Book presentation November 5, 2010

On Friday, November 5, 2010 at Temple Emanuel of Beverly Hills, bestselling author, Todd Gitlin will discuss The Chosen Peoples: America, Israel and the Ordeals of Divine Election, the new book that he co-authored with Liel Leibovitz. The book examines the special friendship between the United States and Israel – as well as the two nations’ past achievements and shortcomings, current challenges, and future prospects – through the prism of their distinctive status as countries that each believe they were chosen by God to carry out a redemptive mission. Blending history, theology, and politics, Gitlin and Leibovitz neither sanction chosenness as a divine right (like many religious conservatives in both nations) nor condemn it as vulgar nationalism (like many on the secular left), but investigate its remarkable impact and argue that it is a crucial and pervasive aspect of each country’s identity.