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Rating: 
Summary: Jews and Arabs can get along.
Review: Over Looking Nazareth by anthropologist Dan Rabinowitz (an Israeli who is not afraid to criticize his own country's policies of exclusion) is an ethnographical study about the Israeli town of Upper Nazareth and the Jews and Arabs who live there. The city was established in the 1950s on Arab lands as part of Israel's attempt to "Judaize" and therefore dilute the concentration of Arabs in the Galilee. Gradually Arabs of neighboring and overcrowded Nazareth have moved into Jewish Upper Nazareth and now comprise about 14 percent of the population. The book's major strength is that it documents relations, both good and bad, between the Arabs and Jews of the two Nazareths including the heated debate between Upper Nazarenes on whether or not it is right to rent apartments to Arabs. Relations are best related in three ethnographic case studies: the first Arab member elected to Upper Nazareth's municipal council; an Arab coach of Upper Nazareth's basketball team; and an Arab pediatrician in Nazareth who treats Jewish children from Upper Nazareth. The relationship between these Arabs and Jews is often paradoxical. For example, the basketball players speak proudly of their mistreatment of Palestinians during the Intifada and yet willingly submit to the harsh treatment of their Arab coach whom they all respect. Similarly women of Upper Nazareth speak negatively about Arabs who have moved into their town, but then travel into Arab Nazareth to see the Arab pediatrician. While couched in anthropological theory, this book is very readable. It is an entertaining and informative glimpse into life on the Jewish-Arab divide in Israel. It shows that at a personal level these two peoples, in spite of differences and challenges can get along.
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