Zionism : the concise history by Alex Ryvchin
Paperback, 250 pages, $29.95
ISBN: 9781925826586
Release Date: October 2019
The story of Zionism, the Jewish movement of national liberation that led to the founding of modern Israel, is animated by leaders possessed with rare vision and political genius. It is also a story of tragedy, false dawns and suffering on an incomprehensible scale. Above all, it is a story without precedent, that saw an ancient, scattered, persecuted people who had limped from one disaster to the next, achieving a return to freedom in the lands of their ancestors nearly two millennia after their exile. In this extraordinary feat of narrative history, Alex Ryvchin tells the gripping story of Zionism, a movement that has become one of the most controversial and least understood political concepts of our time, one that remains central to modern Jewish identity and to war and peace in the Middle East.
“A fast-paced and unflinching history from a master writer. Ryvchin brilliantly chronicles the unbreakable 3,000-year-old bond between the Jewish people and the land of Zion and tells the story powerfully and definitively. A wonderful contribution to Jewish history.”
-Senator Linda Frum
“Alex Ryvchin has written a clear, readable chronicle of Zionism that skillfully places the case for Israel in its true historical context.”
- John Howard OM AC, Former Prime Minister of Australia
Alex Ryvchin is the co-Chief Executive Officer of the Executive Council of Australian Jewry and is a writer, speaker and commentator on the Arab-Israeli conflict, international affairs, antisemitism and the Holocaust, and religion and identity. His first book is the internationally acclaimed, The Anti-Israel Agenda - Inside the Political War on the Jewish State.
Endorsements:
“The clarity of Ryvchin’s storytelling captures the essence of Zionism and explains the Jewish desire to return home in a manner that will fascinate, educate and inspire.”
Isaac Herzog, Chairman of the Jewish Agency
“This important book should be read by all Zionists who need intellectual and historical ammunition to fight against anti-Zionists and by all who question Zionism out of ignorance or misguided political correctness.”
Alan Dershowitz
“Alex Ryvchin’s modern, scholarly, eminently readable, and fair history of Zionism is so important. It should persuade any objective reader of the decency and even nobility of the world’s oldest national movement, Zionism. Anyone who wants to understand Zionism should begin here.
Dennis Prager
“A must-read for anyone wishing to understand a movement that has somehow become a dirty word. It not only expertly charts the history of Zionism, but demonstrates why its counter movement is steeped in antisemitism. This book is brilliant.”
Caroline Marcus, Sky News
“A compelling and contextualized history of the ancient idea that became one of the most successful revolutions of modern times.”
Steve Ganot, Israel Hayom
“In our time, someone like Alex Ryvchin shouldn’t be possible. His is a narrative voice that is at once searingly truthful, self-critical, inflected with moments of unspeakable tenderness, bordering on poetry, and blessedly free of the acrimony that pollutes so many sites of public disagreement. Few other voices could have told the story of Zionism that he tells here: in part, an account of the egregious inhospitality that has greeted Jews throughout the world, an historical ‘never-at-home-ness’ that made their diabolical displacement in the Shoah possible; in part, a testimony of unfailing hopefulness and political genius, animated by Ryvchin’s distinctive moral energy that never descends into cant or hagiographic naïveté.”
Scott Stephens, ABC
“The global anti-Israel campaign would like to make ‘Zionism” a swear word. Alex Ryvchin’s clear and compelling narrative restores to the word its proper nobility. He tells the story of a popular social movement that secured the universal democratic right of the Jewish people to national self-determination; a political movement that secured a refuge state in a world of antisemitism run wild; and a cultural movement that secured the spiritual and linguistic rebirth of the Jewish people in the land of its birth, a chapter in human affairs that still has the capacity to astonish.”
Professor Alan Johnson, editor of Fathom: for a deeper understanding of Israel and the region
“A comprehensive, accessible history of Zionism that stretches from the period of exile under the Romans to the creation of Israel. Alex Ryvchin has distilled a complex movement to its essentials to provide audiences with an understanding of how Zionism came to be and why it was essential.”
Seth Frantzman, Jerusalem Post
“A clear and beautifully written history of the Jewish national liberation movement. Ryvchin’s book is essential reading.”
Josh Hammer, The Daily Wire
