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Book Reviews

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

Book Review | The European Left and the Jewish Question 1848-1993: Between Zionism and Antisemitism

By Colin Shindler
 While many look to the rise of both Bolshevik Russia and Nazi Germany to understand the Left's evolution... Read more > February 2022

The Israel Question and the Left: A Review Essay

By Barry Finger
 Barry Finger is a frequent contributor to US socialist journals, a former shop steward and activist with the Public... Read more > January 2022

Rereading | The Idea of the Jewish State by Ben Halpern

By Donna Robinson Divine
 Donna Robinson Divine is Morningstar Family Professor of Jewish Studies and Emirita Professor of Government at Smith College.... Read more > January 2022

Book Review | The Passport as Home: Comfort in Rootlessness

By Philip Spencer
 The subtitle of this interesting memoir is ‘comfort in rootlessness’. This formulation is, as the author suggests, a... Read more > December 2021

Thomas Mann’s Philo-Semitism and Colm Toibin’s Thomas Mann

By Shalom Goldman
 In January 1934, the Bavarian State Ministry of the Interior revoked the novelist Thomas Mann’s German citizenship, in... Read more > December 2021

Book Review | War of Shadows: Codebreakers, Spies, and the Secret Struggle to Drive the Nazis from the Middle East

By Efraim Halevy
 Gershom Gorenberg, a historian and journalist, has spent years researching and writing this account of dramatic events in... Read more > November 2021

The Fourth Window, or the Wounds of Amos Oz

By Liam Hoare
 Liam Hoare says The Fourth Window, a new documentary about Amos Oz by the Israeli filmmaker Yair Qedar,... Read more > November 2021

Book Review | Growing up Jewish in India: Synagogues, Customs and Communities from the Bene Israel to the Art of...

By Khinvraj Jangid
 Growing up Jewish in India is a book about the Jews of India told from a variety of... Read more > October 2021

Book Review | Hidden Heroes: One Woman's Story of Resistance and Rescue in The Soviet Union

By Yisrael Medad
 From 1962, when Matzot for Russia’s Jews for the upcoming Passover holiday were dumped on the pavement in... Read more > October 2021

Book Review | More Than I Love My Life

By Liam Hoare
 In October 1951, Rade Panić—who had fought for Josip Broz Tito’s partisans during the Second World War—committed suicide... Read more > September 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... Read more > 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... Read more > 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... Read more > July 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... Read more > 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... Read more > 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... Read more > June 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,... Read more > 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... Read more > April 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,... Read more > March 2021

Book Review | Jews Don’t Count

By Sarah Brown
 The premise of Jews Don’t Count is that antisemitism is too often glossed over – blanked out –... Read more > March 2021

Book Review | Judaism Straight Up, Why Real Religion Endures

By Daniel Goldman
 Professor Moshe Koppel is the founder and executive chairman of Forum Kohelet, an influential think tank instrumental in... Read more > March 2021

Book Review | The Shadow Commander: Soleimani, the US, and Iran’s Global Ambitions

By Kyle Orton
 A little over a year ago, U.S. President Donald Trump gave the order to kill Qassem Soleimani, the... Read more > March 2021

Book Review | Matzpen: A History of Israeli Dissidence

By Colin Shindler
 Lutz Fiedler's highly informative book about the far Left group, Matzpen, is a welcome addition to the recording... Read more > March 2021

Why you should read the two Israeli novels on the New York Times list of 100 notable books of 2020

By Liam Hoare
 Two Israeli novels — The Memory Monster by Yishai Sarid and The Tunnel by A.B. Yehoshua — made... Read more > February 2021

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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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