Israeli scholar Shimi Friedman, an anthropologist/sociologist at Ariel University, shines the spotlight on one group of marginal Israeli youths, those dubbed ‘hilltop youths’ by the chattering classes, because of the former’s penchant for establishing unauthorised hilltop outposts in proximity to both Jewish and Arab populations in Judea and Samaria. In The Hilltop Youth, an interesting work of cultural anthropology, the author examines the lives of one particular subset of hilltop youths, those clustered in the Hebron region of southern Judea. Employing the tools of his trade ? fieldwork and interviews ? Friedman arrives at some surprising conclusions about this subset of youths, conclusions that are often at odds with the common perception of hilltop youths.
