RaveThe Washington PostRooted Cosmopolitans provides a tutorial on how the best intentions may simply not find a willing audience. Repeatedly these men are seen flashing their diplomatic skills, trying to persuade nations to make difficult choices on behalf of a unified humanity. Being Jewish may have inspired their humanistic initiatives, but they were not parochial Zionists, although they were accused of this very thing ... Zionism always has been a quest for self-determination and human rights ... Yet the very idea of Jewish nationhood has perpetually infuriated the human rights community ... Loeffler’s book might leave readers to wonder whether nationalism and human rights are somehow identical yet irreconcilable objectives ... This superb book is a homage to visionary cosmopolitans dedicated to the creation of human rights in a world too often lacking in humanity.
Simon Schama
RaveThe Washington Post...Simon Schama’s latest book, The Story of the Jews, Volume Two: Belonging, 1492-1900, will be a revelation. It is an engaging and electrifying read by a skilled literary craftsman, cultural historian and tour guide, traveling through 500 years of history to such far-flung places... Schama enchants his readers by introducing colorful characters worthy of a Charles Dickens novel, if Dickens had decided to focus on the not-so-great expectations and bleak houses of the Jewish diaspora ...with the art and alchemy of an adventure novel. Dashing between nations and centuries, Schama assembles an all-star team of largely unsung Jewish heroes who inject humanity and spunk into what might otherwise have been morbid tales of endless persecution ...weaves a tapestry of interlocking themes that illuminate the advances and setbacks of life in the diaspora.
RaveThe Washington PostLévy is correct in observing that this new look to an ancient prejudice has the potential to become a 'moral atomic bomb.' Condemning Israel (and world Jewry) for the suffering of Palestinians normalizes anti-Semitism, allowing it to appear more respectable as a human rights issue, concealing its bigoted, murderous agenda. In a sly twist to centuries of Jewish displacement, Jews are now being blamed for having a homeland and for vigorously defending it ... The Genius of Judaism, a smart, revealing and essential book for our times, is Lévy’s own private whale, and our treacherous world is his Nineveh. The book enables him to reflect on how he has lived his life as a Jew and how, as a student of moral philosophy and world events, his writer’s voice took on more prophetic, humanistic dimensions.
Ken Corbett
PositiveThe Washington PostCorbett writes compellingly, and A Murder Over a Girl reveals the vagaries of the legal system and the crapshoot of 12 citizens teasing out the facts — not to mention the nuances — of profoundly complex human interactions ... Corbett ultimately achieves what he probably did not set out to do: leaving the reader both spellbound and dumbfounded by how easy it is for a legal trial to produce an unsatisfying end.
