Winner Takes All: A Season in Israel

Brook begins this travelogue of Israel by plunging into the Old City of Jerusalem, a crazy quilt where Jews, Armenians, Greek Orthodox and Moslems co-exist in amity. As he talks to frustrated Arabs in the Occupied Territories, lives on a kibbutz where Jewish children are taught tolerance and the Arabic language, attends a rally held by recently slain ``scare-mongering . . . racist'' Meir Kahane, and sounds out secular and ultra-orthodox Jews, indigenous Israeli Arabs, Druzes, an Ethiopian nun and others, he introduces readers to an Israel few tourists get to know. Brook is a travel writer ( New York Days, New York Nights ) and a British Jew who strongly supports the existence of Israel yet feels uncomfortable with the very notion of a Jewish state. This lends his clear-eyed, alert narrative an objective detachment. He believes Israel must reach a political accommodation--but finds scant evidence of reciprocal willingness by Arabs to live in peace. (Jan.)