(Larger Image)
|
A Match Made in Heaven: American Jews, Christian Zionists, and One Man's Exploration of the Weird and Wonderful Judeo-Evangelical Alliance
by Zev Chafets
Product Group: Book
Publisher: HarperCollins (2007-01-01)
ISBN: 0060890584
EAN: 9780060890582
Dewy Decimal #: 277.3
Hardcover: 240 pages
Release Date: 2007-01-09
SKU: 03101
Condition: New
Comments: Nice copy.
|
Editorial Reviews
|
Product Description
Over the course of an extraordinary year, Zev Chafets—former New York Daily News columnist and onetime director of the Israeli government press office—traveled the world to explore the improbable confluence of Jews and evangelicals. He spent quality time with Jerry Falwell, visited Jewish cadets at West Point, attended the world's biggest Christian retail show, embarked on a road trip with the rabbi with the largest gentile following since Jesus, journeyed to the Holy Land with a band of repentant Christian pilgrims, and broke bread with George W. Bush and five hundred fellow Jewish Republicans. A Match Made in Heaven is the penetrating, engaging, and often hilarious narrative of Chafets's determined quest to get to the root of a very serious question: Why do evangelicals support Israel so strongly? Equal parts history, comedy, travelogue, and political tract, it is a smart and adventurous odyssey along a rapidly changing religious and political border.
|
Customer Reviews
|
Excellent book
Rating  (5)
Date: 2008-07-16
This book is an easy read and speaks the truth about "Loving one another as I have loved you." It points out how, as Christians recognize their Jewish roots, the fears that Jews have of being overwhelmed by evangelism will dissipate. This book speaks to the Judeo-Christian alliance that Jesus said was to occur.
|
|
Why hasn't this menace been thrown in prison?
Rating  (1)
Date: 2008-04-14
0 out of 6 customers found this reveiw helpful
Chavets is hoping to start a nuclear WWIII in the Mid East. He's an Israeli psychotic who belongs in prison (or the nut house).
|
|
Jews and Christians. Two can't fight if one doesn't wanna.
Rating (5)
Date: 2008-02-25
1 out of 1 customers found this reveiw helpful
It's hard to give an opinion on this entertaining little book. Why? Well, the subject is one everyone gets touchy on, and practically anything the author says is going to be misinterpreted or ignored. Almost anything one says to build bridges will not prosper. This author tries it, though. And if I give his book 5 stars it's because, whatever the results may be, and even if I myself don't agree with some things, I have to admit that the book is fun.
Bottom-line is: Jews and Christian Evangelicals should get along. Issues separating us are trivial in comparison to the gains we can make if we stay together in the grand issues that both concern us. Just quit fuming about the Inquisition. That was in Europe, not America, by the way. Quit blaming Christian America for every evil: the Holocaust took place in Europe too. Christian America is Your friend, not Your enemy. Give us a break.
A multitude of Christians are stretching out their hands to Israel. So why not take it? It seems so simple.
Well obviously it ain't that simple when a lot of high class East Coast American Jewry still feel very prejudiced towards the average American of middle class. That they are disconnected with real America -not the America of their cocktail parties- doesn't seem to register with them. And if I say that they shouldn't be afraid of a Christian America because it's always been Christian from its inception and they got along pretty well, I won't be contributing much to mellowing the situation. But that's true. Judeo-Christian values made America possible. Maybe it ain't anymore so, but it sure was in the past. So what else do these Christian-hating Jews want? Christians are willing to stay with Israel and honest Jews through whatever it takes, but are not willing to deny their own Christ -the best Jew that ever was.
I guess well-intentioned books like this one are doomed to fail mainly because there's too much resentment, pride, hate, etc that corrupts any efforts done.
What I didn't like much was the common denominator used to explain the reasoning why this alliance should go on. Convenience and utilitarianism do not appeal to people who are spiritually minded and really believe in God. But I let it fly. On the other hand the book is a wealth of information: The who is who of the Evangelical and Jewish worlds.
Divide and conquer has always been the devil's favorite sport.
|
|
Not better or worse, but different than I expected
Rating  (4)
Date: 2007-10-16
2 out of 3 customers found this reveiw helpful
I've become fairly interested in "Christian Zionism," "replacement theology," and related topics recently and the description and title of "A Match Made in Heaven" made this sound like a good place to go to find out more. Turns out it wasn't quite what I was expecting, but it was still an interesting, well-written, and surprisingly entertaining view of what exactly is happening, and what is at stake, in the question of Jewish-Evangelical relations.
What I was particularly not expecting to find was the author's energetic defense of the passionate support American Evangelicals show for the State of Israel. While "A Match Made in Heaven" lacks any theological investigation or defense of "Christian Zionism," the author makes a strong pragmatic case. As he explained to a New York Jewish woman aghast at the revelation Chafets voted for George W. Bush in 2004 (although a long-time resident of Israel he retains his American citizenship), "why wouldn't I as an Israeli Jew support the most pro-Israel, pro-Jewish president in US history?" As he relates stories of Iraqi Scud missiles falling on his family's Tel Aviv neighborhood, it's not hard to understand why Chafets is willing to accept the Evangelicals' well-demonstrated support for Israel almost regardless of what motivates it.
While I tend to accept Chafets' analysis, I couldn't help but think as I read it that he and his book are probably getting savaged by "the Jewish establishment" he so disparages, as well as by myriad other critics of Israel, Bush, and/or evangelical Christianity (there's a Venn diagram I'd like to see). What I'd hope is less open to criticism is Chafets' skill as an observant and entertaining writer.
I particularly enjoyed his description of a tour of Israel by a group of Evangelicals that he accompanied as, to use his chapter title, "a fly on the wailing wall." My wife and I were (as one participant put it) blessed by a similar tour earlier this year -- remarkably similar, in fact. Not only did we receive communion at the so-called "Garden Tomb" and renew our baptism in the Jordan River at Kibbutz Kinneret ("whose Eastern European socialist-atheist founders would have been amazed by the vast gift store of Christian knickknacks being hawked by their grandchildren" [p. 104]), as did members of Chafets' group, but even visited George Nisan's "religious supermarket" on the Mount of Olives, where Nisan "caused a stir" for us as for them by reciting the Lord's Prayer in Aramaic.
Despite the laughs, though, this is at heart a very serious book and one that's sure to stir deep feelings on all sides. The other side's position is amply documented, and as Chafets notes, Evangelicals themselves seem to take the line "I support Israel because the Bible tells me to, and that's good enough." Not many people are coming to the debate enunciating Zev Chafets' perspective, and I think that's a shame. I imagine all sides, and all parts of the Venn diagram above, could find something useful and even eye-opening in the pages of this worthwhile book.
|
|
Zev Missed the point on this book
Rating (1)
Date: 2007-10-15
3 out of 8 customers found this reveiw helpful
I read this book and follow Zev from his various NY Journalism posts. Unfortunately, this was a huge disappointment. Overly done. Factually suspect. Extremly one sided. Poorly referenced. Fortunately, there are plenty of people out there who will be totally misled from gross generalizations that Zev is notorious for, simply because the truth doesnt sell as well.
|
|
|