The Israel Bible

Published in 2018, The Israel Bible is an Israel-centered edition of the Tanakh edited by Rabbi Tuly Weisz and co-published by Israel365 and Menorah Books. It combines Hebrew biblical text, English translation, transliteration, introductions, maps, and commentary intended to emphasize the relationship between the Land of Israel and the People of Israel.[1][3]

The Israel Bible began with a personal search. In 2008, Rabbi Tuly Weisz walked into a Barnes & Noble looking for a Tanakh focused on the Land of Israel. When an employee could not find one, Weisz said the answer set him on a decade-long project.[3] He began working through the Tanakh with highlighters and what one account described as "a rainbow of sticky tabs," marking hundreds of references to Israel on nearly every page.[1] He later said the exercise led him to move his family to Israel.

Weisz started Israel365 in 2012, an organization focused on building a biblical bridge between Jews in Israel and people in other countries, and assembled scholars to write Israel-focused commentary on all 929 chapters of the Tanakh.[3] He said he had found no Bible that highlighted the importance of the Land of Israel, while attending Rabbi Moshe Lichtman's classes deepened his conviction that the land was the Torah's central theme.[4]

The first printed version took the form of paperback volumes distributed to subscribers of Israel365's Israel Bible Reading Plan. Genesis appeared in January 2016, Exodus in February, and the remaining books followed over two years until all 24 had been released.[3] The complete single-volume hardcover was co-published by Israel365 and Menorah Books in 2018 and scheduled for release on April 19, Israel's 70th Independence Day.[2]

Contemporary reports described the hardcover as approximately 2,000 to 2,200 pages.[1][3] The edition is printed and bound in Italy and laid out in the traditional Jewish right-to-left style.[5] It follows the traditional Jewish order of the Tanakh—Torah, Neviim (Prophets), and Ketuvim (Writings)—and its biblical text is based on the Miqra According to the Masorah Hebrew Edition of the Tanakh, licensed CC BY-SA 3.0.[6] The English translation is adapted from the New Jewish Publication Society version, with names such as "Moses" and "Jerusalem" replaced by the traditional Hebrew forms "Moshe" and "Yerushalayim."[3]

Verses connected to the Land of Israel are highlighted in gray boxes and accompanied by vowelized Hebrew, English translation, and transliteration, making the Hebrew accessible to readers without prior language study.[3] Each of the 24 biblical books opens with an introduction featuring key points and teachings from prominent rabbis.[5] Maps, charts, illustrations, photographs, and a Hebrew alphabet guide appear throughout the volume. Additional commentary, interactive maps, educational videos, and photographs are available through the accompanying website.[5]

The volume contains more than 1,000 study notes combining traditional rabbinic commentaries—including Rashi—with Hebrew lessons and what Weisz called "Israel lessons."[2] Every Israeli prime minister, including the incumbent at the time of publication, is quoted alongside classic Jewish commentators.[2] Weisz edited the commentary across the Tanakh, drawing on contributions from what contemporary coverage described as leading Israeli Tanakh teachers.[3]

Named contributors include Ahuva Balofky, Rabbi Avi Baumol, Rabbi Yaakov Beasley, Josh Even-Chen, Rabbi Shmuel Jablon, Batya Markowitz, Shira Schechter, Rabbi Noam Shapiro, and Alexander Jacob Tsykin.[6] Beasley specifically crafted commentaries on the Prophets.[2] The production team Hebraicized hundreds of proper nouns and edited the commentary for clarity, grammar, and punctuation.[3]

The notes draw explicit links between biblical text and later history. The commentary connects Ezekiel's reference to "Tel Abib" with the name of the modern city of Tel Aviv, and ties 1 Samuel 15:29 to NILI, the clandestine Zionist intelligence organization formed by Sarah Aaronsohn and other young Zionists—the group's name being a Hebrew acronym drawn from that verse.[1] The notes also highlight Rashi's famous opening comment on Genesis: that the Torah begins with creation, rather than with commandments, to establish that God, as creator of the world, may apportion its lands.[1]

The book's stated editorial purpose is to foreground the relationship between the Land of Israel and the People of Israel throughout the Hebrew Bible.[1][2] It presents the founding of the modern State of Israel within a framework of biblical promise and fulfillment, connecting that interpretation to the Jewish return to the land, the revival of the Hebrew language, and the land's cultivation under Jewish sovereignty.[2]

Weisz argued that understanding events in modern Israel requires looking beyond 1967 or 1948 to the Tanakh.[1] This interpretive lens is built into the commentary. A lesson on Genesis, for example, presents Rashi's account of creation as equipping the Jewish people with a theological response to accusations of territorial theft: because God created the world, the argument holds, God may give its lands to whomever He chooses.[7]

Weisz described the book as intended for both Jewish and Christian readers.[1] Funding for the Menorah Books edition came partly from a crowdfunding campaign within Weisz's Christian Zionist community.[1] In his own account, Weisz said the volume offered Christian readers a Jewish perspective and Hebrew-language context and was also intended for readers uncertain about supporting Israel as a Jewish state.[8] He also recounted that one reader praised the book but thought it opened backward, referring to its Hebrew-style right-to-left orientation.[8]

The hardcover was scheduled for release on Israel Independence Day, April 19, 2018, in connection with Israel's 70th anniversary.[2] The volume was also slated for use at the Knesset's second joint Christian-Jewish Bible Study, organized by the Knesset Caucus for the Encouragement of Bible Study, the Schindler Society, and Israel365.[9]

The Israel Bible and its companion website have been used in a variety of study settings. A group of pre-army yeshiva students in Israel undertook an intensive program during Jewish year 5782, aiming to cover all 929 chapters of the Tanakh using The Israel Bible. The program was held at the Israel365 Lone Soldier Center at Yeshivat Lev Hatorah in Beit Shemesh, with Rabbi Moshe Lichtman teaching. It scheduled several chapters of the Prophets from Sunday through Thursday and the weekly Torah portion on Fridays.[10]

The accompanying website, created by traditional Orthodox Jews for Jewish and non-Jewish readers, offers the text and commentary of The Israel Bible, thousands of essays on the Bible and Jewish holidays, and material drawing on the Bible's original Hebrew.[6]

The volume's presentation of the modern State of Israel as a fulfillment of biblical prophecy is the book's religious-historical interpretation, rather than a neutral historical finding.[2] Contributor Yaakov Beasley also cautioned against treating the modern Jewish return to Israel as an automatic guarantee of redemption. Drawing a parallel with the Second Temple period, he argued that the prophets required the people to understand why the First Temple was lost if they were to retain the Second.[2]