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Kirkus Reviews
June 15, 2012, Friday
BORN IN JERUSALEM, BORN PALESTINIAN;
A Memoir
A Palestinian-American remembers an idyllic pre-1948 childhood in
Palestine. Because of restrictions on economic opportunity, Nammar was
forced to leave his beloved homeland at age 23. Here, he looks back at
this bittersweet era of his youth. "Balance" marked the community he
knew as a child, where the three Abrahamic religions resided in
harmony, socializing and patronizing each other's businesses within a
curious mixture of Turkish, Armenian, Arab and Jewish customs. Born to
an old, well-established family in the Haret al-Nammareh
neighborhood--his father was a tour guide, and his mother was an
educated refugee of the Armenian genocide--Nammar generally enjoyed a
bountiful, bucolic first six years of life in Palestine. All changed
abruptly when Zionist agitation broke out, marked by such events as a
machine gun attack on his school bus and the bombing of the King David
Hotel in 1946, where Nammar's older brother, Mihran, worked at the
front desk. After Israeli independence, the Palestinian neighborhoods
were inhabited by Israelis in what Nammar describes as a deliberate
Zionist policy of nikayon, or ethnic cleansing.
Herded into a military zone, Nammar's father and Mihran were detained
in prison without explanation. Eventually, the family was reunited but
without employment or prospects. The author writes movingly of his
education by the nuns and his refuge at the Jerusalem YMCA, where he
was both embraced for his athleticism and eventually marginalized,
rejected for Israel's national basketball team because of his
nationality. An authentic, matter-of-fact, nonpolemical depiction of
Palestinian life
Publication Date: 2012-07-25
Publisher: Olive Branch/Interlink
Stage: Adult
ISBN: 978-1-56656-886-9
Price: $15.00
Author: Nammar, Jacob J.
June 15, 2012, Friday
BORN IN JERUSALEM, BORN PALESTINIAN;
A Memoir
A Palestinian-American remembers an idyllic pre-1948 childhood in
Palestine. Because of restrictions on economic opportunity, Nammar was
forced to leave his beloved homeland at age 23. Here, he looks back at
this bittersweet era of his youth. "Balance" marked the community he
knew as a child, where the three Abrahamic religions resided in
harmony, socializing and patronizing each other's businesses within a
curious mixture of Turkish, Armenian, Arab and Jewish customs. Born to
an old, well-established family in the Haret al-Nammareh
neighborhood--his father was a tour guide, and his mother was an
educated refugee of the Armenian genocide--Nammar generally enjoyed a
bountiful, bucolic first six years of life in Palestine. All changed
abruptly when Zionist agitation broke out, marked by such events as a
machine gun attack on his school bus and the bombing of the King David
Hotel in 1946, where Nammar's older brother, Mihran, worked at the
front desk. After Israeli independence, the Palestinian neighborhoods
were inhabited by Israelis in what Nammar describes as a deliberate
Zionist policy of nikayon, or ethnic cleansing.
Herded into a military zone, Nammar's father and Mihran were detained
in prison without explanation. Eventually, the family was reunited but
without employment or prospects. The author writes movingly of his
education by the nuns and his refuge at the Jerusalem YMCA, where he
was both embraced for his athleticism and eventually marginalized,
rejected for Israel's national basketball team because of his
nationality. An authentic, matter-of-fact, nonpolemical depiction of
Palestinian life
Publication Date: 2012-07-25
Publisher: Olive Branch/Interlink
Stage: Adult
ISBN: 978-1-56656-886-9
Price: $15.00
Author: Nammar, Jacob J.