We Stand Divided, Daniel Gordis
We Stand Divided, Daniel Gordis
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We Stand Divided
The Rift Between American Jews and Israel

Author: Daniel Gordis

Narrator: Fred Sanders

Unabridged: 8 hr 6 min

Format: Digital Audiobook Download

Publisher: Ecco

Published: 09/10/2019


Synopsis

From National Jewish Book Award Winner and author of Israel, a bold reevaluation of the tensions between American and Israeli Jews that reimagines the past, present, and future of Jewish life.Relations between the American Jewish community and Israel are at an all-time nadir. Since Israel’s founding seventy years ago, particularly as memory of the Holocaust and of Israel’s early vulnerability has receded, the divide has grown only wider. Most explanations pin the blame on Israel’s handling of its conflict with the Palestinians, Israel’s attitude toward non-Orthodox Judaism, and Israel’s dismissive attitude toward American Jews in general. In short, the cause for the rupture is not what Israel is; it’s what Israel does.These explanations tell only half the story. We Stand Divided examines the history of the troubled relationship, showing that from the outset, the founders of what are now the world’s two largest Jewish communities were responding to different threats and opportunities, and had very different ideas of how to guarantee a Jewish future.With an even hand, Daniel Gordis takes us beyond the headlines and explains how Israel and America have fundamentally different ideas about issues ranging from democracy and history to religion and identity. He argues that as a first step to healing the breach, the two communities must acknowledge and discuss their profound differences and moral commitments. Only then can they forge a path forward, together.

About Daniel Gordis

Daniel Gordis is the Koret Distinguished Fellow at Shalem College—Israel’s first liberal arts college—which he helped found in 2007. The author of numerous books on Jewish thought and political currents in Israel, he has twice won the National Jewish Book Award, including the prize for Book of the Year for Israel: A Concise History of a Nation Reborn. Raised and educated in the United States, he has been living in Jerusalem since 1998.


Reviews

Goodreads review by Sleepless on October 04, 2020

For a 288 page book, Gordis brings a lot to the table. Sure, he doesn't manage to describe every problem between Israelis and American Jews but I definitely think he frames some of them well. I'm giving this three stars hesitantly, it's more like 3.5 and the writing itself is great. The main thesis......more

Goodreads review by Alan on October 26, 2019

This is the second Daniel Gordis book I have read where I thought his observations are right on the mark; however, he offers little in any realistic way to overcome the challenge. And yet, I don't think that is a deficiency of the book simply because I don't see any easy path to bridge the divide be......more

Goodreads review by Adrian Joseph on May 15, 2022

Israelis are from Mars and American Jews are from Venus An in-depth examination of the widening schism between American Jews and their Israeli counterparts. Author Daniel Gordis compares their longstanding tumultuous relationship to an unhappy marriage with irreconcilable difference. He highlights th......more

Goodreads review by Michael on February 22, 2023

Gordis explores the relationship between American and Israeli Jews through the metaphor of a marriage on the brink of divorce, arguing that both sides need each other. The evidence is primarily historical, based on a reading of pro and anti-Zionist statements from the 1880s through the 1930s. Some pa......more

Goodreads review by Gordon on August 24, 2023

Daniel Gordis has written a brilliantly concise book about Israel and American Jews that attempts to explain how the division has become a wedge issue. There is a beautifully written sequence surrounding the Yom Kippur War in 1973. Daniel remembers being in synagogue and the transistor radio that wa......more