Bring­ing togeth­er a diverse array of schol­ars across many aca­d­e­m­ic dis­ci­plines, Octo­ber 7: The Wars Over Words and Deeds, edit­ed by Asaf Romirowsky and Don­na Robin­son Divine, looks at the caus­es, events, and after­math of Octo­ber 7th. Explor­ing issues as diverse as the chal­lenge of count­ing civil­ian deaths in Gaza, to the fund­ing streams of cam­pus protest move­ments, to the way that anti­se­mit­ic rhetoric from the USSR has been incor­po­rat­ed into mod­ern con­ver­sa­tions about Israel and Zion­ism, the book takes a broad look at the peo­ple, events, ide­olo­gies, and his­tor­i­cal under­pin­nings that define our cur­rent moment. 

The essays in this book are writ­ten from a vari­ety of per­spec­tives, although there is a tilt toward con­ser­v­a­tive ones. While the book does have a hand­ful of essays that look inward, tak­ing aim at Prime Min­is­ter Netenyahu deci­sion over the past two years, it main­ly aims to set the record straight on a num­ber of issues sur­round­ing the Jew­ish com­mu­ni­ty — that Hamas’ doc­trine will not allow it to set­tle for peace, that com­par­ing Israel’s strat­e­gy to the wars in Iraq and Afghanistan is mis­guid­ed, that cam­pus protests are main­ly a result of anti­semitism rather than a show of sol­i­dar­i­ty with Pales­tin­ian suf­fer­ing. At times, some of the essays con­vey dis­dain for left-wing voic­es, which might be chal­leng­ing to some readers.

One of the strengths of the book is in its copi­ous foot­not­ing of sources. Though read­ers might dis­agree with the tone or even con­clu­sions of some of the essays, one can­not fault the edi­tors’ meth­ods. There is lit­tle ques­tion that Romirowsky and Robin­son Divine found thought­ful and tal­ent­ed schol­ars to con­tribute to this work. 

In addi­tion to the expect­ed top­ics (cam­pus protests, ris­ing anti­semitism), read­ers will also encounter lit­tle-explored top­ics. In one essay, by Aviya and Justin Camm, the authors explore the roots of the water­mel­on as a sym­bol of Pales­tin­ian resis­tance, chart­ing its ear­ly par­al­lel in the Israeli pio­neer­ing con­scious­ness. In anoth­er, Skyler Ball doesn’t just chart of the instances of sex­u­al vio­lence dur­ing Octo­ber 7th, but also puts that vio­lence in dia­logue with oth­er acts of sex­u­al vio­lence as a way to bet­ter under­stand why it exists and how it works. In a final essay, Csa­ba Nikolenyi takes read­ers inside the polit­i­cal work­ings of Israel’s rul­ing coali­tion to exam­ine the play­ers and pow­ers that are con­duct­ing this war. 

Octo­ber 7: The Wars Over Words and Deeds asks impor­tant ques­tions that will chal­lenge read­ers of all polit­i­cal lean­ings to think for themselves.