Israeli journal

Israeli Journal recounts American artist Theresa Bernstein Meyerowitz's numerous trips to Israel in a personal document reflecting the history of the newly formed nation. Beginning in 1948, the author made thirteen trips, visiting modern cities and ancient sites, meeting with both relatives and strangers. All her impressions are recorded here with the artist's eye for detail. Theresa Bernstein is an artist, poet, and writer who, as a young girl in the early 1900s, remembers her father telling her stories of pioneer Jews struggling to farm the arid desert land. She also recalls her father telling her about Theodor Herzl's book Altneuland, literally "old-new land," a prophetic vision of the future state of Israel. The author is as gifted with words and pen as she is with paints and brush, and she has composed a lively memoir filled with colorful images of a country and its people while revealing intimate glimpses of her quick humor and the love she shared with her husband. Israeli Journal is a bold and powerful piece of writing for Bernstein, illuminated by her painting and poetry. The author tells her readers that she "became imbued with feeling for the heritage the Jews had fought and died for," and she could not write Israeli Journal without laying down the foundation of her own perceptions on the history and politics of Israel as she has come to understand them. As a result, this account is Bernstein's most exciting and complex literary endeavor.