Israel Is Real
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Narrated by:
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Jonathan Davis
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By:
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Rich Cohen
About this listen
It's a great irony that Israel was more secure as an idea than it's ever been as a nation with an army. In AD 70, when the Second Temple was destroyed, a handful of visionaries saved Judaism by reinventing it - by taking what had been a national religion, identified with a particular place, and turning it into an idea. Jews no longer needed Jerusalem to be Jews. Whenever a Jew studied, wherever he washed, would be in the holy city. In this way, a few rabbis turned a real city into a city of the mind; in this way, they turned the Temple into a book and preserved their faith.
Though you can burn a city, you cannot sack an idea or kill a book. But in our own time, Zionists have turned the book back into a temple. And unlike an idea, a temple can be destroyed. The creation of Israel has made Jews vulnerable in a way they have not been for 2,000 years.
In Israel Is Real, Rich Cohen's superb new history of the Zionist idea and the Jewish state, the history of a nation is chronicled as if it were the biography of a person. He brings to life dozens of fascinating figures, each driven by the same impulse: to reach Jerusalem. From false messiahs, such as David Alroy (Cohen calls him the first superhero, with his tallis as a cape) and Sabbatai Zevi, who led thousands on a mad spiritual journey, to the early Zionists (many of them failed journalists), to the iconic figures of the modern Jewish Sparta, David Ben-Gurion, Golda Meir, Yitzhak Rabin, and Ariel Sharon, Cohen shows how all these lives together form a single story, a single life.
In this unique book, Cohen examines the myth of the wandering Jew, the paradox of Jewish power (how can you be both holy and nuclear?), and the triumph and tragedy of the Jewish state - how the creation of modern Israel has changed what it means to be a Jew anywhere.
©2009 Rich Cohen (P)2009 Audible, Inc.Listeners also enjoyed...
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>"How unusual is it, really, in the history of all known human experience, to enjoy the blessing of living free?" The answer may surprise you. In The Miracle of Freedom, Chris and Ted Stewart make a strong case that fewer than five percent of all people who have ever lived on the Earth have lived under conditions that we could consider "free". So where did freedom come from, and how are we fortunate enough to experience it in our day?
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should be an essential read in every school
- By khemingway on 03-28-14
By: Chris Stewart, and others
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The Miracle of the Kurds
- A Remarkable Story of Hope Reborn in Northern Iraq
- By: Stephen Mansfield
- Narrated by: Stephen Mansfield
- Length: 5 hrs and 6 mins
- Unabridged
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Hundreds of thousands of Kurds were murdered under the tyrannical regime of Saddam Hussein. Some four thousand Kurdish villages were destroyed. Betrayed again and again by the nations of the world, the Kurds were as decimated as any people in history. Then came the Kurdish Miracle, that combination of ancient wisdom and modern economic genius that is now making the Kurdish homeland one of the most prosperous places on earth.
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Long live the Kurds
- By Dry Bones on 03-09-19
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The Trigger
- Hunting the Assassin Who Brought the World to War
- By: Tim Butcher
- Narrated by: Gerard Doyle
- Length: 9 hrs and 32 mins
- Unabridged
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The Trigger tells the story of a young man who changed the world forever. It focuses on the drama of the incident itself by following Princip's journey. By retracing his steps from the feudal frontier village of his birth, through the mountains of the northern Balkans to the great plain city of Belgrade, and ultimately to Sarajevo, Tim Butcher illuminates our understanding of Princip and makes discoveries about him that have eluded historians for 100 years.
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Good, but not what I was looking for
- By Kendra on 07-08-14
By: Tim Butcher
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Tea with Hezbollah
- Sitting at the Enemies' Table - Our Journey Through the Middle East
- By: Ted Dekker, Carl Medearis
- Narrated by: George K. Wilson
- Length: 10 hrs and 13 mins
- Unabridged
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Is it really possible to love one's enemies? That's the question that sparked a fascinating and, at times, terrifying journey into the heart of the Middle East during the summer of 2008. It was a trip that began in Egypt, passed beneath the steel-and-glass high-rises of Saudi Arabia, then wound through the bullet-pocked alleyways of Beirut and dusty streets of Damascus, before ending at the cradle of the world's three major religions: Jerusalem.
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Love Your Enemies?
- By Roy on 05-10-10
By: Ted Dekker, and others
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Conquistadors
- By: Michael Wood
- Narrated by: John Telfer
- Length: 10 hrs and 41 mins
- Unabridged
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Following in the footsteps of the greatest Spanish adventurers, Michael Wood retraces the path of the conquistadors from Amazonia to Lake Titicaca, and from the deserts of North Mexico to the heights of Machu Picchu. As he travels the same routes as Hernán Cortés, Francisco, and Gonzalo Pizarro, Wood describes the dramatic events that accompanied the epic sixteenth-century Spanish conquest of the Aztec and Inca empires.
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Horrific anti-European bias
- By Anonymous User on 08-30-20
By: Michael Wood
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The Fracture Zone
- A Return to the Balkans
- By: Simon Winchester
- Narrated by: Steven Crossley
- Length: 8 hrs and 7 mins
- Unabridged
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Award-winning journalist and author Simon Winchester takes readers on a personal tour of the Balkans. Combining history and interviews with the people who live there, Winchester offers a fascinating glimpse into the complex issues at work in this chaotic region. Unrest in the Balkans has gone on for centuries. A seasoned reporter, Winchester visited the region twenty years ago. When Kosovo reached crisis level in 1997, Winchester thought a return visit to the beleaguered area would help to make sense out of the awful violence.
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Loved this-Great combo:Story and History Explained
- By Jeremy on 07-10-14
By: Simon Winchester
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The Bloody White Baron
- The Russian Nobleman Who Became the Last Khan of Mongolia
- By: James Palmer
- Narrated by: Stefan Rudnicki
- Length: 10 hrs and 24 mins
- Unabridged
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In the history of the modern world, there have been few characters more sadistic, sinister, and deeply demented as Baron Ungern-Sternberg. An anti-Semitic fanatic with a penchant for Eastern mysticism and a hatred of communists, Baron Ungern-Sternberg took over Mongolia in 1920 with a ragtag force of White Russians, Siberians, Japanese, and native Mongolians.
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Truth is stranger than fiction
- By David on 01-21-10
By: James Palmer
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Istanbul: A Tale of Three Cities
- By: Bettany Hughes
- Narrated by: Bettany Hughes
- Length: 24 hrs and 35 mins
- Unabridged
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From the Koran to Shakespeare, this city with three names - Byzantium, Constantinople, Istanbul - resonates as an idea and a place, real and imagined. Standing as the gateway between East and West, North and South, it has been the capital city of the Roman, Byzantine, and Ottoman Empires. For much of its history it was the very center of the world, known simply as "The City", but, as Bettany Hughes reveals, Istanbul is not just a city but a global story.
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A daunting undertaking pulled off superlatively
- By SGS on 12-24-17
By: Bettany Hughes
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Brothers of the Gun
- A Memoir of the Syrian War
- By: Marwan Hisham, Molly Crabapple
- Narrated by: Peter Ganim
- Length: 8 hrs and 28 mins
- Unabridged
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In 2011, Marwan Hisham and his two friends - fellow working-class college students Nael and Tareq - joined the first protests of the Arab Spring in Syria, in response to a recent massacre. Arm in arm they marched, poured Coca-Cola into one another’s eyes to blunt the effects of tear gas, ran from the security forces, and cursed the country’s president, Bashar al-Assad. It was ecstasy. A long-bottled revolution was finally erupting, and freedom from a brutal dictator seemed, at last, imminent.
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Perfect with Peter Ganim
- By Anonymous User on 06-14-24
By: Marwan Hisham, and others
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A Rage for Order
- The Middle East in Turmoil, from Tahrir Square to ISIS
- By: Robert Worth
- Narrated by: Will Damron, Robert Worth
- Length: 10 hrs and 15 mins
- Unabridged
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In 2011 a wave of revolution spread through the Middle East as protesters demanded an end to tyranny, corruption, and economic decay. From Egypt to Yemen, a generation of young Arabs insisted on a new ethos of common citizenship. Five years later their utopian aspirations have taken on a darker cast as old divides reemerge and deepen. In one country after another, brutal terrorists and dictators have risen to the top.
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What a mess!
- By Art Guzman on 01-19-17
By: Robert Worth
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The Lemon Tree
- By: Sandy Tolan
- Narrated by: Sandy Tolan
- Length: 11 hrs and 19 mins
- Unabridged
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In 1967, not long after the Six-Day War, three young Arab men ventured into the town of Ramle, in what is now Jewish Israel. They were cousins, on a pilgrimage to see their childhood homes; their families had been driven out of Palestine nearly 20 years earlier. One cousin had a door slammed in his face, and another found his old house had been converted into a school. But the third, Bashir Al-Khairi, was met at the door by a young woman called Dalia, who invited them in.
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Steeping The Lemon Tree
- By Faithfull Fan on 04-11-18
By: Sandy Tolan
What listeners say about Israel Is Real
Average customer ratingsReviews - Please select the tabs below to change the source of reviews.
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- Lori G
- 01-23-24
A book for our time
This all too prophetic book portrays Israel up close and personal. It is filled with historical details woven through stories filled with emotional intensity. It offers a perspective of Zionism within a a nuanced context of seemingly accurate information and many unique and intimately related stories. At the same time, the author does not gloss over the impact of the forming of the state on the people who had lived there for generations or the nature of life in the occupied territories.
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- Anonymous User
- 08-19-14
Very interesting and entertaining
What did you love best about Israel Is Real?
Great overview of the post-biblical history of the Jews and the nation of Israel.
Have you listened to any of Jonathan Davis’s other performances before? How does this one compare?
I also loved his narration of Genghis Khan and the Making of the Modern World. He did a great job on both.
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3 people found this helpful
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Overall
- Dennis
- 02-12-11
Captivating
This book flows from story to story telling the history of Israel not like a history book but instead an ongoing story that continues today.
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7 people found this helpful
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- Anonymous User
- 03-19-20
Need to read
This is a must read book The story started off a bit slow, but picked up. dramatically.
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1 person found this helpful
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- Itsderaj
- 09-15-15
Great info on Israel/Great narration.
Cohen provides great insight into the dynamic and long, long history that is Judaism and Israel. Cohen's writing is funny, poetic, and informative. Unfortunately, at times, the writing is a little long-winded; however, if you want the nitty-gritty, fear not. The narration is fantastic.
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6 people found this helpful
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- Linda
- 05-21-10
Weird
I should have listened to the review of literary critic Adam Kirsch, which said:
"I cannot help feeling that Cohen's desire to make an impression on the reader comes at too high a price, and that cleverness without taste, knowledge or wisdom is a poor foundation for a book--about Israel or anything else." Kirsch
I will add that the purpose of this book seems to be to show us that it would have been better for the Jewish people if modern Israel had never been created.
That thesis may or may not be true. We will never know since it is a historic fact, but I sure wasn't convinced by the author's sometimes weird arguments which were based on his often weirder takes on cherry-picked historical events. He tries too hard for connections, sometimes erring as to historical facts, often erring as to their meaning and always going for things that support his point of view, regardless of how far he has to stretch to make them do so.
The narrator wasn't great, either. Like the author, too dramatic - so perhaps he was actually a great fit ;-)
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26 people found this helpful