Customer Reviews

Arab and Jew: Wounded Spirits in a Promised Land

5 star:		(12)
4 star:		(5)
3 star:		(5)
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This was an outstanding book. Over 500 pages packed full of information and insight. The book goes in depth on the problems in Israel and the Middle East. Not just the problems that we hear about on TV. But the people problems. The author goes to the deep underlying problems. The people and their customes and beliefs. Covering the stereo types, the religious differences, their histories. The book interviews people about their fears. The author talks to both Arabs and Jews. He talks to Christians, Muslims and Jews. He reviews incidents of terrorism on all sides of the conflict.

This is a must read book if you are interested in understanding the problems of the Middle East. Although it is full of information it is not hard to read. It goes a long way at explaining things. We all know that the problems in the Middle East are not easy to solve but this book showed me how truly deep the problems run. The prejudices from all sides are astounding.

This is an outstanding piece of writing and research! Read it and enjoy.

Subtitled "Wounded Spirits in a Promised Land", the author won a Pulitzer Prize for this book in 1987. He's a journalist for The New York Times and was assigned to Jerusalem from 1979-1984. The book has been updated in May of 2002 and now includes references to 9/11 as well as other more recent events in the Middle East. Now, more than ever, this book is relevant for an understanding of what is going on today. Mr. Shipler, who makes a point of saying that he is neither Jewish nor Arab, has an impartial American's point of view. The book is dense with facts and I found his explanations of the history of the region clear and balanced.

The major part of the book, however, is devoted to a great many interviews of both Arabs and Jews. And, through their eyes, the reader is thrust into the human element of the conflict. Often, it is repetitive as over and over again he makes his point of contrasting the viewpoints from the different sides. But that only added to the intensity of the experience of reading this book, which was assigned as required reading for a course I am taking at NYU about the Middle East. I've taken other courses that dealt with the facts, but this book goes well beyond the facts. It goes into the hearts and minds of the people.

In contrasting chapters he brings out the viewpoints of the opposing groups. The Arabs view the Israelis as violent, craven, and alien with a superior attitude. The Israelis view the Arabs as violent, craven, primitive and exotic. Both have fears and fantasies regarding seduction and intermarriage, and even though sometimes there is a mingling of cultures, fear and distrust usually prevails. The first edition of the book seems to end with a bit of hope as there are visits back and forth between Arab and Jewish schools, and some group activities inspired by the human potential movement. Some young people were even sent to camp together in Maine, and friendships were forged. However, by 2002, all this had turned to ashes as the last few years have again divided people and left each group with hatred for the other. Now I understand the reasons why.

Reading this book was uncomfortable at times, but I'm well aware that it is more than merely uncomfortable for the people involved. Mr. Shipler has given me the opportunity to appreciate an experience that has always seemed strange and distant to me. It is not light reading. It's 531 pages of well-written prose that manages to unravel the threads of complexity and make it all seem real. I applaud Mr. Shipler for writing this book.

As someone who is neither Arab nor Jew and who has lived in Israel for a few years, I can say that this book pretty much mirrors my experiences. If you want an objective view (which is pretty hard to get in mainstream media these days) this book is a must read. I recommend this book to anyone who wants to understand more about what the real situation is like in Israel.

If you want to read a book about the Arab-Israeli conflict in order reinforce your position, this is not the one. This book offers no solutions nor presents any new arguments. In fact, its poignant depiction of suffering on both sides will make you question any prior views you've held, and that's a very difficult choice for some people to make. The prose is almost hypnotic, transcending the dryness of most non-fiction books. There hasn't been a book like Shipler's Arab and Jew in the last fifteen years. This book was written before the first intifadah, so some of the statistics are out of date, and rhetoric has intensified. I only wish Shipler could update this great work.

This book is amazing. I can hardly praise it enough. It tells the story of the Israeli/Palestinian conflict from both sides, usually through stories and personal interviews. Fascinating reading. This book is required reading for the History of the Middle East class at Eastern Mennonite University, and it is also required for the cross-cultural groups that go to the Middle East for a semester of study.

Whenever I feel like reading a book, I actually turn to this book first, certainly before any other homework or even before a novel. That means I actually get some work done ahead of time for once in my college career! It is easy to read, and I've underlined so much on each page I'm afraid I won't be able to read it very well when I read it a second time! And I *will* read it a second time, at least...

Great book. If there were a way to give this book 4 and a half stars, I would have rated it such. Shipler's book manages to give a face to both sides of the Palestinian-Israeli conflict without taking sides. Never before has there been such a need for people to be exposed to the intricacies behind both sides of the Middle East conflict. If you are interested in the historical facts that have led up to the Promised Land's current state of volatility, there are probably better books to go to. However, if you want to hear from the inside what the Palestinian experience is like living in occupied West Bank, Golan Heights, and Gaza Strip and their viewpoint of Israelis, no book can do it better. Also, what stands out above the fray of literature on this subject, is the continual reaching out of individuals and individual groups' to reconcile their differences and the points of hope and points of futility that result from these attempts. If you are looking for something black and white that will give you a clear conclusion on what is to be done in the middle east Pandora's Box that is modern day Israel, this book will not give it to you. What it will give you is an epiphany as to just how complex the human dimension is between the Jews and Arabs and how there really is no clear solution to the conflict as long as things remain status quo. It is not a hopeful book, but a deeply revealing one. Don't hesitate to buy this book if you are interested in the human dimension in modern day Israel and Palestine.

This book is a well-written and relatively balanced account of the social forces that are hindering peace in Israel and the occupied territories. It is very thorough and you will certainly learn a lot about social life there that you never knew (even Israeli citizens may learn some surprising things about their country).

My only gripe about the book is that the author treats many behaviors and prejudices as being the root of the problem -- while those prejudices may simply be the result of the geopolitical strife in the area. Specifically, Shipler's solutions to the problems of hatred and prejudice don't contain any suggestions for long-term political fixes. Consequently, all of the individual efforts to eradicate hatred and prejudice that he highlights tend to get buried by larger forces. I know that Shipler was striving to maintain neutrality with a very controversial subject, but I would have liked at least an overview of the potential fixes and how they would fit into the social landscape that he sees.

This is a balanced, albeit incomplete, analysis of the relationship between Arabs and Jews in the Middle East.

I can't quite put a finger on why I was let down by this book; Shipler is an excellent writer and most of the stories in the book are simply great. He seems to excel in finding the perfect anecdote for each situation, so that even though many of the people interviewed hold similar views, each seems to add a new angle to the argument rather than being repetitive. On the other hand, this book seems to have no point. As a collection of stories and personal testimony, it has no equal. But in the end, the narrative just kind of trails off into oblivion; Shipler offers neither solutions nor suggestions, not even direction. Given, he admits at the start of the book that such direction is difficult, if not impossible to offer. But you'd think that especially after revising the book following the collapse of the Oslo Accords, he'd have something to say, some greater point to offer. But, unfortunately, nothing is there, and it seems to harm an otherwise wonderfully written collection.

Some of the people who reviewed this book were mistaken. Shipler gives a fair and accurate portrayal of life in the most volitile place on Earth. As a historian, it is refreshing to see a book that does not take sides with either Arab or Jew and neutrally describes the horrors of politics and religion in the middle east.

In Arab and Jew, Shipler shows the history of Israel from 1948 on. The book provides information on a lot of the contemporary issues of the country. It shows how terrorism, racism, and prejudice have been practiced by both sides. It looks at how Israel has fought and won its wars and the measures it takes to prevent terrorism. It provided me with a lot better understanding of Israel.