The Democratic Socialists of America just endorsed ethnic murder
By Ari Allyn-Feuer
The Democratic Socialists of America (DSA) is the largest left-wing organisation in the United States and a prominent...
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July 2023
Democratic Socialism, Israel and the Jews: An Interview with Michael Harrington (1975), with new preface by Mitchell Cohen (2020)
By Mitchell Cohen and Michael Harrington
The interview reproduced below, with Michael Harrington (1928-1989), the leading US democratic socialist of the second half of...
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March 2020
Towards Israel-Saudi Normalisation?
By BICOM
In comments this week, President Joe Biden discussed the possibility of normalisation between Israel and Saudi Arabia. While...
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July 2023
Book Review | Zionism During the Holocaust: The Weaponisation of Memory in the Service of State and Nation
By Marc Goldberg
Zionism During the Holocaust: The Weaponisation of Memory in the Service of State and Nation is perhaps the...
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July 2023
An Open Letter from Jewish Scholars about Today’s Intellectual Environment
By David Bernstein et al.
A group of over 230 Jewish scholars has signed an open letter expressing concern 'about the current ideological...
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July 2023
The 1948 Arab war against Israel: An aftershock of World War II?
By Matthias Kuntzel
Matthias Küntzel’s new book, Nazis, Islamic Antisemitism and the Middle East, explores the still under-analysed impact of Nazi...
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June 2023
Israel and the Haredim – Between integration and separatism: A Review Essay
By Daniel Goldman
Daniel Goldman is a businessman, social activist and a former chair of the Coalition for Haredi Employment, Gesher...
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June 2023
13 Ways for Israel to securely create a better status quo
By Justin Feldman
Justin Feldman argues that any solution to the conflict must first bring both peoples closer together in better...
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June 2023
Fathom eBook: Birthing Zionism – Studies of 19th-century British Christian Zionists: George Eliot, Laurence Oliphant and Rev. William Hechler
By Philip Earl Steele
This Fathom eBook collects three essays by Philip Earl Steele published in Fathom Journal between 2019 and 2022:...
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June 2023
A good principle misapplied: the case for thinking again about the Jamie Driscoll decision
By Alan Johnson
Alan Johnson, writing in a personal capacity, asks if the UK Labour Party has misapplied the principle of...
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June 2023
The Zionist Case for a Divided Jerusalem
By Blake Flayton and Samuel J. Hyde
Blake Flayton is a columnist for the Jewish Journal and Samuel J. Hyde is a writer and political...
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June 2023
Bar Kochba and Us: The Israeli Debate during Tisha Be’Av
By Calev Ben-Dor
Calev Ben-Dor argues that the fight raging today between Israeli politicians about how to interpret the meaning of...
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July 2021
Fathom Long Read | The Progressive Saviour Complex: Quakers, American Jews and Israel
By Alex Joffe and Asaf Romirowsky
Alex Joffe and Asaf Romirowsky are senior non-resident scholars at the Begin-Sadat Center for Strategic Studies, and co-authors...
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July 2021
Iran under President Raisi: What should the region and the West expect? | An interview with Henry Rome
By Henry Rome
On 13 July, Fathom’s deputy editor Samuel Nurding sat down with the Eurasia Group’s Henry Rome to discuss...
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July 2021
Rereadings | The Prime Ministers: An Intimate Narrative of Israeli Leadership by Yehuda Avner
By Liam Hoare
‘The ultimate insider’s account’ wrote George Gruen on the release of Yehuda Avner’s book The Prime Ministers in...
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July 2021
Criticism of Israel is not Antisemitic. But ‘Anti-Zionism’ is. This is why
By Russell A. Shalev
Russell Shalev argues that human rights movements cannot adequately address anti-Jewish discrimination, harassment or violence without recognising the...
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July 2021
Anshel Pfeffer and Antisemitism: A Reply by Ben Cohen
By Ben Cohen
Ben Cohen is the author of Some Of My Best Friends: A Journey Through Twenty-First Century Antisemitism. He...
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July 2021
‘Choosing comrades’: Solidarity in the Middle East and Labour’s foreign policy
By Gary Kent
In this essay, Gary Kent argues that the British Labour Party should seek to amplify the voices of...
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July 2021
Opinion | Liberal Zionists fight for liberalism in Israel, and Zionism abroad
By Paul Gross
Before immigrating to Israel from the UK in 2007 Paul Gross worked for the British government on religious...
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July 2021
The erasure from historical memory of Israeli statehood offers and Palestinian rejections is badly distorting today’s debate about Middle East...
By Salo Aizenberg
The erasure from our historical memory of Israeli attempts to achieve peace by agreeing to Palestinian statehood, and...
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July 2021
Fathom Long Read | Valentina Azarova: A Controversy Assessed
By Cary Nelson
Debate rages about the possible appointment of Valentina Azarova to the position of Director of the Toronto Law...
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July 2021
UK-Israel 2021 | Mandate: The Palestine Crucible 1919-1939
By Colin Shindler
Three years ago, a retired British army officer, Ian Westerman, wrote an article in Ha'aretz, entitled 'What did...
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July 2021
Incoming! Watch out, Peter Beinart is Fighting the Good Fight (again)
By Joshua A. Brook
Peter Beinart backed the US invasion of Iraq. He called it ‘the Good Fight’ and wrote a 2006...
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July 2021
UK-Israel 2021 | The Flourishing of UK-Israel Academic Networks
By John Levy
John Levy, Director of the Academic Study Group on Israel and the Middle East (ASG) explains how his...
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July 2021
Antisemitism and the Left: A Memoir
By Kathleen Hayes
'I swam in a sea of antisemitism for years and didn’t notice the water was filthy,’ writes Kathleen...
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July 2021
Book Review | Drone Wars: Pioneers, Killing Machines, Artificial Intelligence, and the Battle for the Future
By Justin Bronk
Drone Wars is an ambitious attempt to provide a narrative framework for the development, combat usage and future...
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July 2021
Against Solutionism, Against Nowism: For ‘the Longer, Shorter Path’ | An interview with Moshe Ya'alon
By Moshe Ya'alon
Former Israeli Minister of Defence Lieutenant General (Ret.) Moshe ‘Bogie’ Ya'alon was born in Kiryat Haim in 1950...
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June 2021
Opinion | Iran now controls three borders with Israel. Hamas’s missile war was a foretaste of what Tehran intends next
By Kyle Orton
Israel has been thwarting Iran’s global terrorist operations but has been less successful closer to home. The IRGC...
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June 2021
‘The Monash Soviet’ and Israel: A case study of how the Australian campus far left lost its way after the...
By Philip Mendes
For a half century, for good and for ill, Western universities have been incubating world views which go...
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June 2021
My Israeli Music: Hamutal Gouri
By Hamutal Gouri
Hamutal Gouri is the former executive director of the Dafna Fund, a feminist fund working to promote women's organisations in Israel. She...
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June 2021
The Three Best Books on Antisemitism, recommended by Dave Rich
By Dave Rich
Fathom is inviting experts to select their three favourite books about a subject. The series began with Sara...
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June 2021
Book Review | Not in Kansas Anymore: Academic Freedom in Palestinian Universities
By Eve Garrard
Academic freedom is the liberty which academics have, within the confines of the law, to question and test...
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June 2021
Gazan Futures | After Operation Guardians of the Wall
By Amos Yadlin
Amos Yadlin discusses the recent asymmetric conflict between Israel and Hamas, providing five insights about the operation and...
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June 2021
Gazan Futures | Five ways to strengthen the Palestinian Authority and facilitate its return to Gaza
By Celine Touboul
Celine Touboul is the co-Executive Director of the Economic Cooperation Foundation (ECF), an Israeli policy-planning think-tank. Celine leads...
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June 2021
Gazan Futures | Prospects of a long-term armistice or hudna with Hamas
By Ehud Yaari
Ehud Yaari is an expert on Middle Eastern affairs. He is the author of eight books on the...
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June 2021
Naftali Bennett and Israel’s (divided) National Religious Community: A Guide for the Perplexed
By Calev Ben-Dor
The new Israeli Prime Minister Naftali Bennett is a ‘religious-Zionist’. But what does that mean and why has...
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June 2021
My Israeli Music: Michael Wegier
By Michael Wegier
In a new Fathom series, we invite guests to select their favourite Israeli music and tell us a little about...
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June 2021
Opinion | The UK and EU should recognise Jerusalem as the capital of Israel — and Palestine
By Liam Hoare
In April 1949, what was then the New Statesman and Nation — at the time aligned with the...
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June 2021
Britain and Israel in 1948: A note in response to Ronnie Fraser
By Natan Aridan
In March 2021 Fathom published ‘The Rockiest of Starts: Anglo-Israeli Relations 1948-1950’ by Natan Aridan, editor of Israel...
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June 2021
2017 Fathom Interview with Naftali Bennett
By Naftali Bennett
‘Forming a Palestinian state along the lines that many readers of Fathom believe is the way forward would...
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Winter 2017
Peter Beinart and Palestinian Refugee ‘Return’: A Critique
By Adi Schwartz and Einat Wilf
Adi Schwartz and Einat Wilf are the authors of The War of Return: How Western Indulgence of the...
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June 2021
The Danger of Greater Israel
By Michael Walzer
In this urgent essay, written before the new Israeli coalition government was agreed, but with great relevance to...
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June 2021
Opinion | A desire to remove Netanyahu has created a coalition stretching from Naftali Bennett to Mansor Abbas. Can it...
By Calev Ben-Dor
The (four-time) failure of the right wing and ultra-Orthodox parties to garner 61 seats, the steady erosion of...
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June 2021
How to Defeat Hamas
By Toby Greene
Toby Greene argues that military tools are not enough. What’s needed is a long-term vision for sustainable political...
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June 2021
Book Review| The CIA War in Kurdistan: The Untold Story of the Northern Front in the Iraq War
By Paul Iddon
Sam Faddis's recent account of his time as a CIA operations officer in Iraq in the run-up to...
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June 2021
Still Standing, but Shaky: Jordan at 100
By Asher Susser
Asher Susser is Professor Emeritus of Middle Eastern History at Tel Aviv University (TAU). On the occasion of Jordan’s...
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May 2021
‘Calling a truce with left-wing antisemitism’: The Case Against the Jerusalem Declaration on Antisemitism
By John Hyman and Anthony Julius
University College London’s governing Council voted in November 2019 to adopt the IHRA (International Holocaust Remembrance Alliance) Working...
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May 2021
UK-Israel 2021 | When Britain almost declared war on Israel
By Ronnie Fraser
At the beginning of January 1949, eight months after Britain had withdrawn from Palestine, Foreign Secretary Ernest Bevin...
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May 2021
I hope that UCL faculty and staff will defend IHRA, as I would do were I with them
By Michael Walzer
Michael Walzer is professor emeritus at the Institute for Advanced Study in Princeton, New Jersey and editor emeritus...
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May 2021
Fathom Long Read | Antisemitism and the IHRA at University College London
By Cary Nelson
For twenty years Cary Nelson was part of the elected leadership of the American Association of University Professors,...
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May 2021
Read it again. Read better. Dave Rich on Derek Penslar’s serial misrepresentations of the IHRA
By Dave Rich
Dave Rich is Head of Policy at the Community Security Trust. He argues that Derek Penslar’s criticisms of...
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May 2021
Cultivating Israel Hatred in the University: The role of the T-Group Classroom
By Channa Newman and Thomas Mullane
The Basic Skills Training Group, or simply ‘T-group', was popularised in the 1950s as a humanistic therapeutic approach...
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May 2021
UK-Israel2021 | The Roots of the ‘Al Aqsa is in Danger’ Myth: Alfred Mond and a Speech Distorted
By Yisrael Medad
In 1921 British politician Alfred Mond, visiting Palestine, said ‘our sanctuary, our Temple, we will construct as an...
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May 2021
The UK and US can help build an International Fund for Israeli-Palestinian Peace. The time is now.
By John Lyndon
This journal has long argued that people-to-people peacemaking programmes on a grand scale are essential to advance the...
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April 2021
Once Again on the Jerusalem Declaration: A Rejoinder to Derek Penslar and Michael Walzer
By Cary Nelson
Cary Nelson’s responds to replies by Derek Penslar and Michael Walzer to his Fathom article ‘Accommodating the New...
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April 2021
IHRA and JDA: Examining Definitions of Antisemitism in 2021
By Jeffrey Herf
Jeffrey Herf is Distinguished University Professor, Department of History, University of Maryland College Park. His latest book, Israel’s...
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April 2021
‘A Remarkably Aggressive Naïveté’: A Response to Derek Penslar and Michael Walzer
By Richard Landes
Richard Landes argues that the claim made by the signatories of the Jerusalem Declaration that – in the...
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April 2021
The Jerusalem Declaration on Antisemitism may inadvertently give cover to antisemites
By Gerald Izenberg
Gerald N. Izenberg is Prof. Emeritus of History at Washington University in St. Louis. He argues that the...
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April 2021
Diary from London | Adam Ognall, Chief Executive, New Israel Fund UK
By Adam Ognall
After ten years in post, Adam Ognall is stepping down as CEO of the New Israel Fund UK...
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April 2021
Palestinian Elections: As In 2006, A Dangerous Idea
By Elliott Abrams
Elliott Abrams is Senior Fellow for Middle Eastern Studies at the Council on Foreign Relations. He was Deputy...
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April 2021
Why I Signed the Jerusalem Declaration: A Response to Cary Nelson
By Derek Penslar
Derek Penslar is William Lee Frost Professor of Jewish History at Harvard University and Resident Faculty at the...
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April 2021
The Jerusalem Declaration: A Response to Cary Nelson
By Michael Walzer
Michael Walzer is Professor Emeritus of Social Science at the Institute for Advanced Study, Princeton University. For many...
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April 2021
Book Review | The Star and the Scepter: A Diplomatic History of Israel
By David Rodman
The State of Israel has existed for a little over 70 years. A medium power by global standards,...
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April 2021
President Biden's Middle East Policy
By Yossi Kuperwasser
Yossi Kuperwasser argues that President Biden's Middle East policy reflects the tension between his understanding that the region...
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April 2021
Fathom Long Read | Accommodating the New Antisemitism: a Critique of ‘The Jerusalem Declaration’
By Cary Nelson
Download and print a PDF version here. In this comprehensive critique Cary Nelson argues that the recent ‘Jerusalem...
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April 2021
Book Review | Stories from Palestine: Narratives of Resilience
By Zeina M. Barakat
To be entrusted with someone’s narrative is a privilege. To grant such access … is an act of...
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April 2021
Three best books on Zionism, recommended by Gil Troy
By Gil Troy
Fathom is inviting experts to select their three favourite books about a subject. The series began with Sara...
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April 2021
Mansour Abbas: Islamist Kingmaker of Israeli politics
By Calev Ben-Dor
Arab political parties have become central players in Israeli politics. But how has a young dentist turned politician...
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March 2021
Opinion | Israel voted for change, but that’s only the beginning of the story
By Toby Greene
During Benjamin Netanyahu’s first premiership in the late 1990s, his crisis-driven leadership style led British Ambassador David Manning...
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March 2021
UK-Israel2021 | The Rockiest of Starts: Anglo-Israeli Relations 1948-1950
By Natan Aridan
Natan Aridan is Lecturer in Israel Studies and researcher at the Ben-Gurion Research Institute for the Study of...
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March 2021
Book Review | The Wondering Jew
By Robin Moss
In the spring and summer of 2017, Micah Goodman caused something of a publishing sensation with Milkud 67,...
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March 2021
Israel's political system is broken. Here is how to fix it.
By Yohanan Plesner
As Israelis head to the polls for the fourth time in two years, Yohanan Plesner, President of the...
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March 2021
Fathoming the Intellectual Revolution of our Times | The Disorientations of Lethal Journalism: On Western Media and the Arab-Israeli Conflict
By Richard Landes
Richard Landes is a historian who taught at Boston University. His work focuses on apocalyptic beliefs at the...
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May 2023
Film Review | Ha-Midrashia
By Sara Hirschhorn
Sara Hirschorn is the author of City on a Hilltop: American Jews and the Israeli Settler Movement (Harvard...
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May 2023
Burning Down the House - The Crisis in American Psychoanalysis: How Wokeism and Identity Politics are Destroying the Profession and...
By Jon Mills
Jon Mills is a Canadian philosopher, psychoanalyst, and psychologist. He is an honorary professor in the Department of...
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May 2023
Book Review | The Antisemitic Origins of Islamist Violence: A Study of the Muslim Brotherhood and Islamic State
By Daniel Ben-Ami
Islamism is one of the least understood forms of anti-Semitism. Leave to one side those who foolishly romanticise...
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May 2023
The 1936 Revolt still rages today: an interview with Oren Kessler
By Oren Kessler
Oren Kessler’s new book Palestine 1936: The Great Revolt and the Roots of the Middle East Conflict (Rowman...
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May 2023
The Three Best Israeli Short Stories recommended by Noga Emanuel
By Noga Emanuel
Fathom regularly invites writers to select their favourite books on a theme or subject. Here, Fathom film and...
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May 2023
Why Israelis are so Happy at 75
By Jonah Cohen
The following is a revised version of Jonah Cohen’s keynote speech at the Jewish Federation of Central Massachusetts’s...
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May 2023
A Modern History of Palestinian Rejectionism
By Ben-Dror Yemini
Ben-Dror Yemini argues that media, academia, and the Israeli and global left have committed a huge deception in...
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May 2023
Diary | Yom Hazikaron and Yom Ha’atzmaut in a divided Israel
By Paul Gross
British-Israeli Paul Gross reflects on his experience of two days of annual celebration and mourning in Israel amidst...
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May 2023
Opinion | The Meaning of Diane Abbott’s Astonishing Letter
By David Hirsh
Leading Corbynite Labour MP Diane Abbott has had the party whip withdrawn after writing in The Observer that...
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April 2023
Book Review | Everyday Hate: How Antisemitism Is Built Into Our World And How You Can Change It
By Daniel Ben-Ami
Dave Rich’s book on that thorniest of subjects, anti-Semitism, has already received many plaudits including glowing testimonials from...
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May 2023
Opinion | Can fasting be a tool for political healing?
By Khinvraj Jangid
Rabbi David Stav, head of the Orthodox Tzohar organisation, has called for fasting as a response to the...
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May 2023
Iran’s drone diplomacy is a danger to the West
By Alex Grinberg
Alex Grinberg is an expert on Iran based at the Jerusalem Institute for Security and Strategy. He warns...
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April 2023
Patterns of Antisemitism in Mainstream Media Comment Threads. Case Studies of the UK, France and Germany
By Karolina Placzynta
Karolina Placzynta is a researcher for the Decoding Antisemitism project at the Centre for Research on Antisemitism, Technical...
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April 2023
The Three Best Books on Critical Theory and Antisemitism, recommended by Matthew Bolton
By Matthew Bolton
Fathom regularly invites writers to select their favourite books about a subject. Here, Matthew Bolton recommends three on...
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April 2023
Book Review | Sharing the Promised Land: In Pursuit of Equality Between Jewish and Arab Citizens in Israel
By Eugene Bardach
Pity the soul who has to forsake those sentimental (or rousing) Zionist songs of her youth, like Shir...
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April 2023
The Protest Envoy: Ehud Barak comes to London
By Jack Omer-Jackaman
Last week, on the day a general strike was called in response to the sacking of Defence Minister...
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April 2023
Lara Sheehi’s Joyous Rage: Antisemitic Anti-Zionism, Advocacy Academia and Jewish Students’ Nightmares at GWU
By Cary Nelson
Fathom Editor’s Introductory Note. Sometimes it is hard to know what is the more alarming: the state of...
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April 2023
My Israeli Music: Ittay Flescher
By Ittay Flescher
With over 20 years’ experience in formal and experiential education settings, Ittay is regularly invited to teach in...
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April 2023
Book Review | Israel 201: Your Next Level Guide to the Magic and Mystery and Chaos of Life in the...
By Amy Weinreb
The world has reached a saturation point with Israel 101 books. We have enough options to guide readers...
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April 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...
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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...
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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...
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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...
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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...
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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...
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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,...
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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...
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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...
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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....
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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...
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February 2023
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