Human interest stories of those personally and deeply involved with Israel/Palestine.
Blood Brothers by Elias Chacour
Father Elias Chacour grew up to become Catholic priest and the Archbishop of the Melkite Church in Israel. Born in a village in the Galilee, he and his family were expelled in 1948 as part of the ethnic cleansing of Palestine by Zionist forces. Father Chacour has stayed in Israel, devoting himself to peace through the education of Palestinian children and working for reconciliation between Palestinians and Jews. (Note that there are three possible randomly displayed images on the homepage of this website. One of those images is from a mural at Father Elias Chacour’s church in the Galilee and includes images of Martin Luther King, Jr. holding hands with Gandhi and Rachel Corrie.)
The Lemon Tree: An Arab, a Jew, and the Heart of the Middle East by Sandy Tolan
The histories of two families, a Bulgarian Jewish family that barely escapes the Holocaust and a Palestinian family forced to flee their home during the establishment of the state of Israel, bound together in a house lived in and loved by both. Meticulous endnotes anchor the human narration firmly in the history and events of the time. A book that has had a profound impact on many readers of these two powerful narratives between the same set of book covers.
I Shall Not Hate: A Gaza Doctor’s Journey on the Road to Peace and Human Dignity by Izzeldin Abuelaish
Dr. Abuelaish tells of growing up in the Gaza Strip and against all odds becoming a physician who works among his fellow refugees and also in a nearby Israeli hospital. His devotion to healing people extends to his personal efforts for reconciliation between Israelis and Palestinians. Even when three of his daughters were killed in Gaza by an Israeli tank shell, he resists revenge and expresses the hope that they will be “the last sacrifice on the road to peace.”
Broken Promises, Broken Dreams: Stories of Jewish and Palestinian Tauma and Reslilience by Alice Rothchild
Alice Rothchild, MD, is Assistant Professor at Harvard Medical School. She serves on the steering committee for American Jews for a Just Peace- Boston, and has worked with medical delegations to Israel and the Occupied Territories with the AJJP Health and Human Rights Project. Dr. Rothchild worked throughout the West Bank, Gaza and East Jerusalem. She shares what she witnessed there and carefully describes how her views evolved because of what she saw.
Mornings in Jenin by Susan Abulhawa
This story extends from the Nakba (in Arabic this means “catastrophe”) at the birth of Israel in1948 to the 2002 Battle of Jenin. It is a novel that primarily views Palestinian history through the eyes of Amal and her multigenerational family. Bloomsbury, an internet website about books, calls this book: “A heart-wrenching, powerfully written novel that does for Palestine what The Kite Runner did for Afghanistan.”
The General’s Son: Journey of an Israeli in Palestine by Miko Peled
Miko Peled grew up in Israel as the son and grandson of leading figures in Israel’s political-military elite. His father was one of Israel’s leading generals. While living in California, he heard repeated Palestinian American tales of their forced displacement. Curious and puzzled by their stories, Miko returned to Israel, examine Israel offical archives and learned that their stories were true. He is now an activist for a free Palestine with rights and equality for all..
Kingdom of Olives and Ash: Writers Confront the Occupation, Edited by Michael Chabon and Aylet Waldman
This is a collection of stories written by nearly 30 international writers some of whom are intimately involved with Israel/Palestine and other authors were new to the area. This rich collection of stories conveys the tragedy of Israel’s occupation of the Palestinian territories that the writers witnessed during the 50th year of this longest continuous military occupation of modern times. The book was primarily funded by the New Israel Fund (NIF). Here’s a video of a West Coast NIF presentation of this book project: LINK.