“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 was—he 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 atemple. 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 two thousand years. In Israel Is Real, Rich Cohen’s superb new history of the Zionist idea and the Jewish state—the history of a nation 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 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. Rich Cohen is the author of Sweet and Low, Tough Jews, The Avengers, The Record Men, and the memoir Lake Effect. His work has appeared in many major publications, and he is a contributing editor at Rolling Stone. He lives with his family in Connecticut.


“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 was—he 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 two thousand years.


In Israel Is Real, Rich Cohen’s new history of the Zionist idea and the Jewish state—the history of a nation 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 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. “Rich Cohen's book accomplished the miraculous. It made a subject that has vexed me since early childhood into a riveting story. Not by breaking new ground or advancing a bold peace plan, but by narrating the oft-told saga of the Jews in a fresh and engaging fashion.”—Tony Horwitz, The New York Times “Rich Cohen's book accomplished the miraculous. It made a subject that has vexed me since early childhood into a riveting story. Not by breaking new ground or advancing a bold peace plan, but by narrating the oft-told saga of the Jews in a fresh and engaging fashion.”—Tony Horwitz, The New York Times


“For American Jews, Israel looms large in the imagination. Few are truly neutral, and many are perplexed. It's a sticky wicket—how do you make sense of Israel in the 21st century when the idea of a Jewish state and a Middle Eastern democracy practically seem to be at odds, given shifting populations, religious and cultural affiliations? To this fracturing question, journalist Rich Cohen, the author of books such as Sweet and Low, has brought his considerable talents as a writer in his new book Israel Is Real: An Obsessive Quest to Understand the Jewish Nation and Its History. By offering a narrative of Israel's history as if it were an extension of the biblical story of the Jews, Cohen offer[s] a cohesive and compulsively readable account of Jewish history and the Jewish state. If it's not a justification for Israel, it's an explanation . . . The book is actually a serious attempt by a gifted storyteller to enliven and elucidate Jewish religious, cultural and political history—all culminating in the establishment of Israel. Cohen sits between generations of American Jews that grew up with an idyllic image of Israel's miracle as a phoenix rising from the ashes of the Holocaust, to a generation that grew up with charges of Israel as a human-rights abuser. Cohen offers no solutions, just a powerful narrative that can make the reader more equipped to have an informed and thoughtful discussion about the reality of Israel and able to relate a few interesting anecdotes along the way.”—Los Angeles Times


“Cohen is a masterful and slyly provocative writer who marches boldly into the most controversial issues posed by the existence of Israel. Blending historical narrative with contemporary reportage, Israel Is Real makes an argument that cannot be ignored. Along the way, Cohen establishes himself as being among the most talented essayists of his generation.”—Evan Wright, author of Generation Kill


“In the struggle to understand the Middle East, we are mostly presented with policy papers and talking heads, but Rich Cohen gives us something better: a story, with Roman military intrigue, Kabbalist mystics, and F-14 fighters, with betrayals, and battles, and heroes and women on the verge of breakdown. Israel Is Real is the story of how a place became an idea, and how, after years of displacement, of horror, of struggle, the idea comes alive again, an imagined Israel becomes actual. It’s an expertly-crafted, passionately told page-turning