Oddly enough, I bought a copy of Saul Bellow's To Jerusalem and Back at a centennial birthday celebration for the author where author Scott Turow was a keynote speaker. Having read 7 or 8 of Bellow's fictional works over many years & in the midst of planning a trip to Israel & the Palestinian Territories, this book seemed a nice travel accessory, even though written 4o years ago. And while there are some interesting personal reflections on Israel and detailed encounters with a variety of Israeli...

About 1/4 of the way through, this one goes DNF. Virtually nothing about interactions with ordinary Israelis, instead political rants referencing dated politicians such as Kissinger.

Well known , Nobel prize winning author , put his pen to the service of recording his 1975 visit to the Land of Israel and his thoughts on the dillemas faced by Israel at the time , and on world politics at large in the mid 1970's.The author puts down his observations , from his thoughts about Hassidim on a plane from Heathrow to Ben Gurion airport to a secular kibbutz near Ceasarea, and his meetings with leaders and thinkers in Israel such as former Israeli Foreign Minister Abba Eban , Jerusale...

This was a travel guide that did not rely so much on evocation and the world that the writer observes so much as it read like a diary. It was more reliant on personal discussions and a political state so outdated that it now reads more like a faerie story than history based on the current set of circumstances in the Israel/Palestine debate. I don't know, indeed, if there is a place for assimilated Jews to speak so much on the debate- it's personally my least favourite thing that people ask me ju...

Bellow captures a debate framed by nationalism and holocaust. Do multiculturalism and anti-racism alter that debate?

Read this over the weekend in, appropriately, Jerusalem. Bellow would seem to have some advantage over the minions who have put together their thoughts on ancient ruins, futility of religious hatred, the mystery of the Orient, etc. - after all, he speaks Yiddish (though apparently not much Hebrew), has covered the Six-Day War (for Newsday), has some local friends and family, and receives the red carpet from legendary Jerusalem mayor Teddy Kollek, meeting Amos Oz, Abba Eban, Yitzhak Rabin, etc. (...

This is a book of assorted ramblings of Bellow's extended visit to Istael in 1976. Bellow has no connection to Israel or its politics other than being an assimilated Jew. But as a Nobel Laureate, he has many literary and political friends and aquaintances in high places who offer him their often conflicting views. Many of them are Western intellectuals, leftists and socialists. It is amazing in the hindsight of after more than 40 years after this book was written how wrong these views and opinio...

A political travel book that is somehow both incredibly outdated and currently modern and relevant at the same time. (Which is super depressing actually. The more things change, the more they stay the same, eh?)And while I liked Saul Bellow's writing here (I'm not familiar with his other work), and his take on politics (he has a way with descriptions), I was surprised that this skinny little book with cramped typeface won the 1976 Nobel Prize for Literature. I enjoyed it a lot, and flagged and h...

Bellow's account of his time in Jerusalem and the evolution of his thinking about the conflict there functions on several levels.The narrative is threaded with a critical survey of thinking and writing on the conflict between Israel and its neighbors. As he interacts with the life of the state, Bellow summarizes, converses with or comments on Chomsky, Sartre, Kissinger, and an impressive array of scholars. He does assert his opinion, but he seems to do so with integrity, granting points to those...

Idiosyncratic, impressionistic, informed, and entertaining account of Bellow's extended 1975 trip to Israel. It's shocking and disheartening to what extent the troublesome Arab-Israeli dynamics remain the same today; seemingly, 35 years have passed with only extra deaths to show for them. (OK, the Soviet Union fell. That was good.) One Israeli spoke to Bellow about the importance of American oil independence to successfully resolving the Israeli-Palestinian conflict--gee, we sure made a lot of p...

This was a huge disappointment. I picked up this book in an old-fashioned Santa Fe bookstore just reading Saul Bellow's name as an author and of course, the title suggesting its subject. In stead of a thorough, impartial yet personal view of the middle-eastern problem coming from a Nobel Prize winning author who also happens to be Jewish, the book is oddly incoherent jumble of incidents and perspectives. There are couple of beautiful paragraphs - one talking about sense of History and other desc...

This book was written in 1976 while Bellow was visiting Jerusalem and interviewed and talked to intellectuals, politicians, jews, arabs and people he met there. However it is more than ever relevant and very interesting to understand what's in stake when talking on the israel-palestinian conflict, its challenges and solutions.

I had no idea Saul Bellow was a warm Jew who cherished Israel until reading this book. He tells about his visit, meetings and impressions. Very interesting.

Not much has changed in the Middle East since 76

Very little has changed in Mid-East relationships during the 35 years since this book's been written, which is what made it interesting.

A masterful work. Bellow is brilliant in this account of his stay in Jerusalem in the 1970's.

"Laqueur thought it would be realistic for Israel to tell the world that it had no intentions of annexing Arab territories, that it was prepared to conform with U.N. Resolution 242, which emphasizes 'the inadmissibility of the acquisition of territory by war.' Laqueur suggests that Israel declare itself willing to evacuate the territories by stages 'over a period of five to ten years within the framework of a general peace settlement of the 1967 borders in the interest of security.'" (page 230)....

I just finished To Jerusalem and Back, by Saul Bellow. I thought the book was excellent. Saul Bellow usually writes fiction, so it was a different genre than he usually writes. It was more a series of approximately 100 essays, organized into a book. Good book concerned broadly Middle Eastern politics and some religious issues, focusing on the mid-1970's. That was a period of time that Israel was in in the shadow of the 1973 war between Israel and the Arabs. The book focused around discussions wi...

Though I may just be demonstrating my own ignorance of the conflict between the Israelis and Palestinians, I felt like this account was a great example of a compassionate and thoughtful reflection on the situation of the time in which it was written. In addition, the inclusion of personal affectations and stories of people with large parts in this that Bellow has known gave this a more personal feel that I found very satisfying. I suspect it’s the result of having a talented writer of fiction ap...

This was quite an interesting read though very much out of date. It was written in 1976, and so much has changed in Israel during the intervening time. But it was interesting to read from one man's perspective, to learn of his conversations with "important" people of those times. Saul Bellow had a casual way of writing that made me want to keep reading to find out what he did next during his trip to Jerusalem and the surrounding area. As I didn't really keep up with what was happening when it wa...

I enjoyed this first person account of Bellow’s time in Israel. Most notable was the level of angst present in this account and the realization that not much has changed in the 40 years since it was written. Israelis and Palestinians struggle to survive and the world struggles to understand what peace is. This account is filled with anecdotes of a young Henry Kissinger and Teddy Kollek and intimate descriptions of the Old City and Israel at large.

I'm a huge Bellow fan, but I find his imaginative works far preferable to his non-fiction. This book, published in 1976, was both diffuse and mired in the politics and speculations of its time. Despite the intransigence of the dilemmas Bellow details, it was tough for me to draw much of broad interest or relevance from the book; I wanted the pages to transcend late-'70 intrigue, but I couldn't glean that in Bellow's serial anecdotes and observations.

Beautifully written (of course) and surprisingly informative book - part travelogue, part reportage on the Israeli Palestinian issue. Reading it is to see how little has changed - for a part of the left, Israel is colonialist and imperialist and thus to be resisted. Also, it provided a fascinating glimpse into the people of power and academia and politics that Bellow frequently interacted with.

Bellow attempts to "come to clarity" on the Israel question (40 years ago). Regardless of what you think about his conclusions, the joy is in following his journey to those conclusions.

Learned quite some new about Jerusalem, the wars there, etc. But was expecting more of a story or something to tie the pieces together.

There are probably more informative books on Israel and the Middle East but none written with the style and insight Bellow can produce.

A powerful and insightful personal account by literary luminary Saul Bellow. Many of his key insights still stand some 45 years later.

2.8 stars

I struggled a bit with this book. Although intriguing in parts I think there was not enough description on place but rather of event. It didn’t captivate me I’m sad to say.

A good memoir that navigates the dizzying world of violent, Israeli politics.