{"id":3556,"date":"2020-04-08T21:48:00","date_gmt":"2020-04-08T18:48:00","guid":{"rendered":""},"modified":"2025-02-26T15:18:55","modified_gmt":"2025-02-26T13:18:55","slug":"epalestine-book-review-god-does-not","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/epalestine.ps\/sambahour\/2020\/04\/epalestine-book-review-god-does-not\/","title":{"rendered":"\u201cGod does not exist, and he promised us this land\u201d [Book Review]"},"content":{"rendered":"\n

Review of What is Modern Israel?<\/em> by Yakov M. Rabkin<\/strong><\/span><\/p>\n\n\n\n

\"\"<\/a><\/figure>\n\n\n\n

As someone who gives political talks from a Palestinian vantage point to groups traveling through Palestine, I have spoken to thousands of Jews, among others, from around the world. <\/p>\n\n\n\n

I walked away from reading Professor Yakov M. Rabkin\u2019s What is Modern Israel?<\/em> with the burning desire to call back every one of those Jewish travelers and sit down with them, one on one over a hot cup of mint tea \u2014 so that I could read them each of his chapters aloud, looking up and into their eyes at the end of every chapter to ask somberly, Do you get it now? You\u2019ve been had, collectively. You\u2019ve been lied to, collectively. You\u2019re being used, collectively. Your religion, a rich one, has been hijacked, purposely.<\/em><\/p>\n\n\n\n

Reviews<\/h3>\n\n\n\n

Read Sam's full review <\/h4>\n\n\n\n

On Medium<\/a>.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

\n

\u201cShows that Zionism was conceived as a sharp break with Judaism and Jewish continuity.\u201d<\/p>Publisher review from Pluto Press<\/cite><\/blockquote><\/figure>\n<\/blockquote>\n\n\n\n

Few countries provoke as much passion and controversy as Israel. What is Modern Israel?<\/em> convincingly demonstrates that its founding ideology - Zionism - is anything but a simple reaction to antisemitism. Dispelling the notion that every Jew is a Zionist and therefore a natural advocate for the state of Israel, Yakov Rabkin points to the Protestant roots of Zionism, in order to explain the particular support Israel musters in the United States.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

Drawing on many overlooked pages of history, including English, French, Hebrew, Yiddish and Russian sources, Yakov Rabkin shows that Zionism was conceived as a sharp break with Judaism and Jewish continuity. Israel\u2019s past and present must be seen in the context of European ethnic nationalism, colonial expansion and geopolitical interests, rather than as an incarnation of Biblical prophecies or a culmination of Jewish history. (Pluto Press<\/a>)<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

Few countries provoke as much passion and controversy as Israel. What is Modern Israel?<\/em> convincingly demonstrates that its founding ideology – Zionism – is anything but a simple reaction to antisemitism. Dispelling the notion that every Jew is a Zionist and therefore a natural advocate for the state of Israel, Yakov Rabkin points to the Protestant roots of Zionism, in order to explain the particular support Israel musters in the United States. (Publisher’s Review)<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":4,"featured_media":3557,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"nf_dc_page":"","footnotes":"","_links_to":"","_links_to_target":""},"categories":[948,942],"tags":[1330,96,1332,925,1331,642,1306,71,1314,220,1328,1315,1367,1329,1326,1200,1320,319,188,478,531,117,1319,1316,1324,1211,1387,1311,1322,1317,1256,1307,1313,1309,1327,533,1308,1325,1278,1280,1310,1275],"ppma_author":[936],"class_list":["post-3556","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","hentry","category-books","category-sams-writings","tag-1947-1949-war","tag-96","tag-albert-woodfox","tag-american-jews","tag-amnon-raz-krakozkin","tag-anti-semitism","tag-benjamin-harshav","tag-benjamin-netanyahu","tag-bet-morasha-centre-for-advanced-jewish-studies-in-jerusalem","tag-bible-study","tag-british-jews","tag-centre-rachi-in-paris","tag-christian-evangelicals-and-evangelical-christianity","tag-enzo-traverso","tag-euro-asian-jewish-congress-eajc","tag-george-orwell","tag-haganah","tag-hasbara","tag-history","tag-holocaust","tag-ilan-pappe","tag-israeli-settlements-settlers-and-settler-colonialism","tag-jacob-israel-de-haan","tag-jerusalem-center-for-public-affairs","tag-jewish-agency-ja","tag-jewish-national-fund-jnf","tag-jews-and-judaism","tag-pardes-institute-of-jewish-studies-in-jerusalem","tag-protestant-zionism","tag-rabbi-adin-steinsaltz","tag-russian-jews","tag-saint-petersburg","tag-shalom-hartman-institute-in-jerusalem","tag-soviet-union","tag-swedish-jews","tag-the-idea-of-israel-a-history-of-power-and-knowledge","tag-university-of-montreal","tag-vladimir-putin","tag-what-is-modern-israel-book","tag-yakov-m-rabkin","tag-yeshivat-dvar-yerushalayim","tag-zionism-zionists"],"authors":[{"term_id":936,"user_id":4,"is_guest":0,"slug":"sambahour","display_name":"Sam Bahour","avatar_url":"https:\/\/secure.gravatar.com\/avatar\/bca109c333bf6d8ae807746dd512adde46265d37c923f6cd0fc4aab437f8e9aa?s=96&d=mm&r=g","author_category":"1","first_name":"Sam","last_name":"Bahour","user_url":"https:\/\/epalestine.ps\/sambahour","job_title":"","description":"

Sam Bahour<\/strong> is a Palestinian-American business consultant, writer, and commentator based in Al-Bireh\/Ramallah, Palestine. He is the principal of Applied Information Management (AIM)<\/a>, a consultancy specializing in business development and startup advisory services.<\/p>\r\n

Bahour played a foundational role in establishing two of Palestine\u2019s publicly traded companies: the Palestine Telecommunications Company (PALTEL) and the Arab Palestinian Shopping Centers (APSC). He co-founded Americans for a Vibrant Palestinian Economy (A4VPE), of which he is now an emeritus member, and served as an independent director on the board of Arab Islamic Bank P.L.C. from 2004 to 2025. He currently serves on the board of Just Vision<\/a> and The Palestine Economic Policy Research Institute (MAS)<\/a>.<\/p>\r\n

He frequently gives talks to delegations visiting Palestine on the subjects of Palestine\u2019s political economy, Palestinian Politics 101, and a general orientation to the state of affairs under Israeli military occupation.<\/p>\r\n

A prolific writer on Palestinian affairs, Bahour has been published in major international outlets including The New York Times, The Guardian, Haaretz, The Washington Post, The Boston Globe, the Los Angeles Times, Al Jazeera America, Le Monde diplomatique, Al-Monitor, +972 Magazine, The Hill, and Arab News. He has appeared as a commentator on NPR, CNN, BBC, and other broadcast media.<\/p>\r\n

Bahour is the co-editor of Homeland: Oral Histories of Palestine and Palestinians<\/a><\/em> (Olive Branch Press, 1993) and was profiled in the bestselling anthology Kingdom of Olives and Ash<\/a><\/em>, edited by Michael Chabon and Ayelet Waldman, in a chapter authored by Chabon titled \u201cThe Tallest Man in Ramallah<\/a>.\u201d He holds an Associate\u2019s and Bachelor\u2019s degree in Computer Technology from Youngstown State University, and a Kellogg-Recanati International Executive MBA \u2014 a joint program of the Kellogg School of Management at Northwestern University and the Recanati Business School at Tel Aviv University.<\/p>\r\n

He tweets at @SamBahour<\/a>, blogs at www.epalestine.ps<\/a>, and may be reached at sbahour[AT]gmail[DOT]com.<\/p>"}],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/epalestine.ps\/sambahour\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/3556","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/epalestine.ps\/sambahour\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/epalestine.ps\/sambahour\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/epalestine.ps\/sambahour\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/4"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/epalestine.ps\/sambahour\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=3556"}],"version-history":[{"count":10,"href":"https:\/\/epalestine.ps\/sambahour\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/3556\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":7037,"href":"https:\/\/epalestine.ps\/sambahour\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/3556\/revisions\/7037"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/epalestine.ps\/sambahour\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/3557"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/epalestine.ps\/sambahour\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=3556"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/epalestine.ps\/sambahour\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=3556"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/epalestine.ps\/sambahour\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=3556"},{"taxonomy":"author","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/epalestine.ps\/sambahour\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/ppma_author?post=3556"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}