Bad Jew: A Family’s Quest from the Minsk Ghetto to Netanyahu’s Israel

Combining memoir, history, and political essay, an acclaimed French journalist delves into his family’s past in this searing, nuanced investigation of Jewish identity and what it means in the diaspora versus Israel today.

What is a Jew? There are as many answers as there are Jewish people.

Written four years ago, and now available in English with a new introduction, Bad Jew speaks intelligently to our current crises. A striking portrait of the identity fever that has overtaken the Israeli right, and a moving family saga, it follows three generations, three Jewish men, each involved in public life in his own personal way: Piotr Smolar’s grandfather, a passionate Polish communist, who led the resistance in the Minsk ghetto during World War II; Smolar’s father, who opposed the communist regime in Poland in 1968 and had to flee the country; and Smolar himself, confronted with the question of Jewish identity after becoming Le Monde’s correspondent in Jerusalem.

Deftly interweaving their stories of activism and migration, Smolar explores how tribalism harms democracy and asks difficult questions: when does loyalty turn into betrayal? What place is left for basic values and empathy? This important book has never been timelier.

Piotr Smolar is a French journalist of Polish origin. He served from 1997 to 1999 as coordinator of the Franco-Russian Centre for Journalism at the Moscow School of Journalism, then from 1999 to 2001 as a correspondent in Russia for the French daily Le Figaro and the magazine Marianne. He is currently Le Monde’s correspondent in Washington, D.C. Bad Jew is his first book to appear in English.

Anthony Roberts is a freelance writer, journalist, poet, and prize-winning translator. He currently lives in France.