Kibbutz Journal: Reflections on Gender, Race and Militarism in Israel

Ferguson, who usually calls Hawaii home, traveled halfway around the world to spend a year on an Israeli kibbutz. Although she is not herself Jewish, her husband is Israeli and it was with his family that Ferguson, her husband and their two sons spent the year from April 1992 to July 1993. Hers was a complicated identity: neither insider nor outsider, she was in a good position to examine the the linguistic, political and cultural forces that connect and divide the country. Using a necessarily disjointed journal format, Ferguson's observations sometimes become a theory-laden, feminist deconstruction of everyday Israeli life. But more often, and more successfully, she simply describes this life, letting her affectionate, conflicted voice become an eloquent bridge for Israel's idiosyncrasies. There are no revelations here, but Kibbutz Journal does provide an alternate route toward understanding this much-contested country. Ferguson's route is neither a short-cut nor a scenic detour, but an academic road passionately, personally traveled. (Mar.)