Twelve Tribes: Promise and Peril in the New Israel
Written by Ethan Michaeli
Narrated by Steven Jay Cohen
()
About this audiobook
“Ethan Michaeli has a gimlet eye for the people, texture, and contradictions of modern Israel. I’m in awe of his powers of observation and his ability as a modern-day Tocqueville to take us inside one of the most complex and confounding countries in the world."" — Jonathan Alter, bestselling author of His Very Best: Jimmy Carter, a Life
An ""illuminating"" and ""richly descriptive"" (New York Times Book Review) portrait of contemporary Israel, revealing the diversity of this extraordinary yet volatile nation by weaving together personal histories of ordinary citizens from all walks of life.
In 2015, Israeli President Reuven Rivlin warned that the country’s citizens were dividing into tribes: by class and ethnicity, by geography, and along lines of faith. In Twelve Tribes, award-winning author Ethan Michaeli portrays this increasingly fractured nation by intertwining interviews with Israelis of all tribes into a narrative of social and political change. Framed by Michaeli’s travels across the country over four years and his conversations with Israeli family, friends, and everyday citizens, Twelve Tribes illuminates the complex dynamics within the country, a collective drama with global consequences far beyond the ongoing conflict with the Palestinians.
Readers will meet the aging revolutionaries who founded Israel’s kibbutz movement and the brilliant young people working for the country’s booming Big Tech companies. They will join thousands of ultra-Orthodox Haredim at a joyous memorial for a long-dead Romanian Rebbe in a suburb of Tel Aviv, and hear the life stories of Ethiopian Jews who were incarcerated and tortured in their homeland as “Prisoners of Zion” before they were able to escape to Israel.
And they will be challenged, in turn, by portraits of Israeli Arabs navigating between the opportunities in a prosperous, democratic state and the discrimination they suffer as a vilified minority, as by interviews with both the Palestinians striving to build the institutions of a nascent state and the Israeli settlers seeking to establish a Jewish presence on the same land.
Immersive and enlightening, Twelve Tribes is a vivid depiction of a modern state contending with ancient tensions and dangerous global forces at this crucial historic moment. Through extensive research and access to all sectors of Israeli society, Michaeli reveals Israel to be a land of paradoxical intersections and unlikely cohabitation—a place where all of the world’s struggles meet, and a microcosm for the challenges faced by all nations today.
Ethan Michaeli
ETHAN MICHAELI is the author of The Defender: How the Legendary Black Newspaper Changed America—named a Notable Book of the Year by the New York Times and the Washington Post, a winner of Best Nonfiction prizes from both the Chicago Writers Association and the Society of Midland Authors, and short-listed for the Mark Lynton History Prize presented by the Columbia University Graduate School of Journalism. Previously, Ethan founded Residents’ Journal, a magazine written and produced by the tenants of Chicago’s public housing developments and an affiliated not-for-profit organization, We the People Media. Currently a lecturer at the University of Chicago Harris School of Public Policy, he is also a senior adviser for communications and development at the Goldin Institute, an international not-for-profit organization collaborating with social change activists in forty different countries. Ethan has served as a judge of national literary contests, and his shorter work has been published by Oxford University Press, the Washington Post, The Atlantic, the Forward, the Chicago Tribune, and other venues.
Related to Twelve Tribes
Related audiobooks
The Israeli Century: How the Zionist Revolution Changed History and Reinvented Judaism Rating: 5 out of 5 stars5/5We Stand Divided: The Rift Between American Jews and Israel Rating: 5 out of 5 stars5/5Israel: A Concise History of a Nation Reborn Rating: 5 out of 5 stars5/5Menachem Begin: The Battle for Israel's Soul Rating: 4 out of 5 stars4/5Menachem Begin: The Life and Legacy of the Irgun Leader Who Became Israel’s Prime Minister Rating: 4 out of 5 stars4/5Impossible Takes Longer: 75 Years After Its Creation, Has Israel Fulfilled Its Founders’ Dreams? Rating: 4 out of 5 stars4/5The State of Israel vs. the Jews Rating: 4 out of 5 stars4/5Like Dreamers: The Story of the Israeli Paratroopers Who Reunited Jerusalem and Divided a Nation Rating: 4 out of 5 stars4/5History of Israel Rating: 3 out of 5 stars3/5The Mossad: The History and Legacy of Israel’s National Intelligence Agency Rating: 3 out of 5 stars3/5A State at Any Cost: The Life of David Ben-Gurion Rating: 3 out of 5 stars3/5Golda Meir: The Life and Legacy of the Only Woman to Serve as Israel’s Prime Minister Rating: 4 out of 5 stars4/51967: Israel, the War, and the Year That Transformed the Middle East Rating: 4 out of 5 stars4/5We Are Not One: A History of America's Fight Over Israel Rating: 4 out of 5 stars4/5Enemies and Neighbors: Arabs and Jews in Palestine and Israel, 1917-2017 Rating: 4 out of 5 stars4/5The Crisis of Zionism Rating: 5 out of 5 stars5/5People Love Dead Jews: Reports from a Haunted Present Rating: 5 out of 5 stars5/5Lioness: Golda Meir and the Nation of Israel Rating: 4 out of 5 stars4/5Jerusalem 1913: The Origins of the Arab-Israeli Conflict Rating: 4 out of 5 stars4/5Israel - Culture Smart!: The Essential Guide to Customs & Culture Rating: 0 out of 5 stars0 ratingsThe Invention of the Jewish People Rating: 4 out of 5 stars4/5Overlooking the Border: Narratives of Divided Jerusalem Rating: 0 out of 5 stars0 ratingsFrom Beirut to Jerusalem Rating: 4 out of 5 stars4/5Spies of No Country: Secret Lives at the Birth of Israel Rating: 4 out of 5 stars4/5The Palestinian Delusion: The Catastrophic History of the Middle East Peace Process Rating: 4 out of 5 stars4/5Sharon: The Life of a Leader Rating: 4 out of 5 stars4/5The Shortest History of Israel and Palestine: From Zionism to Intifadas and the Struggle for Peace Rating: 4 out of 5 stars4/5No Room for Small Dreams: Courage, Imagination, and the Making of Modern Israel Rating: 5 out of 5 stars5/5Ben-Gurion: A Political Life Rating: 4 out of 5 stars4/5Fighting Back: Stan Andrews and the Birth of the Israeli Air Force Rating: 0 out of 5 stars0 ratings
Middle Eastern History For You
The Hundred Years' War on Palestine: A History of Settler Colonialism and Resistance, 1917–2017 Rating: 5 out of 5 stars5/5Egyptian Mythology: An Enthralling Overview of Egyptian Myths, Gods, and Goddesses Rating: 4 out of 5 stars4/5The Shortest History of Israel and Palestine: From Zionism to Intifadas and the Struggle for Peace Rating: 4 out of 5 stars4/5Generation Kill Rating: 4 out of 5 stars4/5The Ethnic Cleansing of Palestine Rating: 4 out of 5 stars4/5Islam: A Short History Rating: 4 out of 5 stars4/5Palestinian-Israeli Conflict: A Very Short Introduction Rating: 5 out of 5 stars5/5Ur: The History and Legacy of the Ancient Sumerian Capital Rating: 4 out of 5 stars4/5On Palestine Rating: 5 out of 5 stars5/5In Distant Lands: A Short History of the Crusades Rating: 4 out of 5 stars4/5History of Israel – Palestine Conflict Rating: 4 out of 5 stars4/5Babylon: Mesopotamia and the Birth of Civilization Rating: 4 out of 5 stars4/5Jesus Through Middle Eastern Eyes: Cultural Studies in the Gospels Rating: 5 out of 5 stars5/5Eichmann in Jerusalem: A Report on the Banality of Evil Rating: 4 out of 5 stars4/5Palestine: A Four Thousand Year History Rating: 4 out of 5 stars4/5The Genius of Israel: The Surprising Resilience of a Divided Nation in a Turbulent World Rating: 4 out of 5 stars4/5The Terrorist Factory: ISIS, the Yazidi Genocide, and Exporting Terror Rating: 4 out of 5 stars4/5The Palestinian Delusion: The Catastrophic History of the Middle East Peace Process Rating: 4 out of 5 stars4/5The Mossad: The History and Legacy of Israel’s National Intelligence Agency Rating: 3 out of 5 stars3/51967: Israel, the War, and the Year That Transformed the Middle East Rating: 4 out of 5 stars4/5Except for Palestine: The Limits of Progressive Politics Rating: 4 out of 5 stars4/5The Biggest Prison on Earth: A History of the Occupied Territories Rating: 4 out of 5 stars4/5In the Shadow of the Sword: The Birth of Islam and the Rise of the Global Arab Empire Rating: 4 out of 5 stars4/5The Arc of a Covenant: The United States, Israel, and the Fate of the Jewish People Rating: 5 out of 5 stars5/5Letters to My Palestinian Neighbor Rating: 4 out of 5 stars4/5From Beirut to Jerusalem Rating: 4 out of 5 stars4/5A Peace to End All Peace: The Fall of the Ottoman Empire and the Creation of the Modern Middle East Rating: 4 out of 5 stars4/5
Related categories
Reviews for Twelve Tribes
0 ratings0 reviews