The Hebrew Republic

"Yes. It gives us a portrait of what reconciliation could look like. The Hebrew Republic is a wonderful description of the two state-solution: what the fulfilment of a Jewish commitment to a democratic Israel, and a free democratic Palestine, will look like, and what it will mean for Jerusalem. It’s a profoundly hopeful book. My own point of view on this story is that even though it is rooted in tragedy and violence, it is still profoundly hopeful. Because Jerusalem itself is the source of the most powerful human symbols of peace and reconciliation. It’s been received powerfully. It’s a portrait of a possible peace based on interviews Avishai has conducted recently with Olmert and Abbas, the former prime minister of Israel and the leader of the Palestinian Authority. In its review, the New York Times called Bernard Avishai a new Theodore Herzl. It’s a new vision of Zionism that is democratic and faithful to Jewish commitments, but also respectful of the civil rights of Palestinians and Arab Israelis. It is a contentious subject at this point. This book, like all visions of peace in this pre-peace period, has its critics. But it is, in my view, a profound articulation of what a reconciled Israel-Palestine would look like – and what it means for Israel to be firmly committed to democracy and equal rights for all of its citizens, even while continuing to be a Jewish state. I go to Jerusalem every year. I’m part of a Jewish-Christian-Muslim theological conversation that takes a place at the Shalom Hartman Institute in Jerusalem, and I’ve been going for the past 12-15 years. Even through all these periods of terrible conflict in Jerusalem, this conversation among Jews, Christians and Muslims – Israelis, Palestinians, Europeans and Americans – has continued. That’s the main source of my own firsthand experience of Jerusalem. Get the weekly Five Books newsletter I don’t pretend to be an expert; I don’t speak Arabic, and I don’t speak Hebrew. But I’m a committed Catholic Christian, and this is the single largest question of my life. Jerusalem is at the centre of my imagination, and I’ve really discovered how and why as I’ve written this book, Jerusalem, Jerusalem . It’s also at the centre of my imagination as an American. We Americans are not sufficiently aware of how deeply into our consciousness the theme of Jerusalem goes. The ‘Battle Hymn of the Republic’ – the lyrics, ‘Mine eyes have seen the glory of the coming of the Lord’ – that’s all about Jerusalem. The Americans fought the Civil War for Jerusalem, in the same way that the British fought World War I for Jerusalem. It’s a fantasy city, and the tragedy is that in its name, we of the West have killed for it again and again. There is that moral paradox embedded in it. The City of Peace has been a City of War. Can it go forward as a city of peace? I think it can."