Lemon Tree
by Sandy Tolan
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Binding: Audio CD
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In 1967, Bashir Al-Khayri, a twenty-five-year-old Palestinian, made a long-imagined journey to what is now the city of Ramle in Israel, with the goal of seeing the beloved old stone house, with the lemon tree behind it that his father had planted, that he and his family had fled nineteen years earlier. To his surprise, when he found the house and rang the bell, a young woman welcomed him in.
The woman who met him at the door was Dalia Eshkenazi Landau, a nineteen-year-old Israeli college student, who had been a baby when her family fled Europe following the Holocaust and found their way to an abandoned stone house in Ramle, with a lemon tree in the backyard. On the stoop of their shared home, Dalia and Bashir began a rare and difficult friendship, forged in the aftermath of war and tested over the next 35 years in ways that neither could imagine on that summer day in 1967.
Based on extensive research and conversations with all the people involved, and springing from his enormously resonant radio documentary that aired on NPR's Fresh Air in 1998, Sandy Tolan brings the Israeli/Palestinian conflict down to its most human level, suggesting that even amid the bleakest political realities there exist stories of hope and reconciliation.
Unabridged. Read by the author.
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122 of 137 people found the following review helpful:
The Lemon Tree, May 9, 2006
by M. Socci
In my 56 years, I've read several books that have changed my life--brought me greater understandings, taught me things I didn't know, mesmerized me so much that I took the books with me everywhere I went--even reading at stop lights! The Lemon Tree is right up there with The Haj, Hawaii, and Night. This history fills in all the gaps of my previous knowledge. So many people have questions about the Middle Eastern conflicts and all of those questions are answered in this book. My friends and I agree that we all SHOULD know more about the Middle East situation, but rarely do we want to sit down and study a history book. This book is full of facts, but it's a page turner!I could hardly put it down. My life was on hold. One day I was reading The Lemon Tree and I actually started crying. There were heart-stopping moments, too. Very exciting! A thriller! I want to meet the real people in the book so much. They are so brave, both Arabs and Israelis, Muslims and Jews. I love how Sandy Tolan showed Israel through different view points, e.g. al-Ramla through Arabic eyes and Ramla through Israeli eyes. It helped shift my thinking as I was reading. Everyone simply has to read this book, both sides, all sides!
104 of 118 people found the following review helpful:
Compassion, History, Documentation, Hope, May 3, 2006
by Victoria Lindsay
Who has a heart large enough to contain compassion both for the longing for Zion, for sanctuary, for homeland, of the Jewish survivors who emigrated to the nascent Israel after WWII, and at the same time the longing for return, for justice, for homeland, of the Palestinians who were expelled from the homes they had occupied for generations to make room for what was to become Israel?
Sandy Tolan, author of The Lemon Tree, has, and when you read this remarkable book your heart, too, will stretch until it is large enough to encompass the whole.
If you don't know the history of Palestine and Israel, read this book. It is a true story, but it reads like a novel. It's a page-turner that tells "Everything you ever wanted to know about the history of Israel and Palestine, but were afraid to ask."
If you know the history, but you find the subject difficult to discuss with others, read this book for back-up. Every event is documented in the extensive source notes. Arab accounts of what occurred around 1948 have long been available. Israeli Army reports of the same events were declassified only 50 years after the fact. Only since then have the disparate narratives begun to intertwine into one coherent story of what happened in 1948 and after. All of the historic phenomena are documented here from both Israeli and Palestinian sources.
If you follow the news of the region, and therefore you despair, read this book. You'll discover that hope prevails -- in the care of those who sneak across borders to knock on doors, and those who, having considered and rejected more conventional responses to presumed enemies, instead answer, "Yes. Please come in."
Sandy Tolan, author of The Lemon Tree, has, and when you read this remarkable book your heart, too, will stretch until it is large enough to encompass the whole.
If you don't know the history of Palestine and Israel, read this book. It is a true story, but it reads like a novel. It's a page-turner that tells "Everything you ever wanted to know about the history of Israel and Palestine, but were afraid to ask."
If you know the history, but you find the subject difficult to discuss with others, read this book for back-up. Every event is documented in the extensive source notes. Arab accounts of what occurred around 1948 have long been available. Israeli Army reports of the same events were declassified only 50 years after the fact. Only since then have the disparate narratives begun to intertwine into one coherent story of what happened in 1948 and after. All of the historic phenomena are documented here from both Israeli and Palestinian sources.
If you follow the news of the region, and therefore you despair, read this book. You'll discover that hope prevails -- in the care of those who sneak across borders to knock on doors, and those who, having considered and rejected more conventional responses to presumed enemies, instead answer, "Yes. Please come in."
43 of 49 people found the following review helpful:
FROM A LEMON SAPLING A MIGHTY ___?___ MAY GROW, July 19, 2006
by charles falk
Sandy Tolan's THE LEMON TREE encapsulates the Israeli-Palestinian dilemma better than anything I've read to date. It does so by telling the true story of two families who occupied and loved the same house in the West Bank town of Ramla: the Palestinian Khairis who built it and lived in it up until 1948 and the Bulgarian Jewish Eshkenazis who lived in it from 1948 until 1984. It is the perfect metaphor for the intractable problem of two peoples who have historical claims to the same piece of real estate.
Tolan's central figures are Bashir Khairi and Dalia Eshkenazi who meet for the first time in the aftermath of the Six Day War and maintain a tenuous friendship into the 21st century. His narrative has a distinctly novelistic style. (In fact another Amazon reviewer refers to it as "a trashy, bitter novel") Tolan begins by introducing the reader to Bashir's and Dalia's parents in the 1930's and describing the societies in which they lived. As with Austen or Tolstoi, one absorbs social, historical, and political context while trying to guess where the story is leading.
For example, I learned in passing that Axis member Bulgaria did the best job of any nation in Europe of protecting its Jewish population from the Nazi death camps. One also encounters future leaders of Israel and of Fatah in unexpected places in Tolan's narrative. The order to expel the Arab inhabitants of Lydda and Ramla during the 1948 War was given by Lt. Col. Yitzhak Rabin. Abu Jihad, Arafat's right hand, who helped launch the first Intifada, was among the children expelled from Ramla.
THE LEMON TREE is not a feel-good book. Other reviewers have drawn hopeful conclusions from the relationship of Bashir and Dalia and from the planting of a new lemon tree at the house in Ramla. I am less sanguine.
Bashir Khairi, trained as a lawyer, has spent most of his adult life in Israeli prisons or in exile. The prison in Ramla where he was incarcerated was built on an olive grove which had belonged to his family for twelve generations. Bashir's conviction that the land of Israel and Palestine should be transformed into a single, secular, democratic state has few supporters among Palestineans or anywhere else in the world. Dalia continues to act on the belief that individuals behaving with good will can begin to heal the wounds that Israelis and Palestinians have inflicted on each other and upon themselves. Neither approach seems to offer a great deal of hope at the moment.
Tolan's central figures are Bashir Khairi and Dalia Eshkenazi who meet for the first time in the aftermath of the Six Day War and maintain a tenuous friendship into the 21st century. His narrative has a distinctly novelistic style. (In fact another Amazon reviewer refers to it as "a trashy, bitter novel") Tolan begins by introducing the reader to Bashir's and Dalia's parents in the 1930's and describing the societies in which they lived. As with Austen or Tolstoi, one absorbs social, historical, and political context while trying to guess where the story is leading.
For example, I learned in passing that Axis member Bulgaria did the best job of any nation in Europe of protecting its Jewish population from the Nazi death camps. One also encounters future leaders of Israel and of Fatah in unexpected places in Tolan's narrative. The order to expel the Arab inhabitants of Lydda and Ramla during the 1948 War was given by Lt. Col. Yitzhak Rabin. Abu Jihad, Arafat's right hand, who helped launch the first Intifada, was among the children expelled from Ramla.
THE LEMON TREE is not a feel-good book. Other reviewers have drawn hopeful conclusions from the relationship of Bashir and Dalia and from the planting of a new lemon tree at the house in Ramla. I am less sanguine.
Bashir Khairi, trained as a lawyer, has spent most of his adult life in Israeli prisons or in exile. The prison in Ramla where he was incarcerated was built on an olive grove which had belonged to his family for twelve generations. Bashir's conviction that the land of Israel and Palestine should be transformed into a single, secular, democratic state has few supporters among Palestineans or anywhere else in the world. Dalia continues to act on the belief that individuals behaving with good will can begin to heal the wounds that Israelis and Palestinians have inflicted on each other and upon themselves. Neither approach seems to offer a great deal of hope at the moment.
24 of 27 people found the following review helpful:
The Lemon Tree, December 12, 2006
by Mark Galper
"The Lemon Tree", a is a very compelling book about the Middle East conflict. Sandy Tolan presents a comprehensive history of the Israeli/Palestinian conflict, with meticulous documentation of sources at the end of the narrative.
The history is weaved around the personal stories of two families who lived in the same house, and specifically two individuals in those families. We are first introduced to Bashir, whose father built the house in the town of El-Ramla and which his family occupied until they were forced out by Israeli soldiers in 1947.
we then meet Dalia, the daughter of Bulgarian parents who emigrated to Israel in 1948, and who lived in the house from 1948 on.
Following the 6 Day War in 1967, Bashir travels from Ramallah, where his family now lives, to Ramla to see the house, and is greeted by Dalia, who, after hesitating a moment, invites him in. This first encounter spawns a life-long relationship between the two, despite their ideological and political differences, and despite the widely divergent paths that their lives take.
The Lemon Tree is a powerful book. As a critical but strong supporter of Israel, I felt that the author sometimes shifted the sentiment in favor of the Palestinian cause, giving somewhat short thrift to Israel's legitimate security concerns, and to the dark policy choices it must often face given the fact that it is a tiny country surrounded by hostile nations and peoples. Nonetheless, it is difficult for even the most ardent Zionist to condone some of the tactics used by Israel to try to quell the social and political unrest both within and outside of its borders.
In many ways, The Lemon Tree is a disturbing book, insofar as it sometimes leaves the reader feeling that the chasm between the two sides will never be bridged. So long as the Palestinians insist on the right to return to the lands which they once occupied, even at the expense of dismantling the Jewish state and uprooting those who now occupy the houses and lands once belonging to Palestinian Arabs, peace seems virtually impossible to achieve.
In any event, despite the fact that the book tends to justify and rationalize the violent actions of the Palestinians fighting for their perceived rights, while taking a condemnatory view towards Israeli actions, the chief heroine of this book is Dalia, who remains a voice of compassion, empathy and reason in a sea of madness. It is a book well worth reading.
The history is weaved around the personal stories of two families who lived in the same house, and specifically two individuals in those families. We are first introduced to Bashir, whose father built the house in the town of El-Ramla and which his family occupied until they were forced out by Israeli soldiers in 1947.
we then meet Dalia, the daughter of Bulgarian parents who emigrated to Israel in 1948, and who lived in the house from 1948 on.
Following the 6 Day War in 1967, Bashir travels from Ramallah, where his family now lives, to Ramla to see the house, and is greeted by Dalia, who, after hesitating a moment, invites him in. This first encounter spawns a life-long relationship between the two, despite their ideological and political differences, and despite the widely divergent paths that their lives take.
The Lemon Tree is a powerful book. As a critical but strong supporter of Israel, I felt that the author sometimes shifted the sentiment in favor of the Palestinian cause, giving somewhat short thrift to Israel's legitimate security concerns, and to the dark policy choices it must often face given the fact that it is a tiny country surrounded by hostile nations and peoples. Nonetheless, it is difficult for even the most ardent Zionist to condone some of the tactics used by Israel to try to quell the social and political unrest both within and outside of its borders.
In many ways, The Lemon Tree is a disturbing book, insofar as it sometimes leaves the reader feeling that the chasm between the two sides will never be bridged. So long as the Palestinians insist on the right to return to the lands which they once occupied, even at the expense of dismantling the Jewish state and uprooting those who now occupy the houses and lands once belonging to Palestinian Arabs, peace seems virtually impossible to achieve.
In any event, despite the fact that the book tends to justify and rationalize the violent actions of the Palestinians fighting for their perceived rights, while taking a condemnatory view towards Israeli actions, the chief heroine of this book is Dalia, who remains a voice of compassion, empathy and reason in a sea of madness. It is a book well worth reading.
25 of 29 people found the following review helpful:
A Page Turner, June 10, 2006
by J. Bisharat
The Lemon Tree tells the story of the Palestinian-Israeli experience through the lives and interactions of an Israeli woman and a Palestinian man. This true story documents the life of Dalia, whose parents flee to Palestine with their infant daughter after the Holocaust. We also learn about Bashir, a Palestinian whose family is expelled from their home in the Palestinian village of Ramla by Zionist forces in 1948.
Dalia grows up in Bashir's former home and one day a heart-stopping event occurs. Bashir appears at her front door, wishing to see the home he had grown up in and fled as a child. He takes a lemon from the backyard lemon tree to his father in Ramallah as a memento of the home they have lost.
The plot continues with many poignant twists and turns. As the two characters grow and age, their lives intersect in intriguing ways. And through this beautifully-written narrative, author Sandy Tolan humanizes the Palestinian-Israeli conflict and the people it affects. It is recommended for anyone with an interest in the region.
Dalia grows up in Bashir's former home and one day a heart-stopping event occurs. Bashir appears at her front door, wishing to see the home he had grown up in and fled as a child. He takes a lemon from the backyard lemon tree to his father in Ramallah as a memento of the home they have lost.
The plot continues with many poignant twists and turns. As the two characters grow and age, their lives intersect in intriguing ways. And through this beautifully-written narrative, author Sandy Tolan humanizes the Palestinian-Israeli conflict and the people it affects. It is recommended for anyone with an interest in the region.
