Speaker Profile Gershom Gorenberg

Gershom Gorenberg is the author of The Unmaking of Israel (Harper Collins, November 2011), a provocative examination of Israeli history that describes the crisis of Israeli democracy and lays out a liberal vision for the country's future. "Until I read The Unmaking of Israel ," says novelist Michael Chabon, "I didn't think it could be possible to feel more despairing, and then more terribly hopeful, about Israel."

Gorenberg's previous book is The Accidental Empire: Israel and the Birth of the Settlements, 1967-1977 . Based on previously unpublished documents and extensive interviews, The Accidental Empire sheds new light on Israel's post-1967 history and Israel-U.S. relations.   The New York Times called it, "Remarkably insightful .  A groundbreaking revision that deserves to reframe the entire debate." Gorenberg is also the author of The End of Days: Fundamentalism and the Struggle for the Temple Mount , which portrays the role of religious radicalism in the Mideast conflict. He co-authored The Jerusalem Report's 1996 biography of Yitzhak Rabin, Shalom Friend , winner of the National Jewish Book Award.  
In 2010, Gorenberg was a visiting professor at Columbia University's Graduate School of Journalism. As a commentator on Middle East affairs and on religion, he has appeared on Sixty Minutes, Nightline, Dateline, Fresh Air and on CNN and BBC. He is a senior correspondent for The American Prospect , and has written for The Atlantic Monthly, The New York Times Magazine, The New York Review of Books, Foreign Policy and in Hebrew for Ha'aretz. He blogs at SouthJerusalem.com .

Gorenberg made aliyah from California in 1977. He lives in Jerusalem with his wife, journalist Myra Noveck. They have three children, two of them now serving in the Israel Defense Forces.