Israel
A Personal History
- Auteur: Göran Rosenberg (Zweden)
- Soort boek: memoir over een verblijf in Israël
- Origineel: Det förlorade landet: Israel en personlig historia (1996)
- Uitgever: Other Press
- Verschijnt: 21 oktober 2025
- Omvang: 384 pagina’s
- Uitgave: paperback / ebook
- Prijs: $ 19,99 / $ 11,99
- Boek bestellen bij: Amazon / Bol / Libris
Göran Rosenberg Israel A Personal History review en recensie
- “Göran Rosenberg’s book Israel is a brilliant combination of an authoritative, reliable, and critical account of the history of Zionism and the State of Israel, and a sensitive, personal, and humane account that examines with equal scrutiny the author’s own deep and complex entanglement in that history. As the son of a Holocaust survivor from Łódź who emigrated to Sweden after the war, Rosenberg was captivated by the idea of Israel and emigrated there in his youth—only to later become disillusioned with that vision and come to understand the destructive foundations upon which the state is built, and the violent future to which it is leading. This English edition of the book, published two years after October 7, 2023, and amidst the brutal genocide in Gaza, stands as a model of honest, critical, and uncompromising self-scrutiny—something we will all be obliged to undertake, in the wake of the genocide in Gaza, regarding Jewish history, Israeli history, and our own personal histories.” (Amos Goldberg, author)
Flaptekst memoir van Göran Rosenberg over zijn verblijf in Israël
Combining poignant memoir and historical research, a son of Holocaust survivors grapples with the dream of Zionism and its consequences.
Israel: A Personal History takes off where Göran Rosenberg’s internationally acclaimed and award-winning childhood memoir, A Brief Stop on the Road from Auschwitz, ends. After his father’s suicide in 1960 in a small industrial town in Sweden, the remainder of the family, a single mother with two children, emigrates to Israel. At first fully absorbed into the world of pioneer Zionism, enchanted by its visions, formed by its ethos, Rosenberg would eventually embark on a journey of discovery among betrayed ideals, buried stories, false promises, and erased villages.
The result is a deeply personal, painstakingly researched, and beautifully written exploration of the contradictory visions that went into the Zionist project, as well as of the ethnic violence, oppression, discrimination, and dispossession caused by its realization. This book is both an exciting history of ideas and the political autobiography of a Jewish European intellectual, a child of dreams and disillusionments, an astute observer of our times.
Göran Rosenberg was born 11 October 1948 in Södertälje, Sweden, the son of Auschwitz survivors. He is the author of several books, including the highly acclaimed Det förlorade landet (the original Swedish edition of Israel: A Personal History), A Brief Stop on the Road from Auschwitz (Een kort oponthoud), and Another Zionism, Another Judaism (Het verloren land).