Award-win­ning news cor­re­spon­dent Mar­tin Fletch­er, who served as NBC Bureau Chief in Tel Aviv for thir­ty years, has writ­ten a refresh­ing, per­son­al book about Israel. Instead of deal­ing with war, ter­ror­ism, and pol­i­tics, he decid­ed to find the heart and soul of the coun­try by walk­ing from the Lebanese bor­der to Gaza. Along the way, he met some fas­ci­nat­ing peo­ple, learned a great deal of his­to­ry, and dis­cov­ered the cul­tur­al and geo­graph­i­cal diver­si­ty of the coun­try. Among the intrigu­ing peo­ple that he met are an Arab who con­vert­ed to Judaism, a daugh­ter of Holo­caust sur­vivors who lost her fam­i­ly in a ter­ror­ist attack, and a Chris­t­ian Arab. All have inter­est­ing tales that pro­vide insight into the com­plex human rela­tion­ships that exist in Israel today. Read­ers will learn that despite the polit­i­cal con­flicts, coex­is­tence is the norm, with syn­a­gogues, church­es, and mosques shar­ing the neigh­bor­hoods and peo­ple get­ting along for the most part. From the kib­butz to down­town Tel Aviv, Fletch­er pro­vides a view of Israel that nev­er appears in the news.

Read Mar­tin Fletcher’s Posts for the Vis­it­ing Scribe

From Seri­ous News to the Tabloids

Field Sto­ries with­out Names

The Best Part of Traveling