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Summary: A Message for Today's World
Review: An extraordinary book. Yossi Klein Halevy is a deeply religious American-born Jewish journalist and Israeli citizen who has lived in Israel for almost twenty years. This book is written as a personal spiritual journey, in which Halevy attempts to experience and understand Islam and Christianity by joining in their rituals of worship. Despite the personal nature of the subject, his historical, political and social commentary are invaluable for those who wish to understand the Middle East conflict today. In a world where hatred is running rampant, he sends a message that solutions can only come through understanding, not violence.
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Summary: An Alternative Path to Peace
Review: Author Yossi Klein Halevi, the son of a Holocaust-survivor, grew up in New York and immigrated to Israel in the early 1980s. A religious Jew and a journalist, Halevi describes his encounters with various Sufi Muslim sheykhs and Christian monastics in Israel as he searches to understand the spiritual insights that each have and to connect through the common experience of the one God's presence. If a book can be a prayer then this would probably qualify, as Halevi shows how religion can be a source of love and healing when we learn to respect and even love the different ways that different faiths relate to God. Halevi is an excellent writer and he avoids unrealistic optimism by detailing his own vascillation between religious hope and love on the one hand and a mix of anger and fear of political realities on the other. I heartily recommend this book to anybody interested in achieving a true peace in the Middle East.
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Summary: A Scrap of Hope for Hard Times
Review: I just finished reading At the Entrance to the Garden of Eden by Yossi Klein Halevi. I couldn't put it down. In his search for Muslims and Christians who would let him share in their spiritual lives, Halevi tries to find a way to connect with his erstwhile enemies outside of politics. He takes us along on his journey and what an astounding array of people we meet: Sufi sheikhs and French nuns and Armenian monks. And most of all, we get to know Halevi, an American-born Israeli, sensitive and conflicted , who wants to participate in the rebirth of the Jewish people in its own land without harming other peoples, and understanding the tragedy that these two desires are in conflict. It's a sad book because it ends with the resumption of armed conflict that began in 2000. But it's also a hopeful book because of all of the people Halevi meets who are willing to clasp hands across the divide. In one beautiful scene, Halevi attends a Moslem Sufi zikr, a session of mystical dancing which allows the participants to connect with each other and with God. Despite initial hostility, the experience brings home Halevy and his hosts together in mutual understanding and respect. It's a scrap of hope we can all use in these difficult times.
Rating:
Summary: A Scrap of Hope for Hard Times
Review: I just finished reading At the Entrance to the Garden of Eden by Yossi Klein Halevi. I couldn't put it down. In his search for Muslims and Christians who would let him share in their spiritual lives, Halevi tries to find a way to connect with his erstwhile enemies outside of politics. He takes us along on his journey and what an astounding array of people we meet: Sufi sheikhs and French nuns and Armenian monks. And most of all, we get to know Halevi, an American-born Israeli, sensitive and conflicted , who wants to participate in the rebirth of the Jewish people in its own land without harming other peoples, and understanding the tragedy that these two desires are in conflict. It's a sad book because it ends with the resumption of armed conflict that began in 2000. But it's also a hopeful book because of all of the people Halevi meets who are willing to clasp hands across the divide. In one beautiful scene, Halevi attends a Moslem Sufi zikr, a session of mystical dancing which allows the participants to connect with each other and with God. Despite initial hostility, the experience brings home Halevy and his hosts together in mutual understanding and respect. It's a scrap of hope we can all use in these difficult times.
Rating:
Summary: Approaching Other Faiths While Note Losing Your Own
Review: I thought this book was funny and wise, and very touching in its effort to tackle an issue many other people ignore. The politics of Jerusalem are snarled up--what about exploring and appreciatng their mutual love of God? The book almost reads like a novel with funny, strange characters, visions and dreams. It seems to me it could only be written in Jerusalem and Halevi is a very elegant writer.
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Summary: This is a book for RIGHT NOW.
Review: I work on promoting Mideast peace at an organization called Israel Policy Forum in Washington, DC. So I see all the literature. And I'm not easily impressed.
But this book approaches perfection. And I'm not just talking about the writing, which is superb.
I am talking about a book which miraculously appeared at a time we most need it. Following the 911 attack, an atack committed in the name of Islam, we have Yossi Klein Halevi, writing from Jerusalem, who explains, who shows, Islam's other face. This author, a devout Jew, demonstrates that Judaism/Christianity and Islam, at their best, are the same and that to fill one's heart with the true message of one, is to know and be all three.
(The corollary, of course, is that the fanatics in all three faiths are the same as well. Isn't it amusing how a Jewish extremist, clothed in black, disdaining women and all who represent the "other" does not recognize his twin in the other faiths, and vice versa. If the extremists would meet each other, they would realize that they are one and the same. Maybe we can get to peace that way!)
This book shows that there is a way out of the current horrors by reaching out and finding those aspects of each faith community that are common to all three. It understands that, in the Mideast, the seculars cannot make peace without the people of faith. Halevi shows the way. This book is a gift to us all.
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Summary: There is still hope for Humanity
Review: It is probably the most spiritual Book I have ever read. It turns out that it is not a "Search for God", but for humanity. All the actors playing the same roles, with the same questions and hopes, just different costumes.We are all Christian and Jew and Muslim at the same time.
Mr. Klein Halevi, takes us with him looking for ways to interconect (through their rituals), the three faiths. Instead we discover that this is only possible if we accept that it is the same God we are all praying to.
It is a book full of hope, a cure for the insanity of religious Chauvinism.
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Summary: Traveling the Terrain with an Open Heart & Healthy Skepticm
Review: Legend says that the entrance to the Garden of Eden was located at the Machpelah, the Hebron (el Khalil) burial site of Abraham and Sarah, Isaac and Rebecca, and Jacob and Leah; the pilgrimage site of Jews and Moslems; the mosque and makeshift synagogue; the "doubling" oneness site that encompasses several conflicting faiths. It is here that Palestinian Peugeots and Jewish Mitsubishis could meet. It is here that the author embarks on a journey into opening one's heart. The author is known for his book, "Confessions of a Jewish Extremist", and for being the subject of the 1985 award winning documentary "KADDISH". An American-born Israeli Jew, raised by a survivor in isolationist Brooklyn, he is a contributor to the NYT Op-Ed page, The Jerusalem Report, and TNR. He didn't support occupation, nor did he support the crumbling Oslo Plan. He did not want to be an self-confident oppressor or a fool. What was he to do? Meditation and prayer? Maybe meeting his fellow spiritual seekers among Israel's 800,000 Moslems and 200,000 Christians would succeed in finding a new path to peace. Beginning in early 1998, at the cusp of the Millennium, Yossi spent two years in dialogue with other spiritual seekers; most were sadly on the fringe, some might even be seen as delusional (but it is a start). Those two years allowed for experiences that cannot be repeated today without potential calamity. Yossi expanded his sacred time to include their holiday celebrations. Could faith, which in Israel is a force of division and conflict, be a source of healing? Could the religions that had conflicting claims on the land be viewed as reinforcements of the area's holiness? Halevi, who did not know the difference between the Assumption and the Annunciation, between Id el-Fitr and Id ed-Adha, who knew more about Buddhism than his sister faiths, met with Sufis, Monks, Nuns, Imams, and Sheiks in mosques, monasteries, grottos and cloisters. There was a little skepticism, and some commonality; there was resentment, there is honesty. In Part 1, Ramadan and Id Eil-Adha, the author, residing in French Hill, tries to incorporate the muezzin's call to prayer from neighboring Anata into his daily devotional prayers. Can the minaret be a lighthouse in the rocky seas of the West Bank, or is it a megaphone of hate? He seeks out Sheikhs, Sufis and other Moslems; some center on death, others on love and life. He explores whether people can focus on the unifying messages of the religions rather than debating the conflicting details. In Part 2, Lent, Easter, and Christmas, Yossi seeks out nuns, monks, Christians and Catholics, Armenians and Ethiopians. Can he learn silence, can they learn not to convert this "perfidious" person, can they no longer judge each other by their people's worst traits? In Part 3, Feast of the Transfiguration and Lailat al-Miraj, and the Epilogue, Yossi confronts and struggles with his worst anxieties, doubts and fears.
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Summary: Wow!! Lifechanging!!
Review: This book ranks up there with GI Gurdjieff's Meetings with remarkable men!! This book is a four year window into the deepest fears of a Jewish man in modern Israel. It is also a graphic window into the souls of the people who he befriends along the way. This is a must read for truth seekers of all ages. I would love to send a copy to each of my friends and know that they would enjoy it as just as much I.
Rating:
Summary: Wow!! Lifechanging!!
Review: This book ranks up there with GI Gurdjieff's Meetings with remarkable men!! This book is a four year window into the deepest fears of a Jewish man in modern Israel. It is also a graphic window into the souls of the people who he befriends along the way. This is a must read for truth seekers of all ages. I would love to send a copy to each of my friends and know that they would enjoy it as just as much I.
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