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The Settler Kindle Edition
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She heads off to Tel Aviv to start college. Once intent on bringing holiness to Israel's own "city of sin", this "good girl" now seeks to indulge in the hip city's pleasures to escape her loss. The deliverance she never thought possible comes to her in the form of Tel Aviv's hottest nightclub, Atlantis, and its charismatic owner, Ziv Harel.
Ziv is more than glad to transform a “religious settler” into a nightlife queen, but how far will Sarah go to question who she is - and at what cost?
- LanguageEnglish
- Publication dateJanuary 1, 2014
- File size2851 KB
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Editorial Reviews
Review
And while the disengagement itself is a compelling story, and the landscapes of Gush Katif, Jerusalem and Tel Aviv are settings rich with personality, Arfa goes further, setting music - the composition, study, remuneration and enjoyment of it - as a barometer for measuring theevolution and redemption of the characters.
- Jerusalem Post
It is rare to read or hear about the 11,000 expellees; but now, ten years on, Orit Arfa has written a work of historical fiction cum romance that makes Disengagement/Expulsion come alive for the reader. Arfa's writing voice is bright and sassy, much like the book's heroine, Sarah, AKA "Shachar" Dakar.- Huffington Post
Arfa executes the difficult balance between sociopolitical commentary and human development artfully, avoiding veering into caricature with grace and humor....Why can't we have more novels like this?
- Israel National News
The novel is beautifully written.
- Rick Richman, Jewish Current Issues
An unconventional novel.
- Yedioth Aharonot, Israel's leading daily
Arfa's words of great power sweep you into a deep, emotional connection with Sarah Dakar. While it's a political novel, anyone can relate to the plot, the pain, the loss, and the insights along the way, to the price each character pays, and to the human story told with great sensitivity.
- Prestige Magazine (Israel)
From the Author
About the Author
Product details
- ASIN : B00DO9ZTTG
- Publisher : Route 60 Press (January 1, 2014)
- Publication date : January 1, 2014
- Language : English
- File size : 2851 KB
- Text-to-Speech : Enabled
- Screen Reader : Supported
- Enhanced typesetting : Enabled
- X-Ray : Not Enabled
- Word Wise : Enabled
- Sticky notes : On Kindle Scribe
- Print length : 275 pages
- Best Sellers Rank: #1,409,817 in Kindle Store (See Top 100 in Kindle Store)
- #151 in Middle Eastern Literature (Kindle Store)
- #1,305 in Jewish Literature (Kindle Store)
- #1,861 in Women's Adventure Fiction (Kindle Store)
- Customer Reviews:
About the author

Orit Arfa is an author, journalist, painter, songwriter, political commentator, and media personality.
A native of Los Angeles, Orit’s works are informed by the ethical dialectic that flows from her Jewish education and upbringing. Her father was born in a Displaced Persons camp in Germany to Holocaust survivors, while her mother was born in Iraq on the eve of the mass Iraqi Jewish emigration to Israel in the wake of anti-Semitic pogroms. Orit led a free Jewish life in America, having attended modern Orthodox schools, but the soul of a free spirit led her tailor-make her educational journey.
While most of her peers were either bar hopping or learning Torah, Orit went college-hopping in search of “The Truth.” After stints at Columbia University, Stern College for Women, Bar Ilan University, and UCLA, she graduated with a BA in Jewish studies and a minor in journalism from American Jewish University, where she also served as editor of the undergraduate newspaper.
While a student at Stern College, she interned at the Jewish daily Forward. Her profile of renowned Israeli mentalist Uri Geller got noticed by The Jewish Journal of Los Angeles, for whom she has been writing ever since.
She moved to Israel in 1999 and continued to write about politics, society, lifestyle and travel for a variety of publications, most notably The Jerusalem Post. To catch-up on bar-hopping she missed in college, she pioneered the nightlife section of The Jerusalem Post. But she also left room for Torah. In 2003 she completed her MA in Bible and Jewish Thought at the Schechter Institute of Jewish Studies (where she managed to finally uncover “The Truth”).
Her experience covering the withdrawal from Gaza in 2005 had a profound impact on Orit’s view of Israel and Zionism. It was then that she began to develop her novel, "The Settler." In 2016, Orit moved to Berlin to write about German-Israel affairs and to complete her second novel: "Underskin," a German Israeli love story.
She currently lives in Berlin.
Customer reviews
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Top reviews
Top reviews from the United States
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Arfa takes us through the broad sweep of Middle Eastern politics vis a vis Israel, and a down and dirty tour through present day Israel as it copes with the contradictions and inconsistencies in a society that has seen more than its share of death and sadness as its people seek love and fun.
This is not a weekend read, unless you have a long holiday weekend with no other distractions. It’s hard to put down, but it’s also doubtful that you can get through it in one sitting; it’s just too intense.
Regardless of where you stand on the Arab-Israeli issue or the problem of Israeli settlements, you will enjoy reading this book. In fact, if you want to understand the dilemma that’s the Israeli problem better, I recommend this be one of the texts that you consult.
Sarah’s family is evicted from their home in Gaza after a deal is signed between the Israelis and Palestinians. We never hear their point of view in mainstream media - they are always portrayed as fanatics, when in reality, they are just people trying to live their life. And they are also always portrayed as oppressors, but they had mostly good relations with their Palestinian neighbors. This book does a good job making you think about these stereotypes.
Sarah is understandable angry (she is only 21, her parents worked very hard to support their family and their farm’s workers and her brother was killed while serving in the IDF). She eventually moves to Tel Aviv and starts living a secular life. This is where we meet a lot of the book’s other great characters, especially her cousin Dael, her new Ethiopian friend and her club-owner Boss/potential love interest. There is also a great villain whom you will love to hate.
It was really fun living vicariously through Sarah while reading the book. It took me back to my club-going days in Israel. It has some obviously very serious plot lines, but it’s not a heavy read. I also liked the tug of war between her secular life in Tel Aviv and modern orthodox background.
You won’t regret buying this book - it’s a lot of fun and you will learn a lot as well!
If the beginning of the book makes you cry, the middle of it will have you pounding your fist, wanting to smack Sarah, the main character for her stupid mistakes. But it's all necessary to the story and realistic for someone 18 or 19 years-old to rebel after having gone through such a trauma. She had to fall in order to get back up again, and get back up again she does!
Each character is there for a reason, and as a reader, you feel like you know them all and understand where they're coming from. The lead male character and love interest, Ziv, is surprising, and there's far more than meets the eye the further on you read.
This is the best book I've read in a long time. I bought the e-book version, but it's worth having a real copy!
Top reviews from other countries


Orit would seem to be a skilled writer with much to offer us in the future.


Nach einem Selbstmordattentat auf einen Nachtclub in Tel Aviv will dessen Besitzer trotzdem ein "Party for peace" abhalten. Sein Gegenpart sagt dazu: “We all know what the word ‘peace’ means these days: appeasing terror, uprooting settlers, launching another Islamic dictatorship.” (S. 177)
Bei jeder Attacke auf Israel durch Raketenbeschuss aus Gaza erhebt sich ein Chor der Verständnishabenden auch in Europa. Gegen die Israelis wird der absurde Vorwurf des Rassismus erhoben: "People who oppose Jews living in Judea and Samaria often accuse the “settlers” of being racist against Arabs. It’s odd how these same people would be sure to punish a Jew who steals, especially Jews whom they allege steal “Palestinian land,” but they’d condone a “poor” Arab for blowing up his kid. That’s racism at its finest: holding Arabs to one moral standard and Jews to another."
Immer wieder wird der Vorwurf erhoben, Israel hätte den Arabern das Land gestohlen. Nichts ist falscher als das. Die arabische Bevölkerung profitierte durch den Zuzug von Juden. Sie schufen Arbeitsplätze, besiegten die Malaria und sorgten dafür, dass die Kindersterblichkeit abnahm.
“I told him how Gush Katif was built on empty sand dunes, unlike Ramat Aviv, which was built on Arab ruins. I told him about the hothouses, the billions of shekels in agricultural exports, the coexistence we had with the Arabs before Oslo." (S.211).
Abgesehen von den politischen Themen, die in diesem Roman angesprochen werden, geht es auch um den Stellenwert der Religion im Leben, um Liebe, Sexualität und Partnerschaft.
Ein anregender Roman für alle, die bereit sind, sich auf eine andere Sichtweise einzulassen.

I realized that many of the reviews were written by female readers, yet I highly recommend it to male readers as well. Although the main character is Sarah (and it is written from her viewpoint, in the first person), there are strong male characters like her cousin Dael and of course the charismatic Ziv Harel. Exactly that sublime blend of romance, political debate, social portrayals and philosophical questions between the lines makes it an unforgettable novel.