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Summary: An American Who Knows Israel Amazingly Well
Review: As an Israeli living in New York, I read this book and learned a lot about my own country, about realities that I knew but never focused on so clearly. Wendy Orange got under the skin of my homeland and inside the Palestinian territories too. I didn't think an American could teach me about Israel. Well, wrong I was!This is one great writer, very smart. As for the Palestinians, she, I'm sad to say, knows more about them then most Israelis do. This is a great learning experience from a really fair writer. Read this book.
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Summary: This book needs Mega Publicity
Review: I read this book last August. I just took it off my bookshelf and re-read parts of it. Whether she knew it or not, Orange predicted the coming violence to Jerusalem. In her interviews, at least from hindsite, all the Palestinians she met said that all hell would break lose around the city of Jerusalem. She shows, not in a heavy politico way, but she surely does show what the Palestinians endured hour after hour, month by month, so many years in a row, since Oslo accords. Though she is Pro-Israeli, I am just stunned to see that the handwriting, or in this case, Orange's writing, predicted what was to come if both sides did not mend fences.. In this book is evidence that if things did not pick up positively "on the ground" then, the ground would conflate. I suspect she did not know she was a visionary because she ends with positive images, but a visionary she is. Read this if you want to understand why there is Crying now (and much worse) in the "beloved countries"...This book gets, to my knowledge, virtually NO publicity. What's that about. Should be Mega-Publicized!!
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Summary: Forced Me to Stop & Think.
Review: I must admit for starters. I went into reading this with a bias. I grew up as a Jew in Brooklyn, New York. As much as I endeavor to treat folks as individuals, my gut reaction is to see Arabs as a faceless mass. After visiting Poland at this time last year and seeing the site of the Warsaw Ghetto and Auschwitz, this only hardened my feeling toward ANY concessions toward Palestinians. I went in thinking that Dr. Orange was a deluded peacenik who would gamble the farm (Israel) away. Well, I was forced to start thinking of individuals while reading this book. Much as I tried, Dr. Orange made me see people, not slogans. Problem solving has to go to a "where do we go from here," not "You did this to me." As with any dispute, it can't be solved with schoolyard taunts of who did what and to which and to whom. Now, I feel differently about about anti-Arab acts I committed in college. Age and wisdom have their uses. Just read the book. The writing style is easy to follow. It is hard to put down. All should read it, not just Jews and Arabs. The book can be used as a basis for general problem solving. Read it at your own risk. For you wont be the same coming out as going in.
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Summary: A brilliant, moving, intelligent book
Review: Serious, moving, beautifully written--heartfelt and weighty. This book drew me into another world--that of the Middle East--as well as to worlds within. Highly recommended.
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Summary: A lost American's silly account.
Review: I don't doubt her sincerity, but Wendy Orange sees the trees and leaves, forever lost, never seeing the forest. The book is tiring, and says very little. She is a ... fan of Thomas Friedman. Read his From Beirut To Jerusalem twice before enduring Dr Orange's plodding story. --This text refers to an out of print or unavailable edition of this title
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Summary: You'll fear lending it but know everyone must read it.
Review: What can you say about a book that has so much promised impact that some people are afraid of it? This is what I said: H-----, I can promise you that the book will provoke many feelings. You will cry, but you will also be filled with mana. Wendy Orange's evocation of the land, the sky, the way the light infuses its objects as if the light itself were animate, and the way she weaves the landscape into the warp and woof of people and politics is spellbinding. I have actually had my bookmark on the last page for the last week -- I don't want to leave this place. And I'm not Jewish or Palestinian! So it will probably be exponentially more intense for you. But though there is pain, frustration, futility and rage, there is so much soulfood in those pages. Don't deny yourself! Linda
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Summary: Fantastic Book
Review: I work with authors every day and I have NEVER written a review before. This book quite simply is the best book I have ever read on the Middle East. In putting a human face on both sides of the conflict in this region, Orange has accomplished what few authors and journalists have managed to do up to this point. You get a sense from this book that everything you read everywhere else about Palestinians and Israelis is written on a lap top in a suite in the King David Hotel. The book takes you into homes and lives on both sides and makes the struggle there understandable in a way I've never seen before. More importantly, the book takes you along on an adventure and, like a good travel book, makes you want to go to Israel and see for yourself!!
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Summary: Wonderful Journey
Review: Reading "Coming Home to Jerusalem" as the Middle East Summit was failing made the summit stakes clearer while the seemingly inevitable failure became more understandable. As the writer learns in the dialogue groups she attends between Israelis and Palestinians, peace is made individual by individual and until this process has won the convictions of large segments of the populations on both sides no summit diplomacy can succeed. Nonetheless her book leaves us feeling that a mutually tolerable peace is possible, although distant.Wendy Orange has written a compelling comedy/tragedy/romance of her six-year stay in Jerusalem between 1990 and 1997. Working as a journalist for a liberal Jewish-American magazine she has made the politics of the country vibrantly alive for her readers through fascinating renderings of the wildly diverse people she meets. In the unlikely position of an American Jew, the writer takes us to the dialogue groups she attends between Israelis and Palestinians and shows each of them to us in their particularity. As a result of this process and other encounters she does an extraordinary job of dispelling the demonization of the Palestinians so prevalent among many of us. She turns these "others" into fully resonant human beings, leading us on this trip of discovery through engaging and lucid writing. Indeed finding a home for herself and the "other" is her theme. Wendy Orange is a marvelous, entrancing writer. Her account and her life are enriched by her concerns for and nurture of her daughter and the discovery of romance with an Israeli. She takes you with her on this wonderful journey.
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Summary: The most timely book of the summer
Review: With the Mideast Summit holding most of us in its grip, Coming Home to Jerusalem could not be more timely and important for us. It brings the situation in the Middle East home to many people who, like me, are woefully "confused" about Israel/Palestinian politics. Wendy Orange's book is personal, engaging, gripping, beautifully written and totally accessible. Watching the TV news or reading the newspapers give a diffuse, distant view of things; Coming Home to Jerusalem makes them absolutely Real. Read it NOW, this week, today.
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Summary: The Return of The Great Summer Read!
Review: A friend handed me this book and insisted, "This is the Summer Read that will stay in your head and heart." Looking at the cover, I assumed she had thought of me because, years ago, I worked in the Middle East. I am not Jewish, not Arab, and most importantly, I find politics of any kind to be boring. But Orange manages to make the politics irresistible through the lives of a host of individuals. She tells the story on so many levels, from specific moments already past to global consequences and conundrums which remain in effect. Even better than being the truth, the story is a page-turner. I loved the consciousness that runs throughout. This book delivers in so many categories: it is a woman's journey, a foreign affair, an education in the invisible life of Israel, a portrait of the Palestinians, a story filled with immediacy and charm. I was drawn into the picture and along for the ride. It is not merely a travelogue-- but it is definitely a TRIP. You're a member of the author's family within paragraphs but the writing never sinks to the tedious or home-grown. It is consistently literate, graceful, witty and to the point. Orange puts you on an intimate basis with her subjects immediately, sometimes with a single image or phrase. Highly recommended for anyone who loves to read. The statement that best captures my take on Coming Home To Jerusalem is, "This book gets under your skin and the pleasure is all yours!"
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