Certain to provoke strong reactions from supporters and detractors, this is a must-read for anyone with a stake—or even an...
A powerful argument for the importance of a new approach to solving the conflict between the Israelis and the Palestinians.
Ben-Ami, a former advisor to President Bill Clinton and founder of the lobby group J Street, calls for a more open dialogue on Israel, claiming that the Jewish community is on a dangerous path that could lead to the destruction of the country. Beginning with the historical background on the creation of Israel and the important role played in it by members of his family, the author convincingly establishes his case that a two-state solution may be the only way to preserve Israel as a democratic homeland for the Jews. He recounts the failure of his father and others to persuade the international community to allow Jews to emigrate from Europe ahead of the Holocaust, and seems determined not to meet a similar fate in his mission to bring about a successful outcome to the Middle East peace process. Turning his attention to the country in which he grew up, the United States, Ben-Ami takes issue with the idea that any deviation from unwavering support for Israel’s government is tantamount to betrayal, insisting that “voices of dissent… may also have a critical message to convey—a message that can save lives and change history.” The author points to the historic liberalism of American Jews, questioning why their major organizations are unanimously right-wing when it comes to Israel, and attempting to show how a politically conservative and religiously orthodox minority has come to speak for a liberal, secular majority. Ben-Ami says he wants “nothing less than to rewrite the rules of American politics,” and of the American Jewish community’s conversation on Israel. His arguments, while controversial, are set forth in a passionate and articulate manner, and backed up by facts and clear-headed analysis—though the book’s single-minded focus leads to some repetition.
Certain to provoke strong reactions from supporters and detractors, this is a must-read for anyone with a stake—or even an interest—in this difficult issue.Pub Date: July 19, 2011
ISBN: 978-0-230-11274-2
Page Count: 256
Publisher: Palgrave Macmillan
Review Posted Online: June 6, 2011
Kirkus Reviews Issue: June 15, 2011
Dogged original research and superb narrative skills come together in this gripping account of pitiless evil.
Greed, depravity, and serial murder in 1920s Oklahoma.
During that time, enrolled members of the Osage Indian nation were among the wealthiest people per capita in the world. The rich oil fields beneath their reservation brought millions of dollars into the tribe annually, distributed to tribal members holding "headrights" that could not be bought or sold but only inherited. This vast wealth attracted the attention of unscrupulous whites who found ways to divert it to themselves by marrying Osage women or by having Osage declared legally incompetent so the whites could fleece them through the administration of their estates. For some, however, these deceptive tactics were not enough, and a plague of violent death—by shooting, poison, orchestrated automobile accident, and bombing—began to decimate the Osage in what they came to call the "Reign of Terror." Corrupt and incompetent law enforcement and judicial systems ensured that the perpetrators were never found or punished until the young J. Edgar Hoover saw cracking these cases as a means of burnishing the reputation of the newly professionalized FBI. Bestselling New Yorker staff writer Grann (The Devil and Sherlock Holmes: Tales of Murder, Madness, and Obsession, 2010, etc.) follows Special Agent Tom White and his assistants as they track the killers of one extended Osage family through a closed local culture of greed, bigotry, and lies in pursuit of protection for the survivors and justice for the dead. But he doesn't stop there; relying almost entirely on primary and unpublished sources, the author goes on to expose a web of conspiracy and corruption that extended far wider than even the FBI ever suspected. This page-turner surges forward with the pacing of a true-crime thriller, elevated by Grann's crisp and evocative prose and enhanced by dozens of period photographs.
Dogged original research and superb narrative skills come together in this gripping account of pitiless evil.Pub Date: April 18, 2017
ISBN: 978-0-385-53424-6
Page Count: 352
Publisher: Doubleday
Review Posted Online: Feb. 1, 2017
Kirkus Reviews Issue: Feb. 15, 2017
BOOK TO SCREEN
BOOK TO SCREEN
BOOK TO SCREEN
The author's youthfulness helps to assure the inevitable comparison with the Anne Frank diary although over and above the...
Elie Wiesel spent his early years in a small Transylvanian town as one of four children.
He was the only one of the family to survive what Francois Maurois, in his introduction, calls the "human holocaust" of the persecution of the Jews, which began with the restrictions, the singularization of the yellow star, the enclosure within the ghetto, and went on to the mass deportations to the ovens of Auschwitz and Buchenwald. There are unforgettable and horrifying scenes here in this spare and sombre memoir of this experience of the hanging of a child, of his first farewell with his father who leaves him an inheritance of a knife and a spoon, and of his last goodbye at Buchenwald his father's corpse is already cold let alone the long months of survival under unconscionable conditions.
Pub Date: Jan. 16, 2006
ISBN: 0374500010
Page Count: 120
Publisher: Hill & Wang
Review Posted Online: Oct. 7, 2011
Kirkus Reviews Issue: Jan. 15, 2006
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