Coming Home to Jerusalem: A Personal Journey

by Wendy Orange

Book Overview

An American Jewish immigrant to Jerusalem paints a funny and painful picture of the city's daily life based on the various personalities she encounters, including peaceniks, settlers, famous artists,... This description may be from another edition of this product.

• Format: Hardcover
• Language: English
• ISBN: 0684869519
• ISBN13: 9780684869513
• Release Date: June 2000
• Publisher: Simon & Schuster
• Length: 304 Pages
• Weight: 1.20 lbs.
• Dimensions: 1.0" x 6.4" x 9.5"

Customer Reviews

Forced Me to Stop & Think.

I must admit for starters. I went into reading this with a bias. I grew up as a Jew in Brooklyn, New York. As much as I endeavor to treat folks as individuals, my gut reaction is to see Arabs as a faceless mass. After visiting Poland at this time last year and seeing the site of the Warsaw Ghetto and Auschwitz, this only hardened my feeling toward ANY concessions toward Palestinians. I went in thinking that Dr. Orange was a deluded peacenik who would gamble the farm (Israel) away. Well, I was forced to start thinking of individuals while reading this book. Much as I tried, Dr. Orange made me see people, not slogans. Problem solving has to go to a "where do we go from here," not "You did this to me." As with any dispute, it can't be solved with schoolyard taunts of who did what and to which and to whom. Now, I feel differently about about anti-Arab acts I committed in college. Age and wisdom have their uses. Just read the book. The writing style is easy to follow. It is hard to put down. All should read it, not just Jews and Arabs. The book can be used as a basis for general problem solving. Read it at your own risk. For you wont be the same coming out as going in.

You'll fear lending it but know everyone must read it.

What can you say about a book that has so much promised impact that some people are afraid of it? This is what I said:H-----, I can promise you that the book will provoke many feelings. You will cry, but you will also be filled with mana. Wendy Orange's evocation of the land, the sky, the way the light infuses its objects as if the light itself were animate, and the way she weaves the landscape into the warp and woof of people and politics is spellbinding. I have actually had my bookmark on the last page for the last week -- I don't want to leave this place. And I'm not Jewish or Palestinian! So it will probably be exponentially more intense for you. But though there is pain, frustration, futility and rage, there is so much soulfood in those pages. Don't deny yourself! Linda

Fantastic Book

I work with authors every day and I have NEVER written a review before. This book quite simply is the best book I have ever read on the Middle East. In putting a human face on both sides of the conflict in this region, Orange has accomplished what few authors and journalists have managed to do up to this point. You get a sense from this book that everything you read everywhere else about Palestinians and Israelis is written on a lap top in a suite in the King David Hotel. The book takes you into homes and lives on both sides and makes the struggle there understandable in a way I've never seen before. More importantly, the book takes you along on an adventure and, like a good travel book, makes you want to go to Israel and see for yourself!!

The Return of The Great Summer Read!

A friend handed me this book and insisted, "This is the Summer Read that will stay in your head and heart." Looking at the cover, I assumed she had thought of me because, years ago, I worked in the Middle East. I am not Jewish, not Arab, and most importantly, I find politics of any kind to be boring. But Orange manages to make the politics irresistible through the lives of a host of individuals. She tells the story on so many levels, from specific moments already past to global consequences and conundrums which remain in effect. Even better than being the truth, the story is a page-turner. I loved the consciousness that runs throughout. This book delivers in so many categories: it is a woman's journey, a foreign affair, an education in the invisible life of Israel, a portrait of the Palestinians, a story filled with immediacy and charm. I was drawn into the picture and along for the ride. It is not merely a travelogue-- but it is definitely a TRIP. You're a member of the author's family within paragraphs but the writing never sinks to the tedious or home-grown. It is consistently literate, graceful, witty and to the point. Orange puts you on an intimate basis with her subjects immediately, sometimes with a single image or phrase. Highly recommended for anyone who loves to read. The statement that best captures my take on Coming Home To Jerusalem is, "This book gets under your skin and the pleasure is all yours!"

Outsider/Insider

It has often been said that the best perspective for a writer is the stance of the outsider. Ms. Orange succeeds in that rarest of positions, the outsider who guilelessly admits to being a beginner and then in a few thrilling leaps plunges into the fray to become part of the intellignentsia. And there could be no place on earth more challenging than the Middle East. The reader will want to follow Ms. Orange on the journey because her intelligence and unswerving gaze, both outward and inward never falters. This book is rare in its willingness to combine the mundane - everyday parenting dilemmas, friendships, and love - with the big issues - politics in an embattled land. Both are handled with a prose that jumps off the page and carries the reader forward from first to last. An unforgettable book.