Book Club

During this session, Barry Mallin will lead the discussion of The Arc of a Covenant:  The United States, Israel, and the Fate of the Jewish People by Walter Russell Mead.

**A groundbreaking work that overturns the conventional understanding of the Israeli-American relationship and, in doing so, explores how fundamental debates about American identity drive our country’s foreign policy.  In this bold examination of the Israeli-American relationship, Walter Russell Mead demolishes the myths that both pro-Zionists and anti-Zionists have fostered over the years. He makes clear that Zionism has always been a divisive subject in the American Jewish community, and that American Christians have often been the most fervent supporters of a Jewish state, citing examples from the time of J.P. Morgan and John D. Rockefeller to the present day.

Check out the NY Times Review here.

The issues we plan to discuss are:

* Balfour Declaration and the change in US immigration laws in the
20s—how they effected future developments in the creation of Israel
* Britain’s reasons for restricting Jewish immigration into
Palestine through the 1940s.
* Stalin’s role and motivation in the creation of the Jewish
State—and Truman’s stance at the time.
* Evangelical support for Israel in the US in contrast with the
continuing rise in antisemitism in this country
* Why no president has been able to broker a lasting peace in the
Middle East—and what are the reasons from both the Palestinian and
Jewish perspectives that make peace so elusive.
* Is there any hope for a resolution of the Middle East dilemma?

**Source:  Amazon