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Coming Together, Coming Apart: A Memoir of Heartbreak and Promise in Israel (0471789615)
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Praise for Coming Together, Coming Apart
"Interesting conversation is Israel's most ingratiating commodity, and this is an especially interesting one. To read Coming Together, Coming Apart is to be engaged in an ongoing dialogue with one of Israel's most thoughtful observers--an American who made Israel his home, despite its imperfections and dangers. Gordis's conversational narrative is irresistible."
--Alan dershowitz, author of The Case for Israel
"Whether describing a walk through Jerusalem in snow, a hike in the desert, or a farewell family drive to the Gaza settlements, Gordis manages to capture the essential details that tell us the larger meaning of our Israeli lives. There is much irony in this book, and also anger, especially against those who unfairly judge Israel in its most desperate and noble times. Most of all, though, this book is the chronicle of a love story--of an immigrant family in Jerusalem falling in love with Israel and, through that love, discovering the strength to cope with life on the front lines of a jihadist war. As a fellow Jerusalemite, I feel a profound debt to Gordis for explaining what it means to raise a family in the middle of a terror zone, and the courage that average Israelis instinctively display in maintaining the pretense of normal life. Those of us who share his passion are fortunate to be so well represented by this book."
--Yossi Klein Halevi, Foreign Correspondent, The New RepublicEditorial Descriptions are usually submitted by the manufacturers, publishers and authors. Contact us if you are one of them, and wish to change the above description. |
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Author: Guest
In times when faith and hope on the State of Israel seems to be winding down, Daniel Gordis adds a much necessary positive perspective to (as Gordis reffers to Irael) "the enterprise". Anyone that wishes to gain a deeper grasp of Israeli society and life in general should read this book. Kol Ha Kavod, Gordis.
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Author: Guest
I read this book on the airplane from the US to Israel during the summer of 2006. It helped to prepare me for the attitudes which I found while in Israel.
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Author: Guest
Coming Together is a vast improvement over Home to Stay. The writing is absolutely beautiful, the ideas provocative. The heart of the book is Gordis's account of his family's adjustment to life in Israel, beginning at the tail end of the Second Intifada, when the Gordis family is kept awake in its Jerusalem home by gunfire at night, and terrified by suicide murders that take place in their favorite haunts, and ending with mild optimism when the evil Arafat finally passes.
In the pages in between, Gordis, a liberal but not a "leftist," manages to efficiently and eloquently take down those Jews who ignore Israel's obligations to preserve Jewish moral values in its conflict with the Palestinians, as well as those Jews who reflexively oppose the very existence of Israel, because they prefer perpetual Jewish victimhood and the accompanying moral high ground to the inevitable moral compromises and errors that come with power and statehood. He also conveyed to me, as a "serious Jew" who has never had any significant desire to live in Israel, why he would uproot his family from a comfortable upper middle class life in L.A. and expose them to danger to fulfill his Zionist dream. As he expresses it far more eloquently than I can, I won't try to summarize it here. [UPDATE: I should point out that while Gordis emphasizes the very palpable dangers faced by Jerusalemites durng the Second Intifada, raising one's teenagers in L.A. carries some very real, though perhaps less palpable dangers [much higher crime rates, drug use rates, auto accident risk, and likely suicide rates], such that I doubt that Jerusalem in 2002 was more actually more dangerous for kids than West L.A. at the same time.]
One important caveat about this book: Israel is a country composed primarily of first, second, and third generation immmigrants, so there is really no such thing as a "typical Israeli". But to the extent there sort of is, Gordis surely isn't it. In one scene in the book, an Orthodox Jewish American says that Gordis isn't living in the real Israel because he lives in an "Anglo-Saxon" (what Israelis call native English speakers) community, hangs out mostly with British, American, and South African Jews, and works for an American-funded foundation employing yet more Anglos. Gordis bristles at the suggestion, and he's right that having moved to Israel and with a child in the army, he has as much claim to Israeliness as anyone. But in reading the book, one must keep in mind that you are getting the perspective of a relatively well-to-do American Jewish liberal Conservative rabbi/philosopher who recently moved to Israel, lives and works in in Anglo enclaves, and that the outlook and experiences of such an individual is pretty far removed from that of the "typical" Israeli. It's hard, for example, to imagine Gordis expressing serious concern about the "evil eye," a superstition that this spouse-of-an-Israeli finds to be pervasive in Israel. (I used to think that Israelis complain a lot, but I've since learned that refusing to acknowledge good fortune is a way to ward off the evil eye!)
Another interesting aspect of the book is that though it virtually drips with concern about Israel's future, Hizbollah only makes the obliquest of appearances, and Iran is never mentioned at all, not once. Instead, the book is preoccupied with the Palestinian question. A good example, I think, of how Israelis were so preoccupied with the Second Intifada that they paid too little attention to the looming fundamentalist Shiite threat until Hizbollah missiles starting raining down on them in June.
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Author: Guest
"Coming Together, Coming Apart" is a must-read for Jews both inside and outside of Israel. An American family who makes the big decision to take their commitment to the ultimate level by making Aliyah finds their pre-conceived notions, idealistic concepts and religious faith tested by terror in their own backyard. How they cope with fear, how they learn to live with the uncomfortable ambiguity that is life in Israel, how their own internal family dynamics are strained and strengthened is a story that should not be missed.
As an American Jew from Los Angeles planning Aliyah myself, this book has helped me to see not only how another American family from L.A. has dealt with the challenges of both war and peace, but has confirmed my belief that life in Israel isn't perfect, but it is REAL, and do-able for those of us who, like our forefather Jacob, are willing to wrestle through the dark night of our soulds with our personal proverbial "Angels" and not release them until we receive the blessing for which we have struggled and fought. Although we may receive a unhealable wound we who prevail recieve a new name and a heritage uniquely ours. "Coming Together, Coming Apart" illustrates that Divine wrestling match and shows us what that heritage looks and feels like when the dawn finally breaks.
Thanks to Daniel Gordis for this well-written, passionate labor of love!
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Author: Guest
I have read all of Daniel Gordis' books. Each one is extremely meaningful and thought provoking. The latest one, Coming Together, Coming Apart is a must read for anyone who cares about Israel,anyone who cares about humanity anyone who is a parent, or anyone who is a child. Very few books, that I will openly laugh, cry and make you think. It covers the period of two years, ending in October 2005 and is essentially the memoirs of Gordis, who emigrated to Israel from Los Angeles with his children. Especially in light of the current events, it helps one understand the day to day life that Israelies face, the challenges they face, and their love of life and their hope. Once you pick the book up, it is difficult to put it down. I cannot recommend it enough.
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