Israel (Unabridged)
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4.5 • 81 Ratings
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- $19.99
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- $19.99
Publisher Description
AUDIO EXCLUSIVE: INCLUDES THE SONG “ELATION STATION” BY INFECTED MUSHROOM!
A NEW YORK TIMES BESTSELLER
A “fascinating and very moving” (Aaron Sorkin, award-winning screenwriter of The West Wing and The Social Network) chronological timeline spanning from Biblical times to today that explores one of the most interesting countries in the world—Israel.
Israel. The small strip of arid land is 5,700 miles away but remains a hot-button issue and a thorny topic of debate. But while everyone seems to have a strong opinion about Israel, how many people actually know the facts?
Here to fill in the information gap is Israeli American Noa Tishby. But “this is not your Bubbie’s history book” (Bill Maher, host of Real Time with Bill Maher). Instead, offering a fresh, 360-degree view, Tishby brings her “passion, humor, and deep intimacy” (Yossi Klein Halevi, New York Times bestselling author of Letters to My Palestinian Neighbor) to the subject, creating an accessible and dynamic portrait of a tiny country of outsized relevance. Through bite-sized chunks of history and deeply personal stories, Tishby chronicles her homeland’s evolution, beginning in Biblical times and moving forward to cover everything from WWI to Israel’s creation to the disputes dividing the country today. Tackling popular misconceptions with an abundance of facts, Tishby provides critical context around headline-generating controversies and offers a clear, intimate account of the richly cultured country of Israel.
Customer Reviews
Read This Book
Noa mentions that she was 1/2 way through writing this book in June of 2020. Because of the events of October 7, 2023, I scrambled to find resources to better understand my people’s homeland. I found many excellent resources, and Noa Tishby’s “Israel” is a must read. Please, read this book. It is a good, solid history of Israel, as well as its current state of existence. I cannot give a stronger recommendation.
Conversational biography & history lesson
Seems most writing on Israel is biased pro & con. While Tishby is Israeli, and is pro Israel, she offers a very accessible history that allows readers to know the Israeli/Arab conflict better without preaching her side. She allows the reader to decide.
Good basis of knowledge on this topic
I really had no opinion either way on this topic before I listened to this book. I mainly had just heard vaguely about the conflict and wanted to learn more. I admit that despite hearing about this through Tishby’s narration, it was easy to see Palestine as the underdog to the (clearly superior) Israel, and maybe feel slightly sorry for Palestine. However it is easy to feel sorry from a distance, it is different when it actually effects you. It wasn’t until the very end of the book when she said, “Imagine you had a town 30 miles from where you lived that wanted to enact Sharia law,” that I had an abrupt realization. It is one thing to feel sorry for some ignorant, backwards group of people, but it is another to have them impose their dangerous way of life onto your own.