The gripping true story of how leading Israeli journalist Amir Tibon, along with his wife and their two young children, were rescued from Kibbutz Nahal Oz on October 7, 2023 by Tibon’s own father—an incredible tale of survival that also reveals the deep tensions and systemic failures that led to Hamas’s attacks that day.
 
On the morning of October 7, Amir Tibon and his wife were awakened by mortar rounds exploding near their home in Kibbutz Nahal Oz, a progressive Israeli community less than a mile from Gaza City. Soon, they were holding their two young daughters in the family’s reinforced safe room, urging them not to cry as gunfire echoed just outside the door. With his cell phone battery running low, Amir texted his “The girls are behaving really well, but I’m worried they’ll lose patience soon and Hamas will hear us.”
 
Some 45 miles north, Amir’s parents had just cut short an early morning swim along the shores of Tel Aviv. Now, they jumped in their Jeep and sped toward Nahal Oz, armed only with a pistol but intent on saving their family at all costs.
 
In  The Gates of Gaza , Amir Tibon tells this harrowing story in full for the first time. He describes his family's ordeal—and the bravery that ultimately led to their rescue—alongside the histories of the place they call home and the systems of power that have kept them and their neighbors in Gaza in harm’s way for decades. 
 
Woven throughout is Tibon's own expertise as a longtime international correspondent, as well as more than thirty original with residents of his kibbutz, with the Israeli soldiers who helped to wrest it from the hands of Hamas, and with experts on Gaza, the Israeli-Palestinian conflict, and the failed peace process. More than one family's odyssey,  The Gates of Gaza  is the intimate story of a tight-knit community and the broader saga of war, occupation, and hostility between two national movements—a conflict that has not yet extinguished the enduring hope for peace.

This is a heartwarming little comedy from Israeli director Ephraim Kishon.
Shaike Ophir plays Azulai, a Hulot-like character who is a bit too nice to be a proper policeman.
While his friends have all gone onto the higher ranks of the force, Azulai has always been stuck where he is.
In fact, he's only there due to his 'friends in high places' pity.
This is mainly a comedy due to Azulai's antics but it's not all laughs.
Recommended for any fan of Tati and alike.
--zoneyoutwonk
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Born in Budapest, Hungary, as Ferenc Hoffmann, Ephraim Kishon studied sculpture and painting, and then began publishing humourous essays and writing for the stage. After 1945 he changed his surname from Hoffmann to Kishont. He emigrated to Israel in 1949, where an immigration officer gave him the name Ephraim Kishon.
Acquiring a mastery of Hebrew with remarkable speed, he started a regular satirical column in the easy-Hebrew daily, Omer, after only two years in the country. From 1952, he wrote the column "Had Gadya" in the daily Ma'ariv. Devoted largely to political and social satire but including essays of pure humour, it became one of the most popular columns in the country. His extraordinary inventiveness, both in the use of language and the creation of character, was applied also to the writing of innumerable sketches for theatrical revues.
Azulai is a soft-hearted and incompetent policeman in Jaffa. His superiors want to send him to early retirement, but he would like to stay on the force. The criminals of Jaffa who also don't want to see him leave try to find a way to help him keep his job.

Set in Mandatory Palestine in the dying days of the British Empire, this new documentary offers a fascinating account of the murder of young Jewish resistance fighter Alexander Rubowitz by decorated British Army officer Roy Farran. A tragic event and an embarrassment to His Majesty’s government, the murder of Rubowitz served as a painful symbol of the long, violent battle between the British forces in Palestine and the Zionist paramilitary organisations who demanded independence. Based on a book by the late British-Jewish historian David Cesarani and featuring dramatic reconstructions as well as a wealth of archival materials, Mandate for Murder tells a devastating story that is both deeply personal and entirely political.

How has a small nation of 9 million people, forced to fight for its existence and security since its founding and riven by ethnic, religious, and economic divides, proven resistant to so many of the societal ills plaguing other wealthy democracies?

Why do Israelis have among the world’s highest life expectancies and lowest rates of “deaths of despair” from suicide and substance abuse? Why is Israel’s population young and growing while all other wealthy democracies are aging and shrinking? How can it be that Israel, according to a United Nations ranking, is the fourth happiest nation in the world? Why do Israelis tend to look to the future with hope, optimism, and purpose while the rest of the West struggles with an epidemic of loneliness, teen depression, and social decline?

Dan Senor and Saul Singer, the writers behind the international bestseller Start-Up Nation, have long been students of the global innovation race. But as they spent time with Israel’s entrepreneurs and political leaders, soldiers and students, scientists and activists, ultra-Orthodox Jews, Tel Aviv techies, and Israeli Arabs, they realized that they had missed what really sets Israel apart.

Moving from military commanders integrating at-risk youth and people who are neurodiverse into national service, to high performing companies making space for working parents, from dreamers and innovators launching a duct-taped spacecraft to the moon, to bringing better health solutions to people around the world, The Genius of Israel tells the story of a diverse people and society built around the values of service, solidarity, and belonging.

Widely admired for having the world’s highest density of high-tech start-ups, Israel’s greatest innovation may not be a technology at all, but Israeli society itself. Understanding how a country facing so many challenges can be among the happiest provides surprising insights into how we can confront the crisis of community, human connectedness, and purpose in modern life.

Bold, timely, and insightful, Senor and Singer’s latest work shines an important light on the impressive innovative distinctions of Israeli society—and what other communities and countries can learn.

Set during the tense 19 days of the Yom Kippur War in 1973, Israeli Prime Minister Golda Meir is faced with the potential of Israel’s complete destruction. She must navigate overwhelming odds, a skeptical cabinet and a complex relationship with US Secretary of State Henry Kissinger, with millions of lives in the balance. Her tough leadership and compassion would ultimately decide the fate of her nation and leave her with a controversial legacy around the world.

2016 Israeli comedy film

A rich, wide-ranging portrait of the divisions among Israelis today, at a critical juncture in their country’s history, by a veteran New York Times correspondent who has spent decades working in Israel

“A wondrous tale told through the agonizing and uplifting stories of Israel’s many tribes — Jewish and Arab, religious and secular, new immigrants and veterans, soldiers and settlers.”—Martin Indyk, author of Master of the Game, and former U.S. ambassador to Israel

Despite Israel's determined staying power in a hostile environment, its military might, and the innovation it fosters in businesses globally, the country is more divided than ever. The old guard—socialist secular elites and idealists—are a dying breed, and the state’s democratic foundations are being challenged. A dynamic and exuberant country of nine million, Israel is now largely comprised of native-born Hebrew speakers, and yet any permanent sense of security and normalcy is elusive.

In The Land of Hope and Fear, we meet Israelis: Jews and Arabs, religious and secular, Eastern and Western, liberals and zealots—plagued by perennial conflict and existential threats, citizens who remain deeply polarized politically, socially, and ideologically, even as they undergo generational change and redefine what it is to be an Israeli. Who are these people and to what do they aspire?

In moving narratives and with on-the-ground reporting, Isabel Kershner reveals the core of what holds Israel together and the forces that threaten its future through the lens of real people: a son of Zionist pioneers, cynical about what is to come and his people’s status in it; a woman in her nineties whose life in a kibbutz has disintegrated; a brilliant poet caught up in the political maelstrom; an Arab gallery owner archiving a lost Palestinian landscape; and a descendant of the Russian aliyah; representing millions of culturally and religiously different Jews, laying bare the question Who is an Israeli? The Land of Hope and Fear decodes Israel today at its seventy-fifth anniversary, examining the ways in which the country has both exceeded and failed the ideals and expectations of its founders.

Israeli crime fiction drama series

Making a war is a storyteller's job. A good story is crucial to legitimize the use of military force. That's why militaries need strong promotion and Israel is a model country in promoting its military ventures. We've successfully colonized, occupied and overgrown, and only got stronger and more accepted amongst the nations. Our history as persecuted Jews, our enlightened democracy are both in use in our solid PR kit. But before pitching our story to the world, we need to pitch it to our children. As moral corruption linked with apartheid thrives, avoiding service becomes a threat. For some children we'll offer benefits, for most we'll sell fictitious promises. Every child is screened to serve with bearable pressure and an adjusted amount of exposure to violence. 'Innocence' tells the story of children who resisted to be enlisted but capitulated. Their stories were never told as they died during their service. Through a narration based on their haunting diaries, the film depicts their inner turmoil. It interweaves first-hand military images, key moments from childhood until enlistment and home videos of the deceased soldiers whose stories are silenced and seen as a national threat.

What is it about our Israeli-Palestinian Conflict that won't allow it to end? Is what happened between us really so unforgiveable and unsolvable? Anat Zeltzer and Modi Bar-On return to this story once again, but this time they try to tell it, not as a quarrel is recounted but as a lesson is taught. Let's call it a refresher lesson. Let's call it a Homeland Lesson.

This Book Highlights Israel’s Northern Borders—Crucial to the Nation’s Survival—Where Israel’s Soul Thrives Amid Persistent Danger, Isolation, and Economic Tribulation.
By combining intimate profiles of residents in multiple border communities with thorough research, you will meet daring people who settled the region, overcame its hardships, and remain determined to live normal lives in a challenging land.
Written by a member of the International Advisory Board for Alma, a Northern Israel Research and Education Center, this fascinating narrative reveals the century-plus story of the return of a Jewish presence to Israel’s northern borders where a Jewish nation once flourished.
“Living in Heaven, Coping with Hell is a meticulously researched, deeply reported and compellingly written account of the unique challenges and remarkable resilience of the Jewish communities along Israel’s often precarious northern borders.” -David Leach, author of Chasing Utopia: The Future of the Kibbutz in a Divided Israel.
Those intrepid souls that settled the land and hold it today will stir you, and humor you, as you encounter ordinary men and women that accomplished extraordinary things. You will learn of:
Idealistic and courageous Jews fleeing pogroms in Eastern Europe and Russia.
Zionists building a nation.
The Kibbutz–its rise, fall, and struggle to rise again.
Hezbollah, terrorism, and Katyushas.
Why Israelis remain determined to live along Israel’s northern borders.
Inspiring stories of people who now populate the region.
Communities along the border you will want to explore when you visit Israel.

2022 film directed by Alon Schwartz