Zusatztext "David Berlin weaves together the personal! intergenerational! cultural! religious and political strands of a complicated story of passion and hope.... He invites us to take another look at worn-out solutions to this seemingly intractable conflict. It is a wonderful addition to the canon of writings on the Middle East." The Rev. Dr. Bill Phipps! moderator! United Church of Canada! 1997-2000 "Berlin's family history makes for the perfect example to illustrate the larger tale.... A beautifully written! truly heart-wrenching book." The Winnipeg Review Informationen zum Autor DAVID BERLIN is an Israeli-born journalist and editor who grew up in Canada but returned for a time to live in Israel. He served his military duty in Ariel Sharon's reconnaissance unit, Sayeret Shaked, and took part in Sharon's Suez campaign. After attending medical school at Tel-Aviv University, he graduated from the University of Chicago's programme on social and political thought, and taught at several universities. His work has appeared in Saturday Night , the Literary Review of Canada , the Globe and Mail , the National Post and Haaretz newspaper, among others. He lives in Toronto. The author lives in Toronto, ON. Klappentext The Moral Lives of Israelis explores the last ten years of life in Israel! a sixty-one-year-old country that has never not been in a state of war. The last words given to David Berlin by his father! a Sabra who had fought for Israel's independence! were not words of love for his son and his grandchildren! but this command: "Look after my little country." These words set off a huge voyage of exploration and remembrance for Berlin. The result is a thrilling blend of memoir! reportage and original thinking on the place of Israel in the world. The fundamental question that floats over every page of this passionate book is! with so many missteps and in a region deeply fraught with antagonism! racism and misunderstanding! how can Israel move forward? After many dead ends and twists and turns! it is the nineteenth-century visionary father of Zionism! Theodor Herzl! who ultimately sparks Berlin's dream for Israel in the twenty-first century--it is Herzl's insistence on a secular and cosmopolitan state that Berlin sees as a way to move beyond. David Berlin's brave inquiry brings a startling new perspective to a question that resonates well beyond the borders of Israel. Leseprobe My parents called me Zafrir, which in Hebrew means zephyr, a cool morning breeze like the one that blew me into Assuta Hospital on May 14, 1951. The morning I was born, that gentle current of air soon broke into the flattening, scorching wind that the Arabs call hamsin and Israelis call sharav; even the insulated walls of Israel's first private hospital could not hold back the disabling sirocco that attacked Tel Aviv from the south. I sweated you out, my bittersweet mother never failed to remind me. My own father was swept out of the hospital on the waves of his own perspiration. And your father? Well, he was called up to the reserves. I stuck with you, she said. But your name? That was your father's doing. He loved the name as he loved the boy who first carried it, Zafrir Carmelli, who was your father's sunnier side. The two of them grew up together on the farm and then Zafrir was killed on the Castel, an old crusaders' fortress on the road to Jerusalem. The Arabs took it over from the British and a sniper's bullet went through his head. That was your father's blackest day and the pall hung about him until you were born. You brought him back to life . But there is more to my name than the blood of a beautiful boy. Roll it on your tongue, breathe in its vowels, and let the rhythm of its consonants work itself out and you will hear the entire history and greatest hopes of the Sabra...

"David Berlin weaves together the personal, intergenerational, cultural, religious and political strands of a complicated story of passion and hope.... He invites us to take another look at worn-out solutions to this seemingly intractable conflict. It is a wonderful addition to the canon of writings on the Middle East." The Rev. Dr. Bill Phipps, moderator, United Church of Canada, 1997-2000
"Berlin's family history makes for the perfect example to illustrate the larger tale.... A beautifully written, truly heart-wrenching book." The Winnipeg Review

Autorentext

DAVID BERLIN is an Israeli-born journalist and editor who grew up in Canada but returned for a time to live in Israel. He served his military duty in Ariel Sharon's reconnaissance unit, Sayeret Shaked, and took part in Sharon's Suez campaign. After attending medical school at Tel-Aviv University, he graduated from the University of Chicago's programme on social and political thought, and taught at several universities. His work has appeared in Saturday Night, the Literary Review of Canada, the Globe and Mail, the National Post and Haaretz newspaper, among others. He lives in Toronto. The author lives in Toronto, ON.

Klappentext

The Moral Lives of Israelis explores the last ten years of life in Israel, a sixty-one-year-old country that has never not been in a state of war. The last words given to David Berlin by his father, a Sabra who had fought for Israel's independence, were not words of love for his son and his grandchildren, but this command: "Look after my little country." These words set off a huge voyage of exploration and remembrance for Berlin.
The result is a thrilling blend of memoir, reportage and original thinking on the place of Israel in the world. The fundamental question that floats over every page of this passionate book is, with so many missteps and in a region deeply fraught with antagonism, racism and misunderstanding, how can Israel move forward? After many dead ends and twists and turns, it is the nineteenth-century visionary father of Zionism, Theodor Herzl, who ultimately sparks Berlin's dream for Israel in the twenty-first century--it is Herzl's insistence on a secular and cosmopolitan state that Berlin sees as a way to move beyond.
David Berlin's brave inquiry brings a startling new perspective to a question that resonates well beyond the borders of Israel.

Leseprobe
My parents called me Zafrir, which in Hebrew means zephyr, a cool morning breeze like the one that blew me into Assuta Hospital on May 14, 1951. The morning I was born, that gentle current of air soon broke into the flattening, scorching wind that the Arabs call hamsin and Israelis call sharav; even the insulated walls of Israel’s first private hospital could not hold back the disabling sirocco that attacked Tel Aviv from the south. “I sweated you out,” my bittersweet mother never failed to remind me. “My own father was swept out of the hospital on the waves of his own perspiration. And your father? Well, he was called up to the reserves. I stuck with you,” she said. “But your name? That was your father’s doing. He loved the name as he loved the boy who first carried it, Zafrir Carmelli, who was your father’s sunnier side. The two of them grew up together on the farm and then Zafrir was killed on the Castel, an old crusaders’ fortress on the road to Jerusalem. The Arabs took it over from the British and a sniper’s bullet went through his head. That was your father’s blackest day and the pall hung about him until you were born. You brought him back to life.”
 
But there is more to my name than the blood of a beautiful boy. Roll it on your tongue, breathe in its vowels, and let the rhythm of its consonants work itself out and you will hear the entire history and greatest hopes of the Sabra generation, Israelis whose lives straddled the desert of the colonial powers and the creation of the State of Israel, which gained its independence three years to the day before I was born.
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