Israel today, as described in this week's cover stories by Associate Editor Jim Kelly and Staff Writer Pico Iyer, may house per square mile the world's most diverse society. In Tel Aviv alone, 15 daily newspapers are published in eight languages. It is hardly coincidental that the members of TIME's Jerusalem bureau, who reported the cover stories, reflect some of that mix of national origin and personal perspective.

Bureau Chief Harry Kelly, 57, is a veteran U.S. journalist who has been in Israel for most of the past two years. He finds that the most voluble authorities on Israelis are Israelis. "They are willing to drop everything, serve you coffee and try to explain themselves and their country," he says. "That includes kibbutzniks at Negba, who gathered three generations of their members and over cookies and fruit juice told me how it was fighting Egyptians in '48 and how it is now fighting the economy; Author Amos Oz, who interrupted work on his new novel to explain how deeply Israelis care about what other people think of them; and Opposition Leader Shimon Peres and Prime Minister Yitzhak Shamir, who took time from their election campaign for private interviews with TIME." Kelly was accompanied on his rounds by TIME Photographer David Rubinger, 60, who immigrated to Israel from Vienna before World War II. Reporter Robert Slater, 40, whose interviews ranged from Israel's Finance Minister to Jerusalem housewives, arrived in Israel from the U.S. in 1971, "with no plans to stay indefinitely, but I'm still here."

Correspondent David Halevy, 43, is a sabra, a native-born Israeli, who grew up on the streets of Jerusalem under the British mandate and who fought in four of his country's wars. "For my generation," he recalls, "Israel was more than just a state. We regarded ourselves as full members of a rather exclusive club, whose internal strength, moral justification and unique social ties gave us a share and a say in state matters and a readiness to sacrifice our lives. In the past decade, this feeling has diminished. Living in Israel in 1984 can at times be a painful experience."

American-born Marlin Levin, 62, who has spent nearly all of his professional life in Jerusalem, covered the festering problems between Israel's Sephardic (Mediterranean and Middle Eastern) and Ashkenazic (Central and East European) communities. On this subject Levin is an optimist, with good reason. This spring his two Jerusalem-born sons, of Ashkenazic background, both married Sephardic women. "Not every mixed marriage will bridge the gap," he says. "Still, it could defuse the problem in one generation."