Ruth Margalit in Conversation with David Remnick: In the Belly of the Whale

Overview

For more than a decade, before and after the attacks of October 7, award-winning journalist Ruth Margalit has chronicled the people who have shaped modern Israel — not only its political leaders, but also the ordinary citizens living in a nation in tension with its democratic ideals. Join her as she talks to The New Yorker’s David Remnick about her new book, In the Belly of the Whale: Portraits from a Fractured Israel.

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. The profiles in her new collection 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.

Revisiting 10 of her acclaimed pieces from The New Yorker and The New York Times Magazine, now as a mother living in Tel Aviv during wartime, Margalit reexamines the texts in light of a transformed society and self, adding new updates and insights to journalistic portraits she has created over the course of a dozen years. In a conversation about the book and the evolving realities of Israeli life — and the role of journalism in illuminating history as it unfolds — Margalit and Remnick discuss the clashing forces that have led to Israel’s current state, just before the elections that will determine its future.

Expect an insightful look into the heart of Israel from two of its most perceptive observers, helping us to better understand the seemingly inscrutable politics of a nation in crisis as it aims to find a new path forward — and find out how Israel’s Jews, Arabs, activists, artists, academics, and politicians are navigating the tensions that define their society.