jewish

A light, breezy entertaining bit of pop-ethnology, fit to put on the shelf with such classics as Hedrick Smith's _The Russians_, Dusko Doder's _The Yugoslavs_, and Luigi Barzini's _The Italians_. Rosenthal interviewed an impressive cross-section of Israeli society, from all backgrounds and viewpoints. It's especially affecting to read the interviews with the young people, whether Jewish, Muslim, or Christian, with their too-soon exposure to war's ugliness and their simultaneous brave hopes for the future. Caution: many if not most of the interviewees are pseudonymous.

It's a far-ranging book, with too many interesting foci to list completely: The decline of the collective ethic on Israel's kibbutzes. The insular nature of the ultra-Orthodox communities, and the painfully high human cost of leaving. The presence of ordinary vice and corruption, and how terrorists use the drug trade as a weapon of war. A potted history of Zionism, with many personal reminiscences of the 1948 war. Tours through the minority communities such as the Druze, the Bedouin, the Jews from Arab lands, and subcultures such as Russian prostitutes and gay Israelis.

Welcome inclusions are factual takedowns of widespread lies such as the Jenin "massacre". But polemics are not the meat of the book, the people are. It is very good to finally have some voices to put with the faces of this remarkable people. Let one of the interviewees have the last word:

"We're always in the headlines. _The New York Times_. CNN.
The BBC. We get more coverage than India. Than China. Than the entire continent of Africa. There's so much news about us, you'd think we're also a billion people, not six million. We're all the time on TV and front pages, so people think they know us. Unsmiling soldiers. Screaming settlers. Crying mourners. Bearded guys in black hats. Well, Israelis are much more than those photos. We complain about our teachers. Worry about exams. Flirt at parties. Wonder if we look good in our bathing suits. We curse at traffic jams and cut in line at the movies. We've got normal fears and dreams. Like young people everywhere, we want to find love and be loved. We're just normal people trying to live in this abnormal, tiny, beautiful country."

My Israeli tour guide was reading this book -- said he couldn't put it down. It's fascinating, balanced, with amazing insights on all kinds of modern Israelis. He was right. I laughed, I cried and learned an enormous amount. lt's great for tourists, students, professors, Christians, Jews and Muslims, tour guides -- anyone who really wants to understand Israelis though their own words, not superficial news reports.Religious and athiest, left-wing, right-wing, Jew and Arab -- every Israel I met who has read this book says it is really accurate. It should be in newsrooms, classrooms and libraries.

The headlines last October told only the tip of the story - 19 Israelis murdered in a horrific suicide bombing at a Haifa beachfront restaurant. Reading the story one learns that the Maxim restaurant was a symbol of coexistence in Haifa. The victims of the attack were Jews and Christians, kibbutzniks and city residents. Previous attacks have targeted Haredi ultra-Orthodox Jews; Muslim students and waiters have been among the victims as well.

Digging deeper into the victims' stories one realizes that despite differences in religion, culture and belief, they are all connected to the fate of the State of Israel. Orthodox and secular Jews; Ashkenazim and Mizrahim; Christians, Muslims and Druze; Russian and Ethiopian immigrants - each sector of Israeli society has played a part in the tragic events of the three years of violence.

From the outside, readers and viewers may be confused when they try to understand exactly who the Israeli people are. On the holy streets of Jerusalem and the bohemian alleyways of Tel Aviv, visitors see Jews who look like Arabs, Arabs who look like Jews. But who is the real Israeli, who dares to live a normal life in a country that, because of current events, is anything but normal?

Donna Rosenthal's "The Israelis: Ordinary People in an Extraordinary Land" (Free Press, October 2003), introduces us to the real Israel, the Israel nobody knows. This is the Israel behind the news headlines, the stories of ordinary people in an extraordinary land.

"The Israelis" reads like an extended feature article, as the author allows the men and women she interviewed to relate their own stories. The voices and viewpoints are alternately despairing and hopeful, defiant and conciliatory. No one is left out - the settlers, the Bedouin, Israel's gay minority - all have a voice. The total picture presented in this book is that of Israel itself, a varied, diverse, changing, evolving society that is much more than headlines.

The book relates the stories of Israeli soldiers, who defend a country that has always been in a state of war. The book covers the hope offered by Israeli technology and entrepreneurship, as well as the problems of the country's illegal trade in women. Nothing is left out - the positive and negative aspects of Israeli society all play a part of this comprehensive picture.

The people who tell their stories in "The Israelis" are very real. The author tells the story of the Muslim who holds the keys to the Holy Sepulcher Church in Jerusalem, as well as that of the founding fathers of the Alon Shvut settlement in Gush Etzion. Here, too, are the stories of traditional Israelis originally from Morocco who believe in miracles and vote for Shas, as well as those of secular Israelis who order Big Macs in the language of the Ten Commandments.

The book makes an emotional mark when it relates the story of the clandestine human airlift that brought 14,000 Ethiopians out of Africa in thirty-six hours. This is balanced with the tale of the immigrant avalanche from the countries of the former Soviet Union, some of whom are not even Jewish, but who have contributed greatly to the country as well.

If this book has a fault it's in its attempt to tell everything, to be a total picture of Israeli society and how it got to where it is today. How can a book deal with the ongoing Intifada without mentioning the horrific terror attack on Muslim worshippers perpetrated by Dr. Baruch Goldstein in Hebron in 1994? How can a study of Israelis today deal with kibbutzniks without relating to illegal immigration during the British mandate? Every element of Israel's past does play a significant part in the country's attempt to get beyond its vast security-related and social problems and provide a better future for its citizens.

"The Israelis" is lively, irreverent, intimate and always fascinating. With its interweaving of hundreds of personal stories with historical facts, "The Israelis" is one of the most original books about Israel in decades.