Journalist Anshel Pfeffer, political scientist Dahlia Sheindlin and award-winning author Daniel Gordis ask to what extent Israel has fulfilled its promise.

Three quarters of a century on, has Israel lived up to expectations? With the eyes of the world on the nation as never before, journalist and Netanyahu biographer Anshel Pfeffer asks two experts about its past, present and future.

In The Crooked Timber of Democracy in Israel political scientist and election veteran Dahlia Scheindlin exposes endemic flaws while arguing it still has considerable capacity to fulfil the promise of democracy. In the nuanced Impossible Takes Longer, National Jewish Book Award winner Daniel Gordis asks how Israel has measured up to its founders’ dreams, examining its transformative tech sector, distinct Judaism, and complex relationship with the Diaspora.

Buy a copy of The Crooked Timber of Democracy by Dahlia Scheindlin and Impossible Takes Longer by Daniel Gordis.

This event will last approximately 1 hour 15 minutes, without an interval. 

About the speakers:

Dahlia Scheindlin is a policy fellow at Century International, a columnist at Haaretz newspaper, and a public opinion expert who has advised nine national campaigns in Israel and many civil society groups; she has also worked in 15 other countries. She holds a PhD in political science from Tel Aviv University.

Daniel Gordis is the Koret Distinguished Fellow at Shalem College—Israel’s first liberal arts college—which he helped found in 2007. The author of numerous books on Jewish thought and political currents in Israel, he has twice won the National Jewish Book Award, including the prize for Book of the Year for Israel: A Concise History of a Nation Reborn. Raised and educated in the United States, he has been living in Jerusalem since 1998.

Anshel Pfeffer has covered Israeli politics and global affairs for two decades. He is a senior correspondent and columnist for Haaretz, and the Israel correspondent for The Economist. He is the author of Bibi: The Turbulent Life and Times of Benjamin Netanyahu. He lives in Jerusalem.