What the Rabbis are Reading

On Peoplehood

1. "That Pain You’re Feeling Is Peoplehood" by: Mijal Bitton, Sapir Journal Winter 2024

https://sapirjournal.org/war-in-israel/2023/11/that-pain-youre-feeling-is-peoplehood/

2. "Judaism A Very Short Introduction" by: Norman Solomon

Chapter 1: Who are the Jews?

3. "To Be A Jew Today: A New Guide to God, Israel, and the Jewish People" by: Noah Feldman

Part 3: Chapter 1

4.  "Why Do Jewish? A Manifesto for the 21st Century Jewish Peoplehood" by: Zack Bodner

Part 2: Why is This Night Different from All Other Nights?

5. "The Case for Jewish Peoplehood. Can We Be One?" by Dr. Erica Brown and Dr. Misha Galperin

Chapter 1: Defining Peoplehood

6. "Jewish Peoplehood: Change and Challenge" editor: Menachem Revivi and Ezra Kopelowitz

The Anomalies of Jewish Political Identity by Michael Walzer

On Israel 

1. Jerusalem 1913 (Amy Marcus)

2. Israel: A Simple Guide to the Most Misunderstood Country on Earth (Noa Tishby)

3. Can We Talk About Israel?: A Guide for the Curious, Confused, and Conflicted (Daniel Sokatch)

4. In This Place Together (PENINA EILBERG-SCHWARTZ and SULAIMAN KHATIB)

5. The Wondering Jew: Israel and the Search for Jewish Identity (Micah Goodman) 

6. Apeirogon: A novel (Colum McCann)

7. The Hilltop (Assaf Gavron) 

8. Dancing Arabs (Sayed Kashua)

9. Israel: A History (Anita Shapira)

10. Of Noble Origins (Sahar Khalifeh)

11. Leonard Cohen in the Sinai (Matti Friedman) 

12. To The End of the Land (David Grossman)

13. A Land Twice Promised (Noa Baum) 

14. Where The Line Is Drawn (Raja Shehadeh)

Book Club with Rabbi Aaron Alexander and Marilyn Cooper 
Peoplehood and Israel (Virtual)

Thursdays at 12pm: Dec 5th, Feb 27th and May 22nd
Click Here to Register

Deepening Our Connection to Am Yisrael: Listening to the diverse Voices and Stories of our Land and Our People

Together we’ll read & discuss in small groups engaging books, fiction and nonfiction, that will open our minds to new ideas, inspire us to read more, and challenge us to grapple with the world as it is. 

Books for this year’s three sessions will be sent to registrants two months before our first session, if not sooner. (For a list of the books this evolving club has read in the previous 3 years, click here.) 

Mar­i­lyn Coop­er is a Wash­ing­ton, DC – based author and poet. She is a con­tribut­ing edi­tor and writer for a num­ber of Jew­ish pub­li­ca­tions; her work focus­es on Jew­ish his­to­ry, lit­er­a­ture and con­tem­po­rary culture.