The Israelis: Ordinary People in an Extraordinary Land

by Donna Rosenthal

Israel is smaller than New Jersey, with 0.11% of the world's population, yet captures a lion's share of headlines. It looks like one country on CNN, a very different one on al-Jazeera. The BBC has their version, The New York Times theirs. But how does Israel look to Israelis?

The answers are varied, and they have been brought together here in one of the most original books about Israel in decades. From battlefields to bedrooms to boardrooms, discover the colliding worlds in which an astounding mix of 7.2 million devoutly traditional and radically modern people live. You'll meet “Arab Jews” who fled Islamic countries, dreadlock-wearing Ethiopian immigrants who sing reggae in Hebrew, Christians in Nazareth who publish an Arabic-style Cosmo, young Israeli Muslims who know more about Judaism than most Jews of the Diaspora, ultra-Orthodox Jews on “Modesty Patrols,” and more.

Interweaving hundreds of personal stories with intriguing new research, The Israelis is lively, irreverent, and always fascinating.

Genres: Israel, Nonfiction, History, Middle East, Jewish, Travel, Judaica

496 pages, Paperback

First published January 1, 2003

Reviews

[K · Rating 3 out of 5]

I once had a long conversation with a Jewish colleague of mine who had flirted with becoming religious and then abandoned the idea. "You know," he said to me, "I just don't see that religion has made the world a better place." These are uncomfortable words for a religious person like myself to hear. As I read this book, his words kept coming back to me. If this book, which described a wide range of Israelis and aspects of Israeli life, had a theme, it might be the question of whether religiosity is making Israel a better, safer, or more peaceful place.

In many ways this book deserved four stars at least. It was copiously researched and readable, if a little long and dense. I thought about putting it on my "should've been shorter" shelf because at times it felt like a slog. At the same time, I had to admire the effort Donna Rosenthal must have expended on gathering all of this detailed information on such a broad range of topics and creating such an informative book.

One of the reasons I went with a three-star rating, though, aside from my subjective feeling of being bogged down in the details at times, was her subtly negative and even occasionally inaccurate depiction of religious Jews. I recognized Donna's efforts to be objective, and I can't really blame her for finding religious values foreign and difficult to relate to. And I think she did try to offer positive as well as negative aspects of Haredi life, but I still came away with a general feeling of depression and negativity. In fairness, there weren't a lot of inaccuracies but one glaring one jumped out at me -- the mikvah is not a place "where an attendant would check [the woman] in intimate places to verify that there was no menstrual blood." Sorry. Not true. A very gross error, and highly inflammatory. You lost a star for that one alone, Donna. I don't know enough about the Muslim and Christian cultures she described to judge her accuracy there, but I think this book needs to be taken with a grain of salt.

The other criticism -- not Donna's fault at all -- is that any book you write about Israel is outdated before the ink is dry. This 2003 book described a reality which in many ways has changed, although a lot of it still remains.

With all that said, as a die-hard lover of Israel and all things relating to Israel, I overall enjoyed the (sometimes long and arduous) journey as I read about the different kinds of Jews (Ethiopians, Mizrahim, Haredim, Religious Zionists, Chilonim, etc.), non-Jews (Muslims, Bedouins, Druze, Christians), and aspects of life (the army, the hi-tech industry, dating, vice, homosexuality, etc.) in Israel. I don't know if I would recommend this lengthy book to someone who doesn't have a preexisting interest in Israelis and Israeli life, but to someone who does, I would describe this as a flawed but still worthwhile read.

[Patrick O'Connell · Rating 4 out of 5]

From the outside, it is tempting to view the inhabitants of another country as part of a monolithic culture, especially one that is founded upon a common ancestry and religion. This book helps dispell the myth that there is such a thing as an "Israeli" anymore than there is such a thing as an "American", and in the case of the former maybe even less so.

Israel is a country of peoples more disparate than Serbs and Albanians, held together (sometimes) by a distant common ancestry, occasionally a common religion, and perhaps finally, by a common enemy.

A fascinating look at a mix of cultures, and modern and Orthodox society.

[Connie · Rating 5 out of 5]

I began to read The Israelis right after our trip to Israel the fall of 2011, choosing to read slowly and over time in order to keep the people of Israel close to my heart. As we saw while there and clearly portrayed in the the book, the people are as varied in their dress as in their beliefs. The population includes Jews (orthodox, non-orthodox, ultra-orthodox), Muslims, Bedouins, Druze, Christians, and more, with different expressions of each. Rosenthal describes the differences well through her "objective and even-handed" journalism and comprehensive research, including personal stories of "Israelis nobody knows."
I grieve over the inequities, the choice of many to focus on the past and respond with hatred, the emigration of Christians.... I am thankful for those Israelis who know and are working hard against all odds to teach and live out the truth that for peace to have a chance, people must dialogue for understanding and respect.
This book has definitely informed me and given me grater understanding of the challenges faced by the people of Israel who have a place in my heart.

Quotes are taken from the book jacket.

[Tamim Diaa · Rating 1 out of 5]

I have a tip for you. if you are ever stuck and can’t morally justify your crimes, say these two magical words: holocaust and terrorism. It worked for this book!

Just like a salesperson or a PR professional, the writer has put on a fake smile and tons of makeup to cover the scars of reality through a lot of twisting and mixing of facts, playing on certain strings that resonate with the western mind and lots of outright shameless lying. She makes it sound like a fairytale lala land. It can only work with someone who doesn’t know anything about the issue. Those who are familiar with the history of the conflict can easily spot the writer’s bias and nonsense.

The only useful part is the chapter on the difference between Haredim, orthodox and secular zionists. Other than that it is only sheer propaganda and utter rubbish.

[Howard Tobochnik · Rating 4 out of 5]

This book will teach you a lot about Israeli culture and history. It reads like fiction, but also includes many statistics and quotes from prominent people and books. here are some particularly memorable quotes:

Who are these Israelis who order Big Macs in the language of the Ten Commandments, believe that waiting in line is for sissies, and light up Marlboros under NO SMOKING signs? Their children, the world's biggest MTV fans, go to malls to get the latest Jennifer Lopez CDS … and gas masks. (1)

Terrorists can look like anyone and be anywhere. They have disguised themselves in stolen Israeli army uniforms, as bearded Orthodox rabbis, even a sixteen-year-old punk rocker with hair dyed blond. The first female suicide bomber didn’t need to disguise herself. The pretty twenty-seven-year-old looked like a typical Israeli. Not long after her cousin divorced her for being infertile, this Palestinian Red Crescent paramedic went to downtown Jerusalem and detonated. A terrorist willing to die is difficult to stop. (10)

… after the intifada began, Palestinian officials threatened to kill Israeli cameramen working in the West Bank and Gaza. (18)

We have what I call national Alzheimer’s disease – no one wants to remember the morning news. After seeing too many friends killed or wounded, Israelis have adopted the motto “Life is uncertain, so eat your dessert first.” (25)

Israelis often dish out advice to strangers as if they were members of a large extended, sometimes dysfunctional, family. (27)

I want a home, and children. The Jewish calendar revolves around the family. Judaism isn’t for single people. God says it’s not good to be alone. (35)

On the one hand, the sky is the limit for women in civilian life, but we also live in a patriarchal and macho society – patriarchal because the rabbinate, which is very backward, controls marriage and divorce, and macho because of the army. (42)

From kindergarten, Israelis are taught the importance of belonging to a hevreh, a close-knit group of friends from school or scouts or the army that stay together for life. It’s in the army that the most lasting friendships are formed. It’s also a powerful matchmaker. (45)

[Soldiers] sit in the mud. Then in the broiling heat. Guarding. Going after terrorists. Their guns are part of their bodies. I saw a sign that describes their lives: “America: 9/11. Israel: 24/7.” (46)

Because of Israel’s small size, soldiers often travel from the front to home, a commute that rarely is more than two hours. (47)

Polls consistently show that a majority of Israelis would volunteer for service even if it were not compulsory. “We know that without the army, there wouldn't be an Israel. We can’t afford to lose even one war or we’d lose our country.” (49)

Every Israeli citizen is a soldier on eleven months annual leave. (49)

Today, more than thirty thousand ultra-Orthodox army-age men receive military exemptions simply by enrolling in (and sometimes not even attending) government-subsidized yeshivas. Some men “find religion” shortly before they’re drafted. (51-52)

Whether you wear a kippa or not, unfortunately this is a religious war. And throughout history, religious wars are always the most brutal. I wish we didn’t need an army. If the Arabs put down their weapons today, there’d be no more violence. But if we put down our weapons today, there’d be no more Israel. (60)

Sunday morning is the preferred time for terrorists to blow up buses, when they are filled with soldiers returning from weekend leave. (62)

Is the baggy jacket worn by a teenager a fashion statement or a disguise for a belt filled with explosives? Is the wire dangling from a pocket a Walkman or a detonating device? Should the subject be tackled, shot, or asked for an identity card … at which point most terrorists detonate. And, most important, will caution result in more dead Israelis? (63)

A boarder patrol guarding the area spotted a man getting out of a car and running to the bus stop. Unsure whether it was simply someone late for his bus, instead of firing they chased him. The man from Tanzim’s al-Aqsa Martyrs Brigade exploded, killing seven, including a toddler, and wounding dozens more. (64)

What about news reports charging that IDF soldiers detain ambulances with sick people? They do. Nitzan tells a story about soldiers who searched a Palestinian Red Crescent ambulance transporting a very ill child south of Ramallah. Under his stretcher they found an explosives belt with nearly fifty pounds of explosives. (The Passover seder bomber, who killed 30 and injured 140, carried four pounds.) (64)

Combating terrorism does not give a blank check to kill civilians … the means used here are illegitimate and morally repugnant. (69)

Four months later, the United Nations, which runs the Jenin camp, issued a report that found no evidence of massacre. There were fifty-two Palestinians dead, thirty-eight armed fighters. Israel lost twenty-three soldiers. The report accused Palestinian militants of deliberately stockpiling weapons and putting its fighters among civilians in the densely populated Jenin camp, which is a violation of international law. (70)

The Israeli air force has lost more planes to bird strikes than to the combined might of Arab pilots and missiles. Because Israel is at the junction of three continents - Europe, Asia, and Africa, the site of a geographical bird bottleneck – chances of bird-plane collisions are the highest in the world. During the spring and fall migrations, more than half a billion birds fly across this tiny nation. (71)

Many Israelis are inept at small talk; it’s one of the inheritances of the founding generation, whose social skills, or lack thereof, were formed by a powerfully egalitarian collectivism. Social graces were considered superficial, insincere, or artificially formal. And a waste of time. To this day, Israelis like talking dugri, an Arabic/Turkish word that means talking straight and honestly. (83)

Israel has more engineers, scientists, life science researchers, and physicians per capita than any other country in the world. After the US, Britain, and Germany, Israel leads in the number of biotech, medical devices, and diagnostics startup companies. (92)

As a boy in the nineteenth-century Czarist Russia, Eliezer Perlman, a lituanian Orthodox Jew turned secular, read a Hebrew translation of Daniel Defoe’s classic of island survival and became convinced that this language of prayer should become a secular, spoken modern language, a vehicle that would unify Palestine’s polyglot Jews. After sailing into Jaffa in 1881, he and his wife took the Hebrew name Ben-Yehuda, and he informed her they’d speak only Hebrew. He fanatically devoted his life to this idea. He educated his son at home in Jerusalem, keeping him isolated from other people so he’d hear only his parents speaking Hebrew. The boy didn’t speak at all until age four. When he did, Ben-Zion became the first Jew in two thousand years whose native language was Hebrew. (101)

Working the land symbolized the rebirth of the Jewish people; they liked to point out that the Hebrew word for man, adam, is derived from adama, Hebrew for land. They took names like Barak (lightning), Tamir (towering), and Oz (strength) or agricultural names like Karmi (of the vineyard) and Dagan (corn); the new names were symbols of a personal and collective rebirth. (103)

The Sephardi Jews of Spain were Europe’s largest Jewish community and its most accomplished, producing physicians, poets, mystics, and philosophers from Judah HaLevi to Solomon Ibn Gabriol. It’s most famous son is probably the twelfth-century philosopher, physician, and jurist Moshe ben Maimon, better known to the West as Moses Maimonides. (118)

About three times more Mizrahim than Ashkenazim are unemployed, and Kiryat Gat has one of Israel’s highest unemployment rates. (125)

St. Petersburg alone has nearly as many residents as all of Israel. For those who left a vast land of eleven time zones, it is initially hard to grasp that train rides are no longer calculated in dates, but in minutes. Ukraine is thirty times larger than Israel. (132-133)

When I arrived here in 1991, the joke was that if you weren’t carrying a violin when you got off the plane from the Soviet Union, you were a doctor,” recalls Dr. Baruch Persitz. This wave of immigration has given Israel the world’s highest ratio of physicians to patients. (More than 30 percent of Israeli doctors are from the former Soviet Union.) (137)

Hussein Mohammed Tawil’s parents have shown journalists the letter of congratulations Yasser Arafat sent them. He called their son a “model of manhood … to turn one’s body into a bomb is the best example of willingness to make a sacrifice for Allah and the homeland.” He enclosed a map of Palestine with the letter. It included all of Israel. (146)

In thirty-six hours, Israelis smuggled 14,324 Ethiopian Jews aboard thirty-three jets. Called Operation Solomon, it was history’s largest human airlift, unparalleled in scope and scale. (149)

Ethiopian wives, often from ten to twenty years younger than their husbands, usually adapt much more quickly. The unemployed husband-working wife phenomenon is common. When men grow depressed about lost prestige and control, tensions rise. Divorce among Ethiopians is about six times that of other Jewish Israelis. (158)

Ethiopians are the poorest Jewish group in Israel; over two thirds of Ethiopian families depend on welfare and have five or more children. (159)

The once-illustrious haredi East European world of great Torah learning centers was wiped out during the Holocaust; about four fifths of the haredim were murdered in concentration camps, a higher proportion that any other group of Jewish victims … When Ben-Gurion introduced military deferments in 1954, they applied to about four hundred students; in 2003, deferments were granted to over thirty thousand draft-age yeshiva students. Israeli leaders did not foresee the astounding explosion of draft-exempt religious scholars. Today, more Jews are studying in religious academies than in the entire Jewish world before the Holocaust. (176)

The average haredi family has more than seven children. More than half live below the poverty line, dependent on public money, supplemented by charity. Non-Orthodox Israelis are quick to point out that it is poverty by choice, as close to 60 percent of haredi men have tax exemptions and are not looking for work. (178)

Judaism places greater priority on helping people than worshipping God because God is never in need but people are. (187)

The typical haredi male studies full time at a religious seminary from age six until he is forty-two and past draft age. After bar mitzvah age, as in Shas schools, boys do not study science, history, math, and English because secular subjects are “bitul Torah,” that is, wasting time that should be spent studying Torah. Some do not even know multiplication tables. Sometimes their Hebrew is so substandard it is difficult to understand what they are saying or writing. However, these “men of the Book” are used to rigoros studies, spending up to twelve hours a day figuring out complicated Talmudic logic and decoding conflicting rabbinical opinions. (190)

With soldiers fighting terrorists, what I say to explain seems trite to the secular, but that’s only because we’re talking two different languages. We believe our prayers can be as powerful as tanks and guns. By praying to protect the nation, we are doing them more of a favor than serving in the army. (191)

“The press all over the world calls us all kinds of ugly names. Settlers are synonymous with monsters. Fanatics. Crazed zealots. Fascists. It’s sad that people don’t know who we really are or what we’re about.” What about charges that settlers are taking Palestinian land? The only time Jews haven’t lived here is between 1949 and 1967. The land where we live has belonged to Jews since the 1920s. Arabs sold it to Jews. (202)

The Encyclopedia Britannica and United Nations documents called the area Judea and Samaria until 1950. The term West Bank (of the Jordan River) came into use after the 1948 War during Jordan’s nineteen-year rule. “There never was a land known as Palestine governed by Arabs. When the British and the Turks ruled here, Jews were Palestinians.” (204)

Hebron is an ancient town of deep, mutual hatreds and frequent bloodlettings. Nowhere else in the West Bank do Israelis and Palestinians live as close together and as far apart. Nowhere else are relations as poisonous and as deadly. The Muslims and Jews of the City of the Patriarchs are among the most devout and most radical – a volatile mix. (207)

Almost 80 percent of Israeli Jews are non-Orthodox, a category with endless variations. Some eat mild and meat, but never on the Sabbath. Most are two-holiday Jews who pray in synagogue only on Rosh Hashana and Yom Kippur. Others pray in the soccer stadium, but only when their team is losing. Whether they are staunchly atheistic, agnostic, semiobservant, Reform, or Conservative, non-Orthodox Israelis lead Jewish lives. (222)

Jerusalem’s religious council demanded that McDonald’s change the name of all its kosher branches to McKosher, arguing that otherwise it was deceiving the public by suggesting that the entire chain is kosher. (228)

In their eyes, only Orthodox Judaism is kosher. They believe that recognizing us would undermine their monopoly as the Judaism of Israel. Israel is the only democracy in the Western world where Jews do not have freedom of religion, the only place where Jews deny religious freedoms to Jews. What we’re fighting for is the right for Israelis to have the freedom to choose how they want to be Jewish. (232)

Doctors working in Israeli hospitals aren’t rich; bus drivers can earn more. (250)

In other “mixed” cities like Jerusalem, Acre, Lod, and Jaffa, “coexistence” means living together separately; in Haifa, it means “living together.” For Arabs, Haifa is the best place to live and work. (250)

Partly because Moses, Jesus, and Muhammad never set foot here [Haifa], there is room for all faiths. (252)

“We believe in Torah. But the Jews distorted it, falsified it. Our Koran corrects it. And it corrects the Christian Bible too. Muhammad was God’s last Prophet. He completed the work of Moses and Jesus… One day there will be only one religion left and it will be Islam.” (268)

He describes what shahids (martyrs) find in paradise. “It is written in the Koran and in the Suras [the traditions about the life of Muhammad] that shahid receives from Allah seventy virgins, no torment in the grave, and the choice of seventy members of his family and his confidents to enter paradise with him.” ... (Until Saddam’s downfall, the Iraqi government “rewarded” each suicide bombers family with $25,000 and gave $1,000 to each Palestinian injured fighting Israelis.) (271)

Jerusalem has been conquered thirty-seven times, controlled successively by Jews, Babylonians, Assyrians, Romans, Byzantines, Arabs, Crusaders, Ottomans, and, during World War 1, the British. (272)

Jerusalem, the Jewish capital for three thousand years, in mentioned in the Hebrew Bible 657 times. It is not mentioned in the Koran nor in Muslim prayers. (273)

Nearly one million Druze live in four adjoining countries. Because their religion teaches that they must be loyal to the country in which they live, at times they’ve met at the barrel of a gun, wearing Israeli or Lebanese or Syrian or Jordanian uniforms. (293)

This formidable-looking man is an uqaal, an enlightened religious knower, a watcher over the secrets of the religion. Only a select few are allowed to know the closely guarded teachings of the religion, which broke from Islam in the eleventh-century in Cairo. (293)

Druze religion – a mix of Judaism, Christian mysticism, Shiite Islam, Persian Zoroastrianism, Gnosticism, Messianism, and Hindu-like reincarnation beliefs. (295-296)

“We speak Arabic, we eat the same foods, like the same music. A lot of us have names that could be Muslim or Christian, but we’re not Arabs.” Druze ethnic origins are unknown; they may be a mix of Persian, Kurdish, Turkish, and Crusaders, who often had Druze as guides and allies in battles against Muslims. (296)

Druze are the only non-Jewish group of Israelis who perform compulsory military service. (296)

During the 1947-49 Arab-Israeli War, Druze were under great pressure to join in Muslim attacks on the Jews. Facing the choice of living as a minority in a Muslim state or living as a minority in a Jewish state, many Druze allied with, and, in some cases, fought with the Jewish Hagana… Today, a higher proportion of Druze than Jews serve in the IDF. (297)

She motions towards a stall with Arabic newspapers and books. A few books have Osama bin Laden’s picture on the cover. “Just months ago they were selling like candy. That scares me, but look at that wall.” Naila translates the Arabic writing on it: “After we are finished with the Jews, it’s the Christians’ turn.” (308)

Throughout the Middle East – Jordan, the Palestinian Authority, Lebanon, Syria, Iraq, and Egypt – there is an ongoing Christian exodus, mostly to South and North America. The exception is Israel, which is the only state in the Middle East where the number of Arab Christians has grown slightly. (312)

As one Israeli army official put it: If adultery were grounds for discharge, there might not be an army left. (335)

Stories of the twice-divorced Netanyahu’s tangles private life and his large sexual appetite did not hurt him with women voters or stop ultra-Orthodox rabbis from ordering their followers to vote for him. Macho values prevailed over family values. Netanyahu was elected prime minister. (336)

Few other religions sanction a man’s beating a disobedient wife, as does the Koran …The way Islam has been practiced in most Muslim societies for centuries has left millions of Muslim women with battered bodies, minds, and souls. (351)

As Islamic fundamentalism grows, Israeli Arab men are bombarded with pro-polygamy arguments. In radio and television broadcasts, for example, clerics tell them that an additional wife or two helps maintain family unity; a man will not need mistresses or risk contracting AIDS from prostitutes or have to divorce an infertile wife. (354)

Men wearing kippas carry signs reading “Gay, religious and proud” along with OrthoDykes, a group of OrthoDykes, a group of Orthodox lesbians. (358)

Growing up religious means we’re raised to be wives, taught that fulfillment means bringing children into the world. Even if you’re not religious, if you don’t want children, you’re not a real woman, not a real Israeli. In Israel, kids are everything, the center of life. On a deep psychological level, I think it’s about continuing the Jewish people. (362)

Showing that the gay community in Jerusalem is a unique blend, an Arab and a Jew held a sign that read “Hummusexuality Is Not Tabouli.” (368)

We’re always in the headlines. The New York Times. CNN. The BBC. We get more coverage than Indian. Than China. Than the entire continent of Africa. There’s so much news about us, you’d think we’re also a billion people, not six million… Unsmiling soldiers. Screaming settlers. Crying mourners. Bearded guys in black hats. Well, Israelis are much more than those photos… We’re just normal people trying to live in this abnormal, tiny, beautiful country. (383)

The Middle East is an artificial map created after World War II – it’s basically an oil map with little relevance to the twenty-first-century region. Oil is like hashish. It’s very dangerous, it makes you sluggish, prevents innovation, and creates unhappy people who don’t work. (392)

[Blane Rivera · Rating 5 out of 5]

Great book on Jewish life in Israel.
Many ugly of the difficulties living there and there roots and family life.

[Arielle · Rating 5 out of 5]

As it travels through the many aspects of Israeli culture, the book The Israelis inspires, challenges and educates. It dives into the lives of a complicated region, exploring the cultures, the religions, the conflicts and the people. The best aspect of the book is that it does not only tell a story, it also allows the reader to live the events, as it includes personal and intimate stories, some funny, and some sad. Donna Rosenthal, the author, attempts to show that apart from the conflict, people must go on with their lives, and accept the incredible diversity of the people who make up Israel, from the Orthodox in Jerusalem to the secular in Tel Aviv, the Bedouins in the Negev to the Druze and Arabs in Haifa, the Orthodox homosexuals and the macho men in the army. Though this book only touches upon the many facades of Israeli culture, it allows for the reader to obtain a sensible idea of one of the most prominent places in the world today. The only problem I found with this book is that because it was published in 2003, when life in Israel was at the height of the Intifada, it does not quite reflect the current political situation, which has been shaped by major events that have occurred after 2003. However I have really enjoyed this book and I recommend it to all who want have a better understanding of the Israeli society.

[Tami R Peterson · Rating 4 out of 5]

This version of the book was published during the Second Intifada and naturally begins talking about the effect of it on Israel. As such the first bit of the book can appear to be a one-sided narrative of the country. However this is deceiving. In reality Rosenthal gives us an excellent inside look into the lives of Israelis. Anyone interested in the Middle East should read this book, if nothing more than to demystify the stereotypes that one has about the people of such an eclectic and diverse country.

Rosenthal refuses to deny or shy away from the at times gross inequality within the State of Israel between both Jews and non-Jews from a large variety of different backgrounds. One gets a definite sense that the country which was founded on a war of independence, and has seldom seen peace since, has inherited some of the negative aspects of this reality.

In this way and many others one sees that people from different social, ethnic and economic backgrounds are often at odds, but also in a number of instances live cheek-by-jowl. It's as complex as any other country in the world if not more so and an understanding of its people, their ties to Jewish history and the complexities of integration of Jews from many different backgrounds makes a very interesting read.

[Melanie · Rating 4 out of 5]

A decent book on the residents of Israel by a reporter. The following table of contents covers the testimonies and experiences of those living there.

I. Becoming Israeli
1. One of the World's Most Volatile Neighborhoods
2. Dating and Mating Israeli-style
3. A People's Army
4. Swords into Stock Shares

II. One Nation, Many Tribes
5. The Askenazim: Israel's "WASPS"
6. The Mizrahim: The Other Israelis
7. The Russians: The New Exodus
8. Out of Africa: Ethiopian Israelis in the Promised Land

III. Widening Fault Lines Between Jews and Jews
9. The Haredim: Jewish-Jewish-Jewish
10. The Orthodox: This Land Is Your Land? This Land Is My Land!
11. The Non-Orthodox; War of the Cheeseburgers

IV. Schizophrenia: Non-Jews in a Jewish State
12. The Muslims: Abraham's Other Children
13. The Bedouin: Trives, Tents, and Satellite Dishes
14. The Druze: Between Modernity and Tradition
15. The Christians: Uneasy in the Land of Jesus

V. The Sexual Revoulution
16. Marriage, Polygamy, Adultery, and Divorce Israeli-style
17. Oy! Gay?
18. Hookers and Has in the Holy Land

[Will · Rating 4 out of 5]

A short review I may add to later.

Good:
Comprehensive and explores:
-most of the major groups within Israeli society: Jews [Asheknazi, Ethiopian, Mizrachi, Sephardic etc.], Christians, Muslims, Druze, Bedouin,
-the successive waves of immigration, from Israel's origins as a state to the most recent waves of Russian and Ethiopian immigration
-the big divisions in Israeli society: Jews/Druze v.s. arab muslim; wealthy v.s. poor; everyone v.s. Charedi; settlers in West_Bank_and_Gaza/Judea_and_Samaria v.s. center-left_and_left, etc.
-cultural stuff like dating in Israel, LGBT status in Israel, etc.

Bad:
-didn't really explore some topics in the depth they deserved: Settlers and Palestinians, which are the most topical part of the book for most Americans, are given equal airtime with the other groups, but should have been explored even more so readers could get a better idea of the issues.
-didn't have a good perspective on the Charedi ('ultra-orthodox') Jews in Israel, treated them in a monolithic fashion.

4/5

[Jennie · Rating 4 out of 5]

I've always wished that I had studied in Israel. This was a fascinating read to me--a lot of details about the complexities of a volatile region, and why it's only growing more complicated every year. The author has written for Newsweek and the book reads like a huge article from that magazine.

[Lauren · Rating 4 out of 5]

Details the lives of all facets of Israeli society from Prostitutes, to Orthodox, from Ethiopians to Russians.

[Meaghan Kroener Janson · Rating 5 out of 5]

My coworker from Israel recommended this book as a good example of insight into all the many factions at play in such a dense, historic land. Thanks, Sarit!

[Laurie · Rating 3 out of 5]

This is a very detailed and diverse portrayal of the people of a modern day Israel. The book is as complex as the situation in that part of the world.

[Arie · Rating 2 out of 5]

great interviews. interesting topic. good read. not recommend because sensational and a took angle that is not so positive

[cantread26 · Rating 4 out of 5]

My bubi gave me this book before my trip to Israel and I just returned and just finished it. It does provide a really great look into all of the different ethnic and religious groups present in Israel and the struggles each one faces as the region is stuck between tradition and modernity. I learned A LOT and feel like I now have a much stronger understanding of the wide variety of people who makeup Israel's population (which maybe contrary to popular belief is not just white European seriously Jewish immigrants) (also which contrary to Western media are not all focused on the conflict all the time). But I will say what really turned me off to this book is how Rosenthal sensationalized terrorism and portrayed Islam and Arabs as generally encouraging this act, while completely failing to mention the horrific actions of Israel against Palestinians as well that can definitely also be interpreted as a form of terrorism. For that reason, I am hesitant to recommend the book to anyone because I think readers are getting a skewed and very one sided (pro-Israel) view of this slice of the Mediterranean. I'm super glad I read it though because now I know more about groups I was very unfamiliar with before such as Beduin, Ethiopians, Russians, Druze, the intense techies, and the ultra-Orthadox. Also the way in which the government allows itself to be influenced by religious code is very scary. Many people, especially women and queer people, suffer because of this tendency to look to such a traditional system. Hopefully change, in many ways, is on the way for Israel because it's an place with resilient people and now has a special place in my heart, but remains today problematic in many ways.

[Harry · Rating 5 out of 5]

Donna Rosenthal provides an objective sociological review of each of the many groups that live in the State of Israel – from Jews to Muslims and Christians, from secular to religious, from Ashkenazim to Mizrachim, gay vs. straight, etc. First written during the Second Intifada and updated in 2006, there are parts that seem a bit dated 15 years later. Sometimes it feels like a suicide bomber is blowing himself up on every other page. Yet most chapters are still relevant in 2021.
Rosenthal writes in a clear, analytical style with many vignettes and anecdotes. My only quip would be with her section on the Haredim (ultra-orthodox). Many Israelis love to hate the Haredim, and Rosenthal is not immune. She has even less good to say about them the Islamist terrorists. Yet overall the author gives an important analysis of the mosaic that constitutes Israeli culture.

[Hassan Zayour · Rating 2 out of 5]

This book taught me a lot about society in Occupied Palestine, history, and conflicts.
However, the author is terribly biased. I really wanted to have an objective point of view, to learn about the different people there, to learn about the conflict, and the author just made it very hard to do that. There was this constant victim speech, subliminal messages, I really don't like this mentality.
I really wish if the information present in this book was written by someone who was less biased, but I should be fair and mention that it was informative.

[Corr · Rating 5 out of 5]

拖延数年，终于断断续续看完。当时在新华书店发现这本书，几次去都看了好些部分，后来终于在网店购回，却没有了那种热情。
彩图和高质量印刷的中文版令阅读赏心悦目。记者深入浅出的写作手法把一个个故事娓娓道来。行文逻辑和语言的作用使本书可读性颇高。
人们常常说，看不清真相“只缘身在此山中”，而读完这本书，让人觉得，要透彻了解一件事，就必须走入其中，用放大镜揪出一个个微观的真相，而不是脑海中臆想出的那个宏观一统的“真相。”

[Michelle · Rating 5 out of 5]

while currently slightly out of date since it's been published in the early 2000's, Rosenthal's book is fairly accurate to today and accurate to the time it was written. Genuinely an interesting novel exploring the different ethnic and religious groups within Israel.

[Jamila · Rating 5 out of 5]

Fascinating, well-researched, balanced look inside Israel. Originally published in 2003, but updated in 2008.

[Leah Ragiel · Rating 4 out of 5]

Very long, but thorough discussion of the many constituent groups of Israel. There are way more than you think.

[Siva Prasad Tripuraneni · Rating 5 out of 5]

Very good book which gives a detailed insight into life of Israelis.

[Fedja]

Yj6

[Akshay Seetharam · Rating 4 out of 5]

An interesting look at Israel looking from the inside, in. It's not the framing we get in any news here, and also this book is twenty years old. Do not expect geopolitics.

[Misty · Rating 3 out of 5]

Donna Rosenthal and her somewhat anthropologist approach
-yes, i'm a sucker for ethnographies- has beautifully compiled stories about people surviving in fascinating and odd situations (aren't we all?),using the Israeli context as a rich and colorful frame.

Some favorites:
A muslim family that keeps the keys to Jerusalem's sacred church of the holy sepulchre and the married Israeli christian arab who is trying to hide his homosexual affair from his family ('How can you? The bible forbids homosexuality: "Man shall not lie down with man." I'll never forget his answer: 'It's not a sin. We do it standing up.")

[Gill · Rating 5 out of 5]

Almost all Americans see Israel as a collection of stereotypes. For Jews these might be of the 1960's "Exodus" variety, for Christians of Old Testament vintage. This is a recently updated view by a reporter on the ground. A long version of the kind of profile of a subject you might find in the New Yorker or in a book by John McPhee.

Even though I think of myself as far above average in my knowledge of Israel -- Israeli Mom, 16 years of Hebrew school, half my relatives live there, I've traveled there, read a lot of books, magazines, about it -- there was a lot in there I didn't know. Probably you don't either.

[Walter · Rating 3 out of 5]

Pro-Israel, feel-good type book with a gloss-over of the Israel-Palestine conflict. Good background on differing Jewish cultures and groups as well as other ethnics such as Druse.

Does provide insight into several social issues confronting Israelis ...... racist attitudes towards Jews of color or from Arab cultures, illegal drug smuggling and use, prostitution and human trade, conflict between varying Jewish traditions, Christionization resulting from Russian immigrants and some of the extremism developing within Israeli culture.

[WaldenOgre · Rating 4 out of 5]

“我觉得我们——‘人’可以在政府失败的地方取得成功。我们应该显示，和平不是来自勇敢，而是来自邻里。”关于那片土地，充斥着太多的宏大叙事，但这本动人的小书却提供了一个非常可贵的普通人的视角。

[Anoud Alammar · Rating 4 out of 5]

I've never really thought that occupiers themselves suffer from oppression. A large section of Rosenthal's book explains how Israeli minorities were treated back in the days when the so-called Israeli state was first established. Different minorities ranging from mizrachis, safhardis, and even ethiopian Jews, were maltreated and in some cases forced to come to Israel and leave their hometowns in order for the "state" to surpass Palestine racially.