THIS LAND OF ISRAEL

Andrei Sedych recalls his father's Passover prayer out of a Russian childhood, ""Next year in Jerusalem!"" He journeyed to Israel via France, and America, where he has lived as emigre-author/journalist. He puts his professional talents to use in a travelogue which only hints of a somewhat deeper than touristic interest--but perhaps most tourists in Israel have a special involvement. He traveled from Tel Aviv, a city founded in 1919 with a wild prophecy of a 25,000 population, now 400,000, to Jerusalem, with its high and weighty past. He walked along Jaffa's fortress wall at night, recalled the history of the Masada on the Plain of Sharon, visited a cabalist city (Haifa), a Druse village. He spent two days at a kibbutz, swam in the Dead Sea. He interviewed B.G. about the future of Israel (""In the long run the Arab-Israeli relationship will be entirely dependent on the general international relationship""), discusses this ""small country with large problems""--ethnic, religious, economic, political. It is a likely, likable introduction at an undemanding, nondenominational level, for the Gentile in general and the Diaspora in particular.