Journey to Israel

“Journey to Israel” — a vivid and controversial account by Jalal Al-e Ahmad (1923–1969) of his trip to the young Israeli state in 1963. This is not just travel notes, but a deep and provocative reflection on identity, modernization, and political intricacies in the Middle East. The author, one of the most influential intellectuals of 20th century Iran, sees Israel as both close and distant, familiar and foreign, a source of inspiration and a center of irritation. Al-e Ahmad's book remains an important testament to the early Iranian perspective on Israel — a perspective in which surprise coexists with caution long before relations between the two countries became unfriendly. However, the text is valuable not so much as a source of knowledge about Israel itself, but as a reflection of the internal crisis of the Iranian intelligentsia in the 1960s and the search for a way out of it.