After serv­ing for over two decades as an intel­li­gence offi­cer in the Israeli Defense Forces, work­ing pri­mar­i­ly in the West Bank and Gaza, Avi Shalev enrolled in Al-Qase­mi Col­lege, an Arab Islam­ic (Sufi) col­lege in the town of Baqa al-Ghar­biyye, about thir­ty min­utes from Netanya. He was the first Jew­ish stu­dent to attend Al-Qase­mi. His inter­est came from the desire ​“to learn about the art, sci­ence, lit­er­a­ture, phi­los­o­phy and lan­guage of a cul­ture that was once the epi­cen­ter of the enlight­ened world … ” In two years of study, he would gain much more than an aca­d­e­m­ic under­stand­ing of Arab cul­ture. Shalev would face sus­pi­cion, but he’d also con­front and seek to rec­on­cile his own mis­trust of the com­mu­ni­ty he’d worked in for over twen­ty-four years. At his accep­tance inter­view, Has­san, Al-Qasemi’s spokesper­son, shared with Shalev that he had ​“been wait­ing for more than twen­ty years for the one [Jew] who would dare cross the line and ask to study at Al-Qasemi.”

Each chap­ter of Shalev’s mem­oir explores the exchanges he had with pro­fes­sors and stu­dents, min­gled with the chal­lenges he faced in his stud­ies, par­tic­u­lar­ly with Ara­bic. In the chap­ter titled ​“Break­ing Bar­ri­ers,” Shalev goes for cof­fee with fel­low stu­dent Mira and her hus­band, Tamer. Mira and Tamer are inter­est­ed in attend­ing a master’s pro­gram in Islam­ic Stud­ies at the Free Uni­ver­si­ty in Berlin. Mira and Tamer are wel­com­ing of Shalev, but Tamer, despite his teach­ing cer­tifi­cate from an aca­d­e­m­ic insti­tu­tion accred­it­ed by the State of Israel, is reluc­tant to par­tic­i­pate in any pro­gram con­nect­ed to the ​“Zion­ist move­ment.” This dual­i­ty — liv­ing and work­ing with­in the State of Israel while also appre­hen­sive about full par­tic­i­pa­tion in Israeli life — is a recur­ring theme in Shalev’s conversations.

Anoth­er through­line is the author’s empa­thy for the per­son­al and famil­ial dif­fi­cul­ties that haunt the Israeli Arab com­mu­ni­ty. Shalev writes, ​“I have … encoun­tered young peo­ple suf­fer­ing from deep lone­li­ness, social alien­ation, or per­son­al dis­ap­point­ments.” Any of these things, Shalev says, can occa­sion­al­ly ​“result in vio­lent acts.”

In the chap­ter titled ​“Mod­ern Ara­bic Poet­ry,” Shalev comes to rec­og­nize that under­stand­ing his fel­low stu­dents requires more than under­stand­ing their cul­ture and lan­guage. It requires that he ​“set aside every­thing you know about your­self and lis­ten to every word the oth­er par­ty says.… Lis­ten­ing to what is real­ly being said, and not only what we want to hear.”

The Only Jew in the Room is a cross-cul­tur­al explo­ration that dis­man­tles stereo­types and fos­ters a new appre­ci­a­tion for the beau­ty and com­plex­i­ty of Israeli Arab soci­ety. It rein­forces the idea that tol­er­ance devel­ops only by sit­ting with both rad­i­cal curios­i­ty and pal­pa­ble dis­com­fort. Arab and Jew­ish Israelis must lis­ten to and learn from each oth­er if there is ever to be peace.