Israel
The story of Israeli prime minister Yitzak Rabin’s assassin
Incitement shows the roots of political fractures that remain.
The many varieties of anti-Semitism
Deborah Lipstadt shows how anti-Semitic sentiment can spring up where we least expect it.
by David Heim
An Israeli writer’s final word to his fellow citizens
Amos Oz feared that fanaticism was rising in Israel as well as in the West.
by Emily Soloff
Zionism’s competing visions of Israel
by David Heim
How new is the new Christian Zionism?
There have been many Zionisms over the years. Only one has imagined an eventual end of Judaism.
Dreaming in Israel
In Aharon Appelfeld's novel, a teenage Holocaust survivor sleeps, remembers, and learns to speak anew.
What makes Israel a Jewish state?
Two Israelis, a lawyer and a rabbi, on the complicated relationship between religion and national identity
What soldiers come home to
Can Christians display a life together that’s as compelling as war?
Hermeneutics in a fragile land
The history of Palestinian Christian interpretation of the Old Testament reminds us of the nuanced, fragile nature of life in that region.
reviewed by Walter Brueggemann
Zionism's theological roots
How does theology shape Jewish democracy, in light of the many competing claims and complex relationships in the land of Israel?
Chosen? by Walter Brueggemann
Are the people of 21st-century Israel the chosen ones of Genesis to whom Yahweh promised the land in eternal covenant? Walter Brueggemann gives a nuanced answer.
reviewed by J. Nelson Kraybill
The other Jerusalem: Poverty and isolation in Arab neighborhoods
There is a sharp contrast between West Jerusalem and mostly Arab East Jerusalem. Along this political and economic divide, violence has erupted.
The Paradox of Liberation, by Michael Walzer
Michael Walzer addresses a surprising question: the interplay between social revolutions and reactive counterrevolutions.
reviewed by Walter Brueggemann
Israel’s dreams and nightmares: Author Yossi Klein Halevi
"In the Middle East peace process, the peace was being negotiated by secular elites who lacked the religious language of so many of their people."
an interview by David Heim
BDS: What Palestinians think
The BDS (boycott, divestment, sanctions) movement against Israel, which has gained some traction in mainline denominations, raises hotly contested questions. (See, for example, my article “Boycotting the boycott” and the responses to it.)
A particularly salient one: Do ordinary Palestinians support BDS? Do Palestinians in the occupied territory want more separation from Israel or more integration with it?
By David Heim
Boycotting the boycott: The problem with the BDS movement
The BDS movement posits that a just future for the Palestinians lies first of all in disengagement from and resistance to Israel. But does it?
by David Heim
The price of peace
As Lawrence Wright nicely chronicles, Jimmy Carter faced a daunting task at Camp David in 1978. Carter, Menachem Begin, and Anwar el-Sadat each had much at stake.
Between two worlds: Writer Claire Hajaj
“Two things about my own life became clear: I really did understand both sides, and I didn’t understand them at all.”
by Amy Frykholm
Finding compassion in a trying land
(The Christian Science Monitor) The first bureaucratic triumph upon our arrival in Jerusalem came at the Ministry of Interior, when a surly woman peeled off our newly minted residency visas and pressed them into our passports.
“We are prisoners of thanks,” my husband and I said, mustering an antiquated Hebrew phrase of gratitude. “Bye,” she replied, with all the feeling of a desert rock.