Spies of No Country: Secret Lives at the Birth of Israel, by Matti Friedman, tells the fascinating story of the first attempts by the Jewish community in Palestine, and the early State of Israel, to spy on its Arab neighbors.
Israel used native Arab speaking Jews from the Middle East, men who were Arab in identity but Jewish in religion. Friedman lays out the multiple layers of exile/identity/tribe of these early spies. They were men of the Middle East: from Syria, Egypt, and Iraq. In a state dominated by European Jews, these early spies navigated multiple and at times contradictory identities.
This is the most fascinating thing about Friedman’s book. Israel would become more and more a Middle Eastern nation after 1948. More than half of all Israeli Jews now have ancestry from the Middle East. These men helped pave their way.
Israel used native Arab speaking Jews from the Middle East, men who were Arab in identity but Jewish in religion. Friedman lays out the multiple layers of exile/identity/tribe of these early spies. They were men of the Middle East: from Syria, Egypt, and Iraq. In a state dominated by European Jews, these early spies navigated multiple and at times contradictory identities.
This is the most fascinating thing about Friedman’s book. Israel would become more and more a Middle Eastern nation after 1948. More than half of all Israeli Jews now have ancestry from the Middle East. These men helped pave their way.
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