Land of Hope and Fear: Israel's Battle for Its Inner Soul

Title: Land of Hope and Fear: Israel's Battle for Its Inner Soul
Author: Isabel Kershner
History: 1705101
ISBN: 9781101946763
Publisher: Knopf
Published: 2023
Binding: Hardcover
Language: English
Number of Pages: 384
Section: History | Middle East | Israel & Palestine
Condition Note: Clean, unmarked copy with some edge wear. Good binding. Dust jacket included if issued with one. We ship in recyclable American-made mailers. 100% money-back guarantee on all orders.
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.