Tom Segev: The Seventh Million

Tom Segev (op-ed writer for Ha’aretz) delves into the relationship between the Holocaust and the modern Israeli state. The term seventh million refers to the Holocaust survivors and the not-so-great attitudes that Israel placed on them.I thoroughly enjoyed this book. Of course… that’s not saying much, I enjoy most of what I read. This, however, helped fill historical gaps and gave a sociological insight into attitudes in Israel toward survivors, the "Oriental Jews," the Palestinians, and the Jewish diaspora.

To one extent - it is a battle between the Jew and the Israeli. The Jews are a persecuted people. The survivors were the so-called "last Jews." This came into conflict with the Israeli, the new man, the pioneer of the Jewish homeland.

The greater, in my opinion, tragedy mentioned is the "political football" which was played with the Holocaust. It was not appreciated by many of the survivors and certainly cheapened the tragedy.

This book gives tremendous insight into a lot of the motivation behind Israeli actions. The book brings us into the mid 90s so it does discuss a lot of things that we would see today if we were to go to Israel or Occupied Palestine.