My Years in Israel

Israel and the turbulent Middle East through the eyes of a Czech Television reporter

“More than a quarter of a century of visits to Israel, over twenty years in journalism, and more than four years as a Czech Television correspondent in the Middle East. Yes. I think the time has come to put it all down on paper and offer it to readers. Not just a description of the Israeli mentality, but also of local politics or the Israeli-Palestinian conflict.

Czechs are interested in Israel. Who knows, maybe it’s partly because the country isn’t entirely easy to understand, and the more you know, the less you understand (like me in the first years I started coming here). My book is an attempt to unravel, name, and explain it all (and also to add something about me and my work). My working method is honesty (with myself and others), a dislike of pathos, and a passion for observing my surroundings, which I probably gained from working in a visual medium like television. It’s not an all-encompassing love for humanity and people that speaks through me, but I really do enjoy observing them. And I try not to be scandalised by their follies (and there are plenty of them here), or to fight other people’s battles.

Not fighting other people's battles doesn't mean I avoid expressing my own opinion. On the contrary. I just want to do it 'my way', without clichés, believably, and with life experience, because together that creates the integrity with which I address the public. I am sure the reader will recognise it.

After reading this book, you will find out, among other things:
* What personal joke does the leader of the Islamist Hamas movement in Gaza like to laugh at?
* Why are Israelis such terrible drivers?
* What threw my form teacher off in 1986?
* From which side is Benjamin Netanyahu’s face allowed to be filmed?
* Where do you go for a wee in a rocket shelter?
* Who are the people who decorate their living room with photos of Palestinian teenagers with submachine guns?
* How did Israelis manage to fall out so badly that they had to go to the polls five times in a row?
* When was I most afraid in Israel, even though it had nothing to do with armed conflicts?
* In which Muslim town in Galilee can you get by with Czech?
* Who does the word 'Yekepotz' refer to?
* What does it look like when a new Israeli settlement is secretly being built on the West Bank?
* What is the worst musical genre in the world and why is it specifically oriental disco?
* What are the main misconceptions Israelis and Palestinians have about each other?
* What exactly happened when rockets flew at us during a live broadcast for Czech Television?
* Why do ultra-Orthodox Jewish women have such beautiful hair?

Okay, now in all seriousness. I have written a very, very honest book. About my roots, about my work as a journalist and correspondent for Czech Television, about political and military conflicts, and about my everyday life in Israel. All these levels are interconnected. Whether I'm describing the oddities and intrigues of Israeli election campaigns, reminiscing about my childhood in Rokycany, arguing with people on the beach or at a petrol station near Tel Aviv, or recounting a reporter's experiences of rocket attacks and emotional demonstrations. I didn't want to write mere snippets from filming or war stories, or just another travelogue about little churches and holy places, nor the one hundred and eighty-sixth book on the history of Israel. I was aiming for a far more colourful, and yet paradoxically much more interconnected, more compact read.”

David Borek, author of the book