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Book Reviews

The Three Best Chapters on Holocaust Inversion, recommended by Lesley Klaff

By Lesley Klaff
 Lesley Klaff is Editor in Chief of the Journal of Contemporary Antisemitism. Holocaust inversion is, in the words of the late... Read more > November 2024

The Three Best Books on the Farhud, Recommended by Lyn Julius

By Lyn Julius
 Lyn Julius is the author of Uprooted: how 3,000 years of Jewish civilisation in the Arab world vanished... Read more > October 2024

Review Essay | Israel is not a Post-Heroic Society

By Calev Ben-Dor
 Calev Ben-Dor reviews three new books published to mark the anniversary of the brutal Hamas attack on Israel.... Read more > October 2024

The Three Best Books for Someone Rethinking Anti-Zionism, recommended by Kathleen Hayes

By Kathleen Hayes
 Fathom is inviting experts to select their three favourite books about a subject. The series began with Sara... Read more > September 2024

The Three Best Books on Soviet Anti-Zionism, recommended by Izabella Tabarovsky

By Izabella Tabarovsky
 Izabella Tabarovsky is a Senior Fellow with the Z3 Institute and a fellow with the London Centre for... Read more > July 2024

The Three Best Books by David Grossman, recommended by Liam Hoare

By Liam Hoare
 Essayist and critic Liam Hoare suggests three books you have to read by Israeli novelist David Grossman. David... Read more > July 2024

Book Review | The Centre Must Hold: Why Centrism is the Answer to Extremism and Polarisation

By Paul Gross
 Centrism is ‘the antidote to the extremism and sustained attacks on liberal democracy that are sweeping much of... Read more > June 2024

Book Review | Frayed, The Disputes Unraveling Religious Zionists

By Daniel Goldman
 Longtime observer and chronicler of the religious community Yair Ettinger’s[1] bestselling 2020 book on the religious Zionist community... Read more > May 2024

Book Review | Israel’s War on Gaza

By Barry Finger
 It turns out that Dara Horn was overly generous in her concession that ‘People Love Dead Jews.’ The... Read more > February 2024

Book Review | Nazis, Islamic Antisemitism and the Middle East

By Daniel Ben-Ami
 Nazis, Islamic Antisemitism and the Middle East tells the story of an important but largely unknown chapter of... Read more > February 2024

Rereadings | Demonopathy: Leon Pinsker’s Theory of Antisemitism

By Philip Earl Steele
 Philip Earl Steele rereads Autoemancipation! author Leon Pinsker’s theory of antisemitism. Could our innate ‘fear of ghosts’ really... Read more > February 2024

Book Review | In the Shadow of the Wall

By Alex Stein
 A few years ago, I built a special tour for a group of Diaspora Jews who were in... Read more > November 2023

Book Review | Amos Oz: Writer, Activist, Icon

By Liam Hoare
 At the time of another episode in the Israel-Hamas conflict, Operation Protective Edge in 2014, Amos Oz opened... Read more > November 2023

Book Review | Challenging the Boycott, Divestment, and Sanctions (BDS) Movement: Twenty Years of Responding to Anti-Israel Campaigns

By Kenneth Waltzer
 This collection of essays prepared by Ronnie and Lola Fraser, veteran British anti-BDS activists, assesses how friends of... Read more > October 2023

The Imperative of Liberal Zionism: A Response to Anthony Julius’ essay ‘Whither Liberal Zionism?'

By Toby Greene
 Toby Greene is a Lecturer in Politics and International Relations, and former deputy-editor of Fathom. His publications include:... Read more > September 2023

TV Review: The Beauty Queen of Jerusalem

By Noga Emanuel
 Noga Emanuel reviews the TV series The Beauty Queen of Jerusalem, a dramatic adaptation of Sarit Yishai-Levy’s bestselling... Read more > September 2023

Rewriting the History of the Corbyn Years (Part 2): Agenda Journalism in Asa Winstanley’s book Weaponising Anti-Semitism

By John Ware
 John Ware was the reporter for the 2019 BBC Panorama documentary Is Labour Antisemitic? In Part 1 of... Read more > September 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... Read more > July 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... Read more > 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... Read more > May 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... Read more > May 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... Read more > 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... Read more > April 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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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 | 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

‘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

Who By Fire: Leonard Cohen in the Sinai | An interview with Matti Friedman

By Matti Friedman
 In early March, Fathom's deputy editor Calev Ben-Dor sat down with Matti Friedman to discuss his new book,... Read more > March 2022

Book Review | Who by Fire: Leonard Cohen in the Sinai

By Calev Ben-Dor
 Who by Fire: Leonard Cohen in the Sinai is the latest in Matti Friedman’s wonderful array of books... Read more > March 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

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