{"id":14123,"date":"2009-07-27T00:30:56","date_gmt":"2009-07-27T00:30:56","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/127.0.0.1\/site\/2017\/2\/1985\/tony_horwitz_reviews_rich_cohens_israel_is_real\/"},"modified":"2009-07-27T00:30:56","modified_gmt":"2009-07-27T00:30:56","slug":"tony_horwitz_reviews_rich_cohens_israel_is_real","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/kendallharmon.net\/?p=14123","title":{"rendered":"Tony Horwitz reviews Rich Cohen&#39;s Israel is Real"},"content":{"rendered":"<p>I read \u201cIsrael Is Real\u201d\u009d while preparing for my son\u2019s bar mitzvah. By \u201cpreparing,\u201d\u009d I mean talking to tent people and mailing invites. On the spiritual side, I\u2019ve done my usual shirk: ducking services, doodling during sessions with the rabbi and dodging queries about my own bar mitzvah of wretched memory, celebrated in a gloomy temple filled with old men waiting for me to blunder.<\/p>\n<p>I mention this as preface because Rich Cohen\u2019s book accomplished the miraculous. It made a subject that has vexed me since early childhood into a riveting story. Not by breaking new ground or advancing a bold peace plan, but by narrating the oft-told saga of the Jews in a fresh and engaging fashion.<\/p>\n<p><a href=\"http:\/\/www.nytimes.com\/2009\/07\/26\/books\/review\/Horwitz-t.html?_r=1&#038;scp=2&#038;sq=religion%20journal&#038;st=cse\">Read it all<\/a>.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"<p>I read \u201cIsrael Is Real\u201d\u009d while preparing for my son\u2019s bar mitzvah. By \u201cpreparing,\u201d\u009d I mean talking to tent people and mailing invites. On the spiritual side, I\u2019ve done my usual shirk: ducking services, doodling during sessions with the rabbi<span class=\"ellipsis\">&hellip;<\/span><\/p>\n<div class=\"read-more\"><a href=\"https:\/\/kendallharmon.net\/?p=14123\">Read more &#8250;<\/a><\/div>\n<p><!-- end of .read-more --><\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":794,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[39,50,42,133,565,429,203,155,108],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-14123","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-culture-watch","category-international-news-commentary","category-religion-news-commentary","category-history","category-israel","category-judaism","category-middle-east","category-other-faiths","category-religion-culture"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/kendallharmon.net\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/14123","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/kendallharmon.net\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/kendallharmon.net\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/kendallharmon.net\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/users\/794"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/kendallharmon.net\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcomments&post=14123"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/kendallharmon.net\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/14123\/revisions"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/kendallharmon.net\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fmedia&parent=14123"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/kendallharmon.net\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcategories&post=14123"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/kendallharmon.net\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Ftags&post=14123"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}