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Check for Availabilityout of stock. Click on the button below to search for this title in other formats.  This title in other formats:The Lemon Tree: An Arab, a Jew, and the Heart of the Middle East
Synopses & ReviewsPublisher Comments:In 1967, not long after the Six-Day War, three young Arab men ventured into the town of Ramle, in what is now Jewish Israel. They were cousins, on a pilgrimage to see their childhood homes; their families had been driven out of Palestine nearly twenty years earlier. One cousin had a door slammed in his face, and another found his old house had been converted into a school. But the third, Bashir Al-Khairi, was met at the door by a young woman named Dalia, who invited them in.
This act of faith in the face of years of animosity is the starting point for a true story of a remarkable relationship between two families, one Arab, one Jewish, amid the fraught modern history of the region. In his childhood home, in the lemon tree his father planted in the backyard, Bashir sees dispossession and occupation; Dalia, who arrived as an infant in 1948 with her family from Bulgaria, sees hope for a people devastated by the Holocaust. As both are swept up in the fates of their people, and Bashir is jailed for his alleged part in a supermarket bombing, the friends do not speak for years. They finally reconcile and convert the house in Ramie into a day-care center for Arab children of Israel, and a center for dialogue between Arabs and Jews. Now the dialogue they started seems more threatened than ever; the lemon tree died in 1998, and Bashir was jailed again, without charge. The Lemon Tree grew out of a forty-three minute radio documentary that Sandy Tolan produced for Fresh Air. With this book, he pursues the story into the homes and histories of the two families at its center, and up to the present day. Their stories form a personal microcosm of the last seventy years of Israeli-Palestinian history. In a region that seems ever more divided, The Lemon Tree is a reminder of all that is at stake, and of all that is still possible. Review:"The title of this moving, well-crafted book refers to a tree in the backyard of a home in Ramla, Israel. The home is currently owned by Dalia, a Jewish woman whose family of Holocaust survivors emigrated from Bulgaria. But before Israel gained its independence in 1948, the house was owned by the Palestinian family of Bashir, who meets Dalia when he returns to see his family home after the Six-Day War of 1967. Journalist Tolan (Me & Hank) traces the history of the Israeli-Palestinian conflict through the parallel personal histories of Dalia and Bashir and their families — all refugees seeking a home. As Tolan takes the story forward, Dalia struggles with her Israeli identity, and Bashir struggles with decades in Israeli prisons for suspected terrorist activities. Those looking for even a symbolic magical solution to that conflict won't find it here: the lemon tree dies in 1998, just as the Israeli-Palestinian peace process stagnates. But as they follow Dalia and Bashir's difficult friendship, readers will experience one of the world's most stubborn conflicts firsthand. 2 maps." Publishers Weekly (Starred Review) (Copyright Reed Business Information, Inc.) Book News Annotation:The lemon tree referred to in the title of this work, which began as
a radio report by the author for National Public Radio's Fresh Air,
occupied the yard of a house once occupied by Bashir Khairi, a
Palestinian whose family was driven out of the town of Ramla, now in
Israel. Shortly after 1967, he visited his old house, then occupied
by Dalia Eshkenazi, who had come to Israel as an infant whose family
was escaping anti-Semitic persecution in Bulgaria. So began an
unlikely, 40-year, often strained, friendship between a committed
Palestinian nationalist and an ardent Jewish Zionist. The story of
their friendship and the historical experiences of their respective
families are set within the context of the Palestinian-Israeli
conflict in an effort by the author to humanize both sides of the
issue.
Annotation ©2006 Book News, Inc., Portland, OR (booknews.com) Review:"Tolan's sensitively told, eminently fair-minded narrative closes with a return to that lemon tree and its promise of reconciliation. Humane and literate — and rather daring in suggesting that the future of the Middle East need not be violent." Kirkus Reviews (Starred Review) Review:"A much-needed antidote to the cynicism of realpolitik." Booklist (Starred Review) Review:"This wonderful human story vividly depicts the depths of attachment to contested ground. An excellent choice for general readers." Library Journal (Starred Review) Review:"Through Tolan's thoroughly readable and exceedingly informative book, readers will gain deeper understanding of the beleaguered Palestinians and besieged Israelis who make only brief appearances in our evening newscasts." Rocky Mountain News Review:"[I]t will certainly be one of the best works of nonfiction that you will read this year." Christian Science Monitor About the AuthorSandy Tolan is the author of Me & Hank: A Boy and His Hero, Twenty-five Years Later. He has written for the New York Times Magazine and for more than 40 other magazines and newspapers. As cofounder of Homelands Productions, Tolan has produced dozens of radio documentaries for NPR and PRI. His work has won numerous awards, and he was a 1993 Nieman Fellow at Harvard University and an I. F. Stone Fellow at the UC-Berkeley Graduate School of Journalism, where he directs the school's Project on International Reporting. What Our Readers Are SayingAdd a comment for a chance to win!
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