Book Club Guide

The Netanyahus

by Joshua Cohen · 2021 · Literary Fiction

Key themes

The campus novel as a vehicle for a strange footnote of real history
Jewish American identity in the shadow of Israel and Zionism
Comedy as a way into very serious historical material

About this book

In 1959-60, a historian at a small upstate New York college hosts a visiting lecturer named Benzion Netanyahu — whose family, including his teenage son Benjamin, descends on the campus in chaos. Cohen's Pulitzer Prize-winning novel is a satirical campus novel that is also a meditation on Jewish American identity, Zionism and a strange footnote of real history.

Published in 2021, The Netanyahus won the Pulitzer Prize for Fiction. Cohen based the central incident on a real account by historian Harold Bloom, who hosted Benzion Netanyahu at Cornell. Benjamin Netanyahu later became Prime Minister of Israel.

Discussion questions

The novel is based on a real visit by Benzion Netanyahu (father of Benjamin) to a small American college. How does Cohen use this historical footnote — and what does fictionalising it allow him to do that straight history could not?
The narrator, a historian, is dealing with his own complicated relationship to Jewish identity and assimilation. How does Cohen develop this alongside the chaos the Netanyahu family brings?
The novel is very funny — farcical even — while addressing serious questions about Zionism, antisemitism and American Jewish identity. How does Cohen balance these registers?
The Netanyahu family's visit becomes increasingly chaotic and destructive. How does Cohen use this escalation — and what does it reveal about the family (and by extension, what they would become)?
The Netanyahus won the Pulitzer Prize. What does it do that earns this recognition — and what does its unusual historical premise add to the campus novel genre?