Twelve Tribes
Audio only

Twelve Tribes

Promise and Peril in the New IsraelBy Ethan MichaeliNarrated by Steven Jay Cohen
Length13h 7m

About this audiobook

“Ethan Michaeli has a gimlet eye for the people, texture, and contradictions of modern Israel. I’m in awe of his powers of observation and his ability as a modern-day Tocqueville to take us inside one of the most complex and confounding countries in the world."" — Jonathan Alter, bestselling author of His Very Best: Jimmy Carter, a Life An ""illuminating"" and ""richly descriptive"" (New York Times Book Review) portrait of contemporary Israel, revealing the diversity of this extraordinary yet volatile nation by weaving together personal histories of ordinary citizens from all walks of life. In 2015, Israeli President Reuven Rivlin warned that the country’s citizens were dividing into tribes: by class and ethnicity, by geography, and along lines of faith. In Twelve Tribes, award-winning author Ethan Michaeli portrays this increasingly fractured nation by intertwining interviews with Israelis of all tribes into a narrative of social and political change. Framed by Michaeli’s travels across the country over four years and his conversations with Israeli family, friends, and everyday citizens, Twelve Tribes illuminates the complex dynamics within the country, a collective drama with global consequences far beyond the ongoing conflict with the Palestinians. Readers will meet the aging revolutionaries who founded Israel’s kibbutz movement and the brilliant young people working for the country’s booming Big Tech companies. They will join thousands of ultra-Orthodox Haredim at a joyous memorial for a long-dead Romanian Rebbe in a suburb of Tel Aviv, and hear the life stories of Ethiopian Jews who were incarcerated and tortured in their homeland as “Prisoners of Zion” before they were able to escape to Israel. And they will be challenged, in turn, by portraits of Israeli Arabs navigating between the opportunities in a prosperous, democratic state and the discrimination they suffer as a vilified minority, as by interviews with both the Palestinians striving to build the institutions of a nascent state and the Israeli settlers seeking to establish a Jewish presence on the same land. Immersive and enlightening, Twelve Tribes is a vivid depiction of a modern state contending with ancient tensions and dangerous global forces at this crucial historic moment. Through extensive research and access to all sectors of Israeli society, Michaeli reveals Israel to be a land of paradoxical intersections and unlikely cohabitation—a place where all of the world’s struggles meet, and a microcosm for the challenges faced by all nations today.

Audiobook details

GenreHistory, Politics and Government, Spirituality and Religion
Length13 hrs 7 mins
Narrated bySteven Jay Cohen
FormatAudiobook
Publish dateNov 16, 2021
LanguageEnglish

You may also like

The Age of Homespun
The Age of HomespunLaurel Thatcher Ulrich18h 50m$30
The Position of Woman in Primitive Society: A Study of the Matriarchy
The Position of Woman in Primitive Society: A Study of the MatriarchyC. Gasquoine Hartley4h 48m$2 · $0.00
The No-State Solution
The No-State SolutionDaniel Boyarin4h 54m$15
Fourth State of the Union Address
Fourth State of the Union AddressRutherford B. Hayes1h 34m$2 · $0.00
Navajo Silversmiths
Navajo SilversmithsWashington Matthews1h 14m$1 · $0.00
The God-Idea of the Ancients; Or, Sex in Religion
The God-Idea of the Ancients; Or, Sex in ReligionEliza Burt Gamble7h 57m$1 · $0.00
Roman Social, Legal, and Political Structures – 3 Classic Ancient History Studies
Roman Social, Legal, and Political Structures – 3 Classic Ancient History StudiesAlfred John Church, Flavius Josephus, Tacitus66h 48m$2
The American Future
The American FutureSimon Schama15h 59m$33 · $0.00
The Position of the Slavonic Languages at the present day
The Position of the Slavonic Languages at the present dayNevill Forbes1h 12m$1 · $0.00
History of the Ottawa and Chippewa Indians of Michigan
History of the Ottawa and Chippewa Indians of MichiganAndrew J. Blackbird4h 16m$1 · $0.00
The Struggle for a Decent Politics
The Struggle for a Decent PoliticsMichael Walzer5h 34m$17 · $0.00
African Colonization by the Free Colored People of the United States
African Colonization by the Free Colored People of the United StatesDavid Christy3h 8m$2 · $0.00
America Redux: Visual Stories from Our Dynamic History
America Redux: Visual Stories from Our Dynamic HistoryAriel Aberg-Riger2h 51m$18 · $0.00
American Tapestry
American TapestryRachel L. Swarns12h$29 · $0.00
Folkways
FolkwaysWilliam Graham Sumner30h 51m$1 · $0.00
In the Name of Identity
In the Name of IdentityMaalouf, Amin4h 1m4 (1)Free
Women in the Middle Ages
Women in the Middle AgesFrances Gies, Joseph Gies6h 49m$17
A Sense of Balance
A Sense of BalanceJohn Howard8h 50m$29 · $0.00
The Colonial Cavalier; or, Southern Life before the Revolution
The Colonial Cavalier; or, Southern Life before the RevolutionMaud Wilder Goodwin5h 45m$2 · $0.00
A High Price for Freedom
A High Price for FreedomClyde W. Ford11h 11m$29 · $0.00