At the Entrance to the Garden of Eden: A Jew's Search for Hope with Christians and Muslims in the Holy Land

I particularly appreciated the fact that Mr. Klein Halevi reached out to Christians and Muslims without reneging or compromising his own faith. That kind of dialogue would, I think, ultimately be meaningless.

I agree with Mr Klein Halevi that real religious dialogue is the royal path to peace, not only in the Holy Land, but also in many other places. I fear, however, that very few people are capable of mustering the necessary strenght, courage, honesty and humility.

One of the things I particularly liked about Mr Klein Halevi is his intellectual honesty, both with his interlocutors and with himself. Moreover, he is not interested in easy victories. Much to his credit, he writes how uneasy he feels when certain Muslims or Christians reach out to him by pointing out their common ground and ... how different they both are from the third party !

As a Roman Catholic, one of Mr Halevi Klein's remarks that most struck me is how the passages of the Gospel which can appear quite antisemitic seem to echo Israel's (verbally) violent public debate. One of course knows these things, but it is useful to be reminded that the unkind remarks the Evangelists occasionally make about the Jews or the Pharisees are actually made in the context of an internal Jewish debate.

The only weakness of Mr Klein Halevi's book is that his Christian contacts were not Palestinians, but Ethiopians, Armenians and Europeans.

I have to admit, moreover, that I sometimes felt a bit uneasy reading about the syncretic, judaizing liturgy of the Beatitudes, a Catholic order about which Mr Klein Halevi writes. Do we really have to resemble each other to respect each other ? Will we feel disappointed if Jews and Muslims do not answer these efforts by adopting at least part of our ways ? Or is this an act of atonement for the former antijudaism of the Church ? I don't understand it. In my eyes, it is one thing to adapt your behavior to pray with people of another faith, but quite another thing to adopt their ways of worship when not in their company. Does it even make sense from a Jewish perspective ? If I'm not mistaken, gentiles do not have to respect Jewish law and are even prohibited from doing so in some cases, which include the observance of the Shabbath. They should respect the seven laws of Noach, which do not include rituals.

I am also unconvinced for political reasons. Palestinian Christians often feel we betrayed them. Whether one agrees or not does not really matter, we should not brush their feelings aside. Jews might think this is yet another attempt to evangelize them, this time by stealth, as the Church has often done in the past (not with the Jews though). Does this encourage dialogue between Israeli Jews and the Church's own flock, Palestinian Christians ? I don't know. I think we should rather follow Mr Klein Halevi's example.


A Message for Today's World   November 14, 2001
14 out of 14 found this review helpful

An extraordinary book. Yossi Klein Halevy is a deeply religious American-born Jewish journalist and Israeli citizen who has lived in Israel for almost twenty years. This book is written as a personal spiritual journey, in which Halevy attempts to experience and understand Islam and Christianity by joining in their rituals of worship. Despite the personal nature of the subject, his historical, political and social commentary are invaluable for those who wish to understand the Middle East conflict today. In a world where hatred is running rampant, he sends a message that solutions can only come through understanding, not violence.


A Scrap of Hope for Hard Times   February 11, 2003
Dara (Silicon Valley, California)
9 out of 9 found this review helpful

I just finished reading At the Entrance to the Garden of Eden by Yossi Klein Halevi. I couldn't put it down. In his search for Muslims and Christians who would let him share in their spiritual lives, Halevi tries to find a way to connect with his erstwhile enemies outside of politics. He takes us along on his journey and what an astounding array of people we meet: Sufi sheikhs and French nuns and Armenian monks.

And most of all, we get to know Halevi, an American-born Israeli, sensitive and conflicted , who wants to participate in the rebirth of the Jewish people in its own land without harming other peoples, and understanding the tragedy that these two desires are in conflict.

It's a sad book because it ends with the resumption of armed conflict that began in 2000. But it's also a hopeful book because of all of the people Halevi meets who are willing to clasp hands across the divide. In one beautiful scene, Halevi attends a Moslem Sufi zikr, a session of mystical dancing which allows the participants to connect with each other and with God. Despite initial hostility, the experience brings home Halevy and his hosts together in mutual understanding and respect. It's a scrap of hope we can all use in these difficult times.


Extraordinary Book   October 14, 2001
Edward H Rettig (Jerusalem, Israel)
8 out of 8 found this review helpful

Very few of us combine hard-headed political analysis with deep spiritual sensitivity. Yossi Klein Halevy, a contributing editor at the New Republic Magazine and at the Jerusalem Report, is a leading political commentator on Israel and the Middle East. In this book we see a different side of the man. Halevy is a man of exquisite religious sensitivity and deep humanity. He practices a kind of truly respectful inter-religious dialogue that is all to hard to find in our day. Whether engaged in discussion with nuns or meditation with Muslim mystics, Halevy never condescends, never juvenalizes and never fails to pay his interlocutors the supreme compliment of examining their religious beliefs with an empathic but discerning eye.

In our post September 11th world, we need the kind of wisdom that Halevy shares so generously.

Read this book.

Rabbi Edward Rettig


A sincere seeker on a challenging quest   May 6, 2004
Rabbi Yonassan Gershom (Minnesota, USA)
8 out of 9 found this review helpful

This is a deeply thought-provoking book. I ordered it because I have personally been involved in Jewish-Muslim-Christian dialogues (trialogues?) in the USA, and I resonated with the reviews I had read. What surprised (and saddened) me was the extreme difficulty that Yossi had in even finding people willing to dialogue in the Middle East. I had been told that Israel was a segregated society (not officially, but socially) but I did not realize how deeply the mistrust runs. Villages and monasteries that are within visual sight of each other might as well be on different planets.
To cross the cultural divide can literally mean taking your life inot your hands.

Author Yossi Klein takes that risk. With the help of various unconventional guides, he meets with Sufi shaykhs, Armenian priests, Catholic nuns and many others, hoping to communicate on the level of the soul rather than politics. Sometimes he succeeds, sometimes not. On so many occasions, history intrudes with its memories of past brutalities -- Crusades, Inquisitions, the Holocaust. This is not a sugar-coated utopian view of peace, but a scathingly honest chronicle of one seeker's search for common ground in a troubled land. With each new encounter, Yossi struggles with his own anger, distrust, and fear -- as did I when I read the book. Definitely a must-read for everyone who is or wants to be involved in interfaith dialogue.