The Star of David, with each of its six points, a fist in an open hand and one olive branch wait­ing to be grasped, is the cov­er for this provoca­tive and engag­ing col­lec­tion. It invites us in to read six sto­ries and to con­sid­er and recon­sid­er the authen­tic Zionist.

We may think we already know the six sto­ry­tellers and their desire for a strong, life­long com­mit­ment to a just and peace­ful Israel and a mean­ing­ful Jew­ish life in Amer­i­ca. How­ev­er, each character’s jour­ney to a mind­set and con­vic­tion about the cur­rent Israeli polit­i­cal con­flicts in the region and how best to engage is as impor­tant and rel­e­vant as ever.

Eric Flamm has deft­ly jux­ta­posed per­son­al expe­ri­ences, life his­to­ries, deci­sions, fam­i­ly rela­tion­ships and Israel as a real but nev­er­the­less exis­ten­tial con­cept of the Jew­ish homeland.

The Jew­ish com­mu­ni­ty in Port­land, Ore­gon is the per­fect set­ting for a dis­cus­sion of con­tem­po­rary Zion­ism. The author con­trasts the lib­er­al atmos­phere and beau­ti­ful, revered nat­ur­al envi­ron­ment with the high­ly volatile debate about polit­i­cal expression.

In 1995, Yoni Tager, a Long Island native, vol­un­teers for the Israeli Defense Force (IDF) with all the pas­sion of youth and yearn­ing to val­i­date his fam­i­ly sto­ry. On patrol in Hebron with his bud­dy, South African émi­gré David Ostrov, he thinks, ​“I instinc­tive­ly felt he (David) shared my grow­ing con­tempt and increduli­ty that what we were doing had any endur­ing val­ue to the IDF, to Israel, to any­body.” The events of that day will be for­ma­tive and become the cat­a­lyst for the sto­ries that follow.

Fast for­ward to May 2014 and the next sto­ry set in Port­land. Sarah Gut­man is chair­woman of the fed­er­a­tion com­mu­ni­ty com­mit­tee. She believes the fed­er­a­tion is a ​“con­sen­sus orga­ni­za­tion” with broad goals to fight anti­semitism and unwa­ver­ing sup­port for Israel. The com­mu­ni­ty com­mit­tee has tried to silence now long-time Port­land res­i­dent, Yoni, by allow­ing him to observe but deny­ing him mem­ber­ship. He thinks they oppose his ​“polit­i­cal views: more pre­cise­ly, his mis­un­der­stand­ing of the nature and needs of the mod­ern state of Israel.” How­ev­er, Sarah calls on him. Burst­ing with emo­tion, Yoni says, ​“When you talk about your mis­sion (the fed­er­a­tion) to stop the hate, con­sid­er not using the words ​‘crit­ics of Israel’. A per­son can sup­port Israel and still have legit­i­mate criticisms”.

The kalei­do­scope spins back and forth in time. We see through the lens of David, son of a wealthy South African, who moves to Israel as apartheid comes to an end.

Yehu­da Alka­na, a sabra,along with his IDF friends, cel­e­brates the com­ple­tion of mil­i­tary ser­vice with a trip to Thai­land. They meet up with oth­er Jews and Israelis and each inter­ac­tion dri­ves him to con­tem­plate his iden­ti­ty, pri­or­i­ties, and ideals.

Aaron Slovitz, a young Port­land syn­a­gogue admin­is­tra­tor, seek­ing a more affil­i­at­ed Jew­ish iden­ti­ty, is crushed by the design­ing Rabbi’s views and leadership.

Final­ly, we meet Gary. His moth­er was Jew­ish but he nev­er knew any oth­er Jews. After meet­ing some in the diverse Jew­ish com­mu­ni­ty, includ­ing Yoni, Gary begins to con­sid­er what iden­ti­fy­ing as Jew­ish would be like. In time, he reflects on Yoni’s tale of his own evolved self — no mat­ter what, be the best per­son you can be and advo­cate for peace.

Flamm’s kalei­do­scope makes a full rota­tion. His­to­ry tells us it con­tin­ues turning.