Keen analysis...Kaplan's approach is so fresh, her command of the sources so solid, and her prose so engaging that both casual readers and experts will find new insights in the book.--Walter Russell Mead "Foreign Affairs" (11/1/2018 12:00:00 AM)

Our American Israel is an incisive, urgently necessary excavation of the cultural meanings of the U.S.-Israeli relationship by one of the most perceptive cultural historians of the United States. It sheds powerful light on a troubled past and disturbing present, revealing the ways that narratives of similarity and connection were wielded against the demands of human rights and social justice.--Paul A. Kramer, author of The Blood of Government: Race, Empire, the United States, and the Philippines

Kaplan's tour of literature and film shows how common understandings of Israel and the U.S. have been shaped--and distorted, as with the Trump administration's relocation of the American embassy to Jerusalem. A useful reading of history and politics in the light of mythmaking and media.-- "Kirkus Reviews" (8/1/2018 12:00:00 AM)

Kaplan often confronts us with facts of history that are sometimes awkward and uncomfortable...But no American who loves and supports Israel can afford to ignore the arguments that she makes.-- "Jewish Journal" (9/13/2018 12:00:00 AM)

Shows how the special relationship between Israel and the US (or even its Jewish population) was never preordained or inevitable. Rather, like any international relationship, it has been molded by a series of cultural and political mediations. In the tradition of critical scholarship Kaplan uncovers the constructedness of US approaches to the State of Israel and so contributes much to our understanding of it...Kaplan's study is of immense importance to anyone who wishes to study Israel in American culture in the past, present, or future.--David Hadar "American Literary History" (6/1/2022 12:00:00 AM)

Revelatory...Our American Israel is a tour de force......The first work to describe, fully and rigorously, America's relationship with Israel in terms of the profound cultural ties that bind the two countries so closely together and to examine their evolving relationship over several generations.--Rashid Khalidi "The Nation"

A perceptive and revealing survey of the elements that have led to widespread popular support for Israel in the United States.--Ian J. Bickerton "Australasian Book Review" (7/1/2019 12:00:00 AM)

Paints a picture of a United States determined to remain in a highly problematic relationship, periodically struggling to justify its forgiveness of and allegiance to a nation often at odds with their own international policy and philosophy...an exciting, well-written, and insightful study of American cultural perceptions of Israel.--Miriam Eve Mora "Journal of Jewish Identities" (1/1/2021 12:00:00 AM)

Drawing on new archival sources and brilliant analysis, [this book] breaks new scholarly ground...joins a distinguished list of scholarship on the U.S.-Israel relationship.--Alex Lubin "Journal of Palestine Studies" (8/1/2019 12:00:00 AM)

The best...of a surprisingly few books that analyze the cultural foundations of the U.S.-Israeli 'special relationship'...an important, well-constructed, and also well-illustrated book.--Walter L. Hixson "Washington Report on Middle East Affairs" (7/30/2019 12:00:00 AM)