Children of Israel, Children of Palestine

Israeli Jews and Palestinians appear side by side for the first time in this remarkable book to share powerful feelings and reflections on growing up in one of the world's longest and most dangerous conflicts. Here, thirty-six men and women, boys and girls, tell of their coming-of-age in a land of turmoil.
From kibbutzim in Israel and the occupied territories to Palestinian refugee camps in the West Bank and the Gaza Strip, from the Old City of Jerusalem to Ramallah to modern Tel Aviv, Israeli Jews and Palestinians tell of tragedy and transcendence as they face their deepest fears and dream of a peaceful future. Listen to them as they recount stories of their brief and often violent youth.
Haifa-born Yehudit Hendel remembers Jews and Arabs living together without hatred, and her own deep childhood connection with an aging Arab man. Musil Jamil Jaffer (a pseudonym) writes of his devastating childhood in a refugee camp. Shammai Golan describes his own horrifying and painful encounter with death in the Israeli army. Basim Abdoraad tells what it feels like to be a man without a country as he searches for his Palestinian roots and finds he has no home to which he can return.
No matter what their ethnic identity, how much and how long they have suffered, these courageous autobiographers most often reveal a deep longing for peace. Perhaps their hopes and fears are best illustrated by a parable retold by eighteen-year-old Redrose (a pseudonym):
"Two frogs got trapped in a jar of cream. They couldn't jump out of the liquid and they couldn't climb because the sides of the jar were slippery. One frog said, 'By dawn I'll be dead, ' and went to sleep. The second frog swam allnight long and in the morning found herself floating on a pat of butter."