Michigan State University Press | Into The Fire

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Charles T. Salmon

is Senior Associate Dean in the College of Communication Arts and Sciences at Michigan State University, where he also holds the Ellis N. Brandt Professorship in Public Relations.

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Into The Fire
A Post - 9/11 American in Tel Aviv

Charles T. Salmon

In the fall of 2001 Charles Salmon had a Fulbright fellowship in Israel. He was due to depart on September 12. Arriving in Israel a few weeks later, speaking no Hebrew and largely unfamiliar with Judaism and Israeli customs, he immersed himself in Israeli culture.

This collection of correspondence began as a weekly report to friends and was designed to offer an alternative to mainstream media. With the excitement of a tourist and the eagerness of an anthropologist, Salmon emerges as a modern Candide. He describes historical sites and a supermarket in Tel Aviv, discusses the differences between university students in Israel and America, and negotiates the purchase of food and the vagaries of the weather with humor and passion. The letters also discuss Israeli–Palestinian relations, and details terrorist events and responses to them.

This unique book focuses on how everyday hopes and fears transcend geopolitical boundaries
and provides valuable lessons on how to thrive in these new and uncertain times.

“Unlike regular journey’s diaries this book is simultaneously a vivid descriptive of Israeli habits of life, a sharp social analysis of life under protracted conflict and the rifts within Israeli political culture, as well as a reflexive critical analysis of the American media coverage of the Middle East in general and Israel in particular. . . . Salmon’s book is not only about Israel, it addresses what is still new for the Americans, and maybe for the entire world: life under a constant threat of terrorism. Should the world adapt what the author heard time and time again: ‘What choice do we have?’ Or should the book open new venues for rethinking the war on terrorism?”
—Hanna Herzog, author of Gendering Politics—Women in Israel

“An acute look at Israel and its people by a scholar with his feet on the ground, Into the Fire brings alive the country’s blemishes and beauty with humor and a keen eye. Salmon’s unassuming honesty will win over the reader as his newcomer’s fresh perspective unerringly catches the vibrancy of this paradoxical and tumultuous society. A fascinating narrative tracing an American’s personal trajectory from apprehension to appreciation.” —Helen Schary Motro, writer and columnist living in Israel and board member, U.S.–Israel Educational Foundation (Fulbright)

Illustrated with photographs
World Rights
144 pp., 6.00" x 9.00", 2003
Paper, $19.95,

0-87013-695-X
978-0-87013-695-5

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