The End of Days

Starred review from December 4, 2000
Although Gorenberg, an Israeli journalist, does not specifically address the recent violence at Temple Mount/Al-Haram al-Sharif in Jerusalem, anyone who seeks to understand the root of the fighting will find his thorough history of those 35 disputed acres to be indispensable. Gorenberg makes a stellar contribution to comprehending the troubled relationships among Arabs, Jews and Christians in Israel, meticulously analyzing the actions and beliefs of fundamentalist groups in all three religions. Jewish messianists and Christian millennialists insist that building the Third Temple on the site where both Solomon's and Herod's temples stood is essential for the advent of the Messiah, while Muslim apocalyptic believers fear that efforts to destroy Al-Aqsa mosque to make way for the Third Temple will prevent fulfillment of the prophecy about Islam's Meccan shrine migrating to Jerusalem at the end of time. Gorenberg writes objectively about advocates of each stance, slipping just once when he rejects the title of "martyr" for Baruch Goldstein (1994 killer of 29 Arabs in the Tomb of Patriarchs), calling that label "obscene." Gorenberg's prescience is manifest by his calling Temple Mount "a sacred blasting cap" and by stating that "any incident at the site can spin out of control." This valuable study greatly enhances readers grasp of the Middle East's religious and political complexities.

November 15, 2000
Gorenberg (coauthor, Shalom, Friend: The Life and Legacy of Yitzhak Rabin) offers an analysis of the ongoing apocalyptic obsession with the Temple Mount in Jerusalem. There will always be Jews, Christians, and Muslims who find millennialism appealing, he writes, because of the Kingdom of God's inherent power to address the injustices of an imperfect world. The belief in the apocalypse can spawn attempts to make it happen, and the author describes many instances when fringe groups have tried to achieve it. He explains the irony of different groups using each other to "bring about the end." For instance, in the 1990s, Christian evangelicals cooperated with Zionists in attempts to breed a pure red heifer, the sacrifice of which is a prerequisite for the building of the third Jewish Temple in Jerusalem. Essentially, argues Gorenberg, this is the way Christian fundamentalists make sense of supporting the Jewish state. This book is a sobering lesson on the power millennialism wields to this day and the danger of nihilism when such prophecies fail and extremists take matters into their own hands. Recommended for public libraries.--Loren Rosson III, Nashua P.L., NH

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