Book description
I> - for the 100,000 Arabs who fled Jaffa in 1948. Through the
stories of six families - three Arab and three Jewish - Adam LeBor
delicately illuminates the complexity of modern Israel, going beyond the
media stereotypes and political rhetoric to tell a moving human story.
From the Christian Arab car-dealer, the Jewish coffee-and-spice merchant
and the Arab baker who makes bread for the whole community, to the
Jewish schoolgirl who befriends an Arab drug dealer, these people strive
to make a life in a country born of conflict.
>Jaffa - famed for its orange groves - was for centuries a city of
traders, merchants, teachers and administrators, home to Muslims,
Christians and Jews alike. That is, until the founding of the state of
Israel, which was simultaneously a moment of jubilation for the Jews
and a disaster - the Naqba<
'Outstanding ... LeBor uses the recent fortunes
of Jaffa as a magnifying lens through which to explore the
entire knotted history of Israel and Palestine in the twentieth
century' Guardian 'This book is for anyone who loves the Middle
East, but also for those who do not yet know it ... LeBor
succeeds in telling the story of ordinary people living in
extraordinary times, and by doing that tells us the painful
story of Palestine itself' Janine di Giovanni, Independent on
Sunday 'In tracing the story of the bitter division of Israeli
and Palestinian territories via some of the individual families
who have lived in, or fled from, Jaffa, Adam LeBor not only
avoids academic dryness, but also manages to tell each of their
stories without condemnation' Observer 'Their stories are
remarkable and typical of many involved in Jaffa's turbulent
century ... City of Oranges brings us something quite different:
the sound of ordinary people trying to get on with their lives
in the middle of interminable conflict' Sunday Times
I> - for the 100,000 Arabs who fled Jaffa in
1948. Through the stories of six families - three Arab and three
Jewish - Adam LeBor delicately illuminates the complexity of
modern Israel, going beyond the media stereotypes and political
rhetoric to tell a moving human story. From the Christian Arab
car-dealer, the Jewish coffee-and-spice merchant and the Arab
baker who makes bread for the whole community, to the Jewish
schoolgirl who befriends an Arab drug dealer, these people
strive to make a life in a country born of conflict.
>Jaffa - famed for its orange groves - was for centuries a city of
traders, merchants, teachers and administrators, home to Muslims,
Christians and Jews alike. That is, until the founding of the state of
Israel, which was simultaneously a moment of jubilation for the Jews
and a disaster - the Naqba<
