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 Twelve Tribes Ethan
Michaeli proves he is a master portraitist ? of lives places and cultures. His rendering of
contemporary Israel crackles with energy fueled by a historian's vision and a journalist's
unrelenting curiosity.? ? Evan Osnos New York Times bestselling author of Age of Ambition and
Wildland 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.
