This is a fabulous book, and I am very happy to have read it given where Israel is following the 2015 elections. Ari Shavit is a great storyteller as well as giving excellent insights into Israel, Israeli Society and what motivates Israel.

“There was hope for peace, but there will be no peace here. Not soon. There was hope for quiet, but there will be no quiet here. Not in this generation. The foundations of the home we founded are somewhat shaky, and repeating earthquakes rattle it. So what we really have in this land is an ongoing adventure. An odyssey. The Jewish state does not resemble any other nation. What this nation has to offer is not security or well-being or peace of mind. What it has to offer is the intensity of life on the edge. The adrenaline rush of living dangerously, living lustfully, living to the extreme. If a Vesuvius-like volcano were to erupt tonight and end our Pompeii, this is what it will petrify: a living people. People that have come from death and were surrounded by death but who nevertheless put up a spectacular spectacle of life. People who danced the dance of life to the very end.”

I have been living with this book for more than two months. I started with the audio, but the CDs did not want to play in my car player. So I switched to the book. One way or another I felt like I was having a conversation with Shavit and that I was learning how one man sees Israel. That is the significant fact for me about this volume. This story is being told by Shavit and it is his version of events. Although this contains history, it also contains opinion. Not all or even most Israelis would see their country as Shavit sees it.

I appreciate his version. Shavit did help me see Israel as history and as current events. We walked through the history of Shavit’s country decade by decade with each decade getting its due. Other non-fiction books I have read have concentrated on the highlights – the battles for independence, for survival. I knew nothing about what happened in Israel as the country absorbed all the emigrants that moved there or about the Israeli nuclear developments. Although I know that some of the history told here is skewed by the teller, that is true of any history.

I am really glad to have read a book about Israel by someone who has lived there his entire life. In my opinion, this is a great part of this book. Shavit is an Israeli and very proud of that fact. He is willing to admit that his country has made mistakes – something that some Americans struggle with. I don’t agree with everything Shavit says, but I feel that my opinions are worth more because I read this work. I may not see Israel clearly, but my vision is improving.

I have to mention one note of concern. My head says that Shavit’s personal behavior should not have affected his journalism. However, his behavior did affect my reading of this book. In the acknowledgements, Shavit says the book would not have been written without his wife who he calls his love and inspiration. I had to take these words with a large grain of salt. Shavit is one of the many men who have abused women over the years. (https://www.nytimes.com/2016/10/31/world/middleeast/israel-ari-shavit-sexual-harassment.html) I learned of these accusations as I read this book.

When I got to the acknowledgements, I found his words to his wife hard to take. I admit, I don’t know anything about Shavit’s marriage. I just know how I would feel if my husband was accused of behaving as Shavit did. I also wondered about what other things we don’t know about Shavit’s conduct. I am hoping that his journalistic ethics are better than his sexual ethics.

Great introduction to the story of the founding of the country of Israel. With personal accounts.

This is a fantastic book. Avi Shavit places Israel in an historical, geographic, religious and ethnic context such that I now have a much better understanding of the country. In addition to being about Israel in particular, it's about what makes a country of immigrants and what holds it together as it grows and evolves. Brilliant, clear-eyed and timely, it's an essential read for a 360° understanding of Israel.

I came upon this book having read nothing in-depth previously about Israel or the history of the Jewish people. My educational exposure had been limited to my half-hearted, soon-to-be abandoned effort in early childhood to read the Old Testament and Christian Bible; the subjects' cursory treatment in school; and later, reports and commentary in news media. While media reports and commentary helped to inform, they could not patch the gaps in my knowledge.

My Promised Land transformed this reader from a person who was largely oblivious of the issues, and therefore disinterested, to someone fueled by a keen desire to learn more about the Jewish people, and their ancient history and earliest origins.

How could a book of non-fiction inspire in that way?

Ari Shavit wrote a love letter to and on behalf of Israel. It's a love letter filled with aching pride, affection - and equal shame. It soars with hope - then plummets to the depths of despair. Its words sparkle with brilliant clarity, amidst arrant confusion. Shavit wrote his book of non-fiction like a novel of the best contemporary literature.

My Promised Land is a journey of self-discovery for both the man and his people. It's at once a deeply personal history and the history of a young nation. The author tells the tale of his ancestors and those of others, the details of their lives uncovered from long-buried or previously unknown photographs and records. Then he describes events and locations of almost two centuries ago as if he were there, as though he had jumped into a time machine and transported himself to those places. Through artful language, he then describes what he sees, hears, smells and feels so that, in turn, the reader is also transported.

I was taken particularly by Shavit's story of a 1930s orange grove, one which had been located in the Jewish colony of Rehovot in Palestine, in a period not long before all hell broke loose. An entire chapter is devoted to the birth and growth of Israel's orange industry.

Prior to the passage I quote below, Shavit has described in exquisite detail how the owner and his orange grove came to be, at this time and in this place. How the land would have been ploughed, the water canals dug, and the hoped-for orange trees seeded. How and when the first shoots of the young trees would have appeared. And how the relations among neighbours, Arab and Jew, grew from curiosity to conviviality, to their visiting each others' homes, sharing meals and enjoying festivities together.

The first season of the young orange grove is critical. The orange grower has to start up the formidable pump that draws water from the deep well. He has to clear out the irrigation canals into which unripe fruit has fallen in winter. He has to redig the furrows and bowls, and weed, clean, and dispose of dry thorny branches. He has to make sure that all is set for the first rains of summer.

At the end of April 1935, disaster strikes in the form of a heat wave…. If action is not taken immediately, half of the orange crop will be lost and the citrus season of 1935–36 will be a bust. The first watering of the young Rehovot grove is therefore an act of emergency. The pump pulls the clear water to the pool, and from there the water travels down the open, cemented canals until it emerges from the circular openings of the clay grate into the sandy furrows. The Arab guardian, his pants hiked up to his knees, his bare feet covered in mud, guides the water with a hoe from tree to tree. He quickly traps the water by each tree with a tall mound of soil so that the trees would be able to withstand the deadly dry desert winds.

The heat wave brings with it a sense of panic. More water is needed quickly. They must save what can be saved. The orange grower and the Arab guardian are joined by their families, who work beside them in the stifling heat. Still, in the midst of the panic they can hear the sounds of children’s gaiety, shouting in Hebrew and in Arabic, as they run to watch the gushing water. After the children lend their small hands to the great common effort, they steal away to the square pool and jump gleefully into its cool waters. While the adults are still struggling with the heat and with the sense of approaching calamity, the youngsters discover all that is forbidden, wondrous, and fun in this man-made Garden of Eden.

It is not all so tranquil and not long thereafter conflict erupts.

A Jew born in Israel, Shavit knows that only facing the truth of Israel's creation and the circumstances of its present, in all its history's bald, brutal detail will save the young nation's future. An example is the author's blunt description of the 1948 Lydda slaughter which began Israel's ousting of Palestinians from their homes. Those who had been brutally dispossessed in turn dispossessed Palestinians, uprooting them from homes in which the Palestinians' own ancestors had been born centuries past. Shavit devotes an entire chapter to Lydda alone.

It's clear that Shavit's heart breaks at the atrocities and injustices done by the Zionists. It is clear also that, while he abhors the means, he recognizes the necessity of the outcome, for otherwise there would have been no Israel and no Israelis, such as one named Ari Shavit.

I've only one criticism about the book. It began to drag near the end and could have been about 50 pages shorter. Shavit excels at painting in words the reality suggested by old records and photos. However, when he waxes philosophical, he frequently repeats the same idea over several sentences; and he waxed most philosophical near the end of the book. That is a minor criticism, however, one merely worth the docking of half a star. Since a half-star isn't an option, I rate this book five stars.

Thanks to My Promised Land, I shan't soon forget the names of persons and places I'd not heard of previously. I'll not forget Lydda; and I want to go back and read that chapter again - and likely, again. Nor will I forget that orange grove owner or his Arab guardian, both of whom worked side-by-side to save the young orange trees. And I am determined now to learn more about Israel and her people.

This book was not entirely what I expected as far as format, but I liked the way the author organized the book. I am knowledgable on some of Israel's history, but I appreciated the author including some of the history of Jewish people returning to the land, then Palestine, before Israel was formed in 1948. It helped me to better understand some of the country and peoples' history.

I think the author gave a balanced representation of the political environment in that region of the world. I can't say that I agree with all of his view, but I don't disagree with all of them either. If you want to learn about Israel's more recent history, primarily the 20th century, this would be a good book to read.

(Full Disclosure: I had the opportunity to meet the author and get a signed copy of this book last year. Having said that, this review reflects my own views and does not reflect that of the author or publisher.)

When discussions about Israel come up in America, they quickly get caught up in domestic politics and polarized. So it's refreshing to get a perspective on Israel from an Israeli and one of Israel's best journalists at that. And, boy, what a perspective. In this wonderful book, Mr. Shavit explores the 100+ years of Zionism and Israel starting with his Great-Grandfather, Herbert Bentwich, and his fact-finding mission to Palestine in 1897 to the present. He often personal and always insightful. His greatest insight is the fact that, according to Mr. Shavit, Zionism is in deep crisis both internally and, in the long term, externally. Ever since the wars of 1967 and 1973 and the creation of the settlements a few years later broke the socialist-liberal foundations Israel was founded on and has lacked the political leadership to address the issues. Not only that, but the Arab Spring, while making things easier for Israel in the short term, could make things more dangerous in the long term. But this book is not all doom and gloom. Mr. Shavit also celebrates Israel's accomplishments like the kibbutzes of the 1930s, the strong economy and military Israel built in the 1950s, and Israel's ability to absorb so many immigrants from Europe in the aftermath of World War II and the Holocaust. This book is both intimate and broad. The only thing I have against this is that, with Mr. Shavit's change in topics from chapter to chapter, particularly as he comes to the 2000s, feel like they were lifted from articles he wrote as a journalist. In fact, in one of his chapters, he does that at length. However, his writing is great, so I don't begrudge him at all for this. Also, the hardcover copy of this book only goes to about 2013 and talks about the existential threat Iran's nuclear program, but doesn't get as far as the recent deal between Iran and the P5+1 nations. Perhaps an updated paperback copy has an afterword about this and I would recommend looking for that edition rather than this hardcover. Otherwise, this is a great book about Zionism and Israel's past, present, and future, and I highly recommend this book to everyone interested in this country.

Had to return it to the library, dangit! Made it 1/3 through and hope to come back.