Dorit Rabinyan

Israeli Liat and Palestinian Hilmi meet in New York, neutral ground, in 2001 and fall in love. Writing a political novel is a tricky balancing act, especially one in which the main characters are, in some sense, a personification of the political. Characters in fiction must also be people, not representations that exist to give speeches. Although there are a couple of explicit conversations about the conflict, most of the politics here are delicately drawn. Everything in their lives is political, from Liat's army service, to food, to the very languages they speak (they communicate in English; some of Hilmi's Arabic is rendered as it would have been in the Hebrew original, translated in footnotes).

There is no great resolution here, no grand statements. Their relationship is both wonderful and incredibly, impossibly sad. Rabinyan doesn't stake out a position on the conflict; she does, however, try to shrink it to a complex miniature.… (more)

This story of a doomed love affair between an Israeli girl and a Palestinian man is moving and well written. The affair is possible because both are temporarily in New York. It is doomed, however, because both are too tied to their families, their homelands, and their political beliefs to consider working out a relationship that could last. The ending is profoundly sad, but not surprising. One strength of the book is the vividness with which is shows the political passion of the two protagonists. To some degree, this is also a weakness -- a love story in which there is no possibility of an ongoing relationship (forget happily ever after) lacks a certain suspense. Still and all, well worth reading.… (more)

Thanks to a generous donation to our library, you will be able to read this love story fraught with controversy that was banned in Israeli schools by the Ministry of Education. This “Romeo and Juliet” story is about an Israeli linguistics student on a fellowship in New York, who meets, and subsequently, becomes enamored by a Palestinian painter who is from Ramallah, in the West Bank. Although fully aware of the potential complications and repercussions, she engages in an intense and passionate six-month relationship with him until she returns to Israel. The obstacle of their political differences seems nonexistent in the diaspora of New York City but poses impenetrable obstacles in their respective homelands. Although the couple attempts to put aside their political differences, the Israeli-Palestinian tension permeates every aspect of her relationship. “Through Liat’s narration, the reader is able to empathize with the lovers and ask themselves what, or who, is worth sacrificing our values and cultural identity for.”… (more)