Seeking Zion

Focusing on the teachings of Tsevi Hirsch Kalischer, this study examines the modern revival of the belief among religious Jews that they are duty-bound to hasten messianic redemption.

From Jerusalem to Ghana to Katrina-ravaged New Orleans, a woman reclaims her history in a “beautifully written and thought-provoking” memoir (Dave Eggers, author of A Hologram for the King and Zeitoun). A biracial woman from a country still divided along racial lines, Emily Raboteau never felt at home in America. As the daughter of an African American religious historian, she understood the Promised Land as the spiritual realm black people yearned for. But while visiting Israel, the Jewish Zion, she was surprised to discover black Jews. More surprising was the story of how they got there. Inspired by their exodus, her question for them is the same one she keeps asking herself: have you found the home you’re looking for? In this American Book Award–winning inquiry into contemporary and historical ethnic displacement, Raboteau embarked on a ten-year journey around the globe and back in time to explore the complex and contradictory perspectives of black Zionists. She talked to Rastafarians and African Hebrew Israelites, Evangelicals and Ethiopian Jews—all in search of territory that is hard to define and harder to inhabit. Uniting memoir with cultural investigation, Raboteau overturns our ideas of place, patriotism, dispossession, citizenship, and country in “an exceptionally beautiful . . . book about a search for the kind of home for which there is no straight route, the kind of home in which the journey itself is as revelatory as the destination” (Edwidge Danticat, author of The Farming of Bones).

A Ticket to Zion is a journey through life by train inspired by John Bunyan's The Pilgrim's Progress and C. S. Lewis's Narnia adventures. Each twist and turn in life is represented as an aspect of a journey by train; the excitement of hearing the first steam train, the joy of being given a free ticket, the horror of seeing so many catch the wrong train, and then finally crossing the valley of the shadow of death. As you read A Ticket to Zion you will be transported into a mysterious world of adventure with Ian, our pilgrim, and his colorful friends who try to help him along the way. You will also be challenged by their enemies who tempt them to give up their precious tickets and leave the train. You will understand how to collect your free ticket, see why life's journey is so hard, and discover where your journey ends. Ian hopes that his journey's end will be a celestial city (Zion), but will he endure to the end? How many of those he meets along the way will complete the journey? How many will end up in the depot or on the wrong train?

The Dream of Zion tells the story of the Jewish political effort to restore their ancient nation. At the First Zionist Congress in Basel, Switzerland, in August 1897 Theodor Herzl convened a meeting that founded what became the World Zionist Organization. As debates continue to swirl around Israel, this book opens a window into its founding.