The daughter of the distinguished Israeli philosopher, Avishai Margalit, Ruth was born and raised in Jerusalem. She studied at Tel Aviv University, and attended Columbia University’s Graduate School of Journalism from 2010. For more than a decade, she has been chronicling life in contemporary Israel for The New Yorker and The New York Times Magazine before moving back to Israel
in 2019. She now lives and writes in Tel Aviv.
Ten of those pieces – profiles of figures from Israeli society, published since 2015 – are collected in her new book, In the Belly of the Whale. Eagle-eyed readers might spot the reference to George
Orwell’s famous 1940 essay, Inside the Whale, written during the Second World War, in which he compares being inside a whale’s belly to a warm, safe and passive place where you accept the world without trying to change it.
Though the book begins with the terrible plight of Israeli hostages seized by Hamas terrorists in 2023 (“They endured torture, starvation, and, according to testimony from several released hostages, sexual violence”), it is not just about October 7 or what has followed since. It was published before the recent election but does not feel at all out of date. Rather, it gives a fascinating insight into contemporary Israel and ranges far and wide, from leading politicians like Mansour Abbas and Ben-Gvir to the creators of the Netflix drama Shtisel, Ori Elon and Yehonatan Indursky, to the prominent archaeologist Israel Finkelstein and the politicisation of modern-day Israeli archaeology.
What is perhaps most striking about Margalit’s book is that it includes Arabs living in Israel and Palestinian cultural figures, such as the TV writer, Sayed Kashua, now living in the US, as well as Jewish Israelis. Just as interesting is that there are only passing references to major Israeli writers such as Amos Oz, David Grossman and AB Yehoshua, and there is more material covering TV writers than acclaimed literary heavyweights Ayelet Gundar-Goshen and Etgar Keret.
These are obviously deeply polarised times in Israel and it is clear where Margalit stands. “I’ve watched my country’s descent into menacing tribalism,” she writes, “and mourn what it is becoming.” But she then goes on, “I haven’t given up on my ailing motherland, even as I see it gasping for air. Not yet.”
She is clearly no fan of Netanyahu’s government (“the most extremist on record”), and her chapter on Ben-Gvir is scathing. But the most moving pieces are about the survivors of Kibbutz Be’eri, and Einav Zangauker, the mother of a hostage in Gaza, “who has emerged as Netanyahu’s fiercest foe”. A former house cleaner, Zangauker became “a leader of hostage relatives who held the most combative and political protests calling to release the hostages and end the war”. The book ends with a piece on Yair Golan, the leader of a left-wing party in Israel (the Democrats) and a former general who “has spent his entire career quietly opposing Israel’s occupation of the West Bank” and who saved the lives of six Israelis at the Nova music festival.
Above all, Margalit portrays Israel as a multi-ethnic nation, which includes Palestinians, Mizrahi Jews and Charedim, and politicians from every part of the spectrum, from Islamist party leaders to the most far-right members of Netanyahu’s cabinet. In the Belly of the Whale is a powerful introduction to what Margalit calls a “fractured” but also a very complicated nation. Her Israel is a world away from the facile slogans of Green politicians and supporters of Palestine Action. It is unlike any other book you will read about Israel this year. It is deeply human and ends with the death of her mother, with grief and loss.
In the Belly of the Whale, by Ruth Margalit, is published by Pushkin Press
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