Israela

In my heart, I call to their mothers, 'Take your sons to your houses. Bind them to your chairs; gag them, blindfold them if necessary until they grow calm. Then teach them, for they have forgotten, about peace, about the blessed life, about a futurea presentwithout pain.' Beneath their prayers, in their morning cups of coffee, beneath their love-making and their child-rearing, and in their sorrow, especially in their sorrow when burying their dead, I hear the simmering of heating souls; I smell the charge of armies, of lives exploding uselessly into smithereens. I sit in mourning over a disaster still to come."
 In Israel, 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 find themselves facing choices they would never have envisioned. This is a story of secrets and alienation, yet also of hope and heroism. It is about Arabs who save Jews from disaster and Jews who heal Arabs. It is the story of everyday people torn and desperately searching for the right path. 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

With Israela (unlike Hidden, my most recent publication,which is all about story-telling) I didn't set out to write a novel. My original intention was to trace the history of the modern state of Israel, its dreams, hopes, complex social fabric, mistakes and wars, so I could see how it had arrived, from 1948 and earlier, to its present situation. More than anything, I wanted to present what I have come to call, "the human face of Israel"---her people from the inside, living, loving, celebrating life against a permanent backdrop of violence.
As I wrote, fictional characters kept popping into my head together with twists and turns of plot. That surprised me immensely. Finally, I gave in to my inner voices and enjoyed myself. The finished version is the story I present to you here. I believe that it provides a much clearer portrait of the land and its people than any historical treatise I could have created.
Originally, Israela had a different title. I knew it was not what I wanted. I had all but finished the novel, when I woke one morning with the name "Israela" in my head. I knew immediately that was my title. What is more, the moment I had that name, I needed to sit and write in Israela's unique--and uniquely feminine---voice. I am convinced today that Israela wrote her own script.
I hope you, my readers, will gain a sense of Israel from the inside as a living entity with people of passion who, like you, experience doubt, fear, hope, anguish, despair, and betrayal; and who, just like you, want to usher in a peaceful world for their children.
In Israela, I present the terrorists, not as human being characters, but by means of the constant and ever-growing terror and explosives they ignite.
I want you, my readers, to sit on the balconies of moderate Arabs and hear the conversation; to sit in back yards of moderate Jews and hear the conversation; to go to the souk (outdoor market) and hear the dialogue--or worse, the often complete lack of dialogue, so that, by the time you reach the end of Israela you will no longer be dependent on the international media to tell you what to think, because you will be thinking and asking for yourselves.