This is a partial review of Yoran Hazony’s The Jewish State: The Struggle for Israel’s Soul. Partial, because I read only the first half of the book.
Hazony is an important Israeli intellectual who’s work can be followed in the magazine Azure. The book is a well written brilliantly argued history of the Israeli State and the establishment of what Hazony perceives to be a secular state with concepts that are out-of-line with Jewish tradition.
I gave up reading half way through the book because Israel is truly a continuation of the Jewish tradition, alive, exciting and vital. Hazony’s is just one tiny part of an extensive and ferocious ongoing debate in Israel. The book, in English, is for outsiders. The real debate is in Hebrew among Hebrew speakers. I’m not a part of it and with negligible Hebrew, a pathetic lack of traditional knowledge and a full life outside of Israel, I am not a viable participant.
Read the book if you want to be an informed outsider.