My Promised Land: The Triumph and Tragedy of Israel

My Promised Land: The Triumph and Tragedy of Israel  by Ari Shavit, 445 pages. An excellent, even-handed history of Israel from the Zionist movement in the late nineteenth century to the present day. Shavit interviews Israelis from across the political and social spectrum today, as well as researching and reporting to tell of Israels founding, the wars and  upheavals it has endured in its short history, and attempts to see what the future may hold for Israel and the Middle-East. The audio is very well read by Paul Boehmer. Check our Catalog Downloadable Audio

The Aleppo Codex: a True Story of Obsession, Faith, and the Pursuit of an Ancient Bible / Matti Friedman 298 p.

The Codex is a one thousand year old copy of the Hebrew Bible which was safeguarded by the Jewish community of Aleppo, Syria, for most of those years until a period of rioting in the aftermath of the creation of the state of Israel forced the 'Crown of Aleppo' underground.  It eventually was transported to Jerusalem and is currently housed in the Israel Museum, minus about 200 pages.

Friedman's book is the story of the move from Aleppo to Jerusalem, and of what happened to those 200 pages along the way.  He devoted years of research to this, and in telling the story of the Crown the reader learns quite a bit about the early years of Israel's existence.  Interesting, but a bit dry and ultimately unsatisfying.  It isn't Friedman's fault that he wasn't able to answer all the questions here - he had a lot of trouble getting the key players to talk, dead/murdered men keeping their secrets and all that, but it gives the book a flat quality.