[The European Conservative] Irreverent Shofet

Fresh off forming Israel’s most right-wing government ever, Bibi Netanyahu appears in his recently published memoir as the Jewish people’s shrewdest leader since King Solomon.

Bibi: My Story. By Benjamin Netanyahu. Threshold Editions; 724 pages; $29.99.

Midway through the Hebrew Bible, the Book of Judges chronicles Israel’s struggle to attain God-worthy self-rule by outgrowing the perennial temptation of apostasy — an allegory that eerily echoes with the modern Jewish state. The Bible’s seventh book, Judges begins with the Israelites restored by Joshua from Egyptian bondage to the Promised Land and is followed by the enthroning of the Davidic monarchy under king Samuel. In that halfway period, unfaithful to the covenant Joshua proclaimed, the twelve tribes descend into a cycle of moral corruption and misrule that likens them to the idolatrous, Baal-worshipping Canaanites remaining in their midst. The cycle begins with the Israelites sinning against God, who allows them to be conquered, after which they see the error of their ways, repent, and entreat God for mercy. God then raises up a deliverer of a judge — more of an ad hoc military chieftain than a magistrate — who defeats the enemy and ushers in an era of peace before Israel falls again into sin. First committed to writing during the Babylonian exile circa 550 BCE, the book’s lesson resonates through the long arc of Jewish history: though sin-prone themselves, in tumultuous times the judges are Israel’s last best hope to secure its place among the nations.

Continue reading the entire book review at The European Conservative here.