Political economist Bernard Avishai has been writing and thinking about Israel since moving there to volunteer during the 1967 War. now he synthesizes his years of study and searching into a short, urgent polemic that posits that the country must become a more complete democracy if it has any chance for a peaceful future. He explores the connection between Israel’s democratic crisis and the problems besetting the nation—the expansion of settlements, the alienation of Israeli Arabs, and the exploding ultraorthodox population. He also makes an intriguing case for Israel’s new global enterprises to change the country’s future for the better.
With every year, peace in Israel seems to recede further into the distance, while Israeli arts and businesses advance. This contradiction cannot endure much longer. But in cutting through the inflammatory arguments of partisans on all sides, Avishai offers something even more enticing than pragmatic solutions—he offers hope.

The Hebrew Republic: How Secular Democracy and Global Enterprise Will Bring Israel Peace At Last

Business & Money

Avishai, Bernard

Economics

Houghton, mifflin, harcourt

A spirited biography of Philip Roth's notorious novel, from the outrage it sparked to its impact on Roth to its legacy some forty years later The publication of Portnoy’s Complaint in 1969 provoked instant, powerful reactions. It blasted Philip Roth into international fame, subjected him to unrelenting personal scrutiny and conjecture, and shocked legions of readers—some delighted, others appalled. Portnoy and other main characters became instant archetypes, and Roth himself became a touchstone for conflicting attitudes toward sexual liberation, Jewish power, political correctness, Freudian language, and bourgeois disgust. What about this book inspired Richard Lacayo of Time to describe it as “a literary instance of shock and awe,” and the Modern Library to list it among the 100 best English-language novels of the twentieth century?
Bernard Avishai offers a witty exploration of Roth’s satiric masterpiece, based on the prolific novelist's own writings, teaching notes, and personal interviews. In addition to discussing the book’s timing, rhetorical gambit, and sheer virtuousity, Avishai includes a chapter on the Jewish community’s outrage over the book and how Roth survived it, and another on the author’s scorching treatment of psychoanalysis. Avishai shows that Roth’s irreverent novel left us questioning who, or what, was the object of the satire. Hilariously, it proved the serious ways we construct fictions about ourselves and others.

Promiscuous: "Portnoy's Complaint" and Our Doomed Pursuit of Happiness

Literature & Fiction

History & Criticism

Yale University Press

The Tragedy of Zionism: Revolution and Democracy in the Land of Israel

Traces the history of Zionist ideas, examines how they were put into practice in the founding of Israel, and discusses the future of Zionism

History

Middle East

Farrar. Straus & Giroux

Traces the history of Zionist ideas, examines how they were put into practice in the founding of Israel, and discusses the future of Zionism

Religion & Spirituality

Essays discuss Israeli politics during the Meir and Begin administrations, and examine Israeli relations with the Palestinians and the U.S.

A New Israel: Democracy in Crisis, 1973-1988 : Essays

Essays & Correspondence

Ticknor & Fields

The Israeli Republic "suggests how the Iranian and Israeli leaders who feel such intense mutual hostility today actually mirror one another in certain ways, particularly in their foundational attitudes toward religious authority, political and economic populism and the West. That a writer such as Al-e Ahmad, guru to the ayatollahs, liked Israel now seems touching. What he liked about Israel seems cautionary." —Bernard Avishai, Foreign Affairs Written by a preeminent Iranian writer who helped lay the popular groundwork for the Iranian Revolution, The Israeli Republic should be required reading for anyone interested in the history and current political landscape of the Middle East. Documenting Jalal Al-e Ahmad’s two-week-long trip to Israel in February of 1963, his account “Journey to the Land of Israel” caused a firestorm when it was published in Iran, upsetting the very revolutionary clerics whose anti-Western sentiments Al-e Ahmad himself had fueled. Yet, in the thriving Jewish State, Jalal Al-e Ahmad saw a model for a possible future Iran. Based on his controversial travelogue, supplemented with letters between the author and his wife, Simin Daneshvar (the first major Iranian woman novelist), and translated into English for the first time, The Israeli Republic is a record of Al-e Ahmad’s idealism, insight, and ultimate disillusionment toward Israel. Vibrantly modern in its sensibility and fearlessly polemical, this book will change the way you think about the Middle East.

The Israeli Republic: An Iranian Revolutionary's Journey to the Jewish State

Daneshvar, Simin

Al-e Ahmad, Jalal

Restless Books

See the best price to sell, buy, or rent books by Avishai, Bernard. BookScouter helps to compare book prices from 25+ online bookstores and 30+ buyback vendors with a single search.

Books by Avishai, Bernard

See the best price to sell, buy, or rent books by Avishai, Bernard. BookScouter helps to compare book prices from 25+ online bookstores and 30+ buyback vendors with a single search.

The Hebrew Republic: How Secular Democracy and Global Enterprise Will Bring Israel Peace At Last

Promiscuous: "Portnoy's Complaint" and Our Doomed Pursuit of Happiness

The Tragedy of Zionism: Revolution and Democracy in the Land of Israel

The Tragedy of Zionism: Revolution and Democracy in the Land of Israel

A New Israel: Democracy in Crisis, 1973-1988 : Essays

The Israeli Republic: An Iranian Revolutionary's Journey to the Jewish State