About the Book
Learn why Israela is a tale as fated and mythical as the Bible; as modern and concrete as the latest explosion in a Jerusalem coffee house. Discover for yourselves how this is a story of one multifaceted family, of love and violence, of individuals desperately seeking answers, seeking peace under the Palestinian Israel conflict.
Israela is a modern day historical novel about problems in the Middle East, With unique insight into the Israeli Palestinian conflict and moving writing, a new book, Israela, takes us to the land of Israel and the daily battles that are waged in the name of religion and politics. The book moves beyond the headlines of war and takes us into the homes and lives of everyday people. Israela dramatizes the impact of the long-term Middle East conflict between Israel and its Arab neighbors, showing how ordinary people struggle to live among violence and the fear of terrorism and war. You will grow to know three women and their loved-ones keeping secrets, The Israeli Arab conflict. In Israela, the lives of three women interweave with the story of their country. Ratiba, an Israeli journalist, turns her back on her heritage to marry an Israeli Arab. Her sister Orit, an actor, lives alone and longs for her lost sister. Elisheva is a nurse who dedicates her life to the wounded and the dying. As their lives unfold, the three women face choices they would never have envisioned. You will experience life and love tested in a fragmented land, Israela is a story of a life-loving people torn by Middle East conflict. It is about Arabs who save Jews from disaster and Jews who heal Arabs, a story of a family fragmented and desperately searching for the right path. You will see how the ancient fuzes with the modern, how two nations clash, and how, at great personal cost, individuals cross the political divide of the Palestine Israel conflict. Here, the ancient pulsates in present time and the biblical holds prominence with the secular. Beneath this modern-day drama unfolds the story of a land and its people, revealing the historical trajectory of two peoples, victims and perpetrators of a biblical curse rooted in the problems in the Middle East. Author's Comments
A plethora of historical treatises and political works has been written about Israel and the Middle East conflict. It seems to me that they’re written for those who are already familiar with and invested in the area. There are also many powerful Israeli novelists whose stories provide us with background to the region's conflicts, glimpses into Israeli/Arab tensions. The aim of Israela is to describe life in Israel from the inside, to portray this country-at-war and its social complexity for people who, despite frequent news coverage, know little or nothing about what Israel, or Israelis - Jews and Arabs - are like, much the way so many of us remained ignorant of Ireland’s centuries’ old war between Catholics and Protestants. What physical and ethical struggles do these people combat on a daily, often hourly basis because of the Israeli Palestinian conflict? What is it like for people anywhere to live with insoluble conflicts? To continue living like that? To sacrifice one's children to a never-ending drama?
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Immerse yourselves for a while in the lives of lovers, parents and children, trapped within the Palestine Israel conflict
I started writing this book for my children. Originally, I wanted to trace the trajectory of modern Israeli history in order to see how we’d arrived at our present reality. I also wrote it for the many people I meet who are ignorant of the complexity and the richness of Israeli life; ignorant of the temerity that all of its citizens demonstrate, and of the excruciating concerns that tear them apart on a constant basis. I am aware that this is only a perspective, my perspective, perhaps the perspective of many like myself; that it is one side of a conflict that originated way back in prehistorical times. Perhaps this is a prayer for understanding, for dialogue. In fact, it is mostly a work of fiction, of fantasy, ultimately – of hope. Excerpt: "I'm small. Tiny, actually, compared to those who live in my neighborhood. My eyes are brown. Tresses hang over my shoulders hugging my frame in different shades of greens, browns, reds. I am delicate, but I am surrounded by giants who desire and hate me, who grab at parts of me, who want to cut me up into separate halves, like the women with the baby in Solomon's proverbial tale."
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