A groundbreaking and authoritative examination of Israel by one of the most influential columnists writing about the Middle East today. Facing unprecedented internal and external pressures, Israel today is at a moment of existential crisis.
My Promised Land, the first ever winner of the Natan Book Award in the United States, tells the story of Israel as it has never been told before, and asks difficult but important questions: Why did Israel come to be? How did it come to be? And can Israel survive? Through revealing stories of significant events and lives of ordinary individuals — the youth group leader who recognised the potential of Masada as a powerful symbol for Zionism; the young farmer who bought an orange grove from his Arab neighbour in the 1920s, and helped to create a booming economy in Palestine; the engineer who was instrumental in developing Israel’s nuclear program; the religious Zionists who started the settler movement.
Israeli journalist Ari Shavit illuminates the issues and threats that Israel is currently facing, discussing with Jonathan Freedland his landmark portrait of a small, vibrant country living on the edge.

An event from 2014 Jewish Book Week.