Eight People We Met on the Way Home: Book of the Month (Tishrei 5786)

Since Rabbi Wein zt’l was such a passionate advocate of aliyah for all, so often reminding his congregants and his wider audiences of the God-given connection between us and our land, it seems only appropriate to select one of his titles as Book of the Month for Chodesh Tishrei—and we have chosen for this purpose Eight People We Met on the Way Home—published in 2024 as the book of the lecture series on the major personalities involved in the return of the Jewish Nation to the Land of Israel.

For the record, the eight in question span a wide range of aptitudes, philosophies and religious orientations: they include characters as diverse as Rabbi Naftali Zvi Yehuda Berlin (the Netziv), Chaim Weitzman and Louis Brandeis. As the book’s webpage explains:

In a world of propaganda and controversy, Rabbi Wein takes you on a journey through 8 lives that were inextricably tied with the emergence of the Israel of today—and reveals truths you’ve been waiting to discover. Eight People We Met on the Way Home is an all-new riveting, emotion-laden narrative by world-renowned “Voice of Jewish History”.

It’s a lovely book and an easy read, with large, clear print and plenty of illustrations—some quite unexpected (Kaiser Wilhelm II and Giuseppi Garibaldi, the only great European political figure to have a biscuit named after him).

You can enjoy this book by borrowing the copy we have in the Beit Knesset library—but be sure to return it. Many books by Rabbi Wein that start off on our shelves end up in the private collections of people who have borrowed them.