Strange choice of topic, I know, but I spent much of yesterday reading Noa Tishby's "Israel" and I wanted to sum up my thoughts about it.
It isn't a bad book. That's what I'm saying on a bottom line level. Now to the specifics.
First, super to you, Ms. Tishby, for writing this book. It has the potential to do good. So, yeah.
But here's where I start getting critical. First off, the tone of the book betrays that the author doesn't know what kind of book she wants to write. Her use of slang and catchphrases already makes her prose look dated, but it also screams of patronizing younger readers. Here's a remarkable fact, youth of the world, Noa Tishby knows what "AF" stands for. Isn't that grand? And that she uses it repeatedly; that makes her cool, right? She uses "cray" so she must be in touch with youth culture, right? Feh. She doesn't know for whom she is writing this, struggling to balance the tongue in cheek with the historical. This just waters down its factual power.
Also, I wasn't keeping count, but I found at least 3 errors in the text. One was an internal contradiction, one bespoke an ignorance of the bible and one flawed historical reference. And the transliteration and translation of some of the Hebrew was horrible. If the book wants to be taken seriously as a reference guide, then its facts must be above reproach. But if I, a guy sitting on a couch, trying to avoid humanity, can spot easy mistakes, others can. And if I find 3, I worry that there are 30. It is the Gell-Mann Amnesia effect. How can I trust the rest of the work if I can find mistakes in it?
She also doesn't seem to know if she is writing a memoir of her family, a series of shout outs to her friends and colleagues, or a work of historical significance. She bounces between voices, foci and subjects, often addressing the reader directly in a way that undercuts the ability to take the work seriously.
Her facts are great. She does break down history into understandable chunks, but this reveals another area of difficulty for the author. Tishby is an avowed and unapologetic leftist (as it relates to Israeli policies). She does try to acknowledge her agenda and balance with a presentation of both political sides, but every time she does this, it seems that she simply points out why the right was right and why all of her left-leaning stances have been disappointed by reality. But she still tries to keep to the left.
This is a book that could unite disparate elements of Israeli society (or the American diaspora Jewish society) and is a book that could have been so much better had the content been handled more competently. It has stuff I haven't read before (historical facts that, if they are accurate, are very important in presenting the Israeli position) but it also wallows in the whole "my family was awesome and I have suffered in between all the stuff I have accomplished so I will speak for everyone and say, my family was awesome. And also, the people I quote from our conversation also wrote books that support what they told me personally because I'm a celebrity in Hollywood"
At first I wanted to hate this as a self-indulgent piece of promotion. Then I wanted to look it because it brought a good organizational scheme and some valuable facts to the table. hen I wanted it to be done because I got tired of her bouncing around, paralleling her family's existence with that of the state of Israel.
So, is it a good book? Yes and no. Worth reading, especially on the 9th of Av? Yes, but maybe take a salt suppository before you start.
