Out of Palestine: The Making of Modern Israel

Hadara Lazar, a prominent Israeli journalist, has been interviewing witnesses to the historic events of 1948 for a quarter of a century in an effort to understand the sources of this intractable enmity. Her book, a series of in-depth conversations with Israelis, Arabs, and British political figures who lived through the end of the British Mandate and the founding of the Jewish state is less a work of history than a chorus of distinctive voices: among Hadara's subjects are lawyers, policemen, intellectuals, soldiers, teachers, and housewives. She visits her subjects in their offices and homes, evokes their personalities, and brings them alive as characters in a drama with no last act. Out of Palestine is the most vivid, comprehensive account we have of how Israel became Israel.