My Promised Land
The Triumph and Tragedy of Israel
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My Promised Land
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Narrated by:
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Paul Boehmer
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By:
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Ari Shavit
About this listen
New York Times best seller
Named One of the Best Books of the Year by The New York Times Book Review and The Economist
Winner of the Natan Book Award, the National Jewish Book Award, and the Anisfield-Wolf Book Award
An authoritative and deeply personal narrative history of the State of Israel, by one of the most influential journalists writing about the Middle East today.
Not since Thomas L. Friedman's groundbreaking From Beirut to Jerusalem has a book captured the essence and the beating heart of the Middle East as keenly and dynamically as My Promised Land. Facing unprecedented internal and external pressures, Israel today is at a moment of existential crisis. Ari Shavit draws on interviews, historical documents, private diaries, and letters, as well as his own family's story, illuminating the pivotal moments of the Zionist century to tell a riveting narrative that is larger than the sum of its parts: both personal and national, both deeply human and of profound historical dimension.
We meet Shavit’s great-grandfather, a British Zionist who, in 1897, visited the Holy Land on a Thomas Cook tour and understood that it was the way of the future for his people; the idealist young farmer who bought land from his Arab neighbor in the 1920s to grow the Jaffa oranges that would create Palestine’s booming economy; the visionary youth group leader who, in the 1940s, transformed Masada from the neglected ruins of an extremist sect into a powerful symbol for Zionism; the Palestinian who as a young man in 1948 was driven with his family from his home during the expulsion from Lydda; the immigrant orphans of Europe’s Holocaust, who took on menial work and focused on raising their children to become the leaders of the new state; the pragmatic engineer who was instrumental in developing Israel’s nuclear program in the 1960s, in the only interview he ever gave; the zealous religious Zionists who started the settler movement in the 1970s; the dot-com entrepreneurs and young men and women behind Tel-Aviv’s booming club scene; and today’s architects of Israel’s foreign policy with Iran, whose nuclear threat looms ominously over the tiny country.
As it examines the complexities and contradictions of the Israeli condition, My Promised Land asks difficult but important questions: Why did Israel come to be? How did it come to be? Can Israel survive? Culminating with an analysis of the issues and threats that Israel is currently facing, My Promised Land uses the defining events of the past to shed new light on the present. The result is a landmark portrait of a small, vibrant country living on the edge, whose identity and presence play a crucial role in today’s global political landscape.
Praise for My Promised Land
“This book will sweep you up in its narrative force and not let go of you until it is done. [Shavit’s] accomplishment is so unlikely, so total...that it makes you believe anything is possible, even, God help us, peace in the Middle East.” (Simon Schama, Financial Times)
“[A] must-read book.” (Thomas L. Friedman, The New York Times)
“Important and powerful...the least tendentious book about Israel I have ever read.” (Leon Wieseltier, The New York Times Book Review)
“Spellbinding...Shavit’s prophetic voice carries lessons that all sides need to hear.” (The Economist)
“One of the most nuanced and challenging books written on Israel in years.” (The Wall Street Journal)
©2013 Random House Audio (P)2013 Ari ShavitListeners also enjoyed...
Critic reviews
“Shavit's provocative book avoids the clichés typical of some works about the Middle East, and the audio version benefits from Paul Boehmer's superb presentation.” (AudioFile Magazine)
“The most extraordinary book that I’ve read on [Israel] since Amos Elon’s book called The Israelis, and that was published in the late sixties.” (David Remnick)
“Shavit is a master storyteller. [His] retelling of history jars us out of our familiar retrospections, reminds us (and we do need reminders) that there are historical reasons why Israel is a country on the edge.... Required reading for both the left and the right.” (The Jewish Week)
What listeners say about My Promised Land
Average customer ratingsReviews - Please select the tabs below to change the source of reviews.
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Overall5 out of 5 stars
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Performance5 out of 5 stars
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Story5 out of 5 stars
- Allegra Taylor
- 01-03-22
Excellent
A most scholarly and enlightening history. Beautifully narrated. Fair, honest and impartial. Acknowledging both the triumphs and tragedies
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Overall4 out of 5 stars
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Performance5 out of 5 stars
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Story4 out of 5 stars
- Mark McNally
- 17-04-17
Balanced and provocative - would recommend
Would you listen to My Promised Land again? Why?
Yes, a balanced listen to life experiences and the political overview of life in Israel
Who was your favorite character and why?
No favourite character - just interesting narrative that puts a balanced view across and puts key events in emotional and political context
Have you listened to any of Paul Boehmer’s other performances? How does this one compare?
No
Did you have an emotional reaction to this book? Did it make you laugh or cry?
Found the book thought provoking
Any additional comments?
No
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1 person found this helpful
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Overall5 out of 5 stars
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Performance4 out of 5 stars
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Story4 out of 5 stars
- Anthony
- 13-06-14
Unsettling and challenging critique of Israel
An important book that deserves to be widely read and discussed.
The author, an Israeli journalist, structures his book around a series of key themes and explorations, each focused on individuals and their perspectives, set within the context of the unfolding political economy of Israel. We hear through this chronology about Zionism and the establishment of Israel, the aspirations and values, the challenges, and ultimately the different forms of violence perpetrated by early settlers against the Palestinian communities, the violence of surrounding Arab states against the fledgling state, and the violence of the settlers against a wide range of Palestinian communities.
This is a well structured, interesting but challenging book. It is unsettling and disconcerting. It throws up, time and again, dilemmas and decisions - taken between a so-called rock and a hard place. Decisions were made which allowed Israel to survive and in so doing undermined the rights and search for nationhood by the Palestinians. The rationale for Israel is presented against the backdrop of the Holocaust and the desire by Arab states to wage war, defeat and ultimately end the Jewish presence in the Middle East.
Chapters focus on a single issue explored from multiple perspectives - covering issues ranging from the Israeli Peace Movement and how it has been undermined to the Settlements and their ambitious and cunning establishment of a new locus of power and authority within Israel. We learn about the Israeli Palestinians and their dilemmas and desires, the Israeli nuclear capability, and the nightmares facing Israeli citizens playing a small part, each, in undermining the rights of Palestinian protestors and youth. We hear insights reflecting the views of key stakeholders - those engaged in establishing Israel's burgeoning economy which at different stages has flourished dramatically, the demise of the social contract and emergence of neoliberalism undermining the sense of community and social cohesion, the role of the nightclubs and sex and hedonism which is a tonic for the daily tensions and personal confrontations around the raison d'etre for Israel while its role in the occupation has torn at its values-base.
We learn about the ongoing challenges within the country and within the region, within the people and within its supporters. Shavit provides much food for thought, arguing in the final pages and along the way, that this past and the realities need to be recognised; that hard choices need to be made which represent an acknowledgement of the suffering of the Palestinians and agreed form(s) of compensation; the end to Occupation and Settlements; and the need to rekindle the human and collective values upon which the state was originally proposed; and the importance of a fair, modernised, transformed and reinstitutionalised democracy (my string of terms) in which all can live with their rights and entitlements intact.
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7 people found this helpful
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Overall5 out of 5 stars
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Performance5 out of 5 stars
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Story5 out of 5 stars
- D Jacobs
- 07-11-23
A masterful, balanced account of Israel over the past 130 years.
This is an excellent book. It reveals the struggles, successes and failures of the new Israel. Significantly, it does so by showing Israelis as not only the victims of outrage and atrocity, but as perpetrators; the plight of Palestinians is not glossed over.
The book is brilliantly read by Paul Boehmer.
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1 person found this helpful
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Overall5 out of 5 stars
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Performance5 out of 5 stars
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Story5 out of 5 stars
- Lindsay
- 18-12-23
Balanced history
I read this in Dec 2023, so as the Israel onslaught of Gaza was in progress. As neither a Jew nor an Arab myself, I was pleased to listen to what seems to me to be, for the most part, a balanced and informative account of the area since the end of the 19th century. I highly recommend it.
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1 person found this helpful
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Overall5 out of 5 stars
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Performance4 out of 5 stars
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Story5 out of 5 stars
- Emanuele
- 21-02-16
Israel's history, from a very balanced perspective
What did you like most about My Promised Land?
Wonderfully narrated, balanced, gripping
What was one of the most memorable moments of My Promised Land?
no specific moment
What about Paul Boehmer’s performance did you like?
Strong Israeli accent, but it is part of the picture. Can pronounce Israeli names correctly.
Any additional comments?
Read it.
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Overall4 out of 5 stars
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Performance4 out of 5 stars
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Story4 out of 5 stars
- Amazon Customer
- 26-02-24
Interesting, in depth analysis of Israel
Covered a lot of ground so was certainly very informative. I learnt a lot from it.
Some of the writing became a little repetitive at times (…and yet…).
Felt like a reasonably balanced assessment of Israel, obviously written from a Jewish Israeli’s perspective. Would recommend.
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Overall4 out of 5 stars
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Performance5 out of 5 stars
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Story4 out of 5 stars
- Andy Ellis
- 08-10-20
Not what I expected...
on purchasing this book I envisioned, partly based on reviews here, that I would be hearing an impassioned defence of the Israeli state with a one sided interpretation, This is an interpretation rarely heard in full as it's often shouted down however I wanted to balance my knowledge of the region with another side. This book makes clear that much of the tragedy of Israel and Palistine is that the right refuse to consider the life story of Palistine while the left refuse to accept that of the Jewish population of Israel. wars and atrocities from both sides as well as other nation state actors are spoken of in the human context of tragedy. what I feel I have gained from this book is a better understanding of the people and culture of Israel from a sympathetic standpoint. if you think you are not going to be able to consider these life stories sympathetically you will probably not appreciate this book. if you read it with an open mind I believe you will find it's story rewarding. I liked this book.
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5 people found this helpful
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Overall5 out of 5 stars
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Performance5 out of 5 stars
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Story5 out of 5 stars
- Amazon Customer
- 13-11-17
Highly recommend...
... to anyone looking for a comprehensive insight into modern Israel with all its diversity, complexity and difficult history.
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Overall5 out of 5 stars
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- Dorota Kotowicz
- 06-11-17
Balanced, heart felt account of the situation
A great read, a book with heart and brains, difficult to abandon, full of ideas to reflect on.
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1 person found this helpful