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Suggested Reading
III. Zionism and Jewish Power
Max Nordau, “Muscular Judaism” — The revival of Jewish physical and moral strength.
Theodor Herzl, Altneuland (Old–New Land) — A visionary portrait of renewed Jewish sovereignty.
Rabbi Yitzchak Yaakov Reines, Selected Writings — Religious Zionism, Torah, and the restoration of Jewish national life.
Berl Katznelson, Selected Writings — Labor Zionism, Jewish national renewal, Hebrew culture, and the building of a sovereign Jewish society.
Ze’ev Jabotinsky, “The Iron Wall” and The Story of the Jewish Legion — Jewish strength, self-defense, and political realism joined to national purpose.
Avraham “Yair” Stern, Selected Writings and Poems — Jewish independence, sacrifice, armed resistance, and an uncompromising vision of national liberation and sovereignty.
David Ben-Gurion, Selected Writings and Speeches — Statehood, Jewish sovereignty, national responsibility, and the building of the modern State of Israel.
Menachem Begin, The Revolt — Jewish resistance, national liberation, and the transformation from Jewish powerlessness to sovereignty.
Rabbi Shlomo Goren, Selected Writings and Addresses — Torah joined to sovereignty, military service, and the responsibilities of a restored Jewish nation. Your manuscript presents Goren as carrying Rav Kook’s vision into the life of the Jewish army.
Rabbi Meir Kahane, Essential Works: Never Again!; Time to Go Home; Our Challenge: The Chosen Land; Forty Years; The Story of the Jewish Defense League; Why Be Jewish?; Listen, World, Listen, Jew; Samson: The Judge; Uncomfortable Questions for Comfortable Jews; They Must Go; The Jewish Idea — Jewish identity, self-defense, Aliyah, assimilation, sovereignty, Torah, and national destiny.
Libby Kahane, Rabbi Meir Kahane: His Life and Thought — The life, family, faith, activism, and intellectual development of Rabbi Meir Kahane.
Randy Yisroel Settenbrino, Between the Altar and the Sanctuary: The Life, Faith, and Fire of Rabbi Meir Kahane — Kahane’s life and ideas within the larger struggle for Jewish identity, faith, survival, sovereignty, and responsibility.
Randy Yisroel Settenbrino, Selected Essays — Settenbrino on Substack — Contemporary reflections on Israel, antisemitism, assimilation, Jewish unity, self-defense, faith, and the restoration of Jewish civilizational confidence.
II. The Holocaust and Spiritual Resistance
The Warsaw Ghetto Voices
Rabbi Kalonymus Kalman Shapira (Piaseczno Rebbe), Aish Kodesh (Sacred Fire) — Sermons delivered in the Warsaw Ghetto, transforming suffering into communion with G-d.
Chaim A. Kaplan, Scroll of Agony: The Warsaw Diary — A firsthand chronicle of Warsaw Jewry confronting persecution, destruction, and spiritual resistance.
Dr. Hillel Seidman, The Warsaw Ghetto Diaries — Eyewitness testimony of religious life, leadership, courage, and faith amid the destruction of the Warsaw Ghetto.
Zvi Kolitz, Yosl Rakover Talks to God — A soul-piercing literary testament of defiance, love, and unwavering faith in the face of destruction.
Yaffa Eliach, Hasidic Tales of the Holocaust — Testimonies of faith, courage, spiritual resistance, and humanity amid the Shoah.
Yitta Halberstam and Judith Leventhal, Small Miracles of the Holocaust — Extraordinary accounts of survival, coincidence, faith, and Divine Providence amid destruction.
Introduction to Suggested Reading Curriculum
Destiny Born of the Deepest Faith
Amalek strikes whenever Israel grows faint, when faith is replaced by fear and purpose by confusion. October 7 was not only a national tragedy. It was a reflection of the Shoah: towns, families, and communities slaughtered, captives taken and starved. A brutal replay of the WWII years in compressed time. From the camps of Europe to the fields of the Negev, Jewish history repeats a warning: survival without meaning is not life; existence without faith is self-alienation. Self-inflicted detachment has led to a loss of civilizational confidence.
We have gone far off course from earlier generations who understood that a Jew is not meant to live as other peoples.
What did the mamas and papas know that we don't?
To be a Jew is to live with the awareness that purpose is real, covenant is binding, and without the sacred, there is no meaning to life. Transmitting values and identity was familial, communal, and national, even when we were a nation in exile. We knew that we were indelibly tied to one another and that one day there would be a reassembling of the Diaspora in the Land of Israel: a Divine gift, prayed for and yearned for in the best and worst eras of our history, and paid for in Jewish blood, sweat, and tears.
A return to the basics of a simple faith means a reclamation of identity and destiny.
Who else has written, in living history, a second commonwealth and now a third?
The story of Israel is proof that history itself can be holy: natural events guided by a hidden hand, miracles clothed in motion. Never forget: There is no other nation that has been exiled and returned to its land except for the Jewish people.
Why This Reading List Exists
This reading list is not an academic syllabus. It is a path back to wholeness.
It was born from the recognition that our deepest wound is spiritual and national amnesia.
We have raised generations fluent in the world’s wisdom yet strangers to their own. They may know the arts and sciences, but not the prophets and leaders who taught us how to speak of justice and the genuine way to judge ourselves and the world. For millennia, we stood by their vision, seeing ourselves as a nation born at Sinai, a nation in exile, and a nation at home.
The greatest cause of Jewish disunity is not argument. It is ignorance. We have forgotten our way.
Without Torah and history, there can be no shared conscience; without faith, no shared destiny.
Education is not information. It is inheritance. To study our texts is to rejoin the chain that begins at Sinai and winds through Josephus, through Aish Kodesh in the Warsaw Ghetto, through Herzl and Rav Teichtal, through Rav Goren and Rabbi Kahane, and through every Jew who believed that history itself could be redeemed.
This reading list is meant to rebuild that inheritance: to restore memory, reignite faith, and reunite the nation through the wisdom of its own sources.
It aims to form leaders who remember, who have pride, and who draw courage and vision from Tanakh, history, and the iconic leaders who initiated thought and action to illuminate the path of the perplexed.
“A boar cannot be a sage.” Reading creates thinkers and builders and rekindles a people who understand that life is holy, history purposeful, and return providential.
I. Torah Foundations
ArtScroll Stone Tanakh — The essential Hebrew-English text. Primary focus: Isaiah, Jeremiah, Ezekiel, Ezra, and Nehemiah, prophets of exile and redemption.
Megillat Esther and the Books of the Maccabees — Hidden miracles, courage, and national renewal.
Pirkei Avot — Foundational teachings on ethics, responsibility, and character.
Rabbi Yehudah HaLevi, The Kuzari and Poems — The classic dialogue of faith and nationhood.
Rambam (Maimonides), Iggeret Teiman (Letter to the Yemenites) — Faith under persecution.
Ramban (Nachmanides) — Commentary on the Torah and his teaching on Mitzvat Yishuv Eretz Yisrael, affirming the command to settle and possess the Land.
Maharal of Prague, Netzach Yisrael — Exile, redemption, and the enduring destiny of Israel as a nation.
Arizal (Rabbi Isaac Luria), Etz Chaim — Mystical foundations of Divine presence, redemption, and spiritual restoration centered in Eretz Yisrael.
Moshe Chaim Luzzatto (Ramchal), Derech Hashem (The Path of God) — The metaphysical framework of Divine Providence and Israel’s mission.
Vilna Gaon, Kol HaTorah teachings and letters concerning the return to Eretz Yisrael — A call to redeem the Land through action.
Rabbi Samson Raphael Hirsch, The Nineteen Letters — Jewish identity, Torah civilization, and the meaning of Judaism for a generation confronting assimilation.
Rabbi Abraham Isaac HaKohen Kook, The Guide for the Perplexed of the Generation — The spiritual and intellectual perplexities of the modern Jew and a path toward renewed faith, confidence, and national purpose.
The Kahane family held a tradition of spiritual works written by Rabbi Meir Kahane’s ancestors:
Rabbi Meir ben Tuvia Liven, Imrei Chemed / Ahavat Eretz Yisrael — The beauty and sanctity of Eretz Yisrael.
Rabbi Baruch David Kahana, Chibat Ha’aretz and Birkat Ha’aretz — Love of the Land and its blessings.
Rabbi Yechezkel Shraga (Charles) Kahane, Torah Yesharah — Torah and Zionism from the rabbinic tradition that shaped Rabbi Meir Kahane.
Rabbi Yissachar Shlomo Teichtal, Eim HaBanim Semeicha (A Joyous Mother of Children) — Written during the Shoah, a profound call for Jewish return to Eretz Yisrael and rebuilding the Land.
Rabbi Joseph B. Soloveitchik, Kol Dodi Dofek — The Shoah, the rebirth of Israel, and Divine Providence.
Rabbi Aryeh Kaplan, The Living Torah — A clear, modern translation with halachic and philosophical notes that makes the Torah accessible to the contemporary reader.
Rabbi Shaul Yisraeli, Amud HaYemini — Halachic foundations for government, security, warfare, and sovereignty in a modern Jewish state.
Rabbi Dov Lior, Am KeLavi — Torah, courage, settlement, national responsibility, and Jewish sovereignty.
IV. Covenant Among the Nations
Gerald McDermott, Israel Matters and writings on Christian Zionism — Christian theology affirming Israel’s continuing covenant and the significance of the Jewish return to the Land.
Robert Nicholson, The Philos Project, Selected Writings — A contemporary Christian vision of partnership with the Jewish people and support for Israel.
Pastor John Hagee, In Defense of Israel and The Battle for Jerusalem — Biblical foundations for Christian support of Israel, the Jewish people, and the enduring significance of Jerusalem.
V. Desolation and Revival
Flavius Josephus, Antiquities of the Jews; The Jewish War; Life; Against Apion — Leadership, sinat chinam, national collapse, exile, and disunity.
Mark Twain, The Innocents Abroad (1869) — Observations of Ottoman Palestine and its desolation.
William H. Seward, Travels Around the World — Palestine before the great waves of Jewish restoration.
Theodor Herzl, Selected Diaries and Writings — Political Zionism and the transformation of ancient longing into action.
Eliezer Ben-Yehuda, Selected Writings — The revival of Hebrew and Jewish national culture.
David Ben-Gurion and Yitzhak Ben-Zvi, Eretz Yisrael: Past and Present — Jewish resettlement and national rebirth.
Churchill White Paper (1922) and British White Papers through 1939 — British policy toward the Jewish national home and immigration.
Chana Senesh, Poems and Diary — Zionism, courage, sacrifice, and faith.
Hillel Kook (Peter Bergson), Bergson Group Papers — Jewish rescue during the Shoah and the struggle for statehood.
Rabbi Abba Hillel Silver, UN Speeches (1947) — The case for Jewish independence before the nations.
UN General Assembly Resolution 181 (1947) — Partition and the proposed establishment of Jewish and Arab states.
Menachem Begin, The Revolt — Jewish resistance, independence, and freedom.
Mickey Marcus, biographical accounts including Cast a Giant Shadow — From West Point to Israel’s War of Independence.
Zev Golan, Stern: The Man and His Gang — Yair Stern and the underground struggle for Jewish independence.
Rabbi Menachem M. Schneerson, Talks on the Six-Day War — Providence, Jewish security, and Israel’s victory.
Rabbi Shlomo Goren, Be’Oz U’VeTa’atzumot — Torah, military service, and Jewish sovereignty.
The Letters of Jonathan Netanyahu — Courage, duty, and devotion to Israel.
Paul Johnson, A History of the Jews — Jewish civilization from the biblical world through exile and restoration.
Joan Peters, From Time Immemorial — A controversial study of Palestine’s population, immigration, and Jewish resettlement.
Abba Eban, My People: The Story of the Jews — Jewish civilization, Zionism, diplomacy, and restoration.
Benjamin Netanyahu, A Place Among the Nations — Jewish history, security, sovereignty, and self-determination.
Natan Sharansky, Fear No Evil — Soviet persecution, Jewish identity, courage, freedom, and Aliyah.
Martin Gilbert, Israel: A History — Zionism, independence, war, immigration, and nation-building.
Howard M. Sachar, A History of Israel — The rise of Zionism and the modern State of Israel.
Gal Beckerman, When They Come for Us, We’ll Be Gone — The struggle for Soviet Jewry.
Benny Morris, 1948 — A modern study of Israel’s War of Independence.
Caroline Glick, The Israeli Solution — A rejection of the two-state paradigm and argument for Israeli sovereignty.
Leon Uris, Exodus — Historical fiction that brought Jewish refuge and independence to an international audience.