Rabbi Robert Orkand

Rabbi Robert Orkand, who retired from the pulpit rabbinate in 2013, lives in the Boston area. He is a past chair of ARZA, the Association of Reform Zionists of America.

The Weapon Wizards: How Israel Became a High-Tech Military Superpower

Rabbi Robert Orkand
From drones to satellites, missile defense systems to cyber warfare, Israel leads the world in the development of high-tech weaponry, a legacy born of necessity. Since 1948, this country of eight million people has had to learn to adapt to changes in warfare and, in the process, has become a military superpower in innovation and efficiency.

Judas

Rabbi Robert Orkand
Amos Oz is one of Israel’s best known authors, and one of the most controversial. At 77, he is widely considered as the godfather of Israeli peaceniks. After fighting in the 1967 Six-Day War, he was the first Israeli to call publicly for the creation of an independent Palestinian state in the newly occupied West Bank and Gaza Strip. “Even unavoidable occupation,” he wrote, “is a corrupting occupation.” His opposition to Israeli settlements on Palestinian land, led to his co-founding Peace Now in 1978.

Zionism: The Birth and Transformation of an Ideal

Rabbi Robert Orkand
Author Milton Viorst wants to know how Theodor Herzl’s vision of a Jewish refuge for a beleaguered people became “a military power where peace and security was thought about exclusively within a military framework.”