Book Review of Dan Gordis' Aliyah Memoirs

Like most writers, I am an avid reader, and with aliyah looming on the horizon for us, I have been particularly interested in reading aliyah-related memoirs.

I recently discovered two aliyah memoirs that I had previously never heard of. They are by Dan Gordis, a frequent contributor to the New York Times' Op-Ed Section and Senior Vice President of the Shalem Center (a powerful think thank in Jerusalem). While looking for Gordis' most recent book "Saving Israel" in the library, I discovered that Gordis also wrote 2 memoirs based on his family's aliyah experiences.

Gordis' two memoirs are titled, "Home to Stay" and "Coming Together, Coming Apart." They are both fantastic reads and both are insightful. Here are three things I particularly appreciated about both books:

1. Gordis is able to find deeper meaning in an isolated event. For example, he finds the 2003 collapse of a wedding hall in Talpiyot to be an apt metaphor for the country of Israel at the time: "[t]he wedding hall is a metaphor for the whole country - one layer collapses and destroys everything below, killing everyone in its wake" [Home To Stay].

2. Gordis is really an independent thinker. I lean to the right, and that affects all of my perspectives. You can predict my views on an issue 100% of the time because of my right leaning tendencies. Gordis is different, however; he analyzes each situation independently.  He admits to seeing both sides on the issue of whether the "Gaza Withdrawal" was proper, oscillating between both sides of the issue.

3. Gordis is able to write about abstract situations and feelings that is commonplace to many but rarely expressed in words.  For example, take the following excerpt where Gordis describes going out to eat for his wife's birthday:

"When we went out for dinner for Beth's birthday in September, we were in a restaurant with a whole variety of couples: an Ethiopian couple, some Russians, an Israeli couple, us, and selected others from all over the place. Beth remarked that the whole country was a modern-day miracle, and then asked, "If you have a chance to live your life as part of a miracle, how do you walk away from that?" [Home To Stay].

All in all, Gordis' two aliyah memoirs are the best aliyah memoirs I've come across. I would recommend them to everyone, whether they plan on making aliyah, have already made aliyah, or even heard the word "aliyah" uttered in a sentence.