Maya’s Reviews > The Invention of the Land of Israel: From Holy Land to Homeland > Status Update

I’ll probably finish the book tomorrow. This final chapter discusses how Judaism became synonymous with Zionism. In the beginning they were really pitted against each other but then slowly people came to associate them thanks to rabbis from Eastern Europe (read Russia). The chapter also takes the reader through from 1600s to 1948 and the Nakba.

The second chapter talks about how there was differing opinions on whether there is a jewish homeland or not and how the concept of homeland may have been something inherited from Hellenistic influences. This chapter might actually blow some zionist heads off.

The author poses a great question. Why is it that the “father of the Jews”, Abrahim, and their biggest prophet, Moses, both not from “the Promised Land”? Infact, why is it that even when they decided to take wives for their children and grandchildren they looked at Egypt and Mesopotamia and not Canaan?

So far the book does a great job of setting up what it wants to accomplish. I’ve already underlined quite a few quotes that I think are extremely interesting.