The Land of Hope and Fear
Israel's Battle for Its Inner Soul
-
- $14.99
-
- $14.99
Publisher Description
A NEW YORK TIMES NOTABLE BOOK OF THE YEAR • An urgent, wide-ranging portrait of the divisions among Israelis today, and the external threats to their country, at a critical juncture in its history. • Through moving narratives and on-the-ground reporting, a veteran New York Times correspondent who has spent decades working in Israel reveals what holds the country together.
“A wondrous tale told through the agonizing and uplifting stories of Israel’s many tribes — Jewish and Arab, religious and secular, new immigrants and veterans, soldiers and settlers.”—Martin Indyk, author of Master of the Game, and former U.S. ambassador to Israel
"For anyone trying to understand the reality of Israel today.”—Dennis Ross, former U.S. envoy to the Middle East and the author of Doomed to Succeed
Despite Israel's determined staying power in a hostile environment, its military might, and the innovation it fosters in businesses globally, the country is more divided than ever. The old guard—socialist secular elites and idealists—are a dying breed, and the state’s democratic foundations are being challenged. A dynamic and exuberant country of nine million, Israel is now largely comprised of native-born Hebrew speakers, and yet any permanent sense of security and normalcy is elusive.
In The Land of Hope and Fear, we meet Israelis: Jews and Arabs, religious and secular, Eastern and Western, liberals and zealots—plagued by perennial conflict and existential threats, citizens who remain deeply polarized politically, socially, and ideologically, even as they undergo generational change and redefine what it is to be an Israeli. Who are these people and to what do they aspire?
In moving narratives and with on-the-ground reporting, Isabel Kershner reveals the core of what holds Israel together and the forces that threaten its future through the lens of real people: a son of Zionist pioneers, cynical about what is to come and his people’s status in it; a woman in her nineties whose life in a kibbutz has disintegrated; a brilliant poet caught up in the political maelstrom; an Arab gallery owner archiving a lost Palestinian landscape; and a descendant of the Russian aliyah; representing millions of culturally and religiously different Jews, laying bare the question Who is an Israeli? The Land of Hope and Fear decodes Israel today at its seventy-fifth anniversary, examining the ways in which the country has both exceeded and failed the ideals and expectations of its founders.
PUBLISHERS WEEKLY
In this masterful study, New York Times correspondent Kershner (Barrier) enriches her analysis of the forces roiling modern Israel through incisive conversations with individual Israelis. Shifting the focus from Israel's territorial conflicts with its Arab neighbors to domestic issues, Kershner reveals how the unequal treatment of Jewish immigrants from Europe, North Africa, the Middle East, Russia, and other parts of the world, coupled with the failure of the Oslo Peace Accords, fostered deep-seated resentments against the political establishment and contributed to the rise of the right wing in Israel. Elsewhere, she documents grievances against the ultra-Orthodox community, who sometimes receive privileged treatment from politicians despite their opposition to obligatory military service and other polices; talks with members of Israel's Arab minority about "the self-contradiction of being an Arab citizen of the Jewish state"; and contends that prime minister Benjamin Netanyahu has willfully inflamed ethnic tensions for political gains. Striking an ominous note, Kershner warns that Israel's "demographic trajectory," which has it on track to become "one of the most crowded countries on earth," will strain the country's already faltering infrastructure and exacerbate "the rise of the political fringes and the threats to liberal democracy." Nuanced and persuasive, this is a valuable dispatch from a country in turmoil.
