Eli Amir

This book was an amazing read for me. It takes place in 1950s Israel and is about the experiences of Nuri, an Iraqi Jewish boy who came with his family to live in a ma'abara, basically an impoverished tent city for new immigrants. Nuri was chosen among others from his ma'abara to be part of a youth group in a kibbutz in the Jezreel Valley. It was very difficult for the boys and girls of Iraqi descent to feel comfortable and understand the way of life on the kibbutz. On the other had, it was also difficult for those "regionals" who were already living on the kibbutz for years to accept the strange customs of the Iraqi youth in their midst.

This novel deals with the culture clash in such a way that I was magically drawn into the book and could almost have been one of its characters. This is probably because I lived in Israel as a volunteer for a year in the 1970s at which time I had the incredible experience of learning intensely about both kibbutz life and philosophy as well as about the culture of immigrant Jews from Arab lands.

Reading this book was a transcendent experience for me. I had to stop many times to write down quotes which I felt were important to me personally. I also burst into song when I read a line about the Jewish holiday of Shavuot (Festival of the First Fruits) only to see the words of the song I had just sung written on the page just below the lines I finished reading. Some of this book's narrative took me back to memories of being in Israel at various times that paralleled exactly things that were happening in the story line. I could see and feel the environment of the characters. I love when books do this to me! This book touched me on a very deep level.… (meer)