Another book about Israeli-Palestinian relations. Unsolvable by mere mortals and a sad state of affairs. Neither people can go back home again. ( )

As much a biography of nations as two families, while still as focused on character and individuals as on history, this is a careful and fascinating work. Built from massive amounts of research and interviews, the work still manages to read like a story and quickly becomes impossible to put down even as it progresses with ever more nuance.

I'm glad to have finally gotten around to reading it, and feel like I've got a far better handle on the intricacies surrounding this part of the Middle East.

Recommended. ( )

Throughout the book much is made of the "dialog" and "friendship" of the protagonists, Dalia and Bashir. This was completely lost on me. It is Dalia who consistently opens her heart and actively seeks an understanding. She looks beyond herself to the situation of the Arabs that once inhabited the land. She tries to envision a solution. Bashir does none of these things. He does not once open his heart nor seek understanding, he simply goes through the motions of basic Arab hospitality. He does not look beyond himself, not once, to see the plight of the Jewish people. He never tries to envision a solution, instead fixating on one single scenario and blinding himself to anything beyond.

The author tried really hard to be fair, and in that I think he does a good job. ( )

Well-written non-fiction that sheds light on the Palestinian-Israeli conflict in the Middle East. It highlights two families connected by one home in the current Israeli town of Ramla. The Khairis, a Palestinian family, built the house in 1936, and planted a lemon tree in the yard. They were exiled in the wake of the violence during the 1948 war. The eldest son, Bashir, vowed to return one day, to reclaim their home. The Eshkenazis, a family of Bulgarian Jews, arrived in newly established Israel, and moved into the home with the lemon tree. Their only child, Dalia, was only a year old at the time.

The book opens with the meeting of Dalia and Bashir after the Six-Day War. Bashir returns briefly to al-Ramla, seeking to see his old home. He meets Dalia, and she invites him in. Tolan has written a history of the Middle East based around the unlikely friendship between Bashir and Dalia. He interweaves their personal stories with documentation found in his research. He includes direct quotes from interviews, primary sources, and declassified materials. This alternation between micro and macro is effective in conveying the multiple Arab and Israeli perspectives, such that the reader can put himself or herself in their shoes.

The book spans the historical panorama, including such topics as the political conferences, the leaders of various movements, important locations, the involvements of Syria, Jordan, Lebanon, and Egypt, and differing governmental policies that changed over time. I read the version that includes an epilogue, which provides an update as of 2020. Tolan’s book helps facilitate understanding of the complex issues in the Middle East and will appeal to those who want to learn more about the history of the region and the outlook for an eventual peaceful resolution.
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A nonfiction account of the Israeli and Palestinian conflict in the Middle East. A Palestinian refugee returns to his home, now occupied by an Israeli woman. They find common ground despite their differences. The material was dry in spite of what should be a heart-wrenching situation. I wanted more heart and fewerhard facts.

"Each side has an ingenuity for justifying its own position." ( )

Meticulously researched story. It presents two parallel stories of an Israeli early settler and a Palestinian refugee, and the connection they share over 40 years. I was enthralled by the historical aspect and the arguments on each side. Both were presented fairly.

The book has encouraged me to read even more about the conflict in the middle east. I will be trying out some of the books mentioned in the extensive bibliography for this work.

My only gripe with the book is that the emotional aspect between the two protagonist was a bit forced. The loose connection they shared was over-emphasized I felt. Still, the fact that two people on either side of this divide managed to even think of the other's perspective is a start. The problem we have is that most inside this conflict never stop to consider what it was like for the other. ( )

The book jacket will explain the story, but a book jacket often makes a book sound better than it is. But in this case, if the description from the book jacket interests you at all, then I don't think you'll be disappointed in the read. I found the book goes well beyond a story of two families, one Israeli and one Palestinian, linked by the house both occupied at two different times - one before the creation of the state of Israel, and the other after. Without being a history book, full of dry facts, the story still manages to provide an excellent historical background on the source of conflict and rage in the Middle East, e.g., the Palestinian Issue and Israel's right to exist. People who don't like reading history should be pleasantly surprised at how well the history of Israel / Palestine comes out through the interwoven story of the two families. And more importantly, the book manages to provide an understanding of the complexities of the issues from both the Israeli perspective, as well as from the Palestinian perspective. Finding a balanced view on this subject in one place is not an easy task, but this book does an excellent job of it. Far better, in my opinion, than Stanley Ellison was able to accomplish in his book "Who Owns the Land?".

Possible companion book: Crossing Mandelbaum Gate: Coming of Age Between the Arabs and Israelis, 1956-1978 by Kai Bird.

The Mid East conflict has continued for sixty years with no solution in sight. Killings and reprisals and reprisals and killings continue in an endless cycle. Zealots on both sides see the solution as the elimination of the other. Short of that, peace requires dialog, compromise and respecting the rights of others, and this book provides some hope of that for the future. The clash between these peoples spills over throughout the region, and has a significant impact on the U.S. as well. I'd recommend this book for anyone who's ever thought about the issues, the causes, and the solutions of the continuing conflict between Israel and it's neighbors. And that should be true whether your preference in books are those which tell an interesting story, or if your preference in books tend toward the historical / political non-fiction books.
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I feel embarrassed writing this, but I don't know a whole lot about the conflict between Palestinians and Israelis in the Middle East. I mean, I've heard of the major milestones that have shaped it during my own lifetime, but the background, I don't know a lot about it. And before reading "The Lemon Tree", I knew even less.

Which is why I think this is a fairly good introduction to the conflict's major dilemmas. Yes, it forgoes some of the historical sweep of the events that it describes to focus on the lives of two people, Dalia and Bashir, who have a house and a lemon tree in common. But their relationship also serves as a potent allegory for some of the conflict's most complex and intractable questions. They are, after all, two individuals who have an interest in a very specific peace of land, and, to varying extents, their lives were shaped by the conflict about who really owns it. In the book's introduction, Tolan relates how his book was, astonishingly enough, received warmly by people on both sides of the Israeli/Palestinian conflict, but this was clearly his intention. Whether he's describing what local politics was like in Ramla before the British left or talking about how Dalia's parents' memories of Bulgaria influenced her, the past weighs heavily on everyone here. Unfortunately, one of the other things they seem to have in common is a conviction that they belong in Palestine. Tolan should be credited for explaining how individuals from two communities might have reason to believe this, but it's a a mutual assertion that seemed to be running out of common ground for potential negotiation even when the book was published. The potential for deal-making has not, to say the least, has not improved since.

There are a couple of other interesting themes running through "The Lemon Tree." Tolan writes well about the Bulgarian experience in World War II and how a nominal fascist ally was able to save -- if sometimes at a terrible price -- a very significant percentage of its Jewish community from the Nazis. He also writes well about how the region's politics have become less flexible on both sides as time has gone by. A growing feeling on the Palestinian side that return was not inevitable has made violence insurrection seem more appealing, while Israel's politics have, in some ways, grown less democratic and amenable to any sort of compromise. In this context, it's heartbreaking to read about the slow decline of the Oslo Accords and how much attitudes and facts on the ground have shifted since various two-state solutions were proposed. While Bashir and Dalia's connection still seems like a courageous and valuable thing, "The Lemon Tree" is not necessarily an optimistic book, as both communities' claims are still deeply felt and victory by one side might require the obliteration of the others' entire self-concept. The house describes in this book still stands, and is being used both as a school for local Arab children and as a point of encounter for both communities. It's a small enough hope in a confoundingly difficult situation. ( )

In 1967, Bashir Al-Khayri, a Palestinian twenty-five-year-old, journeyed to Israel, with the goal of seeing the beloved old stone house, with the lemon tree behind it that he and his family had fled nineteen years earlier. Not knowing what expect, when he found the house he was greeted by Dalia Ashkenazi Landau, a nineteen-year-old Israeli college student, whose family fled Europe for Israel following the Holocaust. Dalia and Bashir began an unlikely friendship, in the aftermath of war and tested over the next thirty-five years in ways that neither could imagine.
The author conducted extensive research for this book and has managed to portray the Israeli-Palestinian conflict down to a human level. Here, even amid the harshest of political realities there exist stories of hope and reconciliation.

This is an excellent work of nonfiction. I like non fiction, but prefer historical fiction. Therefore for this reader I found some of the historical aspects to be a bit tedious. ( )

I didn't rate this book because I stopped reading it, or rather, I skimmed through it. Not what I expected it to be. There were several reasons I didn't want to read it right now, probably not any of which had to do with the author's writing. So, if you want a detailed low-down on the politics and history of Palestine/Israel over the last hundred years or so, this might please you very much. I didn't want that. So I skimmed and read the bits I found more interesting and let the rest go.

This book pretty much sucked away all the hope I had for a peaceful resolution of the Arab/Israeli situation. ( )

Excellent book. More questions than answers. ( )

This book was not as well written as I would have liked, but the information was very important. I felt the author was definitely pro-Palestinian, but he provided many details that are very upsetting. ( )

An Arab, a Jew, and the Heart of the Middle East

An interesting read about a Bulgarian Jewish woman whose family emigrated to Israel in the 1940s and a Palestian man, about her own age, whose house her family lives in. Bashir and his family fled their home during the war and they now live in the occupied West Bank. One day, he decides to visit the home of his childhood, knocks on the door and (surprisingly) Dahlia invites him in. They form a friendship, through which we learn the history of the conflict through the perspectives of two people who are living through it and its aftermath. Very interesting read....lots of history combined with the story of these two people who, though they disagree, work hard to keep talking to each other. ( )

The Lemon Tree

The idea of telling the story of the creation of the State of Israel via the 2 families who lived in the same house is commendable. In practical terms though, there is so much history and politics to explore that the story sags under its weight. It's obvious the author has done painstaking research in writing this non-fiction biographical account of life in Israel.

Having said that, I learned a lot about the creation of the State of Israel and the tragic decades that followed. Although I'm fully aware of the enmity between Palestinians and Israelis, I never realized the extent and duration of their hostility.

Initial hope turns into despair and rage on both sides and the prospect of Peace is pretty much non-existent.

Blame can be laid in many directions: the perfidious British, the revolving door of alliances of the world powers with Egypt and Israel, Jordanian ambitions, and the weak actions of UN.

Finally, both Jews and Arabs must look to themselves in this Gordian Knot which is impossible to unravel. I despair of any meaningful solution in the near future if feelings and actions remain as they are. ( )

It took all the willpower I had to begin reading this book. Being brought up Jewish, believing (as I still do) in the right of Israel to exist in peace, I had to face harsh realities of what happened in 1948 and 1967 as well as in the later conflicts that I knew more about because they transpired when I was an adult. Tolan's book looked at what happened on the ground during the wars, the displacements, deaths, terrorist attacks and insecurities that occurred during this time. I don't know anything about Sandy Tolan so I am hesitant to say whether this is an accurate picture of 1948 or 1967. It does not exactly mesh with what I was taught, although you could put that down to differences in nuance. On the other hand "history is written by the victors" as the old saying goes.

The story is about a Palestinian Arab who travels back to his childhood home, from which he was forced to flee in 1948. There he meets a young Israeli woman who graciously takes him through the house. They begin a decades-long relationship — difficult to call it a friendship but maybe that is what it is — in which they have many discussions to try and find a way they can live with each other and each have a place they call home in the land of Palestine. I got into this beautifully written story looking for something to give me a direction, a road towards peace in the Middle East.

I am sorry to say this book did not give me much hope that a solution to the conflict between Arab and Israeli Palestinians can be found. Bashar and Dalia talk for decades without resolution. Her view is compromise in which the Palestinians establish a state at the pre-1967 border. His is the departure of Jews that arrived before the Balfour Declaration in 1917 and the establishment of a secular state. I have my own opinions, which have changed over the years, on how to do that but I don't see anything constructive happening any time soon. The book is beautifully written and brings out the anguish and loss felt by both Arabs and Jews during times of persecution and displacement. I recommend it highly, with the reservation that I don't know how accurate the details are. I have found one website saying it is not, but others say differently. I am too emotional about the subject to know the truth. For that reason, I think I will leave it unstarred for now.

Interesting true story and history in the conflicts of Israel and Palestine. ( )

Interesting true story and history in the conflicts of Israel and Palestine. ( )

This book traces the intertwined histories of Bashir Khair, a Moslem Palestinian, and Dalia Eskenazi, an Israeli Jew, and their families through the house in which they both spent their childhoods. Bashir’s father built the house himself in al-Ramla in 1936; his family had lived in Palestine under the Ottomans for generations and were prominent in the city. Forced east from their house and town during the 1948 war, they left their roots behind. Arriving in Israel after the 1948 war, having survived the Holocaust, Dalia and her parents moved to al-Ramla and into the Khair’s house. Having been taught the Arabs fled, Dalia often wondered why people would leave such a beautiful home. When the borders opened after the 1967 war, Bashir and 2 cousins visited al-Ramla to see their former homes. Dalia welcomed them, inviting them to see the whole house and served them refreshments in the garden by the lemon tree Bashir’s father planted. Thus began an extraordinary relationship between a Palestinian who has never relented in his quest for his country and a Jewish Israeli who is equally determined to protect her country while still seeking justice for and peace with the Palestinians. The author’s 7 years of research are reflected in the extensive historical detail of the region, going back many years, along with the personal details of both families up to 2006. Heroes of each side are represented for good and bad actions, but the heart of the story remains on Dalia and Bashir, their families and the connections they have maintained for more than 35 years. This book will provide a deep understanding for anyone who wants a true picture of Israeli-Palestinian issues.

E. Goldstein-Erickson

28. The Lemon Tree : An Arab, A Jew, and the Heart of the Middle East by [Sandy Tolan (2006, 352 page library Hardcover, read Apr 14-26)

The story of a kind of friendship between a Palestinian resistance leader, Bashir, and an Israeli Jew, Dalia, who grew up in the home he was evicted from in 1948. They first meet in 1967, in the aftermath of the six-day war. In this odd period of low security and low violence Bashir takes a bus to his old home, knocks on the door, and Dalia, a teenage Israeli soldier, answers and invites him in.

Tolan documents their story as way of covering the history of the Israeli/Palestinian conflict. He is meticulous with his facts and documentation. He remains impartial (kind of, as Dahlia is not an Israeli equivalent of Bashir, she is just a regular citizen) and manages to sympathetically cover the Palestinian perspective without neglecting the Jewish one.

Unfortunately the reading experience gets kind of dull. There is so much history that is just sort of wedged in there and there is not all that much to say about Bashir and Dalia's friendship other than a few interesting conversations and an important open letter.

The overall affect is thought-provoking. I found it quite moving to imagine this young idealistic Israeli girl just after the six day war trying to reason with a Palestinian, and this young man talking to her, listening and stating his case while, without her knowing, he is deeply involved in the resistance. Two idealistic young people with clashing misunderstandings in civil affectionate discussion. And then there is the after - some 40 years later Bashir has spent most of his life in prison and there is no reconciliation. This is not Northern Ireland. Nothing has been resolved - or even learned. That is sad and worth thinking about.

2015
https://www.librarything.com/topic/185746#5167591 ( )

This was an excellently written, engrossing book and a good way to bring a very complex, very long geopolitical issue more accessible to the layman. I was just as enthralled by Tolan's notes as the book itself and found myself in constant admiration of his diligence in attributing sources or quotes.

Overall, I think Tolan did a good job being pretty even-handed, or as balanced as can be expected given the inherently vitriolic divisiveness of the Isreali-Palestinian conflict. I think he could have done a better job explaining the U.S.' interests in the region when relevant, but then again I also understand that wasn't the purpose of this book.

Regardless, this is a good introductory read about the Israeli-Palestinian conflict, or at least it was. Of course, so much has happened since 2006, when the book was published, I would also recommend brushing up on current events from them before forming any political opinions based on this book alone.

In the end, however, Tolan offers an accessible, well-researched and well-written glimpse into the humanity that drives both the conflict and the potential for peace in the region. ( )

This is the true story of Dalia, a Bulgarian Jew, and Bashir, a Palestinian Arab. Both were uprooted from their homes for different, but related reasons; one was uprooted because of the Holocaust in Europe and the other because of the founding of the state of Israel which resulted from the heinous acts committed against Jews during the Holocaust. It must be mentioned here that the Arabs of Palestine supported Hitler and his Holocaust. They had a common enemy: Jews and Great Britain.
Both people claimed the same land, Israel, only known by that name since 1948, when it was given to the Jews by a United Nations declaration. However, since the ownership of that land is now and has always been disputed, war is never-ending and fear is a constant companion for all sides considered.
Dalia and Bashir meet in 1967, when Bashir knocks on the door of her home only months after the Arab defeat in the 6-day war, just one of a series of violent acts toward the newly formed country since its inception. He asks to see the place he used to call his home, and she graciously grants that wish to him and his two friends who illegally traveled into Israel from their place of exile in the Arab territory. Over the ensuing years, they both become what I shall call frenemies, since they are both driven by different motives and goals, but both also inspiring a feeling of friendship for each other and a concern for each other’s plight. Their needs and solutions pit them squarely in a fight against each other on the playing field that is Israel.
Dalia seeks a solution that will require sacrifice by all parties involved, because she believes it could bring peace to the Middle East. Bashir seeks a solution in which Jews are driven out of their country and sent back to the place they came from. He will not tolerate any compromise regarding the land or the Jews who recently emigrated to his country.
Through their friendship, Dalia learns how her family acquired their home and how Bashir unfairly lost his when Israel commandeered it and forced the community he lived in to flee. She is sympathetic, but realizes that there is nothing she can do about it. She cannot return the home to him, she cannot even sell it to him. It is a brutal mark on Israel’s history, but the Arabs wanted to drive them out, and the newly formed Israel saw no other way to guarantee its survival other than to kill or be killed. Israelis chose survival as cruel as its implementation required.
Bashir, unwilling to compromise in any way, wants only to regain the self respect his family lost which requires them to be able to return to their home, no strings attached. In conjunction, he wants the Jews to return to their homes, not understanding that they often had no home to return to because of the Holocaust. They were not wanted anywhere. Bashir, like the Israelis, believed that any means would justify the end of achieving the right of return. Although he has never admitted it, he was arrested many times for participating in acts of violence and terrorism in Israel. Unlike Dalia, who, to be fair, does have the upper hand as an Israeli, he does not want to work through peaceful means.
The book dwells largely on the different paths each of them follow to find a solution. Dalia eventually creates a school for Arab children in their mutual former home, and Bashir becomes an Arab Freedom Fighter, involved with many violent groups and spending many years of his life in Israeli prisons for the cause of a one-state solution to the Middle East controversy..
Dalia finds it hard to understand how someone she cares about, and supposedly someone who cares about her, can want the annihilation of her people. Yet Israel is also carrying out deeds of brutality, torture and murder, as they invade lands preemptively to protect their territory and their settlers. She finds it hard to justify or understand either behavior.
While Dalia is shown in a sympathetic light, and Bashir is depicted as someone who is the product of years of Israeli abuse, there is little true causation presented that connects the deeds of each enemy toward each other. Therefore, The brutality of Israeli actions often appear to be occurring in a vacuum rather than in reaction to Arab provocation. Israel would probably not exist today had they not taken swift action against their enemies, even preemptively. Did the means justify the ends? Since the Arabs were intransigent and would not accept Israel’s right to exist, after the state was created, I, personally, believe they did.
Dalia appears to be naïve and more than just a little idealistic. Bashir is grounded in his belief that he has the right to return to his family’s land. He beieves in achieving this goal by any means possible. His children are taught that Israel is the cause of all their problems, rather than their refusal to accept Israel’s right to exist. They do not own their responsibility for some of the brutality inflicted upon their people, and they feel no guilt for causing so many unnecessary deaths No matter how hard she tries, Dalia cannot crack his stubborn façade. She believes that in friendship, if they both give up something, if they sacrifice equally, they can compromise and live together, and that this can be applied to the greater land around them, encompassing Arabs and Israelis. She, however, does understand that the right of return would negate Israel’s existence as a Jewish state.
The book’s message is over simplified. Bashir really cares more for his Palestine than he does for Dalia. His connection to terrorist behavior could as easily kill her as well as other innocent and unknown Israelis or innocent Palestinians who lives in Israel. To him, Jews are interlopers who have no right to be there and must be driven out by any means. It is a view similar to the Israeli Jew about the Arabs, sadly.
The author often referred to Bashir’s belief about a resolution guaranteeing the right of return, but this resolution does not actually exist, and the author does not clarify this point, but rather allows the reader to believe what Bashir believes. It is the interpretation of that resolution by Bashir which is incorrect and the author should present it that way. http://www.mythsandfacts.org/conflict...
The groups that Bashir supports do not recognize Israel’s history or its right to exist in what they believe is only “their land”. When Jordan controlled the holy sites, Jews and Christians were forbidden access to certain places, even though the UN resolution required it. When Israel controlled them, Jerusalem was unified and religious sites were open to all.
http://www.yale.edu/accords/jerusalem...
Throughout the Jewish history, they have been attacked just because they were Jews and were different. After a long history of exile and abuse, the Israelis are a bit paranoid, and with good reason. They are a tiny country in the midst of a huge Arab population that will not recognize their right to exist. There is not one Arab country truly willing to give Palestinian refugees sanctuary in their country, on a long term basis, with equal rights and freedoms, yet that is what the Arabs demand from the Jews they attacked the moment the state of Israel was declared.
Many Jews, like me, always believed that all reactions or hostilities, engaged in by Israel, were provoked. In reality, not all were, I learned. I discovered I know a lot about the Holocaust, but not as much about the birth and development of Israel. However, I do know that Israel reacted in its defense, to protect the country from annihilation by an enemy that did not recognize its right to exist, that thought they could wipe the people and the country from the map with impunity and suffer no consequences. When they were forced to pay for their violence, they rebelled and questioned why they were being treated so cruelly when they only, rightfully, wanted their land back.
The problem is this; it was no longer their land. Intransigence will prevent any peace. Both sides have to move to a middle ground, but Israel has no choice, if it wishes to maintain its Jewish identity, but to behave they way it did and will have to continue to do so. Those that do not understand this will wish to doom Israel to extinction. They may even hope for it, as their ultimate goal.
In the Middle East, as in other developed nations, assassinations have become more and more prevalent, as has terrorism. It is necessary to fight hard and early to survive. If two friends could not come to a single cohesive conclusion about how they could live together in peace, how can two separate peoples who desire the same country to call their own, find a pathway to peace?
Dalia could not understand how Bashir could plot to murder Israelis when she could become his victim, and yet, Bashir has become a victim of Israel’s prison system, perhaps not always fairly treated. Because time has passed since the book was published, the fluid situation in Israel has changed and it is now even more threatened by newly formed terrorist groups, by other Arab nations who have experienced the Arab Spring and by an Iran that will possibly soon acquire nuclear weapons. Who knows if there is even a plausible way out? I certainly don’t. However, the truth must be written, not for bleeding hearts, but for the real world with beating hearts for one man’s poison will become another man’s meat on another day. ( )

Fairly meticulously researched. What is refreshing in this madness is that Tolan tells the story through the eyes of real people and lets the reader decide what to think - of course the subjectivity is present in Tolan's choice of which stories to tell, but he makes a very brave and thorough attempt to be as unbiased as possible.

Worth reading unless you cannot put aside your own prejudices about this topic. ( )

Ostensibly, this is the (true) biography of the friendship between the Israeli woman Dalia Eshkenazi and the Palestinian man Bashir Khairi. However, the book also focuses strongly on background information--providing a wonderful history of the Israel-Palestine conflict since the 1940's. I was hugely pleased by this book for two reasons. First, the friendship between Dalia and Bashir was touching because they both had such strong nationalistic feelings. Somehow, despite their very different views, they were able to remain on good terms for many years. That's touching to me because many books with this let's-make-peace message tend to be about people who are all about love and peace and aren't as strongly influenced by their negative emotions as Dalia and (especially) Bashir. This is a friendship that was difficult to maintain, and yet it prevailed. The second reason I loved this book is because of the wonderful history of the region it provided. It's supposedly a "balanced" view--and it is, in the sense that it recommends justice (and sacrifice) be made by both sides. However, I'd say the book tended to be sympathetic towards to Palestinians. This SLIGHT bias is necessary in this case because many people in the Western world are over-exposed to the Israeli side and don't realize the Palestinians have a side at all. This book is highly recommended to anyone interested in the conflict. ( )