In Days to Come: A New Hope for Israel

Former Knesset speaker Burg reflects on his life and pushes for a reconsideration of Israeli identity in this dense political memoir. In the first third, he summarizes his biography, which presupposes a fair level of familiarity with Israel’s political history. Burg, part of the first generation born after the foundation of the Israeli state, grew up with a European father and a mother from Hebron. He recounts feeling at odds with both the ultra-Orthodox and the secular settlers as a religious but not overly devout youth. His tales of public life often jumble timelines and have an unfocused reminiscent quality. After he explains his eventual drifting away from political life, he turns to unconnected essays in which he obliquely presents his views of a reimagined Jewish and Israeli identity. He makes provocative claims about the irony of clinging to the Holocaust to defend ousting Palestinians, the danger of religious extremism, and the importance of reinvigorating Israeli life by adopting a more hospitable European model of Jewishness. Burg’s work will struggle to find a wide audience, but those already invested in questions of Zionism and Israel’s turn toward religious fundamentalism will find plenty to consider. (Jan.)