Summary of Ari Shavit's My Promised Land

By IRB Media

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#1 The need to give Palestine to the Jews is almost tangible. If the Jews won’t disembark here, they will have no future. The Jewish people desperately need a new place, a new beginning, and a new mode of existence.

#2 My great-grandfather, Herbert Bentwich, was a leading figure in the Anglo-Jewish community. He was married to a beautiful, artistic wife who was raising nine children in their magisterial Avenue Road home. He was a self-made man who loved travel, poetry, and theater.

#3 The second answer is that Herbert Bentwich was way ahead of his time. He was committed to ending Jewish misery in the East, but his main reason for taking this journey was to escape the futility of Jewish life in the West. He saw the calamity that would follow the Holocaust.

#4 The British Isles were a temporary respite for the Bentwich delegation, but not for the Anglo-Jewish community. The demography of the British Isles tells a clear story: In the second half of the twentieth century, which Herbert Bentwich will not live to see, the Anglo-Jewish community will shrink by a third.

• Language: English
• Publisher: IRB Media
• Release date: Jun 4, 2022
• ISBN: 9798822503571

IRB Media

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Insights on Ari Shavit's My Promised Land

Contents

Insights from Chapter 1

Insights from Chapter 2

Insights from Chapter 3

Insights from Chapter 4

Insights from Chapter 5

Insights from Chapter 6

Insights from Chapter 7

Insights from Chapter 8

Insights from Chapter 9

Insights from Chapter 10

Insights from Chapter 11

Insights from Chapter 12

Insights from Chapter 13

Insights from Chapter 14

Insights from Chapter 15

Insights from Chapter 16

Insights from Chapter 17

Insights from Chapter 1

#1

The need to give Palestine to the Jews is almost tangible. If the Jews won’t disembark here, they will have no future. The Jewish people desperately need a new place, a new beginning, and a new mode of existence.

#2

My great-grandfather, Herbert Bentwich, was a leading figure in the Anglo-Jewish community. He was married to a beautiful, artistic wife who was raising nine children in their magisterial Avenue Road home. He was a self-made man who loved travel, poetry, and theater.

#3

The second answer is that Herbert Bentwich was way ahead of his time. He was committed to ending Jewish misery in the East, but his main reason for taking this journey was to escape the futility of Jewish life in the West. He saw the calamity that would follow the Holocaust.

#4

The British Isles were a temporary respite for the Bentwich delegation, but not for the Anglo-Jewish community. The demography of the British Isles tells a clear story: In the second half of the twentieth century, which Herbert Bentwich will not live to see, the Anglo-Jewish community will shrink by a third.

#5

The twenty-one travelers are greeted by Dr. Hillel Yoffe, who makes a positive impression on them. They feel that they are watching the seeds of the future sprout. They are excited to see how Palestinian soil can be transformed into wine.

#6

The land that Bentwich looks out over is already populated by half a million Arabs, Bedouins, and Druze. He does not see them as equals, but instead sees them as inferior serfs who do not own the land.

#7

My great-grandfather did not see the land as a no-man’s-land because he was motivated by the need not to see. He did not see the Palestinian peasants tilling the craggy terraces of the Jerusalem hills because he was too excited about the signs of progress he saw embodied by the new train.

#8

Theodor Herzl was the de Lesseps of the Jewish question: he would get the charter, draw up the plan, and raise the money by founding a general stock company. He would erect the great artificial nation-state that would connect East to West and link the past to the future.

#9

The Baedeker travelers were a group of Jews who visited Palestine in the late 1800s. They were well-off, well-read, and emancipated Jews of the modern era. They were naive, but there was no malice in them.

#10

In 1897, the Thomas Cook brothers led a group of tourists through the land. They traveled from Jerusalem to Beit El, from Beit El to Shilo, from Shilo to Nablus, from Nablus to Jenin, and from Jenin to Mount Tabor.

#11

The Bentwich delegation was sent to Palestine to acquire the land and give it to Jewish people. However, they were not representing Britain, but rather the emancipated Jews who had tied their fate to Europe. They wanted to escape Europe’s Medean insanity.

#12

Herbert Bentwich was a solicitor who went on the first Zionist pilgrimage to Palestine in 1894. He was impressed by the land, but what impressed him most was the sight of the Sea of Galilee at sunset, surrounded by glowing red mountains. He would not make it to the first Zionist Congress in Basel, but he would write about his experiences.

#13

The trip to Palestine was short and rushed. But it changed the life of my great-grandfather. He would not be able to resume his Victorian gentleman’s routine. He would not settle for practicing law, playing chamber music,