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No Country for Jewish Liberals is Larry Derfner’s personal and political story of life in contemporary Israel, describing how an American Jewish emigrant and his adopted country grew apart. Derfner describes his boyhood in Los Angeles as the son of Holocaust escapees, his coming of age amidst the upheavals of 1960s America, his move to Israel, and his controversial career in journalism. This provocative book explores Israel’s moral decline through the lens of Derfner’s experiences, blending memoir, reportage, and commentary. It is a riveting narrative of how Israeli society has come to alienate its Jewish liberals.
"An insightful, eloquent, intimate book about the liberal Jewish dilemma: How to love a country whose policies you hate."
—Peter Beinart, author The Crisis of Zionism
"I’ve read Larry Derfner’s impassioned but also factual columns with considerable interest over the years. He’s insightful, clever and even manages to be funny. The publication of this book is a welcome capstone to his career."
—Norman G. Finkelstein, writer and lecturer
"Larry Derfner has written a street-talking, brash, incredibly readable and thoughtful memoir about his 30-plus years in Israel, and the battle between his ideals and his affection for the country. It’s a useful antidote for the usual shouting points of debate about Israel. No matter what view of Israel you have when you begin reading, you’ll have a more complicated and conflicted view when you finish."
—Gershom Gorenberg, author The Unmaking of Israel
"Derfner—who does not cease to be a field reporter even after being fired for his non-kosher views—offers much more than a memoir. An insider and an outsider in his adopted country, his personal journey is a description of a society’s contradictions, and his own contemplative zigzags—a tale about Israel’s drift into an abyss."
—Amira Hass, Haaretz’s correspondent for the occupied territories and author Drinking the Sea at Gaza
"Larry Derfner has written a fascinating memoir of growing up in Los Angeles and moving to Israel and finding happiness in his everyday life there but being beset by a growing realization that he is living in a morally failed state and can do little to change it. It is a riveting account of Israel’s history told through the lens of Derfner’s life. I had trouble putting it down."
—John B. Judis, author Genesis: Truman, American Jews, and the Origins of the Arab/Israeli Conflict