Audio only
Impossible Takes Longer
75 Years After Its Creation, Has Israel Fulfilled Its Founders’ Dreams?By Daniel GordisNarrated by Rob ShapiroLength11h 59m
About this audiobook
WINNER OF THE RABBI SACKS BOOK PRIZE
A nuanced examination of the Israel’s past, present, and future, after reaching its seventy-fifth anniversary and enduring its most challenging year ever, from the two-time National Jewish Book Award–winning author of Israel. Revised and updated throughout for the paperback edition.
In 1948, Israel’s founders sought a “national home for the Jewish people,” where Jewish life would be transformed. The state they ultimately made, says Daniel Gordis, is a place of extraordinary success and maddening disappointment, a story of both unprecedented human triumph and great suffering.
When it marked its seventy-fifth anniversary, Israel was in the throes of a judicial reform crisis, its most dangerous internal rupture ever. Then, with the October 7th War, it was attacked from the outside and plunged into existential uncertainty. In light of those first seventy-five years and the events of 2023 that shook the country to its core, Gordis asks: Has Israel fulfilled the dreams of its founders?
Using Israel’s Declaration of Independence, Gordis measures Israel’s achievements, critiques its failures, and acknowledges its inherent contradictions—ultimately suggesting that, though it has often fallen short, the Jewish state is a success far beyond anything its founders could have imagined.
Audiobook details
Rating★★★★ 4.2 (488)
Includes Goodreads, Amazon, LibraryThing
GenreHistory, Politics and Government
Length11 hrs 59 mins
Narrated byRob Shapiro
FormatAudiobook
Publish dateApr 11, 2023
LanguageEnglish
More from Daniel Gordis
A Brief History of IntelligenceMax S. Bennett12h 18m4.6 (6.6K)$29 · $0.00
Ghosts of HiroshimaCharles Pellegrino8h 59m4.5 (877)$23
Unbroken Bonds of BattleJohnny Joey Jones8h 31m4.6 (2.6K)$8 · $0.00
The Daughter of AuschwitzTova Friedman, Malcolm Brabant7h 54m4.6 (16.7K)$26 · $0.00
Lily's PromiseLily Ebert, Dov Forman8h 54m4.6 (16.1K)$29 · $0.00
On Democracies and Death CultsDouglas Murray10h 38m4.6 (6.5K)$29 · $0.00
Across the RiverKent Babb11h 40m4.6 (927)$29 · $0.00
Balcony Over Jerusalem: A Middle East Memoir - Israel, Palestine and BeyondJohn Lyons12h 37m4.6 (1.4K)$33 · $0.00
BeyondStephen Walker15h 39m4.6 (3.2K)$33 · $0.00
Kings and PawnsHoward Bryant10h 9m4.6 (678)$29 · $0.00
No EscapeNury Turkel9h 30m4.6 (809)$28 · $0.00
Jubal Stone: U.S. Marshal: Blood Trail To Hell: A Western Adventure NovelCasey Nash3h 42m4.6 (3.2K)$18 · $0.00
Fall and RiseMitchell Zuckoff17h 23m4.6 (9.8K)$40 · $0.00
The SurvivorJosef Lewkowicz, Michael Calvin9h 22m4.6 (2.5K)$29 · $0.00
Always FaithfulThomas Schueman, Zainullah Zaki12h 12m4.6 (977)$29 · $0.00
The State of Society in France Before the Revolution of 1789 (Annotated)Alexis de Tocqueville17h 25m4.6 (1.2K)$2 · $0.00
All the Gallant MenDonald Stratton, Ken Gire5h 55m4.6 (11.8K)$24 · $0.00
Saint Joan (Annotated)George Bernard Shaw6h 20m4.6 (1.2K)$1.20 · $0.00
Medgar and MyrlieJoy-Ann Reid10h 52m4.5 (27.8K)$29 · $0.00
The History of the Peloponnesian War (Annotated)Thucydides24h 3m4.6 (1.1K)$2 · $0.00
On Democracies and Death CultsDouglas Murray10h 38m4.6 (6.5K)$29 · $0.00
Balcony Over Jerusalem: A Middle East Memoir - Israel, Palestine and BeyondJohn Lyons12h 37m4.6 (1.4K)$33 · $0.00
RiggedMollie Hemingway12h 48m4.6 (4.2K)$23 · $0.00
SledgehammerDavid Friedman8h 21m4.7 (589)$26 · $0.00
Citizenship in a Republic (Annotated)Theodore Roosevelt2h 44m4.6 (1.4K)$2 · $0.00
No EscapeNury Turkel9h 30m4.6 (809)$28 · $0.00
Always FaithfulThomas Schueman, Zainullah Zaki12h 12m4.6 (977)$29 · $0.00
UnthinkableJamie Raskin15h 8m4.5 (9.3K)$8 · $0.00
My Fourth Time, We DrownedSally Hayden13h 59m4.6 (2.9K)$23 · $0.00
A Revolution of Common SenseScott Jennings9h 29m4.6 (528)$29 · $0.00
Statement From the Dock at the Rivonia TrialNelson Mandela2h 18m4.6 (1.3K)$1 · $0.00
Lessons from the EdgeMarie Yovanovitch17h 11m4.5 (5.9K)$40 · $0.00
To Rescue the American SpiritBret Baier10h 12m4.5 (2.7K)$8 · $0.00
StonewalledSharyl Attkisson15h 19m4.5 (4.3K)$33 · $0.00
The World According to Orwell: 1984 & Animal FarmGeorge Orwell15h 42m4.6 (1.1K)$1 · $0.00
Basic EconomicsThomas Sowell18h 32m4.5 (29.3K)$28 · $0.00
To Rescue the RepublicBret Baier, Catherine Whitney11h 42m4.5 (8.6K)$29 · $0.00
Modern WarriorsPete Hegseth7h 10m4.5 (4.7K)$24 · $0.00
Philosophy and Opinions of Marcus Garvey (Annotated)Marcus Mosiah Garvey4h 42m4.5 (1.7K)$1.99 · $0.00
A Plague Upon Our HouseScott W. Atlas MD10h 37m4.5 (3.4K)$20 · $0.00
You may also like
IsraelDaniel Gordis16h 19m4.4 (6.7K)$40 · $0.00
Okla HannaliR. A. Lafferty8h 49m4.3 (340)$20
The NegroW. E. B. Du Bois6h 20m4.3 (477)$2.30
Twenty-Two Years a Slave and Forty Years a FreemanAustin Steward8h 53m4.2 (255)$1 · $0.00
Tall Order: The Goh Chok Tong Story Volume 1Peh Shing Huei7h 53m4.2 (668)$9 · $0.00
The Last BalladWiley Cash14h 7m4.1 (14.4K)$33 · $0.00
Blood, Sweat, and PixelsJason Schreier7h 58m4.3 (32.8K)$26 · $0.00
Heart and SoulKadir Nelson1h 38m4.2 (6.1K)$16 · $0.00
The DefenderEthan Michaeli22h 6m4.5 (720)$30
Six red months in RussiaLouise Bryant6h 59m4.2 (777)$7 · $0.00
Life Among the Piutes: The First Autobiography of a Native American WomanSarah Winnemucca Hopkins9h4.1 (1.1K)$1 · $0.00
Mama Koko and the Hundred GunmenLisa J. Shannon5h 45m4.1 (263)$20
The History of Mary Prince, a West Indian SlaveMary Prince2h 14m4.0 (5.3K)Free
Inaugural Addresses of the Presidents of the United StatesUnited States Presidents14h 15m4.2 (1.4K)Free
The Invasion of Europe by the Barbarians (Annotated)J. B. Bury8h 41m4.0 (697)$2 · $0.00
Frederick Douglass: All 3 Memoirs in One VolumeFrederick Douglass42h 36m4.7 (1.3K)$1 · $0.00
A Life in ChainsMark Twain, Harriet Beecher Stowe, Lydia Maria Child, James Weldon Johnson, William Wells Brown, Frederick Douglass, Booker T. Washington, Harriet E. Wilson, Charles W. Chesnutt, Harriet Jacobs333h 31m4.1 (28)$2 · $0.00
The American Indian as Participant in the Civil WarAnnie Heloise Abel13h 3m3.6 (15)$2 · $0.00
The 20 Most Influential Slave NarrativesOlaudah Equiano, Frederick Douglass, Solomon Northup, Aphra Behn, William Craft, Ellen Craft, Harriet Jacobs, William Wells Brown, Sojourner Truth, Mary Prince, Josiah Henson, Henry Bibb, J. D. Green, Thomas S. Gaines, Louis Hughes, Charles Ball, Isaac Mason, James W. C. Pennington, Booker T. Washington, Elizabeth Keckley, Lucy Delaney136h 51m4.6 (111)$1.99
God's Image in EbonyH. G. Adams9h 13m$1.99 · $0.00