blogs/brentspodek

Dear Friends:

This is an incomplete and evolving list of resources* I’m drawing on for my own understanding of the current crisis in Israel and Palestine and the long painful history that precedes it. Feel free to share this with others, and if you have resources you think are worthwhile, please let me know at brent@beaconhebrewalliance.org.

To state what should be obvious, I don’t agree with everyone I read.  These are resources I think are intelligent and worth the time it takes to read/listen them, which is not the same thing as endorsing them. Indeed, I think we would all be better off if we thoughtfully absorbed worthwhile voices that don't immediately align with our own perspectives.

With prayers for better times,

Rabbi Brent

*Click here to view the Google Doc that is being regularly updated. 

Single Episode Podcasts/Articles

• Do Not Take Your Mezuza off Your Door, from Rabbi Rachel Timoner

• Israel is Giving Hamas what it Wants, The Ezra Klein Show

• Vengeful Pathologies, Adam Shatz

Ongoing Podcasts

• What matters Now, from The Times of Israel

• Israel Story - “This American Life” style stories from Israel

• Identity/Crisis - Hartman Institute podcast about news and ideas

   

Thinkers/Bloggers

• Ruby Namdar - significant Israeli novelist living in NY

• Matti Friedman

• Micah Goodman (scroll past bio to get to recent articles)

• Tomer Persico

• Ayman Odeh -  Israeli Arab member of Knesset and leader of the Hadash party.

   

News Outlets

• Times of Israel - probably the best free, English language Israel newspaper

• +972: Independent Journalism from Israel-Palestine - left leaning coverage

• Haaretz - Israel’s “newspaper of record” worth subscribing to for Israel news

• Arutz Sheva - hard right leaning coverage

   

Books

Israeli History 101 - General Overviews

• Can We Talk about Israel, Daniel Sokatch

• Israel: A Simple Guide to the Most Misunderstood Country on Earth, by Noa Tishby

• A History of Israel: From the Rise of Zionism to Our Time, by Howard Sachar

• From Beirut to Jerusalem - older classic by Tom Friedman 

Palestinian History-General Overviews

• The Question of Palestine, by Edward Said - older classic which lays out the Palestinian experience as of 1979

• The Hundred Years’ War on Palestine, by Rashid Khalidi.

• An Oral History of the Palestinian Nakba, Nahla Abdo and Nur Masalha, 

• Strangers in the House, Raja Shehadeh

• Hamas Contained, Tareq Baconi

Israeli History 210 - Deeper Dives

• Like Dreamers: The Story of the Israeli Paratroopers Who Reunited Jerusalem and Divided a Nation, by Yossi Klein Halevi

• Killing a King: The Assassination of Yitzhak Rabin and the Remaking of Israel, by Dan Ephron

• A State at Any Cost: The Life of David Ben-Gurion, by Tom Segev

• Israel’s Secret Wars, by Benny Morris and Ian Black

• 1949 - The First Israelis, by Tom Segev

• Pumpkinflowers: A Soldier’s Story of a Forgotten War, by Matti Friedman

General Jewish Life

• People Love Dead Jews, by Dara Horn

Organizations

• T'ruah

• Encounter

• New Israel Fund

• Americans for Peace Now

• J Street

• Breaking the Silence

• B’Tzelem

• Standing Together

Resources for Families

• Transcending Jewish Trauma

• How to Talk to Kids About What's Happening in Israel Right Now

• Reframing Israel