Judaism, Human Values, and the Jewish State

“The essays are incisive, provocative, fearlessly consistent… No one interested in Israel, Judaism and the nexus of the two can afford complacently to ignore the questions Leibowitz refuses to stop asking.”—Menachem Kellner, The New York Times Book Review

“The most significant criticism of Israel that Israel has ever been handed by one of its own citizens. [Leibowitz] has a rare moral presence.”—Moshe Halbertal, The New Republic

“The essays in this fine collection amply reveal Leibowitz’s unswerving consistency… At the same time, though, a close reading of the essays reveals tensions which, although possibly reconcilable, nevertheless point to a certain elasticity in this seemingly inflexible thinker. In the end, Leibowitz’s humanity stands revealed as much in these rare moments of inconsistency as in his fanatic adherence to principle.”—David Biale, Religious Studies Review

“Yeshayahu Leibowitz’s significance in contemporary Jewish intellectual life, and in Israel’s political and intellectual life, is comparable to that of figures better known in the United States—Buber, for example, or Scholem. Leibowitz is more locally involved, and he is more openly polemical. But he is never mysterious or evasive, oracular or reticent. He just fights his battles, but the result of all his battles is a remarkably consistent doctrine. It remains lean and elegant—and, even for people who disagree, heartening and enlivening.”—Michael Walzer