Toward the end of her panoramic snapshot of the fascinating and diverse people who make up Israel's citizenry, Donna Rosenthal quotes a frustrated eighth-generation Jerusalemite: "There's so much news about us, you'd think we're… a billion people, not six million. We're all the time on TV and front pages, so people think they know us." Insisting that Israelis' worries, fears and dreams are just like anyone else's, he concludes, "We're just normal people trying to live in this abnormal, tiny, beautiful country."
This engaging book pushes the reader to see beyond newspaper headlines and too-often accepted myths to meet the individuals who are making their lives and their livings in Israel. By focusing exclusively on Jewish citizens, thereby excluding Palestinians and foreign workers, Ms. Rosenthal steers our attention to those who depend on Israel for their national identity.
Gone are early Zionist images of pioneers reclaiming the land and olive-skinned youth promoting Jaffa oranges while dancing the hora at their socialist-inspired kibbutzim. The extravagant promises of a generation ago predicting across-the-board prosperity have also disappeared. Instead, Ms. Rosenthal shows us an Israel that, as a student at Tel Hai College reminds us, is "a young country, a work-in-progress." The Israel we see in this book continues its massive social experiment to create a full-service, financially stable, physically secure and productive nation. Israel works to establish itself as a world-class power while continuing to absorb culturally-mixed immigrants from around the world, manage its own internal religious and ethnic squabbles, and negotiate the meaning of a Jewish state containing significant numbers of non-Jewish citizens. So far, the author claims, this experiment seems to be working.
Ms. Rosenthal attempts to prove her claim by introducing individuals with roots in various Diaspora communities, and then allowing readers to draw their own conclusions. Ms. Rosenthal manages to put a human face on a country too often shrouded in stereotypes.
About the Author
Donna Rosenthal is an award-winning journalist who has reported from the Middle East for The New York Times, Washington Post, Los Angeles Times, Newsweek and The Jerusalem Post. Holding degrees from the University of California, Berkeley and the London School of Economics, Ms. Rosenthal has taught at several institutions of higher learning, including Hebrew University. A native of El Paso, Texas, Ms. Rosenthal first visited Israel in 1969 as a teenager and was impressed by the diversity of its population.
Four years in the making, The Israelis is based on interviews of ordinary people,"[those] you would never see on 'Nightline' or "Meet the Press'" with whom the author often spent days at a time. Beginning her book after the first intifada had ended, the author found that people's perceptions changed when the second intifada started in September 2000. "I had to rewrite large sections or trash them," she said. "Writing about Israel is like Alice in Wonderland" in its many almost surreal complexities.
Questions for Discussion
In what ways did reading this book change your perceptions about Israel? Which portraits and what information did you find most interesting? Most alarming? Most reassuring?
As a result of this book, will you read the news coming out of Israel differently? How?
Compulsory military service for young men and women is a given in Israeli society. Beyond military preparedness, what social functions does experience in the Israeli army fulfill?
Ms. Rosenthal quotes Eli Barkat, a dot-com millionaire, as he describes why Israel has an ideal environment for a high-tech proliferation. He argues that Israelis are well suited to this industry because they "thrive on confrontation and solving problems by argument" and because "solving problems creatively is a way of life for us. We have a culture of innovation because we're used to improvising, making the impossible happen." Do you agree with his assessment? Do you believe a nation can develop a distinct personality suited for a particular occupation?
Ms. Rosenthal interviewed Naomi Kehati, a clinical psychologist whose parents came from Yemen in 1949. In commenting on her school years, she remarks: "The trauma of the Holocaust overshadowed everything." Do you know Jews whose families were not directly impacted by the Holocaust? Do they feel as Ms. Kehati did, that the Shoah became an overemphasized, defining Jewish identity?
Ms. Rosenthal reports that after the June 2001 terrorist attack at the Tel Aviv Dolphinarium disco, in which many Russian teens were killed and injured, the Russian community felt more accepted as part of Israeli society. What does this observation imply about how Russian immigrants were perceived before the tragedy, and how do you think these newcomers would respond to this comment?
Thirty years ago, the world Jewish community mobilized to pressure the Soviet Union to allow its Jews to emigrate. Today, there is a concerted effort to bring resources for Jewish learning, Jewish living, and (re)development of Jewish institutional life to the remnants of these same Jewish communities. What would account for this change in strategy, from rescue to outreach?
We frequently hear that Jewish Israelis are divided into two groups: the religious and the secular. Ms. Rosenthal refers to these groups as the Orthodox and the non-Orthodox. Do you think that either of these is a valid dichotomy?
In her Epilogue, Ms. Rosenthal describes three programs in Israel to help Jewish and Arab citizens gain a deeper understanding of each other. Earlier in her book she compares the political situation in Israel to "an estranged family forced to live separately in the same house because no one will move." Do you think these programs can make a difference? What programs might you devise to improve Jewish-Arab understanding?
To order The Israelis: Ordinary People in an Extraordinary Land Simon & Schuster Publishers
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