This list of readings, prepared by the Association of Jewish Libraries (AJL),  aims to inform readers interested in learning about Israel, its history, and Israeli perspectives on the Israel-Hamas conflict. It includes both academic and literary titles and does not claim to be exhaustive.  It is a working document, and we appreciate feedback. You can click on the icon to the left, showing 3 dots and 3 lines, to open the Table of Contents and navigate the document.

For a short list of resources on the attacks of October 7 and their immediate aftermath, we can suggest the document, “Israel at War: Suggested Resources,” compiled by the Schusterman Center for Israel Studies at Brandeis University, which leans heavily on Brandeis-affiliated scholars. Additional academic resource guides appear below.

The Association of Jewish Libraries has also created a booklist with children’s books about Israel as part of our “Love Your Neighbor” series.

Contents:

Academic Books:

History of Israel:

  • Shapira, Anita  Israel: A History (Brandeis, 2012)

Presenting an accessible narrative and pleasant read accompanied by informative maps, the renowned professor of history relates the history of Israel, the Jewish State, from the late-eighteenth-century socio-political changes in Europe that led to the rise of the idea of a sovereign secular Jewish state and the movement whose goal was to bring this idea to practical fruition: the Zionist movement. The chapters divide the history of the prestate period into two chapters: from the late nineteenth century until the end of World War I and the British Mandate period. The history of the Jewish State is presented in chapter three to five, with the Six Days War in 1967 and the Camp David Peace accords in 1977 serving as chronological divides. The subchapter on the years 1990–2000 titled “A Decade of Hope,” concludes the history and “An Interim Summary” concludes the book.

Additional scholarly works on different aspects of Israeli history are available from the Schusterman Center for Israel Studies.

  • Engel, David, Zionism (Part of the A Short History of a Big Idea series) (Routledge, 2008)

David Engel’s concise and illuminating book written for a broad audience tells the story of the Zionist movement from its inception throughout the late nineteenth and twentieth century demonstrating that its original goals, the establishment of a Jewish state and bringing Jewish settlers to historical Palestine nurtured new goals and challenges. This book also shows how Jewish victimization in Europe and Israeli statehood shaped the Zionist movement and how Zionist groups embracing different socio-economic and religious ideologies differed on both domestic and foreign political questions.

  • Essential Israel: Essays for the 21st Century (S. Ilan Troen and Rachel Fish, eds)

Essential Israel is an innovative and engaging volume of essays designed for American readers who want to be better-informed about Israel: its history and culture, its place in the Middle East, and its changing relations to the United Nations and the United States. In a highly readable style, expert contributors illuminate current issues and concerns in their historical and contemporary contexts. Each chapter can be read as an independent unit, but chapters also cluster naturally around such topics as the Arab-Israeli conflict and the peace process; Zionism and settlement; the Holocaust; immigration, religion, and issues of personal status in a Jewish and democratic state; American Jews and Israel; changing Christian and Muslim attitudes to Israel; and identity as expressed in the Hebrew language through Israeli literature, film, and music. The volume’s diverse essays provide a compelling and nuanced view of complexity essential for a grounded understanding of Israel and the public debate that surrounds it today.

  • Stanislawski, Michael.  Zionism:  a Very Short Introduction

In this Very Short Introduction, Michael Stanislawski presents an impartial and disinterested history of Zionist ideology from its origins to the present. Sharp and accessible, this book charts the crucial moments in the ideological development of Zionism, including the emergence of modern Jewish nationalism in early nineteenth century Europe, the founding of the Zionist movement by Theodor Herzl in 1897, the Balfour Declaration, the creation of the State of Israel in 1948 under the leadership of David Ben-Gurion, the Six Day War in 1967, the rise of the "Peace Now" movement, and the election of conservative prime minister Benjamin Netanyahu. Stanislawski's balanced analysis of these controversial events illuminates why, despite the undeniable success in its goal of creating a Jewish state, profound questions remain today about the long-term viability of Zionist ideology in a rapidly destabilizing Middle East.

  • Khalidi, Rashid. Palestinian Identity: The Construction of Modern National Consciousness (Columbia University Press, 1997).

Khalidi’s investigation aims to reconstruct the process of the evolution of Palestinian consciousness since its earliest documented emergence in the late Ottoman period. It highlights the different elements, narratives, and representations that had contributed to this identity, such as attachment to Jerusalem, religious belonging, linguistic consciousness, family, tribal, and larger political-national ties. It points out the role that the Ottoman, British, and Zionist political presence in the region and specifically in historical Palestine played in the formation of this identity. In close correspondence with the modernist nationalism theoreticians’ findings, Khalidi examines the influence of the press and intellectuals as well as grass-roots movements in addition to the Palestine Liberation Organization.

Palestine before 1948

  • Campos, Michelle Ottoman Brothers (Stanford University Press, 2011)

Ottoman Brothers  is an amalgamation of meticulous research, storytelling, and accessible analysis. It introduces the reader to early twentieth-century Palestine, divided between two administrative units of the Ottoman Empire. The transformation of Palestine during this period is informative of the changes that the imperial Ottoman state and its relationship with its citizens experienced. Campos demonstrates that inhabitants, regardless of their religious or ethnic backgrounds, strived to establish and act upon a civic Ottoman identity. The brotherhood shared by Ottoman nationals—Jews, Arabs, the Druze, etc., Muslims or Christians—at the focus of Campos’s inquiry elucidates a bottom-up process of imperial belonging across cultural divides, which nuances our historical view of the area and elucidates the blurred demarcation between nation and empire as competing political systems in the early twentieth century.

The history of Jerusalem is one of conflict, faith, and empire. Few cities have been attacked as often and as savagely. This was no less true in the Middle Ages. From the Persian sack in 614 through the bloody First Crusade and beyond, Jerusalem changed hands countless times. But despite these horrific acts of violence, its story during this period is also one of interfaith tolerance and accord. John D. Hosler explores the great clashes and delicate settlements of medieval Jerusalem. He examines the city’s many sieges and considers the experiences of its inhabitants of all faiths. The city’s conquerors consistently acknowledged and reinforced the rights of those religious minorities over which they ruled. This account reveals the way in which Jerusalem’s past has been constructed on partial histories—and urges us to reckon with the city’s broader historical contours.

  • Ottoman Palestine, 1800-1914: Studies in economic and social history. (1990). E.J. Brill.

This collection of short studies presents a panoramic view of the economic and social conditions of late nineteenth-century and early twentieth-century Ottoman Palestine. The reader learns about the demographics of urban centers like Jerusalem and Hebron, Arab villages and agricultural practices, agricultural settlements established by Zionist pioneers, the expansion of railroad, religious taxation, pilgrims, the Anglo-Palestine Company, the development of industrial production, and economic growth in the region’s various areas. The book is heavily peppered with tables and figures illustrating the research in support of the studies.

  • Pappé, I. & Mansour, J.(2022). Historical dictionary of Palestine. Rowman & Littlefield.

A highly informative volume that includes historical maps, a chronology that spans from 1469 BCE until 2020, a discussion of the area’s history from the Palestinian perspective since the Ottoman period, offering clarity on the Israeli-Palestinian conflict, and, not least, a dictionary that includes names of local and international political actors and leaders, places, events, programs, and more.

  • Cohen, M. J. (2014). Palestine and the Great Powers, 1945-1948. Princeton University Press. doi: 10.1515/9781400853571

Cohen’s book reconstructs the events of the three years prior to the establishment of the State of Israel from the perspective of the four powers—Great Britain, the US, the Zionist leadership, and the Palestinian elite—involved in the creation of a new political order in the aftermath of the removal of the British Mandate from Palestine. Although the book was first published in 1982 and reprinted in 2014, and for some might read outdated, the critical reader will find it useful to gain a closer glance of the events of the immediate postwar years.

  • Morris, B. (2002). The road to Jerusalem: Glubb Pasha, Palestine and the Jews. In the United States of America distributed by Palgrave Macmillan, I.B. Tauris.

The private and published writings of General Sir John Glubb, aka Glubb Pasha, commander of Transjordan’s Arab Legion between 1939 and 1956 are in the focus of Benny Morris’s book. The historian closely examines Glubb’s ideas pointing out the lens of racism that shaped his perceptions of Arabs and Jews in the region and emphasizing his views of the establishment of Israel. Morris argues that Transjordan, even if tacitly, accepted the British partition plans and its participation in the Arab country’s attack in the newly declared state aimed to secure Jordanian control over what today is named as the West Bank (Arab Palestine) and not the annihilation of Israel. This book received mixed scholarly reviews for both its thesis and its heavy reliance on Glubb’s writings. Critics, however, agreed on praising Morris’s meticulous research and the significance of the topic: bringing new light to the relations between the Zionist leadership, the British military leadership in the region, and the Hashemite Kingdom of Jordan.

  • Metzer, J. (1998). The divided economy of mandatory Palestine. Cambridge University Press.

Jacob Metzer’s book focuses on British Mandatory Palestine, which turned the region into one administrative district. The book builds its findings on data on the Jewish economy and the author’s and his collaborators' newly constructed national income accounts for the Arab community, presented in Appendix A. Accordingly, it highlights the ethnic divide in Mandatory Palestine’s economic life and that it was a “dual economy.” The chapters explore the particular economic activities characteristic of the two sectors, the social and demographic basis of the two economies, production’s main factors: land, capital, and labor and its dynamic relationship to trade, as well as the public sectors shaped by the government’s economic policies and distribution patterns taking into consideration Jewish and Arab non-governmental forces. This book is a recommended read for students of economic history and of the general history of the region.

  • Gorny, Y. (2006). From Binational Society to Jewish State: Federal Concepts in Zionist Political Thought, 1920-1990, and the Jewish People. BRILL. DOI: 10.1163/9789047411611

The book’s title expressly describes the underlying understanding of the book, namely that in the federative plans of the Zionist leadership and Israel’s subsequent governments—which the author describes as Zionist policy—to solve the Jewish-Arab conflict, the Jewish people’s right to the state has remained a central element. As the author notes, the title “reflects the transition from an identity that was logical but politically impossible to one that has become possible but still lacks its neighbors’ conceit.” (p. ix) The author points out that the inability to realize a federative arrangement in the region, Jewish identity further evolved as an ethnic identity. The book investigates the path that led to this outcome at the end of the twentieth century through a discussion of the federative model that Central and Eastern European leaders developed based on the British parliamentary model at the beginning of the century, ideas of national autonomy, federative plans for Palestine, plans for a Jewish-Arab, binational state, and the federal views of Arye (Lova) Eliav and Shimon Peres. The book, thus, offers a broad historical review of Jewish thinkers’ plans for the political settlement for a binational state from across the political spectrum.

  • Stein, K. W. (1984). The land question in Palestine, 1917-1939. University of North Carolina Press.

Stein’s study focuses on one of the fundamental aspects of the history of Mandatory Palestine, the establishment of Israel, and the Israeli-Palestinian conflict: Zionist land purchases and the shifting ownership of land during the Mandate period. (The half a million acres purchased served as a basis of the 1947 partition plan.) Stein consulted a large array of mostly government and official documents produced by the British Mandate and the Zionists based on which he suggests that the ZIonist efforts to purchase land were successful because of the successful Zionist fund management to buy land, their influence on British land policy, that is mostly ensuring that the lack of control or regime would allow continued purchases, and Arab owners, mostly absent, of large estates, were willing to sell land to the Jewish settlers, while local owners of mostly small plots were forced  to sell due to economic hardships. Stein points out that there was no effective Palestinian political initiative to counter Zionist influence over the British attitude toward land ownership.

  • Israel: A History by Martin Gilbert (1998)

This book provides an accessible overview of Israel's history, covering key events, personalities, and conflicts.

  • My Promised Land: The Triumph and Tragedy of Israel  by Ari Shavit (2013)

A combination of personal narrative and historical analysis, exploring the complexities of Israeli society and its challenges.

  • The Birth of the Palestinian Refugee Problem Revisited by Benny Morris (2004)

A scholarly work that delves into the causes and consequences of the Palestinian refugee crisis during the creation of Israel.

History of the Israeli-Palestinian conflict

  • Waxman, Dov. The Israeli Palestinian Conflict: What Everyone Needs to Know (Oxford University Press, 2019).

The Israeli-Palestinian Conflict: What Everyone Needs to Know offers an even-handed and judicious guide to the world's most intractable dispute. Writing in an engaging, jargon-free Q&A format, Dov Waxman provides clear and concise answers to common questions, from the most basic to the most contentious. Covering the conflict from its nineteenth-century origins to the latest developments of the twenty-first century, this book explains the key events, examines the core issues, and presents the competing claims and narratives of both sides. Readers will learn what the Israeli-Palestinian conflict is all about, how it has evolved over time, and why it continues to defy diplomatic efforts at a resolution.

  • James L. Gelvin, The Israel-Palestine Conflict: One Hundred Years of War

Now entering its third edition, James L. Gelvin's award-winning account of the conflict between Israelis and their forebears, on the one hand, and Palestinians and theirs, on the other, offers a compelling, accessible, and current introduction for students and general readers. Newly updated to take into account the effects of the 2010–11 Arab uprisings on the conflict and the recognition of Palestinian statehood by the United Nations, the book traces the struggle from the emergence of nationalism among the Jews of Europe and the Arab inhabitants of Ottoman Palestine through the present, exploring the external pressures and internal logic that have propelled it. Placing events in Palestine within the framework of global history, The Israel-Palestine Conflict: One Hundred Years of War skillfully interweaves biographical sketches, eyewitness accounts, poetry, fiction, and official documentation into its narrative.

In late summer 1929, a countrywide outbreak of Arab-Jewish-British violence transformed the political landscape of Palestine forever. In contrast with those who point to the wars of 1948 and 1967, historian Hillel Cohen marks these bloody events as year zero of the Arab-Israeli conflict that persists today. The murderous violence inflicted on Jews caused a fractious-and now traumatized-community of Zionists, non-Zionists, Ashkenazim, and Mizrachim to coalesce around a unified national consciousness arrayed against an implacable Arab enemy. While the Jews unified, Arabs came to grasp the national essence of the conflict, realizing that Jews of all stripes viewed the land as belonging to the Jewish people. Through memory and historiography, in a manner both associative and highly calculated, Cohen traces the horrific events of August 23 to September 1 in painstaking detail. He extends his geographic and chronological reach and uses a non-linear reconstruction of events to call for a thorough reconsideration of cause and effect. Sifting through Arab and Hebrew sources-many rarely, if ever, examined before-Cohen reflects on the attitudes and perceptions of Jews and Arabs who experienced the events and, most significantly, on the memories they bequeathed to later generations. The result is a multifaceted and revealing examination of a formative series of episodes that will intrigue historians, political scientists, and others interested in understanding the essence-and the very beginning-of what has been an intractable conflict.

  •   Dowty, Alan. Israel/Palestine. Fourth edition. Cambridge, England: Polity, 2017.

What explains the peculiar intensity and evident intractability of the Israeli-Palestinian conflict? Of all the "hot spots" in the world today, the apparently endless clash between Jews and Arabs in the Middle East seems unique in its longevity and resistance to resolution. Is this conflict really different from other ethnic and nationalist confrontations, and if so, in what way? In this fully revised and expanded fourth edition of his highly respected introductory text, Alan Dowty demystifies the conflict by putting it in broad historical perspective, identifying its roots, and tracing its evolution up to the current impasse. His account offers a clear analytic framework for understanding transformations over time, and in doing so, punctures the myths of an "age-old" conflict with an unbridgeable gap between the two sides. Rather than simply reciting historical detail, this book presents a clear overview that serves as a road map through the thicket of conflicting claims. Updated to include recent developments, such as the clashes in the Gaza Strip and the latest diplomatic initiatives, the new edition presents in full the opposed perspectives of the two sides, leaving readers to make their own evaluations of the issues. The book thus expresses fairly and objectively the concerns, hopes, fears, and passions of both sides, making it clear why this conflict is waged with such vehemence - and how, for all that, the gap between the two sides has narrowed over time.

  • One State, Two States: Resolving the Israel/Palestine Conflict by Benny Morris (2009)

Morris explores the viability and potential consequences of various solutions to the Israeli-Palestinian conflict.

  • The Israel-Arab Reader: A Documentary History of the Middle East Conflict edited by Walter Laqueur and Barry Rubin (2016)

A comprehensive collection of primary sources, offering diverse perspectives on the conflict.

  • Righteous Victims: A History of the Zionist-Arab Conflict, 1881-2001 by Benny Morris (1999)

An in-depth examination of the Arab-Israeli conflict, tracing its roots and providing a comprehensive account.

  • Kessler, Oren. Palestine 1936: The Great Revolt and the Roots of the Middle East Conflict. 2023.  

Although not an academic book, it seems to be well-researched and gives a background of the Arab conflict with Zionism before 1948 and after.

Non-academic books (i.e. readable to a broad audience)

  • Sokatch, Daniel, Can We Talk About Israel? (ills by Christopher Noxon), Bloomsbury Publishing; Reprint edition (October 18, 2022)

"Can't you just explain the Israel situation to me? In, like, 10 minutes or less?" This is the question Daniel Sokatch is used to answering on an almost daily basis as the head of the New Israel Fund, an organization dedicated to equality and democracy for all Israelis, not just Jews, Sokatch is supremely well-versed on the Israeli conflict.

Can We Talk About Israel? is the story of that conflict, and of why so many people feel so strongly about it without actually understanding it very well at all. It is an attempt to grapple with a century-long struggle between two peoples that both perceive themselves as (and indeed are) victims. And it's an attempt to explain why Israel (and the Israeli-Palestinian conflict) inspires such extreme feelings-why it seems like Israel is the answer to “what is wrong with the world” for half the people in it, and “what is right with the world” for the other half. As Sokatch asks, is there any other topic about which so many intelligent, educated and sophisticated people express such strongly and passionately held convictions, and about which they actually know so little?

Complete with engaging illustrations by Christopher Noxon, Can We Talk About Israel? is an easy-to-read yet penetrating and original look at the history and basic contours of one of the most complicated conflicts in the world.

  • Gordis, Daniel.  A Concise History of a Nation Reborn (Ecco, 2016)

Israel is a tiny state, and yet it has captured the world’s attention, aroused its imagination, and lately, been the object of its opprobrium. Why does such a small country speak to so many global concerns? More pressingly: Why does Israel make the decisions it does? And what lies in its future?

We cannot answer these questions until we understand Israel’s people and the questions and conflicts, the hopes and desires, that have animated their conversations and actions. Though Israel’s history is rife with conflict, these conflicts do not fully communicate the spirit of Israel and its people: they give short shrift to the dream that gave birth to the state, and to the vision for the Jewish people that was at its core. Guiding us through the milestones of Israeli history, Gordis relays the drama of the Jewish people’s story and the creation of the state. Clear-eyed and erudite, he illustrates how Israel became a cultural, economic and military powerhouse—but also explains where Israel made grave mistakes and traces the long history of Israel’s deepening isolation.

  • Israel, A Simple Guide to the Most Misunderstood Country on Earth by Noa Tishby (Free Press, reprint 2022)

Israel. The small strip of arid land is 5,700 miles away but remains a hot-button issue and a thorny topic of debate. But while everyone seems to have a strong opinion about Israel, how many people actually know the facts?

Here to fill in the information gap is Israeli American Noa Tishby. But “this is not your Bubbie’s history book” (Bill Maher, host of Real Time with Bill Maher). Instead, offering a fresh, 360-degree view, Tishby brings her “passion, humor, and deep intimacy” (Yossi Klein Halevi, New York Times bestselling author of Letters to My Palestinian Neighbor) to the subject, creating an accessible and dynamic portrait of a tiny country of outsized relevance. Through bite-sized chunks of history and deeply personal stories, Tishby chronicles her homeland’s evolution, beginning in Biblical times and moving forward to cover everything from WWI to Israel’s creation to the disputes dividing the country today. Tackling popular misconceptions with an abundance of facts, Tishby provides critical context around headline-generating controversies and offers a clear, intimate account of the richly cultured country of Israel.

  • Landes, Richard, Can the "Whole World" Be Wrong?: Lethal Journalism, Antisemitism and Global Jihad (Academic Studies Press, 2022)

This book "documents how a radical inability of Westerners to understand the medieval mentality that drove Global Jihad prompted a series of disastrous misinterpretations and misguided reactions that have shaped our so-far unhappy century." Another meticulously researched book with extensive footnotes, a comprehensive bibliography and detailed index,  one reviewer calls the book "frighteningly brilliant and brilliantly frightening." One of our favorite aspects of the book is Landes' terms to describe the current "journalistic" environment, including "Masochistic Omnipotence Syndrome," "Moral Schadenfreude," and "Humanitarian Racism." At a hefty 486 pages of text, it is a fascinating and worthwhile, if challenging read.  

  • Klein haLevi, Yossi, Letters to my Palestinian Neighbor. (Harper Perennial, Reprint 2019)

Letters to My Palestinian Neighbor is one Israeli’s powerful attempt to reach beyond the wall that separates Israelis and Palestinians. In a series of letters, Yossi Klein Halevi explains what motivated him to leave his native New York in his twenties and move to Israel.

See also the website, which includes responses from Palestinians: https://www.letterstomyneighbor.com/

  • Fersko, Diana, We need to Talk About Antisemitism (Seal Press, 2023)

Includes a chapter on Israel discussing why the discourse so often turns into antisemitism

  • Sayed Kashua Native: Dispatches from an Israeli-Palestinian Life (Grove Press, 2016)

An Israeli-Palestinian who lived in Jerusalem for most of his life, Kashua started writing in Hebrew with the hope of creating one story that both Palestinians and Israelis could relate to, rather than two that cannot coexist. He devoted his novels and his satirical weekly column published in Haaretz to exploring the contradictions of modern Israel while also capturing the nuances of family life in all its tenderness and chaos.

Fiction and Poetry

  • McCann, Column, Apeirogon (Random House, 2021)

Bassam Aramin is Palestinian. Rami Elhanan is Israeli. They inhabit a world of conflict that colors every aspect of their lives, from the roads they are allowed to drive on to the schools their children attend to the checkpoints, both physical and emotional, they must negotiate.

 

But their lives, however circumscribed, are upended one after the other: first, Rami’s thirteen-year-old daughter, Smadar, becomes the victim of suicide bombers; a decade later, Bassam’s ten-year-old daughter, Abir, is killed by a rubber bullet. Rami and Bassam had been raised to hate one another. And yet, when they learn of each other’s stories, they recognize the loss that connects them. Together they attempt to use their grief as a weapon for peace—and with their one small act, start to permeate what has for generations seemed an impermeable conflict.

 

This extraordinary novel is the fruit of a seed planted when the novelist Colum McCann met the real Bassam and Rami on a trip with the non-profit organization Narrative 4. McCann was moved by their willingness to share their stories with the world, by their hope that if they could see themselves in one another, perhaps others could too.

 

With their blessing, and unprecedented access to their families, lives, and personal recollections, McCann began to craft Apeirogon, which uses their real-life stories to begin another—one that crosses centuries and continents, stitching together time, art, history, nature, and politics in a tale both heartbreaking and hopeful. The result is an ambitious novel, crafted out of a universe of fictional and nonfictional material, with these fathers’ moving story at its heart.

  • Eshkol Nevo, Homesick   (Chatto & Windus, 2008)

Published in Hebrew in 2004 and in English 2010, Eshkol Nevo’s first book became an immediate sensation. As he told in an online presentation, the idea of the novel originated in his endeavor to revisit a personal memory, an experience from 1995. It is Nevo, who lived in a tiny apartment in Maoz Zion, on the site of the Palestinian village El-Castel, that became a townlet next to Mevasseret Zion, in the outskirts of Jerusalem. The biographical inspiration, the study of his own personal life transitioned to the depiction of a broader picture, of his former landlord and the neighbors, and finally transformed into the story of the novel, which starts as the original memory did: the arrival of the Noa and Amir, a young couple to rent an apartment in Maoz Zion. First they cannot find the right address and happen to enter a house in morning. The description of the apartment introduces the landlords and soon the reader encounters all the main characters, representing the diverse demographics, Palestinians included of Israel in the year of the assassination of Prime Minister Itzhak Rabin.

  • David Grossman, To the End of the Land (Knopf, 2010)

In this highly praised novel, Grossman tells the story of Ora, a mother of two sons and (once) a lover of two men, fathers of her sons. Her husband, Ilan, has taken her elder son to South America, while her younger son, Ofer, in truth the son of Avram, is in the army, completing his mandatory service. Ora has been planning a vacation with Ofer after his completion of the service, however, when the clashes on the Lebanese border flare up, he decides to remain with the army. Ora cannot respite for release from her constant fear of the night visit from the army reporting on the death of her son. To avoid even the possibility, she decides to go on the hiking tour she planned to take with Ofer, without her phone so she cannot be reached. She plans to contact Avram, travel with him and tell him about her son. As long as she talks about Ofer, he is alive. Through the walk, flashbacks reveal the story of Ora’s and Avram’s encounter after his release from Egyptian captivity in the 1973 Yom Kippur War, and Grossman depicts the landscape they see in the present. The novel protests against war as a constant reality by showing its unbearable weight placed on the shoulders and hearts of its protagonists.

  • Dara Horn, Eternal Life (W. W. Norton & Company, 2018)

In Eternal Life, originally published in 2018, Dara Horn asks the question what is the meaning of eternal life and searches for the answer through the construction of the life of Rachel, a two-thousand years old Jewish woman, who made a bargain with the high priest of Jerusalem and gave up her own death to find cure for her sick son. Horn describes the book on her webpage: “Rachel’s current troubles―a middle-aged son mining digital currency in her basement, a scientist granddaughter trying to peek into her genes―are only the latest in a litany spanning dozens of countries, scores of marriages, hundreds of children, and 2,000 years, going back to Roman-occupied Jerusalem. Only one person shares her immortality: an illicit lover who pursues her through the ages. But when her children develop technologies that could change her fate, Rachel must find a way out. From ancient religion to the scientific frontier, Dara Horn pits our efforts to make life last against the deeper challenge of making life worth living.” The book was named New York Times Notable Book, A Booklist Editors’ Choice, and a Chicago Public Library Best Book of the Year.

  • Amos Oz tale of love and darkness (Harcourt, 2004)

This autobiography is a family history and a chronicle of the last years of the British Mandate and the foundation of Israel as well. It has become a best-seller in Israel. The author chose the name Oz, which in English means courage, denying his father’s, Klasuner, when decided to leave Jerusalem for Kibbutz Hulda. He grew up in Jerusalem, it is there where he witnessed the war of 1948, and where his mother committed suicide. Becoming the man he chose to be, he separated from the legacy of his father and aimed to escape the feelings the death of his mother evoked in him.    

  • Thrall, Nathan, A Day in the Life of Abed Salama: Anatomy of a Jerusalem Tragedy (Metropolitan, 2023)

Five-year-old Milad Salama is excited for a school trip to a theme park on the outskirts of Jerusalem. On the way, his bus collides with a semitrailer. His father, Abed, gets word of the crash and rushes to the site. The scene is chaos—the children have been taken to different hospitals in Jerusalem and the West Bank; some are missing, others cannot be identified. Abed sets off on an odyssey to learn Milad’s fate. It is every parent’s worst nightmare, but for Abed it is compounded by the maze of physical, emotional, and bureaucratic obstacles he must navigate because he is Palestinian. He is on the wrong side of the separation wall, holds the wrong ID to pass the military checkpoints, and has the wrong papers to enter the city of Jerusalem. Abed’s quest to find Milad is interwoven with the stories of a cast of Jewish and Palestinian characters whose lives and histories unexpectedly converge.

  • Ner-David, Haviva. Hope Valley : a Novel. (Fairfield, California: Bedazzled Ink Publishing Company, 2021).

Hope Valley is the story of two women, one Jewish-Israeli and one Palestinian-Israeli, who come together to form the unlikeliest of friendships. Tikvah and Ruby meet one summer day right before the outbreak of the 2nd intifada, in the Galilean valley that separates the segregated villages in which they live. The valley Ruby's father had called Hope came to symbolize the political enmity that has defined the history of two nations in this troubled land and which has led to parallel cultures with little meaningful interaction between them. Tikvah, a fifty-two-year old artist from Long Island, is the daughter of Holocaust survivors and was raised in a loveless and lifeless household. Ruby, a world-renowned Palestinian-Israeli artist, returns to her childhood village from a life abroad to be treated for her worsening cancer. At first, Ruby pursues Tikvah's friendship to get into Tikvah's house and retrieve the diary Ruby's father had left behind when his family was expelled from that same house in the 1948 war. But as their friendship grows, they not only open up to each other's narratives and humanity, but uncover secrets from their own lives. Tikvah's and Ruby's stories show both the strength and fragility of family ties, the power that trauma and fear has in shaping our lives, the strength we muster to face death and suffering, the vicissitudes of marriage and the glorious meaning of friendship. Their lives tap into the primal need for connection, as well as the rich and transformative bonds that can be formed from synchronistic encounters. In Hope Valley we meet two strong women from nations in conflict, who circle each other and, in recognizing each other's pain, offer us hope that fear and resentment can grow into love"

Films:

  • Seeds of Conflict
  • Dimona Twist

Podcasts

Specific Episodes

  • Prof. Yehuda Mirsky on Mid-Atlantic - conversations about US, UK and world politics

https://play.acast.com/s/midatlantic/hamas-attacks-israel-voices-from-both-sides 

An award-winning podcast that tells extraordinary tales about ordinary Israelis. Often called “the Israeli ‘This American Life,'” we bring you quirky, unpredictable, interesting and moving stories about a place we all think we know a lot about, but really don’t. Produced in partnership with The Jerusalem Foundation and The Times of Israel

Note that after October 7, the podcast started a series called “Wartime Diaries,” focusing on the present moment

Social Media

  • Instagram: @rootsmetals provides short information pieces about Israel, with extensive citations
  • Twitter/X: Haviv Rettig Gur (@havivrettiggur) has a very nuanced take on the conflict

News Sources

Videos, webinars,  timelines, analyses, suggested readings, maps, and educator guides relating to the Israel-Hamas War that began on October 7 (continuously updated)

  • Prof. Yehudah Mirsky “a lengthy interview at Fox News”

          https://www.livenowfox.com/video/1294717

A thirteen-minute interview filmed on Thursday, October 12, 2023, with Professor Yehudah Mirsky of Brandeis University, whose many past roles include special advisor in the US State Department's human rights bureau during the Clinton Administration and–as an ordained Rabbi–chaplain for the Red Cross after 9/11. Professor Mirsky, speaking from Jerusalem, provides a brief historical sketch, including helpful context regarding the rise of Hamas and its control of Gaza. It concludes with impressions of the Jewish Israeli street at the date of filming, five days after the attacks.

Select recorded university seminars and forums & academic/scholarly resources in response to the current situation

Recorded Seminars

Oct 12, 2023

Featuring: Eva Bellin, Myra and Robert Kraft Professor of Arab Politics in the Department of Politics and the Crown Center for Middle East Studies Yuval Evri, Assistant Professor of Near Eastern and Judaic Studies on the Marash and Ocuin Chair in Ottoman, Mizrahi, and Sephardic Jewish Studies Shai Feldman, Raymond Frankel Professor in Israeli Politics and Society at the Crown Center for Middle East Studies Abdel Monem Said Aly, Chairman, CEO, and Director of the Regional Center for Strategic Studies in Cairo; Chairman of the Egyptian daily newspaper Al-Masry Al-Youm; Founding senior fellow at the Crown Center for Middle East Studies Jonathan D. Sarna, University Professor; Joseph H. and Belle R. Braun Professor of American Jewish History, Department of Near Eastern & Judaic Studies Moderated by: Alexander Kaye, Director, Schusterman Center for Israel Studies; Karl, Harry, and Helen Stoll Chair in Israel Studies; Associate Professor, Department of Near Eastern and Judaic Studies Follow the Schusterman Center for Israel Studies: Facebook: https://www.facebook.com/SchustermanC... Twitter: https://twitter.com/Israel_Studies Website: https://www.brandeis.edu/israel-center Research Guide for Israel Studies: https://guides.library.brandeis.edu/S... Sign up for our updates: https://www.brandeis.edu/israel-cente...

Oct 16, 2023

Two discussions on the outbreak of war between Israel and Hamas were organized by The Jewish Studies and Middle Eastern Studies programs at Dartmouth and led by faculty. This recording is of the discussion that took place on Thursday, October 12, 2023 in Filene Auditorium at Dartmouth College. The event was moderated by Senior Lecturer Ezzedine Fishere, an Egyptian author and academic who has written extensively on the region, and attended by faculty from both departments including Susannah Heschel, Chair of Jewish Studies; Jonathan Smolin, a Middle Eastern Studies professor; and Visiting Professor Bernard Avishai.

On October 12th, The UCLA Y&S Nazarian Center, in partnership with the UCLA Burkle Center for International Relations, held an urgent, virtual discussion on Hamas' horrific terrorist attack on Israeli citizens, the unfolding Israel–Hamas war, and what these events will mean for the future of the region.

Nazarian Center Director Professor Dov Waxman and Dr. Dalia Dassa Kaye, Senior Fellow at UCLA’s Burkle Center for International Relations and director of its Initiative for Regional Security Architectures, analyzed the unfolding Israel–Hamas war and its potential developments and repercussions. Professor Kal Raustiala, Director of the UCLA Burkle Center for International Relations, served as moderator for the online discussion.

- Recorded Monday, October 16, 2023

- Co-sponsored by the University of Pittsburgh Jewish Studies Program, Kenneth P. Dietrich School of Arts and Sciences, Center for Civil Rights and Racial Justice, University Center for International Studies, and the Office of the Chancellor

The last week has seen thousands in Israel/Palestine killed and wounded, following a massacre of Israelis by Hamas militants on Saturday morning and devastating Israeli air strikes against Palestinian neighborhoods in Gaza. This panel brought together Omar Dajani, a Palestinian American legal scholar, and Mira Sucharov, a Canadian Jewish political scientist, who have spent the last two years intensively traveling to, and writing about, the region together. The session focused on the urgency of advancing the values of human life, equality, and freedom, as well as the challenges and opportunities of friendship across political communities.

On Sunday, October 15, Avi Shilon—a journalist, historian, and political scientist who has taught at Columbia, NYU, Tsinghua University, and Ben-Gurion University of the Negev—joined us for a webinar, “Israel at War: Live Discussion from Tel Aviv.” This talk was moderated by Rebecca Kobrin, IIJS Co-Director and Russell and Bettina Knapp Associate Professor of American Jewish History. Dr. Shilon discussed the terrorist attacks that took place in Israel on October 7th, as well as Israel’s response and impending military campaign, before answering audience questions.

Academic resource collections  (Including links to some recorded seminars)

Additional online resource guides and collections

Need organizing, description:

  • Ella Shohat
  • Jabra Ibrahim Jabra the first well.
  • Mira Sucherov’s co-edited book on Social Justice and Israel/Palestine (many different perspectives contained there)
  • After the Last Sky by Edward Said.
  • Michael Oren's Six Days of War, especially the first chapter
  • Shlomo Avineri (Zionism)