The Israeli Mind
How the Israeli National Character Shapes Our World
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- $12.99
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- $12.99
Publisher Description
Israelis are bold and visionary, passionate and generous. But they can also be grandiose and self-absorbed. Emerging from the depths of Jewish history and the drama of the Zionist rebellion against it, they have a deeply conflicted identity. They are willing to sacrifice themselves for the collective, but also to sacrifice that very collective for a higher, and likely unattainable, ideal. Resolving these internal conflicts and coming to terms with the trauma of the Holocaust are imperative to Israel's survival as a nation and to the stability of the world.
Alon Gratch, a clinical psychologist whose family has lived in Israel for generations, is uniquely positioned to confront these issues. Like the Israeli psyche that Gratch details, The Israeli Mind is both intimate and universal. Intelligent and forthright, compassionate but sometimes maddening, it is an utterly compelling read. Drawing on a broad cultural and historical canvas, and weaving in the author's personal and professional experience, The Israeli Mind presents a provocative, first-hand portrait of the Israeli national character.
PUBLISHERS WEEKLY
As an Israeli-American who is also a clinical psychologist, Gratch seems uniquely qualified to dissect the Israeli mind-set, which he does in this provocative blend of psychological profile and foreign policy analysis. Gratch brings up habits of thought in his home country's mentality that made sense when the nation was young but are now counterproductive to its peaceful coexistence with other countries and peoples. He traces many of them to a sense of helplessness engendered by the Holocaust, asserting that it led to a culture of defensive hypermasculinity. After profiling the collective Israeli mind, he speculates about how changes in thinking could help Israelis better confront present challenges, including the BDS (boycott, divestment, and sanctions) movement and Iran's nuclear ambitions. If readers accept the premise that a national character can be dissected in the same manner as an individual psyche, then they will find this book illuminating and full of fresh insights into contemporary geopolitics. At the very least, it is a fascinating thought exercise, and worth the read for that alone.
