Jerusalem Diaries: In Tense Times [Paperback]

Judy Lash Balint (Author)

Book Description

ISBN-10: 9652292710 | ISBN-13: 978-9652292711 | Publication Date: September 2001 | Edition: Updated 2001

Jerusalem Diaries: In Tense Times is a compelling and moving account of life in Israel today. In a series of essays, author and Jerusalem resident Judy Lash Balint travels to the very heart of Israel. From embattled Jewish settlements in the Gaza Strip, to the home of the grieving family of a victim of the Ramallah lynching incident; from the barricades in Gilo under Arab fire, to the gas mask stations where Israeli citizens queue to collect their lifesaving equipment. These vivid descriptions piece together a stirring portrait of a people struggling to maintain normal life in the most abnormal of settings. Balint succeeds where the evening news and the most sophisticated media technologies fail. She chronicles the everyday existence of ordinary citizens, whose lives have been irrevocably altered by extraordinary events. The result is an absorbing and inspiring account of a nation and a country weathering a rough and relentless storm.

Editorial Reviews

Review

" Jerusalem Diaries provides a fascinating glimpse of life in Israel and has many lessons Americans can take to heart." -- Eileen Goss, Jewish Community News, San Jose, California

Balint brings a wise and understanding heart, a keen eye, and great moral poise to her observations of Israel -- Edward Alexander Professor of English, University of Washington. Author of IRVING HOWE--SOCIALIST, CRITIC, JEW and THE JEWISH WARS: Reflections By One of the Belligerents

With sharp eye and penetrating pen Balint pierces the cant and hypocrisy that characterize much of today's reportage on Israel -- Walter Reich Professor of International Affairs, Ethics and Human Behavior, George Washington University

About the Author

Judy Lash Balint has published articles in the Christian Science Monitor, Jerusalem Post, The Forward, Seattle Times, Moment Magazine, The Jerusalem Report, Midstream, London Jewish Chronicle and numerous US Jewish weeklies. She lives in Jerusalem.

Product Details

• Paperback: 224 pages
• Publisher: Gefen Publishing House; Updated 2001 edition (September 2001)
• Language: English
• ISBN-10: 9652292710
• ISBN-13: 978-9652292711
• Product Dimensions: 8.6 x 5.9 x 0.6 inches
• Shipping Weight: 10.4 ounces (View shipping rates and policies)
• Average Customer Review: 5.0 out of 5 stars  See all reviews (9 customer reviews)
• Amazon Best Sellers Rank: #2,673,556 in Books (See Top 100 in Books)

More About the Author

Judy Lash Balint is a Jerusalem-based journalist and writer and author of Jerusalem Diaries: In Tense Times. (Gefen) and Jerusalem Diaries II: What's Really Happening in Israel (Xulon Press 2007) She is a contributor to the Fodor's Israel Guide as well as the Peace Fire anthology (Free Association Books) and The Expulsion from Gush Katif (Southern Hills Press).

She currently serves as communications coordinator for the Jerusalem Center for Public Affairs (www.jcpa.org) headed by Dr. Dore Gold

In 2003 Ms. Balint received the Mosaic Award for Excellence in Feature Writing about Israeli Peoplehood, Culture and Society and took second place in the Jerusalem Foundation's Excellence in Jerusalem Reporting contest.

Ms. Balint's work has appeared in the N.Y Post, Christian Science Monitor, Bookmarks Magazine, Jerusalem Post, Ha'aretz Magazine, The Forward, Seattle Times, Seattle P-I, Montreal Suburban, Moment Magazine, Jerusalem Report, World Jewish Digest, Whistleblower Magazine, Midstream, Bnai Brith International Jewish Monthly, London Jewish Chronicle, Jewish Telegraphic Agency, Jewish Action, Emunah Magazine, Amit Magazine and numerous US Jewish weeklies.

Born in the U.K., Ms. Balint earned an M.S.W and B.A from the University of Washington, Seattle, WA.

Customer Reviews

Most Helpful Customer Reviews

23 of 24 people found the following review helpful:

5.0 out of 5 stars This book gets it right !, April 4, 2002

By 

I. Michael Aronson (Israel) - See all my reviews

This review is from: Jerusalem Diaries: In Tense Times (Paperback)

This book gets it right!
I know - I was there... If you lived in Israel during the period November 1998 to May 2001, the period covered by this book, your sense of recognition will be stimulated most powerfully. If you did not live here, you will learn what many of us went through. I happen to share deeply the values of Jewish pride and determination to hold on to this Land as our home that inform and illuminate Judy Balint's essays. But even if you do not share her values, or even contest them, you will find this book a powerful and moving depiction of very difficult and daunting times.

In 55 short essays, ranging in length from 2 to 4 pages, Judy Balint describes graphically real places and people who are so close to me in my comfortable life, I could visit in a matter of minutes or at most a couple of hours. She describes events that made the world news broadcasts and others of a local or even private nature that reflect the experiences undergone by large parts of a whole nation. Her diary could, to a large extent, be my own, and undoubtedly that of thousands or even hundreds of thousands of Israelis.

Judy Balint writes with a cool passion. Often I could not help being deeply moved as I read her words. Her descriptions are a vivid revelation of events, personalities, scenes and scenery, heroism, suffering, forbearance, defiance, and dedication, the actions, emotions, and living values of very many of my fellow Israelis. A good read if you want to understand what Israelis have been going through in recent year.

18 of 18 people found the following review helpful:

5.0 out of 5 stars An Interesting and Informative Read, October 25, 2001

By 

steve david (USA) - See all my reviews

This review is from: Jerusalem Diaries: In Tense Times (Paperback)

I think this was a great book, a quick read and an interesting perspective of life in Jerusalem. I think people will thoroughly enjoy this. It's a new book, the author's work is highly readable, and I give it a thumb's up.

15 of 16 people found the following review helpful:

5.0 out of 5 stars Surviving, going on, December 6, 2001

By 

Alyssa A. Lappen (Earth) - See all my reviews
(TOP 1000 REVIEWER)    (VINE VOICE)   

This review is from: Jerusalem Diaries: In Tense Times (Paperback)

For anyone who wants to know what it's like to live with the threat of terrorism on a daily basis, this is a good place to start. Judy Lash Balint provides an excellent internet email service through which many of these essays originally appeared.

Here one finds the frustrations of daily life in Israel, what it means to live under the siege of a people whose leaders refuse to recognize your nation's very right to exist, whose school books and clerics call for your expulsion and death. The book shows what it means to travel in buses that are fired upon daily, to travel to several funerals of terror victims within a few days, to drive the terrorized road from Modi'in to Jerusalem, to live under nightly fire in the Jerusalem neighborhood of Gilo. It provides the Israeli perspective rarely given in the news, how deeply Israelis desire peace--and why.

Israelis are bleeding. There have been more than 600 Israeli victims of terrorism since the Oslo accords were signed--mothers, fathers, children, infants, teachers, rabbis. Proportionately, that would equal 25,000 in the U.S. When you finish this book, you will understand their humanity, and wonder why the Western press corps almost never shows that Israelis are people, too often denied their most basic right--the right to life--because they are Jews. Alyssa A. Lappen