Rabbi Dr. Eugene Korn

3700 years of history in 150 pages -- it is of necessity going to be a "brief introduction." This is probably a worthwhile book for anyone who doesn't have much knowledge of the history of the Old Testament, or of the Jewish Diaspora. A good third of the book is devoted to the establishment of the modern nation of Israel and its history.

The author tends to strengthen arguments which support the ancient Jewish connection to the land of Israel. For example, he claims that "except for some seventy years, Jewish sovereignty was continuous until 67 CE" (page 25). I wouldn't consider the centuries as continuous sovereignty, when under the rule of Persian, Greek and Roman empires. He attributes the increasing Arab population in Palestine in the late 19th and early 20th centuries to the improved economic and agricultural environment provided by Jews returning to an empty land, answering arguments that the Jews took over land belonging to Palestinians.

An early chapter relates the Jewish covenant relationship with God to the concreteness of the specific Land. This is the strongest part of the book. Korn's explanation of how the Land is transformed, in Christianity, to the Body of Christ, concrete for abstract, provides a useful basis for those of us with Christian backgrounds and understandings to grasp the significance of Israel to the Jewish people.… (mehr)