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Summary: Most Readable Book on Israel and the Palestinians
Review: More than readable: excellent, poetical prose, astute insight into human nature, and humor-- always a good sign in a writer, along with her love of almost everyone she meets, I find her a loveable narrator, Ms. Orange, who's written a necessary, prescient book: "Coming Home to Jerusalem"... --This text refers to an out of print or unavailable edition of this title
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Summary: I love this book
Review: I made my first trip to Israel last summer, just before war broke out. I treasure the country of Israel and I treasure "Coming Home to Jerusalem"--it explained much to me that I didn't know before I went to visit for two months. And now this book reminds me of the sights, sounds, food and spirit of a country I do know. Evocative, impressionistic, full of wild characters, there is nothing remotely like propaganda here. And it reminds us all of what peace could look like, even if now there is nothing like peace in the Jerusalem Air or the Israeli ground.
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Summary: An Ode to Co-Existence
Review: "Coming Home to Jerusalem" is even more important now than when it was published almost a year ago. It is an ode to co-existence, what is sorely lacking in the current politics of the mideast and maybe be lost for generations to come. But reading Wendy Orange one can see the total absurdity of being pro-Jewish or pro-Arab, when the only way to a real peace, as she shows in many vignettes and scenes, is to be pro-rapprochement, pro-people, pro-dialogue. As an active member in Seeds of Peace, I applaud Orange her beautiful prose and her equally beautiful imagery. This should be required reading for every politician and diplomat because the book captures the ideal future with scenes from the 1990's that can't happen today. The fanatics have taken over and all is going to be lost. Hold onto this book, it's a blueprint for the future, full of excellent descriptions and dare I say, love for peace, however distant.
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Summary: A Moving Book About Israel That Reaches Far Beyond
Review: This vital book has an important place among those about the Middle East. Wendy Orange shines a spotlight to show us how perception, tentativeness and fear rise up and block the way of the peace process. But her message is, finally, one of hope. She demonstrates by her own example in this book that bridges can be built on a person-to-person basis, even in times of crisis.Even more, however, Coming Home To Jerusalem is a PERSONAL journey, as the cover says. In addition to Ms. Orange's analysis on the quagmire that is Israel and her experiences therein, other sections read wholly as a search -- for community, for meaning, for collective purpose, for a certain density to life. Those are the parts I love the most, as they resonate with my own peering through the mist. They are so honest, so naked and clear and beautiful. On this level the book has the power to touch many many others, whether or not they care at all about Middle East.
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Summary: If You Want To Know The Truth
Review: This book is the answer to a question I have always had whenever I opened the newspaper or turned on the tv to hear about a new flare-up in Israel, a country about which I have no relationship or interest, a country about which I knew next to nothing: I wonder what the average person on the street thinks? In direct, compassionate, brilliant, and most of all very personal words, the author informs, fascinates, and shocks anyone who wants to know what's really going on in this country, this conflict, cutting away the ideologies, politics, rationales, and myths to expose the sometimes beautiful, sometimes ugly truth, its historical source, its rewards, and its horrible costs. Eminently lucid, crammed with rich, human detail, the kind of detail that is essential in building understanding and belief, she tells it like it is, taking not one side or another, but both sides and all sides, staying generously and objectively and unwaveringly honest, and above all, hopeful. Thank you, Wendy Orange.
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Summary: Best Place to Read this Book...
Review: The best place to read this book is when going to and coming from Israel. I read "Coming Home to Jerusalem" on the airplane over to Israel and then finished it on the way back home to the USA last month, when I was on 9 day a "solidarity" tour. Much of what Orange describes about Jerusalem was invisible to me when I was there. But nonetheless, I could feel all the people and places she knew though I didn't see them directly. Reading this book in that context enriched my experience, adding texture to my short visit. I suggest you carry this book when traveling so that you'll learn what cannot be seen or heard or known in a week or two. When taking a short visit to Israel, you will benefit by having Orange's detailed and absorbing "journey" added to your own.
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Summary: Not a Long Book but a Large Book
Review: I keep coming back to relish Ms. Orange's book. It is unique in the literature of Israel and Mideast studies. Of all the books I've read on that region, literally hundreds, this one is by far the most endearing, and I suspect: the most enduring. There's a sweetness to the narrator that isn't saccharine but genuine. There's an original way with words that creates intimacy with the reader and vice versa. But most of all, I think it is Orange's fresh writing that makes me to re-open this book often. I never tire of the scenes where enmity dissolves or of the special phrasings she uses which are never pretentious. Above all, I re-read "Coming Home to Jerusalem" for the insights into racism and conflict resolution, what she always shares with a humane warmth. This book seem larger and more important than most. I pick it up almost daily to re-find one scene or another. There are indelible images here that never fail to lift me into hope: A campfire on a mountaintop near Har Homa; a humorous passage showing the symmetry between her Israeli neighbors' and her Palestinian interviewees' identically despairing moods. No one else I've read captures intra-ethnic dialogue so visually, while holding emotional depth. This book is a rarity; a keeper!
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Summary: Passionate, personal messages from the Mid-East
Review: Through the lens of her own impassioned personal narrative, Orange leads the reader into the troubled heart of this deeply conflicted region. She shows us, up close, the tragedy of Israel's blighted promise, where good intentions are forever at the mercy of ancient hatreds and where the most educated, civilized people on all sides show no compunction about committing (or encouraging, which is the same thing) the most barbaric atrocities. No simplified headline cliches here, no easy division between the "good guys" and the bad. Orange takes all this ridiculous tragedy and waste in a deeply personal way (at times you want to shout, "Why won't these people just LISTEN to each other?") and after a time the reader does, too.
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Summary: A FEAST
Review: Want to cheer up in this least cheerful of times? Want to get carried away by a narrator that never stoops to cliches and a narrative that never bores? Want a... trip to Israel? If yes, yes and yes: This book is for you. Judging from the abundance of customer reviews, "Coming Home..." is a book for many. I found it so engaging that I missed two meals while immersed in turning pages. Many others have also said this is a page turner. About how many books on Israel and the "situation" can one honestly say that? I guess I was hungry to get food for thought, which is here in excess. Excellent first book.
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Summary: Not what I expected
Review: I was hoping to read the personal story of a woman who made aliyah - but found myself laboring through endless descriptions of the authors encounters with Palestinians, her impressions of Palestinians, her interviews with Palestinians .... I read the entire book, hoping to catch a few more glimpses about life in Israel, only to be disappointed. Much more informative and interesting, in my opinion "A little too close to God" by David Horovitz.
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