The Israelis: Ordinary People in an Extraordinary Land FROM THE PUBLISHER
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). 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 THE CRITICS
The Washington Post
In The Israelis, journalist Donna Rosenthal, who lived for some years in Israel and worked in Israeli radio and TV, gives us a broad, well-informed picture of its citizenry. She methodically limns the various ethnic and religious subcultures, Jewish and non-Jewish, that constitute the vibrant and fragile mosaic of Israeli society: native-born Ashkenazim (the Israeli "WASPs," as she puts it); Mizrahim ("Eastern" Jews, a more accurate term than "Sephardim"); Russian and Ethiopian immigrants; Haredim (ultra-Orthodox), religious-Zionist and secular Jews.
— Stuart Shoffman
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. Agent, Bonnie Solow. (Oct.) Copyright 2003 Reed Business Information.
Kirkus Reviews
An amiable portrait of the 6.7 million people—a population about the size of Baghdadﾽs—who live in a country smaller than New Jersey but that "captures the lionﾽs share of the worldﾽs headlines." Chalk it up to the Bible and news formulas, perhaps, but many American readers might find it odd to imagine that for many an Israeli, thereﾽs nothing quite so wonderful as a trip to a Tel Aviv shopping mall, a slice of pizza, and the new Eminem CD. Such people populate the pages of former Jerusalem Post reporter and Israeli TV producer Rosenthalﾽs lively take, which centers on ordinary citizens in what Rosenthal trusts are "abnormal times." Many of these ordinary Israelis, Rosenthal writes, love to argue in cafes, offer unsolicited advice to strangers, participate in all-night raves on the Red Sea, hang out in Katmandu, and smoke a little weed or indulge in stronger pleasures; many others wrestle to preserve traditional practices in the face of the globalizing pressures that are changing the world. Consider headgear as a tribal badge, Rosenthal suggests: "Israelis wear army helmets, kippot (yarmulkes), kaffiyehs (headdresses), wigs, and veils. They also wear baseball caps backwards and earphones connected to MP3 players." Some, despite the presence of Orthodox "modesty patrols," are gay (though, says one such person, "In our world, being gay is like eating pork on Yom Kippur"); some, despite injunctions against it, live with members of the opposite sex outside marriage; some, quite apart from the Palestinian population, are not Jewish. By Rosenthalﾽs account, Israeli society adds up to "a large extended, sometimes dysfunctional, family," made perhaps a little more dysfunctional by theconstant threat of war and terrorism, which even peace activists seem to accept as an unhappy fact of life. Which, she quotes former Jerusalem mayor Teddy Kollek as saying, explains why Israelis are such bad drivers: "When you have to fight a war every few years, safe driving becomes the farthest thing from your mind." A lively, clichﾽ-popping account, sure to irritate fundamentalists and the humorless, but a treat for everyone else. Agent: Bonnie Solow/Solow Literary Enterprises
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