In the fall of 1975, the distinguished American writer Saul Bellow decided to visit Israel. Already a two-time Guggenheim Fellow, and an unprecedented three-time National Book Award-winning novelist, he was soon to receive both the Pulitzer Prize and the Nobel Prize in Literature. The result of his roughly three-month stay was his only full-length work of nonfiction, To Jerusalem and Back, widely regarded as one of the finest literary accounts of modern Israel.
Published in 1976, it was generally considered an important contribution, by a writer at the peak of his reputation, toward understanding the complex Arab-Israel situation. In the half-century since its publication, the work has also come to be valued as a remarkably perceptive account of Israel and the particular dilemmas it faces as a modern liberal society in its Middle East environment.
The book’s enduring relevance has led its publishers, Penguin Random House, to celebrate the 50th anniversary of its first appearance by reissuing it in 2026. This new edition includes a foreword by Bret Stephens, the forthright American journalist who was the editor-in-chief of The Jerusalem Post for two years.
Far from presenting the book as an historical curiosity, Penguin Classics describes it as: “a profound meditation on the unique spirit and challenges of Israel” and “a powerful reckoning with [Bellow’s] own Jewishness.”
In short, the publishers believe that the book has lasting literary and historical significance, and speaks as directly to readers in 2026 as it did in 1976.
Bellow envisaged a kind of literary pilgrimage
WHY DID BELLOW decide to visit Israel? The idea of conducting any sort of political investigation was far from his mind. In a letter to a friend, he wrote: “My intention was to wander about the Old City and sit contemplatively in the gardens and churches.” He envisaged a kind of literary pilgrimage – a chance to encounter Jerusalem’s layered religious, historical, and physical reality.
It was Jerusalem itself that overwhelmed his original intention. As he wrote: “…it is impossible in Jerusalem to detach oneself from the frightful political problems of Israel. I found myself ‘doing something.’”
That “something” became a prolonged period of listening and questioning. He spoke with politicians, diplomats, scholars, writers, Arabs and Israelis. He read extensively. When he came to set down his account of his time in Israel, the result was far from the impressions of a sightseeing tour. It was a sustained effort to understand the conditions shaping Israeli survival, Palestinian claims, Arab-Israeli diplomacy, and the role of the United States and other outside powers.
The French have a saying: “Plus ca change, plus c’est la meme chose,” (the more things change, the more they stay the same). The Israel of 2026 is, in many ways, radically different from the Israel of 1975 that Bellow visited. Today Israel’s population tops 10 million, some 8 million of whom are Jewish; in 1975 Israel’s Jewish population was no more than 3 million out of a total of 3.5 million.
Yet when Bellow writes this, he could be writing today: “Here in Jerusalem, when you shut your apartment door behind you, you fall into a gale of conversation – exposition, argument, harangue, analysis, theory, expostulation, threat, and prophecy… The subject of all this talk is, ultimately, survival… What you do know is that there is one fact of Jewish life unchanged by the creation of a Jewish state: You cannot take your right to live for granted. Others can; you cannot.”
Zionism was born because the Jewish people “alone among the peoples of the Earth, had not established a natural right to exist unquestioned in the lands of their birth,” Bellow explains. “This right is still clearly not granted them, not even in the liberal West.”
And 50 years later, antisemitism is more virulent than ever – making Bellow’s observation entirely contemporary.
His status as a writer gained him access to some of the leading political, literary and religious figures of the day. In From Jerusalem and Back he records what they say about Israel and the Middle East in general.
Among his many contacts, he lunches with diplomat Abba Eban and also then-prime minister Yitzhak Rabin; he has several meetings with Teddy Kollek, the ebullient mayor of Jerusalem; he encounters novelist A. B. Yehoshua and, back in Chicago, he has a session with then-secretary of state Henry Kissinger.
These discussions cover not only the particular concerns of the day, but range widely to embrace some of the issues intrinsic to the fact of Israel’s existence in the heart of the Muslim world. Viewed from 2026, some seem remarkably prescient.
For example, he had tea with the Israeli writer David Shahar to report a conversation he’d had with Mahmud Abu Zuluf, the editor of Al Quds, then the largest Arab newspaper in Jerusalem. Abu Zuluf was a moderate who told Bellow: “Israel must come forward quickly with peace plans and initiate negotiations, show a willingness to negotiate.”
Shahar disagreed. The Jews had not been inflexible and negative, he said. Concessions are continually offered. They are rejected. “They don’t want our peace proposals,” he said. “They don’t want concessions, they want us destroyed… We must fight for our lives.”
“Shahar has named the seldom-named dread,” writes Bellow. “He has invoked the nightmare of annihilation. This is what Israel lives with. Although people will not often speak of it, it is always there.”
The pogroms by Hamas-led terrorists on October 7, 2023 validate his observation.
'The Arabs, says Rabin, are not interested in territorial concessions'
BELLOW AND his wife were entertained for lunch by the Rabins. “If it weren’t for the men with machine guns at the door,” writes Bellow, “you would think yourself in a comfortable house in Washington or Philadelphia.” When the conversation turned to Israel’s future, he writes:
“The Arabs, says Rabin, are not interested in territorial concessions and will never be satisfied with them. They consider themselves owners and masters of this land. Jews and Christians are tolerated in Muslim society only as second-class citizens.
“There is therefore no point in making offers, saying to the Arabs we will give you this or that piece of ground in return for recognition and peace. The hope is that as the Arab countries grow rich and modernize themselves they will grow less hostile, more concerned to produce goods than to fight.”
In short, in addition to his insight into the motivation underlying the Palestinian cause, as true today as then, Rabin was also envisaging something approaching the Abraham Accords decades before they transpired.
“Toward the end of the meal,” writes Bellow, “the talk turns to an important and neglected subject: public opinion. Rabin admits that Israel has not been effective in its publicity. I say that Arab propaganda has become extremely effective and that the Arabs have succeeded in winning worldwide public support. Yes, they have a talent for that sort of thing, Mr. Rabin says; he implies that this is not one of Israel’s major problems. I disagree.”
Bellow was right. Israel’s comparative failure in the area of publicity is even more acute in 2026 than it was in 1975, when Rabin tended to downplay its significance.
His lunch with Abba Eban took place in the Knesset. Bellow’s first impression was that Eban “bears himself with plump ambassadorial dignity.” Later Bellow feels, “he does and does not wish to be where he is. His thoughts go about the world like a satellite.”
As the meal progresses, Bellow observes: “He is not a listener. But I have come to hear what he has to say. He says that relations between Israel and the United States have never been better. Israel is receiving more aid from America in this period than in all the years since it was founded. What Russia requires is recognition of its great power – deference. It must be invited to sanction all arrangements; it must be consulted.”
Regarding Russia, while Bellow was in Israel he weighed the possibility of a large influx of Jews from the Soviet Union, though he could not envisage the circumstances in which it might take place.
“I find a résumé of an article by Agursky on Russian immigrants in Israel,” he writes. “What the essay assumes – that Russia will presently permit the mass emigration of its Jews – is far from certain… But Agursky assumes that Russian Jews will soon be pouring in, and believes that they can change the character of Israeli society.”
In fact, the mass immigration of Russian and Soviet Jews to Israel took place between 1989 and 2006, peaking dramatically in 1990 and 1991 following the collapse of the Soviet Union. Over one million people relocated to Israel during this post-Soviet migration wave. In Israel today, public bodies seeking to communicate widely often include a translation of their Hebrew message into Russian, alongside Arabic and English.
Apologists for Arab terrorists were as prevalent in 1975 as they are today. Bellow singles out the French. “Since 1973, Le Monde has openly taken the side of the Arabs in their struggle with Israel,” he writes. “It supports terrorists… A recent review of the autobiography of a fedayeen speaks of the Israelis as colonialist.”
The misguided colonialist accusation, which seeks to erase the historic connection of the Jewish people to the Land of Israel, is more widespread than ever today.
IN HIS FOREWORD to this anniversary edition of To Jerusalem and Back, Stephens notes that reading the book 50 years later feels “remarkably, almost disconcertingly, current” and that “while much has happened in the intervening 50 years, little has changed.”
He is undoubtedly correct in asserting that Bellow’s examination of Israel, Jewish identity, and the Arab-Israeli conflict retains “its enduring claim to our attention.” ■
TO JERUSALEM AND BACK:
A PERSONAL ACCOUNT
By Saul Bellow
Penguin Modern Classics
192 pages; $19