From Publishers Weekly
Today's headlines leave the impression there's little to know about Israel outside of its conflict with the Palestinians. Using Hedrick Smith's landmark The Russians as a model, journalist Rosenthal, with years of experience in and knowledge of the Middle East, defies that notion, giving an in-depth look at the rich variety of people in the Jewish state. Relying on dozens of interviews, she gives a lively, variegated portrait of all facets of Israeli life. Terrorism and relations with the Palestinians are covered, but so are secular-religious tensions, Ashkenazi-Sephardi divisions, Israeli Arabs and Jewish immigrants from Ethiopia and Russia. Throughout, Rosenthal stresses the contradictions in Israel: a country steeped in historical and religious tradition that is trying to develop a high-tech economic future; a democracy that many see as favoring its Jewish citizens above its Arab ones; a country ruled in some ways by a rigid religious establishment that also maintains thriving gay and lesbian communities. Rosenthal displays prodigious reporting and allows the people themselves-whether Jewish or Arab, men or women, religious or secular-to speak, and their voices are alternately despairing and hopeful, defiant and conciliatory. As a result, she captures an entire country, one full of flux and drama, in as vivid and nuanced a way as possible: a former male model turns Orthodox; an Ethiopian who "had never used electricity... until he was twelve" now designs computers. With the huge interest in Israel among the reading public, this is likely to find a sizable audience.Copyright 2003 Reed Business Information, Inc.
From Booklist
Depending upon the source of the report, Israelis are either portrayed to Americans as stalwart but beleaguered allies in the war against terror or frequently brutal colonizers determined to maintain control over justifiably resentful Palestinians. Of^B course, both images can be true, and both can be terrible distortions of reality. Rosenthal, a journalist, television news producer, and lecturer at Hebrew University, has written a broad portrait of a people and of individual Israeli citizens that is interesting, compelling, and often surprising. As revealed by Rosenthal, Israel is a vibrant and amazingly diverse nation. Ultra-Orthodox Jews wait for the Messiah and hunt down and abuse "immodestly" dressed women in Jerusalem streets. Nearby, twenty-first-century entrepreneurs break new ground in high-tech industries. Children of Bedouin families strive to carve a niche for themselves in a relentlessly modernizing society, while other Israeli Arabs struggle to define their identity in a Jewish state. This is a refreshing book that humanizes people and helps to counteract news reports that usually stress acts of savage inhumanity. Jay Freeman
Copyright © American Library Association. All rights reserved
Review
Amir D. Aczel author of Entanglement, Fermat's Last Theorem, and The Riddle of the Compass A wonderful book: well researched, balanced, and a joy to read. It brings you a picture of Israel that only a superb journalist such as the author can expose. This is one of the best books I have read in a long time.
David Lennon former Financial Times Bureau Chief in Israel Israel is a nation overflowing with contradictions, and if you find the mixed messages confusing, then you must read Donna Rosenthal's comprehensive work. In an era when books about Israel deal with high politics and military struggles, and when the political and ideological extremists dominate center stage, it is refreshing to read a book about ordinary people. Religious and secular, Jews and Arabs, settlers and suicide bombers -- they are all here and in their own words.
Robert Alter professor of Hebrew and comparative literature, UC Berkeley, and author of The Art of Biblical Narrative The Israelis is thoroughly absorbing, and also deeply instructive, even for readers who may be familiar with the country. It provides a vivid mosaic of anecdotal portraits that span all the variegated sectors of Israel's population and all the problems with which contemporary Israelis struggle, from terrorism to drugs, prostitution, and the sundry rifts between religious and secular, Jews and Arabs, Europeans and Jews of Middle Eastern origin.
Review
Martin E. Halstuk, Ph.D. professor of journalism, Pennsylvania State University, former reporter, San Francisco Chronicle Donna Rosenthal's sharp journalistic eye gives readers a rare book -- an objective and even-handed account of life in Israel today.
Review
Martin E. Halstuk, Ph.D. professor of journalism, Pennsylvania State University, former reporter, San Francisco Chronicle Donna Rosenthal's sharp journalistic eye gives readers a rare book -- an objective and even-handed account of life in Israel today.
Book Description
Israel. It looks like one country on CNN, a very different one on al-Jazeera. The BBC has its version, The New York Times theirs. But how does Israel look...to Israelis? Who are these people who order Big Macs in the language of the Ten Commandments? Are they the sabras -- native-born Israelis -- who believe that only sissies wait in line and obey No Parking signs? Are they the dreadlock-wearing Ethiopian immigrants who sing reggae in Hebrew? The inventors who've devised the world's most popular computer chips and the latest cancer treatments? The Christians in Nazareth who publish an Arabic-style Cosmo? They live with exploding buses, but their youth are also the world's biggest MTV fans, a generation whose heroes are not generals but former soldiers who have built the world's second Silicon Valley. In The Israelis, you'll meet the third wife of a fifty-six-year-old Bedouin who watches Oprah; ultra-Orthodox Jews on "Modesty Patrols" making certain that religious women bus passengers are "properly" attired and seated apart from men (in the world's only country that drafts women for the military). You'll see what it's like taking children to the mall -- first to shop at Toys 'R' Us and then to pick up gas masks. And meet the bride whose Ethiopian-born parents dislike the guy she married, not because he's white -- but because he's not Jewish enough. The Israelis tells the stories of the clandestine human airlift that brought more than fourteen thousand Ethiopians out of Africa in thirty-six hours and of the avalanche of former Soviets who are delivering an enormous brain gain but a demographic dilemma as well, since many aren't Jewish and their communities feature churches and Christmas trees. Israel is the Middle East's only country with a growing Christian population, and Arab Christians are the most educated and affluent Israelis. What's the most popular name for an Israeli boy? Muhammad. In The Israelis, young Israeli Muslims -- who speak better Hebrew and know more about Judaism than most Jews of the Diaspora -- reveal their frustrations and hopes. You'll also meet the "Arab Jews"; half of all Israelis are from Jewish families that left Islamic countries. From battlefields to bedrooms to boardrooms, discover the colliding worlds in which this astounding mix of 6.7 million devoutly traditional and radically modern live -- a country smaller than New Jersey that captures the lion's share of the world's headlines. Interweaving hundreds of personal stories with historical facts and intriguing new research, The Israelis is lively, irreverent, intimate, and always fascinating. It is one of the most original books about Israel in decades.
About the Author
Donna Rosenthal has written for The New York Times, The Washington Post, the Los Angeles Times, The New York Daily News, Newsweek, The Atlantic, and other publications. She was a news producer at Israel Television, a reporter for Israel Radio and the Jerusalem Post, and a lecturer at the Hebrew University. A winner of two Lowell Thomas Awards (for Best Investigative Reporting and Best Adventure Travel Writing), she has reported from many countries of the Middle East, Africa, and Asia. She can be reached at www.TheIsraelis.net.
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