rohshey
Written on Apr 5, 2018
We all have some vague distant knowledge about the 'middle east' problem but in this book, the Israeli-Palestinian conflict comes to life in with its devastating tale of friendship and tragedy.
We have our protagonist and narrator, Jonathan, who has returned to Israel from America in his late teens. He looks forward to joining the Israel Defense Force, in part to honor his freedom, fighter grandfather. His life undergoes a radical change after he meets and becomes intimate with Laith and Nimreen, dynamic Arab-Israeli brother-and-sister twins with whom he shares his deepest thoughts.
The three are inseparable. The three inevitably argue passionately about politics and identity; their raw and testy exchanges about painful realities and misperceptions of the “other” constitute some of the novel’s most gripping moments
Their closeness offers a hint of hope for the remaking of Jewish-Arab relations.
But can you love and admire people so deeply that the barriers between you are conquered? Will the real world even allow it?
Rothman-Zecher is hardly the first writer to recognize that “otherness” is the most seductive spice in all the Middle East, nor is he the first to explore a “Romeo and Juliet” narrative between Jews and Arabs.
But Sadness Is A White Bird may be the most artful and irresistible exploration of “illicit” love in the Holy Land.
It has its flaws like it sort of failed to maintain the emotional intensity in the end but it offers all that one could wish for in a coming of age tale explored through the intimate bonds between young Jewish and Muslim Israelis.