Jews say the darnedest things.
That’s been the experience of East Bay author Donna Rosenthal. On globetrotting tours for her book, “The Israelis,” Rosenthal fielded barrages from questioners even more ignorant than the pedestrians Jay Leno rounds up in his walking tours through Burbank — the same ones who are uncertain whether Richard Nixon or Warren Harding’s portrait graces the $3 bill.
But here’s the rub: It’s often Jews who are most ignorant about the Jewish state, and Jewish members of the media are no exception.
One time a radio-host rabbi tried to convince her that Israel was founded by Orthodox Jews. Another radio host asked her why Israelis don’t just move to some other country that’s safer.
A rabbinical student attending a lecture had no idea that non-Jewish soldiers serve in Israel’s armed forces.
One interviewer — hoping to end the segment on an upbeat note — managed to phrase her question using the worst terminology imaginable: “Donna, what’s the final solution for the Jews?”
Jews, it seems, aren’t born with an innate understanding of Israel or Israelis, and many don’t bother to learn anything. Rosenthal was shocked when she discovered that, according to one survey, only 18 percent of American Jews have visited Israel. Then she went on a book tour, and that figure became eminently believable.
“Approximately 75 percent of Americans get their news only from TV. They don’t read. As a TV producer, I know how this works. You see the images and you get the feeling of who Israelis are. But the images are so divorced from reality. Most cafes don’t explode,” said Rosenthal, a print and television journalist who’s worked for dozens of newspapers, magazines and TV stations in the United States and Israel.
“When you watch CNN or any other American TV station, you get the feeling everyone in Israel speaks perfect English and is from Brooklyn. But out of 6.9 million Israelis, only about 120,000 were born in any English-speaking country.”
Rosenthal’s book, which required five years of research, is now out in paperback. And — as a deep exploration of the Israel you don’t see in five-minute television snippets of exploding buses, stores and streets — it’s attracted attention from some unexpected corners of the globe. Rosenthal reports healthy sales in Pakistan and Indonesia, a pair of nations that don’t even acknowledge the existence of Israel, let alone “The Israelis.” And the book is also doing well in Israel, where many of its diverse characters appear side-by-side on the pages, but would never interact in actual life.
Even Israelis were surprised to learn that:
• Israel’s Christian Arabs have the nation’s lowest birth rate and highest education rate and are the most affluent population in Israel, per capita.
• A large percentage of the agricultural workers on kibbutzim are from Thailand.
• The most popular male first name in Israel is Mohammed.
Israel’s Soviet-born population, meanwhile, has embraced Rosenthal’s work. “Finally,” one Russian Israeli told her, “someone is telling the story that we’re not all hookers and mafia.”
Even if you don’t have time to read Rosenthal’s book, you just might get an Israeli tutorial in person. She keeps high-tech gear within an arm’s reach 24 hours a day should she overhear the odd ignorant comment about the Jewish state.
When a doctor sitting near her on an airplane remarked that Israel was a Third World country with medical facilities befitting a desert wasteland, Rosenthal quickly reached into her purse and unearthed a flashy silk lipstick case. And you can bet it wasn’t lipstick she was about to show off.
In her hand she held what appeared to be a very large pill — which it was — but it was also a very small camera. This Israeli-invented device allows doctors to view pictures recorded by the pill as it passes through the digestive system. The amazing device is known as an M2A pill (the “M” stands for mouth, and we’ll leave it to you to figure out what the “A” stands for).
Her book has “opened up a whole discussion among American Jews who thought they knew about Israel,” she said.
“Israelis are like the strangers in the room.”
“The Israelis: Ordinary People in an Extraordinary Land” by Donna Rosenthal (480 pages, Free Press, $15 paperback).