Mornings in Jenin

Bellissimo e indimenticabile.
Leggere questo libro è stata un'esperienza incredibile sotto tutti i punti di vista e mi ha colpito nel profondo come non avrei mai pensato possibile.
È il racconto delle vicissitudini di quattro generazioni di una famiglia araba, gli Abulheja, narrate a partire dal 1948 in parallelo alla vera storia della Palestina, dal momento in cui verranno costretti con la forza ad abbandonare la loro casa ad ‘Ain Hod per essere trasferiti nel campo profughi di Jenin.
Un racconto duro e straziante ma al tempo stesso dolce, tenero e nostalgico, scevro comunque da qualsiasi acrimonia e recriminazione ma che ti fa entrare a viva forza in una realtà terribile e difficilissima, finora solo immaginata, ma che adesso show more queste parole hanno invece reso quasi tangibile.
Ci sono pagine che non potrò dimenticare, che ho letto con difficoltà perché la commozione e quello che sentivo mi impedivano di andare avanti, ci sono immagini che si sono create nella mia mente che non si cancelleranno, ci sono parole e frasi lette che risveglieranno ricordi e c'è la convinzione che quello che viene narrato è la realtà di quanto è successo. E poi ci sono le mille domanda che sorgono spontanee durante la lettura, una su tutte continua rigirare nella mia testa: ma com’è possibile che persone che hanno subito l’infamia dell’Olocausto possano dimenticare così in fretta quello che hanno subito e passare senza alcuna remora dal ruolo di vittime a quello di torturatori? La mente umana è così facile a dimenticare le sofferenze pur di raggiungere un fine, peraltro, in questo caso, alquanto discutibile nella sua legittimità?
Un libro che, oserei dire, andrebbe letto obbligatoriamente anche solo per farci capire quanto grande è la fortuna di nascere in un posto piuttosto che in un altro. show less

La storia di tre generazioni di palestinesi, dal 1948 in poi, una vera e propria epopea narrativa che racconta finalmente Jenin dalla parte di chi non parla mai: dei vinti.
E' un libro duro, implacabile. Implacabile nel giudizio negativo sulle politiche israeliane e americane, ma mai contro le persone (commovente quando Amal ritrova il fratello perduto, che ha vissuto in una famiglia ebrea e ha assunto valori ebraici, e arriva a considerarlo fratello al di là di tutto, anche dei suoi evidenti torti). Non mancano riferimenti alla cultura araba, considerata positivamente ma che come tutte le culture è soggetta a cattiverie, esagerazioni, violenze, in specie contro la donna.
Mi ha colpito in particolare un brano in cui Fatima spiega che show more amare per gli americani (e intendo io, per estensione, gli occidentali) è molto diverso dall'amare palestinese. All'inizio la cosa mi è sembrata scorretta, ma riflettendo mi è venuto in mente l'amore dei miei nonni, usciti dalla seconda guerra mondiale; e sì, è diverso dal nostro. L'amore di chi ha visto l'orrore è diverso da chi ne ha sentito solo parlare dai tg, ed è in questo e in niente altro che ci si differenzia: l'essere in pace e l'essere in guerra.
Particolarmente straziante il resoconto della guerra del Libano e del massacro di Shabra el Sathila, di cui a scuola non si studia niente. E illuminante il fatto che dei soldati israeliani, figli dei superstiti dell'Olocausto, si trovino a far da custodi alla carneficina di altri esseri umani. L'insensatezza di tutto questo colpisce come uno schiaffo e ci rende responsabili se non altro per tutti quei momenti in cui dimentichiamo e lasciamo che sia.
Leggete questo libro se volete per un attimo capire cosa nutre il terrorismo, le ferite dell'anima che impediscono tuttora di raggiungere una pace che sarebbe comunque squilibrata, l'incapacità drammatica di una classe politica di essere all'altezza del suo compito, l'assurdo controsenso di un popolo che ha visto la propria oppressione farsi in qualche modo a sua volta violenza su persone immeritevoli.
La ragione non sta mai da una sola parte, questo è vero. Ma dovrebbe non essere consentito mai dimenticare da quale parte muoiono i bambini, dov'è che manca tuttora assistenza medica, dov'è che ancora la gente vive in campi profughi. La giustizia non può che gridare che Israele e con lui l'Occidente intero ha molto su cui riflettere e moltissimo da farsi perdonare. show less

I feel like a stupid American. A really stupid American. Of course I've been aware of the Arab/Israeli conflict for decades but this gut wrenching book brought so much to the forefront, in graphic, horrifying detail that just tore my heart out. Read for Paul's Middle East Challenge, this book has been sitting on my shelf since 2011 and I'm so glad I finally read it because it was eye opening and even though it is fiction, the author had so many sources to verify the facts she presented in the book.

Forced to live their lives in a refugee camp in Jenin after continual bombing and attacks, not for months but for years and years after their land and home were taken from them, Amal and her family and friends suffer in numerous and terrible show more ways. Heartbreaking, and relevant to this day. show less

Mornings in Jenin by Susan Abulhawa was both a difficult book to read and a difficult book to write a review on. This was one of the most emotional reads I’ve had in a very long time. This is the story of the Palestine refugees told in a way that I personally had never known. This is a story of loss. The characters face the loss of their land, the loss of their dignity and the loss of their lives. The author opened my eyes to an event that has been on the world stage for a generation, yet one I really knew very little about.

The story of one Palestinian family from the 1940’s through to 2003 was a story of hardship, war and hatred. I was surprised and angry to read of such horrible acts that were committed by the same people who show more were mistreated and murdered by the Nazis. I know this book is probably more than a little one-sided and I need to balance my views by reading something from the Israeli point of view, but the message I take from Mornings In Jenin is that violence begets violence in a never ending cycle.

Both heart and gut-wrenching, Mornings In Jenin is a powerful read that resonated with me and left me feeling a sense of both loss and guilt. A moving story that takes one behind the headlines and gives us a personal look at the cost of disassembling a nation. show less

A rarely told Palestinian story (though perhaps more of their stories have been told since this was written). Heartbreaking on two levels especially, what these people experienced, and that they experienced it at the hands of people who one would hope and wish had kept bloodless hands. There is no denial in this novel that the Palestinians have blood on their hands too.

Abulhawa witnessed some of these events, and witnessed the denial of them by the UN and others. Knowing there would be denial of the contents of her novel, she quoted from the works of respected historians in a few areas. But this is a novel, a story of one family and their neighbours and friends.

It wrung my heart at the end when one young Palestinian is given a visa to show more study in the US, and writes home to say that he can't believe what life is like living somewhere there is no war. At the current time, we too should be remembering this. But then there is always war somewhere, and many of those wars go unacknowledged by those of us in safety. show less

This is such a powerful book. I didn't love the narration. The shifts in perspective were weird to me and I didn't grasp the reasoning behind them. (I did love how poetry from Gabril, Darwish and others was woven into the narrative.) However, the story itself was compelling and sad and infuriating. It took me a long time to finish this because I had to put it down several times. I hate that it was first published about twenty years ago and is still so current. There is a moment when one of the characters says something like not even Israel would bomb a hospital and well, we all know how that goes. I know that many readers see the ending as hopeful but it is was hard for me not to feel hopeless reading this. We all know this story by now show more and yet it keeps repeating. show less

I try to limit the number of these sorts of books I read in year, because they are so depressing. As someone who is neither Jewish nor Palestinian, I am not personally connected to the 'conflict in Israel' tha has been going on since long before I was born. I know enough about it, though, that this novel was not a history lesson for me, more a reminder of the ugliness that humans can create for each other. I have Jewish and Palestinian friends, and have learned to remain respectfully silent about the violence and cruelty both sides continue to show each other in Israel. I can't stop the hatred and evil between these peoples, no matter how much I dwell on it, so I make sure I tune in every so often to what is happening in that part of show more the planet, and then go on with my own life as best I can.
Books like this one bring the evils of humanity back into focus. In this story, we follow a Palestinian family from a pre-1940's peaceful village that grew olives, through the atrocities of WW2 and the 'birth' of Israel, to the still-ongoing simmer of evil perpetuated by both sides. Since this book follows a Palestinian family, we see mostly the evils visited on Palestinians by Israelis (a side that the American government has long been eager to suppress from American awareness). But from the stories American media does cover about the evils Palestinians visit on Israelis, I knew all the while I was reading this book that there are always more evils going on just off screen. The 'good guys', those non-combatant civilians who just want to live in safety and some sort of comfort, become the victims of both sides, and so long as Israel exists and has not yet completed its implied genocide of the Palestinian people, the violence seems like it must go on forever.
Do I recommend this book? Of course. Israel is not the only place on Earth where we have created a perpetual cycle of evil, but it is a very important one because it is so visible and contained, and maybe if we ever figure out how to achieve lasting peace in Israel, we can apply what we learn to other places and 'conflicts'. But this is not a book to inspire hope for a better future. Reading this story may result in temporary dislike of humans, for the fact that the people who are doing the evil in this book are not monsters, but normal, nice people, not much different from everyone you yourself know and trust. Working out the nature of the evil in Israel and Chechnya and Sudan and everywhere else it has taken root is going to require really looking at it and recognizing that none of us are immune to it, and if we are not perpetuating the evil, there may be a time when we get to become its victims instead. (And yes, for the rest of the year I'll be reading happier or less realistic books and recovering some capacity to like humans again.) show less