, He writes here in a personal capacity.   Against the Tyranny... Read more > February 2023

‘A gamechanger in Israel’s relationship with Egypt and cooperation with the EU’: The geopolitics of Israel’s natural gas fields

By Calev Ben-Dor
 Israel has discovered enough natural gas to become a regional energy exporter. As Europe wrestles with its energy... Read more > February 2023

‘For peace, a political agreement between politicians is not enough’ | An interview with Noor A’wad, Palestinian activist with Roots

By Joshua A. Brook
 Noor A’wad joined Roots, a Palestinian-Jewish peacebuilding organisation, in 2016 after meeting Rabbi Hanan Schlesinger and Ali Abu... Read more > February 2023

Book Review| Israel: A History in 100 Cartoons

By Keith Kahn-Harris
 In 2006, the Iranian newspaper Hamshahri announced an ‘International Holocaust Cartoon Contest’ as an outraged riposte to the... Read more > February 2023

Book Review | Victorious

By Liam Hoare
 ‘Unlike others, I am no longer slaughtering sacred cows,’ Amos Oz told Niva Lanir in a 2012 interview... Read more > February 2023

Open letter to The George Washington University regarding allegations of antisemitism

By Daniel Burston et al.
 Hundreds of academics have signed an open letter to George Washington University expressing their deep concern about its... Read more > February 2023

Small Vote, Great Power: Rabbi Tau, Avi Maoz, the Noam Party and the Threat to Equal Rights in Israel

By Daniel Goldman
 About a half a million Israelis voted for the ‘Religious Zionist’ slate which made the three parties that... Read more > January 2023

Opinion | Judicial Reform is needed to preserve the legitimacy of Israeli democracy

By Adi Schwartz
 Adi Schwartz is a former staff writer at Haaretz and is co-author with Einat Wilf of The War... Read more > January 2023

Archive | Menachem Begin on Law and Democracy

By Fathom Editors
 In the increasingly fiery debate over the role of Israel’s judiciary, former Likud Prime Minister Menachem Begin seems... Read more > January 2023

When Discourse about Israel Becomes Antisemitic: A Guide for the Perplexed

By Cary Nelson and Michael Saenger
 Cary Nelson and Michael Saenger argue for understanding antisemitic anti-Zionism as ‘a prejudice with definable characteristics’ and of... Read more > January 2023

‘If these ideas get implemented, it will be a major shift. Israel will become a different country’: An Interview with...

By Calev Ben-Dor
 Former Likud Justice Minister Dan Meridor discusses what he sees as the erosion of liberal values within the... Read more > January 2023

A World War and a Jewish War: Derek Penslar reviews Dan Diner

By Derek Penslar
 Derek Penslar reviews Dan Diner’s, Ein anderer Krieg: Das jüdische Palästina und der Zweite Weltkrieg - 1935 –... Read more > January 2023

Book Review | Ten Years Hard Labour

By Marc Goldberg
 Chris Williamson was a Labour Member of Parliament representing the constituency of Derby North. He served as Shadow... Read more > January 2023

Defending Israel’s Legitimacy: Proposals for a reborn Ministry of Strategic Affairs

By Jacob Dallal
 Jacob Dallal reflects on his five-years working at the Ministry of Strategic Affairs from 2016 to 2021 to... Read more > January 2023

Book Review | Bibi, My Story

By Yisrael Medad
 The memoirs of politicians and public figures, it has been claimed, are among the most popular form of... Read more > December 2022

The Annual Fathom Lecture 2022 | Why we should all be Zionists if we want peace

By Einat Wilf
 On 7 December 2022, in celebration of its 10th birthday, Fathom invited Einat Wilf to deliver the inaugural... Read more > December 2022

The Progressive Friend of Israel in the era of Ben Gvir: Prospects and Tasks

By Jack Omer-Jackaman
 Jack Omer-Jackaman argues that this is a perfect opportunity to prove the truth of what progressive friends of... Read more > December 2022

Lessons from Germany’s Social Democrats for the Israeli Labor Party

By Kira Lewis
 Kira Lewis believes the Israeli Labor Party can learn some lessons from a historic social democratic party that... Read more > December 2022

Fathom at 10: Celebrating our first decade

By Fathom Editors
 Fathom was created by BICOM in 2012 for the long haul. We were created not to chase the... Read more > December 2022

Opinion | Navigating China’s Security Presence in the Middle East and North Africa

By Grant Rumley and Carol Silber
 Grant Rumley is the Goldberger Fellow at the Washington Institute for Near East Policy’s Glazer Program on Great... Read more > December 2022

Judicial Reform is Not Dangerous for Israeli Democracy – it is Essential

By Russell A. Shalev
 Suzie Navot of the Israel Democracy Institute argued in Fathom that the judicial reforms being considered by the... Read more > December 2022

Yet again, the Courts find for John Ware and his BBC Panorama documentary 'Is Labour Antisemitic?'

By John Ware
 Documentary maker John Ware explains why he has brought three successful court cases against those who he believed... Read more > December 2022

Book Review | Woke Antisemitism: How a Progressive Ideology Harms Jews

By Kathleen Hayes
 This is a very important book. Over the last decade or so, a sweeping ideology that looks much... Read more > November 2022

The Three Best Books by Israeli Writers (Not Called Oz, Grossman, or Yehoshua), recommended by Liam Hoare

By Liam Hoare
 Fathom is inviting experts to select their three favourite books on a theme or subject. The series began... Read more > December 2022

The Iranian Uprising and the Nuclear Threat: How Should the West Respond

By Matthias Kuntzel
 Matthias Küntzel is the author of Jihad and Jew-Hatred: Islamism, Nazism and the Roots of 9/11. This talk was given at... Read more > November 2022

Judicial Reform and the Implications for Israeli Democracy

By Suzie Navot
 In this edited transcript of her conversation with BICOM Director Richard Pater, Vice-President of Research at the Israel... Read more > November 2022

'Politically homeless': Yamina voters tell their story

By Calev Ben-Dor
 Calev Ben-Dor talks to former Yamina supporters to understand their views on the Bennett-Lapid government and voting considerations... Read more > November 2022

‘The Jews Are Guilty’: Christian Antisemitism in Contemporary America

By Alvin Rosenfeld
 Alvin Rosenfeld holds the Irving M. Glazer Chair in Jewish Studies at Indiana University and is the Director... Read more > November 2022

Book Review | Bibi: My Story

By Colin Shindler
 When he was asked by a student in 2018, what is the most important subject to study for... Read more > November 2022

Autumn / 2022

Opinion | Israel’s electoral crisis ends but the struggle for its soul goes on

By Toby Greene
 Toby Greene is a former deputy editor of Fathom and author of Blair, Labour & Palestine: Conflicting Views on Middle... Read more > November 2022

Opinion | This defeat feels different. It feels fundamental. Now we must fight for the country we love

By Paul Gross
 Paul Gross fears this will be the first coalition in Israeli history where a majority of its members... Read more > November 2022

Opinion | The Scapegoating of Yair Lapid

By Alan Johnson
 Alan Johnson is the editor of Fathom. ‘God’ said Mark Twain, ‘is the most popular scapegoat for our... Read more > November 2022

The Lust Libel: Sexual Antisemitism in History and Contemporary Culture

By Jonah Cohen
 Antisemites have long depicted the Jews as a perverse, predatory, and pornographic people; horny vampires of the Orient. That... Read more > November 2022

Book Review | Bibi: My Story

By Anshel Pfeffer
 Back in 2017, I sat with a group of Israeli colleagues in a small hotel conference room in... Read more > November 2022

Fine margins and the Israeli Election – three that will determine the result

By Calev Ben-Dor
 As Israelis head to the polls for the fifth time in less than four years, and with little... Read more > October 2022

Tel Aviv or Jerusalem? The UK mulls moving its Embassy

By Richard Pater
 Former UK Prime Minister Liz Truss was reportedly mulling moving the British embassy to Jerusalem. Richard Pater argues... Read more > October 2022

‘Maybe he was the last of his kind’: A Conversation about Amos Oz with Nurith Gertz

By Liam Hoare
 Liam Hoare talks to literary scholar Nurith Gertz about What Was Lost to Time (Hebrew), her biography of... Read more > October 2022

Appease or Confront? Western Policy Options and the Iranian Nuclear Bomb

By Yossi Kuperwasser
 Yossi Kuperwasser served as head of the research division in the Israel Defence Force Military Intelligence division and... Read more > October 2022

A Party Transformed: How UK Labour is ripping Left Antisemitism out by its roots

By Luke Akehurst
 In 2020, following Jeremy Corbyn’s leadership, the UK Labour Party was found guilty by the Equalities and Human... Read more > October 2022

On Amnesty’s Antisemitic ‘Apartheid’ Report

By Alan Johnson
 [The] system of apartheid originated with the creation of Israel in May 1948. – Amnesty International’s Apartheid Report, 2022. ... Read more > October 2022

Jerusalem Film Festival 2022: On absences haunting films made years after their passing

By Tal Kra-Oz
 Tal Kra-Oz is a writer based in Tel Aviv. His work has appeared in Tablet Magazine, The Forward... Read more > October 2022

The Rise of Itamar Ben Gvir

By Calev Ben-Dor
 In the March 2020 elections Itamar Ben Gvir’s Jewish Power party was shunned by other right wingers and... Read more > September 2022

Opinion | Time for the UN to rethink Palestine

By Alex Ryvchin
 Alex Ryvchin is the Co-Chief Executive Officer of the Executive Council of Australian Jewry and a member of... Read more > September 2022

Diary | The inaugural conference of the London Centre for the Study of Contemporary Antisemitism

By Kathleen Hayes
 Kathleen Hayes is the author of the Fathom articles ‘Antisemitism and the Left: A Memoir’ and ‘“Punch a... Read more > September 2022

Book Review | Peace and Faith: Christian Churches and the Israeli-Palestinian Conflict

By Jonathan G. Campbell
 This lengthy edited volume contains an introduction, sixteen chapters (organized into Parts I-III), appendix (on the history of... Read more > September 2022

Liz Truss’s world view and its implications for UK-Israel relations

By Toby Greene
 ‘Geopolitics is back’ Liz Truss has said. In what is the most thorough analysis of her world view... Read more > September 2022

Book Review | Breaking History: A White House Memoir

By Colin Shindler
 Jared Kushner's account of his four years in the Trump White House produces several interesting revelations. It is... Read more > September 2022

Fathom eBook | Rescuing Israeli-Palestinian Peace: The Fathom Essays 2016-2020

By Fathom Editors
 Fathom's new eBook, Rescuing Israeli-Palestinian Peace: The Fathom Essays 2016-2020, contains over 60 articles, reports and interviews. The editors believe it is the most comprehensive... Read more > September 2020

Summer / 2022

Documentary Review | Remember Baghdad (2017)

By Lyn Julius
 Remember Baghad, now showing on Netflix, is reviewed by Lyn Julius, journalist and co-founder of Harif, an association... Read more > July 2022

The Modern Language Association, Antisemitism and Anti-Zionism

By Cary Nelson and Joe Lockard
  The MLA Executive Council have hit a new low by acting in secret, without notice and without membership... Read more > July 2022

Opinion | We Need to Talk About the BBC

By David Collier
 In a week when it was reported that the BBC ignore 99 per cent of attacks on Israelis but... Read more > July 2022

Book Review | Israel’s Moment: International Support and Opposition to Establishing the Jewish State, 1945-1949

By John Strawson
 Herf’s book forensically demolishes the myth that the West set out to create Israel to promote its interests.... Read more > July 2022

Book Review | Nine Quarters of Jerusalem

By Danny Seidemann
 There are no experts on Jerusalem. The city is too complex, its history too long, too shrouded in... Read more > July 2022

Fathoming the Intellectual Revolution of our Time (1) | ‘Punch a Terf’ and ‘Smash the Zionists’: Misogyny and Antisemitism in...

By Kathleen Hayes
 Series Introduction: Huge waves of intellectual change are sweeping the Western world at an astonishing speed. Liberal democratic... Read more > July 2022

Antisemitism and the University of London: Statement by David Hirsh

By David Hirsh
 A debate is raging at Goldsmiths, University of London after the President of the Student Union tweeted that... Read more > July 2022

Book Review | The Wealthy: Chronicle of a Jewish Family (1763-1948)

By Liam Hoare
 At the age of 40, having worked as a teacher and an official in the Israeli education ministry... Read more > July 2022

Arabs sharing government power with Jews in Israel is the new normal. It works, and there is no turning back

By Ron Gerlitz
 Written shortly before the collapse of the Israeli coalition government, Ron Gerlitz, CEO of aChord – Social Psychology... Read more > June 2022

Fathom Opinion | A Left-Winger’s Lament for the Israeli Coalition

By Jack Omer-Jackaman
 Written shortly before yesterday’s long anticipated break-up of the Israeli government, Jack Omer-Jackaman argues that leftists like himself... Read more > June 2022

The most important creative output in modern Hebrew literature since Agnon: Yael Halevi-Wise appreciates the life and work of A.B.Yehoshua...

By Yael Halevi-Wise
 Yael Halevi-Wise marks the passing of her friend, the Israeli novelist, short story writer and playwright, A.B.Yehoshua. Author... Read more > June 2022

Looking Forward by Farming Upwards: Israeli Diplomacy in South East Asia

By Haim Shweky
 Haim Shweky was the cultural attaché to the Israeli embassy in Vietnam between 2018-2019. He recounts his time... Read more > June 2022

The Boston Mapping Project: BDS and the Paranoid Style of Politics

By Richard L. Cravatts
 Richard L. Cravatts is President Emeritus of Scholars for Peace in the Middle East. The Boston ‘Mapping Project’... Read more > June 2022

‘What is your nation, if I may ask?’: Antisemitism and Zionism in James Joyce’s Ulysses

By Noga Emanuel
 In 2022 book-lovers celebrate the 100th anniversary of the publication of James Joyce’s masterpiece Ulysses, which tracks the... Read more > June 2022

Understanding decision-making in the Palestinian arenas

By Michael Milshtein
 BICOM Director Richard Pater speaks to Dr Michael Milshtein, a colonel (res.) in the Israel Defense Forces and... Read more > June 2022

Christians and the reconciliation route to resolving the Arab-Israeli conflict

By Cary Nelson
 A few months ago, Presbyterians for Middle East Peace (PFMEP) published Peace And Faith: Christian Churches and the... Read more > June 2022

Algeria, where are your Saturday people, and where are your Sunday people?

By Lela Gilbert
 Lela Gilbert is a Fellow at Hudson Institute's Center for Religious Freedom and the author of Saturday People,... Read more > June 2022

Beyond Liberal Peacemaking: New Initiatives in Israel

By Calev Ben-Dor
 With the peace process frozen, some groups – Mosaica, Shrinking the Conflict Initiative, Women Wage Peace, Shaharit, the Herbert... Read more > May 2022

How Israeli & Palestinian Peacebuilders Can Leverage Post-Pandemic Trends in Philanthropy

By Adam Basciano
 Adam Basciano is the co-founder and former director of IPF Atid, Israel Policy Forum’s network of next generation... Read more > May 2022

Fathom Opinion | ‘We are suffocating among people who think that they are absolutely right’: When totalitarian speech invades the...

By Hedda Harari-Spencer
 Hedda Harari-Spencer is a Senior Lecturer in Hebrew at Tufts University. All translations from French are her own.... Read more > May 2022

The Three Best Books on Understanding Evil

By Stephen de Wijze
 Stephen de Wijze is senior lecturer in political philosophy at the University of Manchester and the co-editor with... Read more > May 2022

The political odyssey of Ayman Odeh

By Calev Ben-Dor
 What took Ayman Odeh, the young Arab politician who rose to prominence before the 2015 elections and was... Read more > May 2022

‘Israel Is Living On Borrowed Time’: Yossi Melman on Security Threats and Social Divisions

By Yossi Melman
 In early April, deputy editor Samuel Nurding sat down with Haaretz’s intelligence and security correspondent Yossi Melman and spoke about... Read more > May 2022

The Anti-Israel Politicisation of the US Academy: The Next Phase is Happening at California and Illinois

By Cary Nelson
 The University of California and the University of Illinois at Urbana-Champaign UIUC are on the verge of green-lighting... Read more > May 2022

My Israeli Music | Hen Mazzig

By Hen Mazzig
 Hen Mazzig is an Israeli writer living in London. He is a Senior Fellow at The Tel Aviv... Read more > May 2022

Most read

Voice of the Week

Our Voice of the Fortnight is Israeli President Isaac Herzog presenting his compromise proposal on judicial reform to the Israeli people on 16 March 2023.

Image of the Week

Minister of Defence Yoav Galant and IDF Chief of Staff Herzi Halevi seen during a tour near the border with Lebanon on 16 March 2023, following the detonation of an explosive device at the Megiddo junction, northern Israel. Photo by David Cohen/Flash90

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