When American-born Haim Watzman immigrated to Israel, he was drafted into the army and, after eighteen months of compulsory service, was assigned to Company C, the reserve infantry unit that would define the next twenty years of his life. From 1984 until 2002, for at least a month a year, Watzman, who had never aspired to military adventure, was a soldier.Watzman was a soldier as he adjusted to his new country, raised his children, and pursued a career as a writer and translator. A...

The Jordan Rift Valley, stretching from the Red Sea to Lebanon, was ripped open millions of years ago by vast forces within the earth. This geological object has also been a part of human history ever since early humans used it as a path in their journey out of Africa. And for a quarter of a century it has been part of the biography of Israeli writer Haim Watzman.In the autumn of 2004, as his country was riven by a fierce debate over its borders, Watzman took a two-week journey up ...

A magisterial biography of Israel’s first president.In Chaim Weizmann: A Biography, Jehuda Reinharz and Motti Golani show how Weizmann, a leader of the World Zionist Organization who became the first president of Israel, advocated for a Jewish state by gaining the support of influential politicians and statesmen as well as Jews around the world. Beginning with his childhood in Belorussia and concluding with his tenure as president, Reinharz and Golani desc...

A Ha'aretz columnist sheds critical light on the complex relationship between Israel and the Holocaust in this "frank and eye-opening" history ( The New York Times Book Review).The Seventh Million is the first book to show the decisive impact of the Holocaust on the identity, ideology, and politics of Israel. Drawing on diaries, interviews, and thousands of declassified documents, Tom Segev reconsiders the major struggles ...

2019 National Jewish Book Award Finalist"[A] fascinating biography . . . a masterly portrait of a titanic yet unfulfilled man . . . this is a gripping study of power, and the loneliness of power." —The EconomistAs the founder of Israel, David Ben-Gurion long ago secured his reputation as a leading figure of the twentieth century. Determined from an early age to create a Jewish state, he thereupon took control of the Zionist movemen...

In this definitive biography, Israel's leading journalist-historian Tom Segev uses large amounts of previously unreleased archival material to give an original, nuanced account, transcending the myths and legends that have accreted around the Ben-Gurion. Segev's probing biography ranges from the villages of Poland to Manhattan libraries, London hotels, and the hills of Palestine, and shows us Ben-Gurion's relentless activity across six decades. Along the way, Segev reveals for the first ti...

‘A well-written and thought-provoking account of the current crisis of globalization. Not everyone will agree with Eyal’s interpretation, but few will remain indifferent.’ – Yuval Noah Harari, author of SapiensRevolt is an eloquent and provocative challenge to the prevailing wisdom about the rise of nationalism and populism today. With a vibrant and informed voice, Nadav Eyal illustrates how modern globalization is unsustainable. ...

"A brilliant, searing examination of Israel's occupation of the West Bank . . . beautiful, passionate, and profoundly disturbing" ( Chicago Tribune ).The Israeli novelist David Grossman's impassioned account of what he observed on the West Bank in early 1987—not only the misery of the Palestinian refugees and their deep-seated hatred of the Israelis, but also the cost of occupation for both occupier and occupied—is an inti...

Winner of the National Jewish Book AwardNamed a Best Books of the Year by The New York TimesNamed an Editors' Choice Best Book by The New York Times“The best single account of Palestine under the British mandate . . . This will doubtlessly become the authoritative text for the pre-state history of Israel.” —The New York Times Book ReviewRich ...

'A well-written and thought-provoking account of the current crisis of globalization. Not everyone will agree with Eyal's interpretation, but few will remain indifferent.' —Yuval Noah Harari, author of SapiensRevolt is an eloquent and provocative challenge to the prevailing wisdom about the rise of nationalism and populism. With a vibrant and informed voice, Nadav Eyal illustrates how modern globalization is not sustainable. He contends that the c...

A new history of how the Nazi era upended German-Jewish experiences of space and time from eminent historian Guy Miron.In Space and Time under Persecution, Guy Miron considers how social exclusion, economic decline, physical relocation, and, later, forced evictions, labor, and deportation under Nazi rule forever changed German Jews’ experience of space and time. Facing ever-mounting restrictions, German Jews reimagined their worlds—devising new relationshi...