Isabel Kershner
New York Times Correspondent in Jerusalem covering Israeli and Palestinian politics and society
A NEW YORK TIMES NOTABLE BOOK OF THE YEAR • An urgent, wide-ranging portrait of the divisions among Israelis today, and the external threats to their country, at a critical juncture in its history. • Through moving narratives and on-the-ground reporting, a veteran New York Times correspondent who has spent decades working in Israel reveals what holds the country together.
“A wondrous tale told through the agonizing and uplifting stories of Israel’s many tribes — Jewish and Arab, religious and secular, new immigrants and veterans, soldiers and settlers.”—Martin Indyk, author of Master of the Game, and former U.S. ambassador to Israel
"For anyone trying to understand the reality of Israel today.”—Dennis Ross, former U.S. envoy to the Middle East and the author of Doomed to Succeed
Since joining The Times’s Jerusalem bureau in 2007 Isabel Kershner has covered Israel’s wars with Gaza, the failed efforts at peacemaking and the often fraught, internal divisions and culture wars that shape the lives of Israelis and Palestinians. These include the struggles over the land in the West Bank; the Palestinian political schism; and Israel’s religious battles within itself and the Jewish world, including the case of a gutsy octogenarian woman who sued El Al, Israel’s national airline, to establish new, non-discriminatory guidelines for seat switching to accommodate ultra-Orthodox male passengers.
A fluent Hebrew speaker with working Arabic, she has been reporting on both sides of the Israeli-Palestinian divide since 1990, previously working for The Jerusalem Report magazine. She is the author of The Land of Hope and Fear: Israel’s Battle for its Inner Soul and Barrier: The Seam of the Israeli-Palestinian Conflict. Born and raised in Manchester, England, she graduated from Oxford University with a degree in Oriental Studies.
Kershner will be in conversation with Dr. Bonnie Ellinger, a former resident of Israel and member of the faculty of Bar Ilan University. Dr. Ellinger serves on the Program Committee of the Santa Fe Distinguished Lecture Series
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