The Israelis: Ordinary People in an Extraordinary Land (Updated in 2008)

by Donna Rosenthal

Book Overview

"A panorama of Israeli diversity" (Los Angeles Times) this is a vibrant, internationally acclaimed portrait of contemporary Israeli society.

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...

• Format: Paperback
• Language: English
• ISBN: 0743270355
• ISBN13: 9780743270359
• Release Date: February 2005
• Publisher: Free Press
• Length: 480 Pages
• Weight: 1.05 lbs.
• Dimensions: 1.2" x 5.5" x 8.4"

Customer Reviews

The Israelis

To be honest, I picked up this book and started to read it simply out of boredom, but it turned out to greatly exceed my expectations. As an Israeli myself, I can truthfully say this book very accurately describes what life in Israel is like today - definitely not what we all see on television. There are so many different cultures, beliefs, and ideas within Israel itself, and Donna Rosenthal did an excellent job portraying many of those lifestyles: the secular, the religious, the Christian, the Druze, etc. Her book does give the reader a pretty clear and truthful picture of the situation in the country. Each of the stories she chose to write about were also quite interesting. The book was pretty much a page-turner for me. Even though I probably knew most of these things, as I've lived them myself, it was still a great read, and I'd recommend it to anyone who wishes to get the true image of Israel, not what we see on the news every day. All the stories were very clear and straight to the point. The ending chapter is dedicated to how it is possible to live together, after all, which I believe is very important. Even though this book is quite a light read, I trust you'll still get a lot out of it!

University Professors and Students Rave About This Book!

As a professor of History, Political Science and Comparative Cultures for the past 25 years, I strongly recommend that ALL instructors incorporate this book in their courses on the Middle East. ALL of my students for the past 6 semesters wrote in their course evaluations that this was the BEST BOOK they have ever read at the university! In fact, more than half said it was the best book they've read in years! This book is extremely well written, factual, funny, and a fast read. FYI - The Department Heads of our Political Science and History Departments are recommending that their colleagues incorporate this book in their classrooms!

An excellent book about Israel and the Israelis

This is a very well written book about Israel. It consists of plenty of anecdotal information about a wide variety of aspects of Israeli life. We see young adults, the army, and entrepreneurs. We see divisions among Jews into Ashkenazim, Mizrahim, Russians, Africans, Haredim, Orthodox, and Non-Orthodox. And we see the internal and external worries and problems they have. More than that, we see their reaction to "the situation," namely the war of annihilation being fought by extremist Arabs against the Jews of the region. Perhaps the most interesting part of the book is the description of non-Jewish Israelis: the Muslims, Bedouin, Druze, and Christians. I was amazed by the tolerance shown by the Israeli public for outright disloyalty to Israel in time of war shown by many non-Jews. I can't imagine acting so against a nation I happened to be visiting, let alone one I lived in and might even be a citizen of. These sections convinced me that there won't be any peace in the region for a long time. One item I can't agree with is the subtitle: ordinary people in an extraordinary land. In fact, while the people are much the same as people everywhere, the land is also much the same as land everywhere. Israel is, after all, a small country that looms much larger than life due to the enormous amount of ink that is spent on it. Still, given some of the more outrageous things we sometimes see written about Israel and Israeli society from Israel's detractors, this book is a very refreshing change indeed.

Informative, Human Interest and Pleasurable Reading

Ra'an Meridor wrote that although she is one of Israel's founders, she learned more about Israelis from this book than living there. Before forming opinions about Israeli, learn about all types of Israelis from the stories of their lives that they tell here. The book is an easy read, you can open to any chapter or hop around. I found more humor, down to earth human interest and truth in the reporter's writing that gave me a deeper insight into the people of Israel (Moslem, Christian, Jew,Druze, European, Asian, African,Western, Orthodox, Reform, Agnostic, illiterate,scientist, etc.)than I could find anywhere including trips to Israel. In my opinion, this book of reality and hope is a must read for all people, regardless of their religion, nationality, race or political bent.The diversity of Israel's people is greater than anywhere in the world.

A new literay resource for the Israeli society

I teach a course on the middle east at the University. After reading this book, I realized that very few of us so called "experts" actually know abiut the State of Israel in depth. Many of my colleagues including myself really have no advanced knowledge about Israel even though we claim to be "knowledgeable" about the issues. This book opened up eyes and my head to an Israel that you don't hear about in the media. the book goes in depth to describe Israelis of every religon, race, ethnicity, sexual orientation and class. It also describes the lives of the average Israeli, which is absent in all media outlets. I have decided to assign this book as required reading for the class I will be teaching about the Middle East in the coming spring semester.