A Five Part Series from TTBOOK!

Public Radio International

Wisconsin Public Radio

CAN WRITERS SAVE ISRAEL?

Program 08-05-18-A

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The state of Israel turns Sixty this year, but what is its future as a Jewish democracy? The Arab population in Israel will soon outnumber the Jews. Even diehard Zionists are calling for the creation of a Palestinian state. In this hour of To the Best of Our Knowledge, a look at the role Israeli writers play in the Middle East Peace Process. Also, America's role in the area, which goes back to the eighteenth century.

SEGMENT 1:

Jeffrey Goldberg wrote the cover story for the May issue of the Atlantic magazine which describes a very public dispute between the Prime Minister of Israel and one of the country's leading novelists. Goldberg talks with Jim Fleming about the role of the "public Intellectual" in Israel, the coming demographic problem the country faces, and expresses some doubt about Israel's long-term viability as a Jewish democracy. Also, Susan Abulhawa, author of "The Scar of David" and of Palestinian descent, and Margot Singer, an American Jew and author of "The Pale of Settlement" talk with Steve Paulson about their experiences and writing about life in the refugee camps of the West Bank.

SEGMENT 2:

Meir Shalev is one of Israel's most respected and beloved novelists. His latest novel is "A Pigeon and A Boy" and is set in the present day and during the war of Independence. Shalev tells Jim Fleming that he thinks the solution to the Israeli-Palestinian problem reached at the conclusion of that war was a just one and that the parties should return to the 1948 agreement. Etgar Keret is read by a younger generation of Israelis. His fiction is surreal and explosive. He tells Anne Strainchamps that he is the child of Holocaust survivors and that his work reflects life in Israel as it really is today. His latest collection in English is called "The Girl on the Fridge."

SEGMENT 3:

Historian Michael Oren is the author of an exhaustively researched book called "Power, Faith and Fantasy: America in the Middle East, 1776 to the Present." Oren talks with Steve Paulson about how the Barbary Pirates brought the Marines to the shores of Tripoli and why they went into the Middle East six times during the 19th century.

CD copies are available at 1-800-747-7444. Ask for program number 08-05-18-A.

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Books:

Jeffrey Goldberg Prisoners: A Story of Friendship and Terror (Vantage)
Susan Abulhawa The Scar of David (Journey Publications)
Margot Singer The Pale of Settlement (University of Georgia Press)
Meir Shalev A Pigeon and A Boy (Schocken)
Etgar Keret The Girl on the Fridge (FSG)
Michael B. Oren Power, Faith and Fantasy: America in the Middle East: 1776 to the Present (Norton)

Music:

• After Goldberg: Maxwell Street Klezmer Band You Should Be So Lucky Shanachie 67006 Tr. 10
• After Singer/Abulhawa: Yair Dalai and the ALOL Ensemble Silan Najema Music & TV P.O.B 4296 Tel Aviv 61042 Ph/Fax 972 3 6761810 email: najema@netvision.net.il
• After Shalev: Maxwell (as above) Tr. 3
• After Keret: Maxwell (as above) Tr. 16
• After Oren: Ali Jihad Racy Performs Music of the Middle East Mystical Legacies Lyrichord LYRCD 7437
  Tr. 9

Distribution dates: week of 05/18/2008 - hour 1

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