A Sky So Close to Us

A multigenerational tale of love, loss, exile, and rebirth, shortlisted for the 2016 International Prize for Arabic Fiction.

As children sleeping on the rooftop of their ancestral family home in Raqqa on warm summer nights, Joumane and her sisters imagine the sky is so close they can almost touch it. Years later, Joumane lives as an expatriate in Jordan, working for a humanitarian agency, while her sisters remain trapped in war-torn Syria. Living alone as she fights her own battle with cancer, she contemplates the closeness of the same sky, despite the sharply delineated borders that now separate her from her family.

Her only close confidant is another exile, a charming, divorced Palestinian man with whom she develops a warm relationship- later discovering that their relatives were neighbors in Syria. As Joumane undergoes painful chemotherapy treatments, Nasser slides into the role of her caretaker and partner. She comes to depend on him utterly, at the same time fearing that her vulnerability and need will ultimately drive him away.

Interspersed with Joumane’s story is a sweeping historical narrative that moves from nineteenth-century Aleppo, Raqqa, and Damascus, to Palestine before and after the 1948 Nakba, to Iraq before and after the American occupation, and beyond to the United States, Serbia, and Vietnam. Each character in the book is revealed, and linked, through the stories of their ancestors, showing the intergenerational inheritance of trauma and identity. Ujayli’s attention to detail and evocative prose brings to life worlds forgotten and ignored, reminding us of the devastation of war and the beauty that people create wherever they go.

Memoirs of a Militant

Shattering the notion that Muslim women did not play an active role in armed resistance and national liberation struggles

“In order to carry on with life in prison, you must believe you will be there forever.”

In the haunting and inspiring Memoirs of a Militant: My Years in the Khiam Women’s Prison Nawal Baidoun offers us her first-person account of the life of a young woman activist imprisoned for four years, as well as the events leading up to her arrest and detention. Born into a nationalist family in Bint Jbeil, Lebanon, not far from the location of the prison itself, Baidoun, like so many others, found herself compelled to take up arms to resist the Israeli occupation. Her memoir skillfully weaves together two stories: that of the oppressive conditions facing ordinary people and families in South Lebanon, and that of the horrors of daily life and the struggle for survival inside the prison itself.

Arrested for her role in planning the assassination of the well-known Israeli agent and collaborator, Husayn Abdel Nabi, Baidoun was at one point detained with Soha Bechara, a fellow militant whose similar operation is better known. Her activism rooted in her Islamic faith, Baidoun shatters the notion that Muslim women did not play an active role in the armed resistance. Much like her sisters in Algeria and Palestine, Nawal Baidoun belongs to a generation of Muslim women in the Arab world who played a significant role in their national liberation struggles. She describes the intense mental and physical torture she endured, and her refusal to confess despite this. Memoirs of a Militant offers us rare and unique insight into the strength and courage of Baidoun in extreme circumstances and conditions. Nawal Baidoun herself has said that she wrote this book as a sort of history lesson for the generations who come after her, to show the ways in which women actively took part in the resistance and struggle against the occupation. Her strongly abolitionist message about prisons and the need to liberate all prisoners and detainees resonates strongly today, as does her call for solidarity in the face of injustice.

June Rain

A moving novel about Lebanon shortlisted for the International Prize for Arab Fiction.

One of Lebanon’s leading writers recreates a village forever transformed by the massacre of one Christian community by another, and its impact on a mother and her long-estranged son.

On June 16, 1957, a shoot-out in a village church in northern Lebanon leaves two dozen people dead. In the aftermath of the massacre, the town is divided in two: the Al-Ramis in the north and their rivals, the Al-Semaanis, in the south. But lives once so closely intertwined cannot easily be divided. Neighbors turn into enemies, and husbands and wives are forced to choose between loyalty to each other and loyalty to their clan.

Drawing on an actual killing that took place in his home town, Douaihy reconstructs that June day from the viewpoints of people who witnessed the killings or whose lives were forever altered by them. A young girl overhears her father lending his gun to his cousins but refusing to accompany them to the church. A school boy walks past the dead bodies, laid out in the town square on beds brought out from the houses. A baker, whose shop is trapped on the wrong side of the line, hopes the women who buy his bread will protect him.

At the center of Douaihy’s masterful novel is Eliyya, who, twenty years after emigrating to the US, returns to the village to learn about the father who was shot through the heart in the massacre: the father he never knew. But can the village, alive with the ghosts of his childhood, really provide Eliyya answers to questions he canÍt even articulate?

With an incredible eye for detail, Douaihy describes that fateful Sunday when rain poured from the sky and the traditions and affections of village life were consumed by violence and revenge.

Reclaiming Judaism from Zionism

Personal narratives by Forty Jewish activists and scholars.

Today Jews face a choice. We can be loyal to the ethical imperatives at the heart of Judaism—love the stranger, pursue justice, and repair the world. Or we can give our unconditional support to the state of Israel. It is a choice between Judaism as a religion and the nationalist ideology of Zionism, which is usurping that religion.

In this powerful collection of personal narratives, forty Jews of diverse backgrounds tell a wide range of stories about the roads they have traveled from a Zionist world view to activism in solidarity with Palestinians and Israelis striving to build an inclusive society founded on justice, equality, and peaceful coexistence.

Reclaiming Judaism from Zionism will be controversial. Its contributors welcome the long overdue public debate. They want to demolish stereotypes of dissenting Jews as “self-hating,” traitorous, and anti-Semitic. They want to introduce readers to the large and growing community of Jewish activists who have created organizations such as Jewish Voice for Peace, IfNotNow, and Open Hillel. They want to strengthen alliances with progressives of all faiths. Above all, they want to nurture models of Jewish identity that replace ethnic exclusiveness with solidarity, Zionism with a Judaism once again nourished by a transcendent ethical vision.

Contributors include: Joel Beinin • Sami Shalom Chetrit • Ilise Benshushan Cohen • Marjorie Cohn • Rabbi Michael Davis • Hasia R. Diner • Marjorie N. Feld • Chris Godshall • Ariel Gold • Noah Habeeb • Claris Harbon • Linda Hess • Rabbi Linda Holtzman • Yael Horowitz • Carolyn L. Karcher • Mira Klein • Sydney Levy • Ben Lorber • Shoshana Madmoni-Gerber • Carly Manes • Moriah Ella Mason • Seth Morrison • Eliza Rose Moss-Horwitz • Hilton Obenzinger • Henri Picciotto • Ned Rosch • Rabbi Brant Rosen • Alice Rothchild • Tali Ruskin • Cathy Lisa Schneider • Natalia Dubno Shevin • Ella Shohat • Emily Siegel • Rebecca Subar • Cecilie Surasky • Rebecca Vilkomerson • Jordan Wilson-Dalzell • Rachel Winsberg • Rabbi Alissa Wise • Charlie Wood

Contents:

Introduction: History of Zionism and Anti-Zionism from 1880–1948 by Carolyn L. Karcher

Chapter 1: Rabbinic Voices
Non-Zionism and the New Jewish Diaspora by Rabbi Brant Rosen
Zionism in My Life by Rabbi Linda Holtzman
From Zionism in Jerusalem to Diasporism in Chicago by Rabbi Michael Davis

Chapter 2: Transformative Experiences in Israel/Palestine
Becoming a Jew without Borders by Joel Beinin
Remembering a Baghdad Elsewhere: An Emotional Cartography by Ella Shohat
A Mural with No Wall by Sami Shalom Chetrit
Their Cries I Cannot Forget: How My Investigation of the Yemenite Babies Affair Disillusioned Me with Zionism by Shoshana Madmoni-Gerber
Coloring the Closets of Transparency: The Endless Struggles of One Feminist Mizrahi Lawyer by Claris Harbon
Dismantling Zionism: Centering Equality and Justice by Ilise Benshushan Cohen
X-Ray Glasses by Cecilie Surasky
Finding Community and the Right Pair of Glasses by Emily Siegel
Owe Me Nothing by Tali Ruskin
Not a Birthright, an Obligation by Charlie Wood
My Jewish Story by Ariel Gold
From the Tokyo JCC to JVP DC Metro by Carolyn L. Karcher
From AIPAC to JVP: My Evolution on Zionism and Israel by Seth Morrison

Chapter 3: Voices from the Campuses
Wrestling with History: My Journey in the Movement for Palestinian Rights by Ben Lorber
Moving Away from Zionism by Yael Horowitz
An Epiphany in Slow Motion: Solidarity in Seven Parts by Moriah Ella Mason
Denial by Noah Habeeb
I’ll Live Where My Feet Are: Imagining My Jewishness with and Beyond the Bund by Natalia Dubno Shevin
From Compost Queen to BDS: Arriving at Anti-Zionism through Environmental Justice by Mira Klein
Faith, Loss, and Liberation by Rachel Winsberg
Redefining My Values, Myself, and My Jewish Community by Carly Manes
Healing Myself, Healing Community by Jordan Wilson-Dalzell
My Journey from Zionism to Anti-Zionism by Chris Godshall
To Dream of a Just Jewish Future in a World of Suffering by Eliza Rose Moss-Horwitz

Chapter 4: Progressive Values versus Zionism
Choosing a Different Path by Alice Rothchild
Palestine and My Journey of Self-Discovery by Ned Rosch
Widening My Field of Vision by Rebecca Subar
Unlearning Zionism, Learning to Listen to Palestinians by Sydney Levy
Escape from Zion by Hilton Obenzinger
Choosing Sides by Marjorie N. Feld
My Jewish Journey by Hasia R. Diner
East of Eden and West of Jerusalem: Two Sisters on Opposite Sides of the Israel-Palestine Divide by Cathy Lisa Schneider
Who Are the Chosen People? by Linda Hess
A “Nice Jewish Girl” Critiques Israel by Marjorie Cohn

Chapter 5: Reflections of Leading Organizers
Zionism versus Anti-Zionism: Not My Main Concern by Henri Picciotto
“The Discarded Materials Have Become the Cornerstone” by Rebecca Vilkomerson and Rabbi Alissa Wise

Afterword: American Jews’ Changing Attitudes toward Israel, 1948–2018 by Carolyn L. Karcher

Acknowledgements

Frankfurt

Frankfurt is a city that punches well above its weight.

Despite its diminutive size- it has fewer than a million inhabitants- it is a financial center of global importance, named alongside metropolises and capitals such as Tokyo, London, and New York. Yet Frankfurt is a city that is also continually underestimated: many of the millions who visit it on business- both German and from other countries- see little more of it than its airport and its skyscrapers.

The city’s role in the global financial markets often obscures its importance as a historical and cultural center, not just for Germany, but for Europe and the West as a whole. In the Middle Ages, Frankfurt was the city in which the Holy Roman Emperors were crowned and in which, at the dawn of the Renaissance, a tradition of printing and publishing was established which lives on in today’s Frankfurt Book Fair. The German language’s most enduring author, Johann Wolfgang von Goethe, was born in the city, and the university named for him gave birth to one of the twentieth century’s most revolutionary academic developments, the Frankfurt School. Architecturally, too, the city has always been a pioneer: its famous skyline is only the latest and most visible in a series of bold experiments. Frankfurt has always been a capital without a country: the capital of the book trade, the capital of modern social studies, the capital of the Eurozone. Today, it rivals Brussels, Berlin, Paris, and London, and yet retains a deeply provincial, down-to-earth identity interwoven with the thick forests and farming country of its Hessian hinterland. While its population is one of the world’s most international, its dialect is one of Germany’s most impenetrable.

For those looking to do more than just change flights or sign a contract, this cultural guide takes a closer look at Frankfurt, exploring and explaining these dichotomies.