Customer Reviews

Returning: The Land of Israel as Focus in Jewish History

5 star:		(2)
4 star:		(0)
3 star:		(0)
2 star:		(0)
1 star:		(0)

 

 

This book is a historical survey of the Jewish people's returning to the Land of Israel. It begins in the Biblical Age, moves through the Rabbinic Period, considers Life in the Diaspora, presents an overview of Zionism,and concludes with a look at Israeli Statehood and beyond this.

This is an extremely clear and well- written work. It is a labor of love in which there is expressed an understanding and sympathy for the Jewish people's special connection with the Land of Israel.

Each chapter of the work begins by looking at the subject discussed in it from the perspective of the present. The aim of Rabbi Siegel in doing this is to provide readers with perspective, and depth.

He makes it clear that there are many perplexities in the story. He writes,

"While the land of Israel has always been central to the Jews, never has it been a simple, well understood relationship. From the moment the first Jew arrived over three thousand five hundred years ago until today, internal debate raged on a wide number of issues. whether one had to live in the Land, the nature of the Jewish ownership of Israel, the demands made on the people by the Land etc."

This is an important work that can be of great help to readers in understanding the significance of the land of Israel to the Jewish people.

Why did the Jews, as a people return to Israel?...Now, forty years after the founding of the modern State of Israel, and ninety years after the organization of the Zionist national movement, the question, often accompanied by wonder, remains.

We seek to explore the story of a relationship to an idea, the idea of returning. It is a history of a nation struggling with itself, moving far from the Land while carrying it along, constantly returning, constantly leaving, and always looking backward and forward at the same time, finding the Land of Israel at both extremes. It is a history unfinished, clearly still being written. Ironically, the current chapter seems to be seeking its predecessors, for progress is again predicated on knowing where one has been. This is, then, an effort at tracing the deepest roots of the modern return, both for those who would understandond for those who would take part.

--- from book's back cover