Starred review from March 20, 2023
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.
April 1, 2023
A journalist who has lived in Jerusalem since 1990 offers her perspective of Israel's present-day struggles. As we approach the 75th anniversary of the creation of the Israeli state, many of its founding ideals have shifted dramatically as the country has expanded to more than 9 million citizens. Under Benjamin Netanyahu's increasingly hard-right government, Israel is "a country on the precipice, battling for its inner soul." Kershner, a veteran New York Times correspondent who also served as a senior editor at the Jerusalem Report, investigates the nation's current condition through a vast historical and geographical framework, reporting on many aspects of its sociocultural experience. She recounts interviews with Israeli citizens of various walks of life (and religious backgrounds), and she reports on the present state of the kibbutz, which originated as socially collective spiritual communities but have become increasingly secularized in the past two decades. Kershner also examines stories of the growing number of individuals who have recently migrated to the controversial Israeli-occupied territories that include the West Bank. "In many respects," writes the author, "Israel had exceeded its own expectations, or at least those of its founders," and its "self-definition as a Jewish and democratic state...was being tested and, some critics said, was an impossible contradiction in terms. Increasingly split between those who prioritized its Jewish character and those who put more value on its democracy, the rival camps were no longer so much a matter of right and left as 'Jews' and 'Israelis.' " While Kershner's compelling, densely packed narrative offers an insightful overview of Israel's complex struggles, it assumes a fairly deep grasp of Israel's history and culture from the outset. The text would have benefitted from an introductory notes section with Hebrew terms, place names, and maps. Some American readers may turn to Eric Alterman's We Are Not One for further context, but Kershner's book is valuable for students of contemporary Middle Eastern affairs. A well-reported study of Israel's rapidly shifting cultural and religious environment.
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