Facing the Glass Booth

The Jerusalem Trial of Adolf Eichmann

by Haim Gouri

Foreword by Alan Mintz

Translated by Michael Swirsky

360 Pages

Paperback
9780814330876
Publication Date: November 2004

$27.99

BUY

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Praise

A detailed historical account of Adolf Eichmann’s trial that changed attitudes toward Holocaust survivors in Israeli society.

Facing the Glass Booth, being published in English for the first time, is a detailed account of Eichmann’s trial by the poet and journalist Haim Gouri, who was assigned to cover the event by the Israeli daily newspaper Lamerhav. The trial changed attitudes toward Holocaust survivors in Israeli society. He admits to his initial skepticism toward these witnesses, and yet he learns much from them. Gouri’s account is both a fascinating historical document and a chronicle of an extraordinary poet’s encounter with one of the most terrible events of our times.

Haim Gouri is an award-winning poet, journalist, and novelist, as well as a documentary filmmaker who has devoted much of his career to exploring political and cultural shifts in his country.

Facing the Glass Booth is a superb translation from the original Hebrew account by Haim Gouri containing the sensitive and profound insights and observations of a journalist/poet who attended the drama unfolding in Jerusalem in April, 1961 as a reporter for the newspaper Lamerhav. Gouri's reportage-cúm-literary work provides a fascinating account of unimaginable evil as well as extraordinary epic of survival that lays bare the physical and emotional scars of the victims and the painful self reproach of many survivors.

~Jewish Book World

The publication of Haim Gouri's Facing the Glass Booth is long overdue. This book is an eloquent and compassionate work of journalism, history and literature. It's a unique achievement in Holocaust writing. Not until Gouri's courtroom reporting did the young nation of Israel come to grips with the horrors of World War II. It found the voice to articulate and to chronicle the physical and emotional pain as well as the shame of survivors. Gouri's narrative must be read and re-read in every home, in every generation. Gouri the poet is also Gouri the historian and teacher."

~Steven T. Katz, Professor of Religion and Director of the Elie Wiesel Center for Judaic Studies, Boston University