Bad Jew: A Family’s Quest from the Minsk Ghetto to Netanyahu’s Israel

This book, published in French four years ago, still feels fresh and relevant, which says a lot about the long-standing, intractable nature of the conflict in the Middle East. Now published for the first time in English, this edition also contains a new introduction and minor revisions. Here, Jewish Le Monde correspondent Smolar describes a rhetorical conversation with his grandfather, a dedicated communist who survived the Minsk Ghetto and the Holocaust, and with his father, who was forced to leave Poland in 1968. In trying to understand the personal convictions of these two forebears, Smolar reckons with his own connection to Judaism and the forces that have shaped the modern state of Israel. Contrasted with the conversations of the past are contemporary interviews and exchanges with contacts across Israel and Gaza, which give a much deeper context of views that may be difficult to understand from a distance. With no easy answers, the book evokes a refreshing moral clarity.