In the Belly of the Whale: Portraits from a Fractured Israel

“Margalit is one of those rare, dogged reporters who renders real lives with the subtle beauty and pain of fiction. Her portrait of Israeli society is intimate, humane, and haunting. Future generations must read this book to understand the time in which we lived.”  — Evan Osnos, author of The Haves and Have-Yachts

For more than a decade, Ruth Margalit has been chronicling life in contemporary Israeli for The New Yorker and the New York Times magazine as the country has embraced right-wing extremism under Benjamin Netanyahu. Here she collects 11 of her profiles of wide-ranging figures from across society, returning to consider and update them from her current reality as a writer and mother living in Tel Aviv at a time of war.

To live in Israel today, Margalit writes, is to be either a whale or a Jonah—trying to make do in the belly of the whale. Her profiles of Israelis from all strata of society represent both: outsiders trying to make a life in a system designed against them, and insiders hatching plans and amassing power all while riding the twin waves of populism and jingoism.

Richly reported and animated by a novelist’s eye for detail and drama, Margalit’s writing is distinguished by its political acuity and narrative sweep. Kaleidoscopic in scope and poignant in its portrait of a country in turmoil, In the Belly of the Whale traces an unforgettable journey through present-day Israel, illuminating realities that can seem inscrutable even to the keenest observers.