Raquela

Rating:
Summary: An Admirable Woman
Review: I read this book when I was 15 years old. Wow! I was SOOO impressed with Raquela's courage and integrity that at that point I decided if I had a daughter I would name her Raquela. Nine years later, I had a baby girl and her name is Raquela. I read this book again a few years ago and was once again impressed. Just a month ago my husband, daughter, Raquela, and I were able to go to Israel and I saw Hadassah Hospital on Mount Scopus. My daughter was able to see and walk the same places as her namesake. Ruth Gruber beautifully laid this story out and I agree it reads like a novel and is very hard to put down.

Rating:
Summary: Amazing Book!
Review: This book is a wonderfully told life story of an amazing woman! I couldnt put it down!

Rating:
Summary: A beautiful biography that reads like a novel
Review: This book is, in one sense, the biography of a woman whose family has always lived in Jerusalem but in another sense it is a novel of one woman's life as she grows up, falls in love, gets married, has children, loses her son and child.

It is also a novel of how politics and personal life intersect: here we find Arab-Jewish relations ruptured during the Hebron Massacre only to be re-constituted again after the formation of the State of Israel; here we find Raquela's son killed in one war amongst many; here we see the international aid traded for guns in the refugee camps. And above all, here we see the heartbreak and the triumph of one woman, one Jerusalemite, who lives in her own country.

I highly recommend this book to anyone interested in Israel and Israelis, be they Arab or Jews or Christian.