Currently Reading: Letters to My Palestinian Neighbor

Letters to My Palestinian Neighbor, by Yossi Klein Halevi.

From the book jacket…

I call you “neighbor” because I don’t know your name or anything personal about you. Given our circumstances, “neighbor” may be too casual a word to describe our relationship. We are intruders into each other’s dreams, violators of each other’s sense of home. We are living incarnations of each other’s worst historical nightmares. Neighbors?

Lyrical and evocative, Letters to My Palestinian Neighbor is one Israeli’s powerful attempt to reach beyond the wall that separates Israelis and Palestinians. In a series of letters, Yossi Klein Halevi explains what motivated him to leave his native New York in his twenties and move to Israel to participate in the drama of the renewal of a Jewish homeland and help ensure that it succeeds as a morally responsible, democratic state in the Middle East.

In this taut and provocative book, Halevi endeavours to untangle the ideological and emotional knot that has defined th conflict for nearly a century. Using history and personal experience as his guides, he unravels the complex strands of faith, pride, anger, and anguish he feels as a Jew living in Israel.

Halevi’s letters speak not only to his anonymous Palestinian neighbour but to all concerned global citizens, helping us to understand the painful choices confronting Israelis and Palestinians that will ultimately help determine the fate of the region.

Click here to order your copy from Bookshop.org and support independent booksellers.

And click here to visit the official website, including responses from Palestinian readers, and an Arabic-language copy of the book to download for free.