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ACKNOWLEDGMENTS

Every book takes awhile to will itself into being. Some gestate longer than others, especially when you work a full-time job as an editor. Though it may seem like an ideal space to get work done—during the time of this book’s writing, I held down editorial gigs at three separate periodicals and edited three books—depending on how much consideration your subject demands, it’s more likely that the actual writing will take a lot longer than you ever could have imagined.

To that end, I cannot thank my publisher, Johnny Temple, enough, for waiting as long as he did for Israelvs. Utopia to finally materialize. Johnny, you’ve been a mensch, as always. And then some. The same goes for Akashic’s managing editor, Johanna Ingalls, and editor Ibrahim Ahmad. You all have been wonderful, supportive, and unbelievably patient with me. I’m thrilled to still be working with you after eight years. New York publishing still has nothing on you guys.

I’m equally grateful to this volume’s editor, Charlie Bertsch, for guiding Israel vs. Utopia to publication. He not only handled the grammar and content with remarkable ease, but also used this project as an opportunity to teach himself about the painful reality of the Arab-Israeli conflict. My religious colleagues would call Charlie a “righteous Gentile.” All I can say is that Charlie’s tire-less efforts made for a far better book. That, to further indulge the native, is its own mitzvah.

Heartfelt gratitude goes to Ron Nachmann, one of my favorite music critics and the former associate editor of XLR8R. Also a self-described Israeli American, Ron read this manuscript at several different stages in its development, and gave it a fabulous copyedit in its next-to-final version. Even better, along the way we discovered that Ron’s father dated a relative of mine in Haifa during the 1950s. Ron, we could have been brothers. Not that we aren’t already.

There are few designs as predictable as those which grace the covers of books about Israel. Whether consisting of a panoramic shot of Jerusalem or an image of an Israeli soldier, they tend to look the same. But designer Courtney Utt spent days creating a key exception; the cover is brilliant and inspired, just like the rest of her work.

My eighty-eight-year-old father, Elie Schalit, deserves a remarkable amount of credit for talking through Israel vs. Utopia’s main themes with me. Our conversations are littered throughout these pages, giving them a distinctly familial vibe that contributes to the intensely intimate feel of this book’s subject matter.

I’d also like to thank several others: my fellow editors and friends at Zeek, Jo Ellen Green Kaiser and Shai Ginsburg; Arthur Neslen, Vance Galloway; and former Ha’aretz translator Robert Rosenberg, may he rest in peace. All of you provided invaluable comments on the articles and editorials that served as this book’s basis. An equal but decidedly different form of thanks goes to the Old Jerusalem Restaurant in beautiful San Francisco. The salat Turki and knafe are positively utopian.