Desperate, devastating, and difficult to read, making it all the more necessary.
A chilling day-by-day account of living in and fleeing from Gaza in the last three months of 2023.
“Pain cannot be talked about,” writes Abu Saif, author of A Suspended Life. “It cannot be expressed or written about. It is just felt and lived.” The author was born in 1973 in a refugee camp in Gaza, under the constant watch and threat of Israeli warships and surveillance, where displacement and the refugee status was repetitive and cyclical (and still is)—a place so familiar with violence that the attacks of October 7, 2023, were not even immediately recognizable as the beginning of a war. Abu Saif’s piercing diaries are proof of significant pain, as he provides records of overnight attacks, friends and family members killed, decisions about where to find safety, and debates over whether to stay in Gaza or flee south, as directed by the Israeli leaflets dropped from the sky. While offering some historical background for the terror that has plagued the region for decades, this is primarily an account of the suffering of a man and his people, painted in the bare and bracing brush strokes of someone pushed to the edges of his humanity, weakened by hunger and stress, forced to dig through rubble to find his own relatives. Abu Saif poses profound questions about the meaning of victory, the desire for survival, and the temporary nature of truce, alongside logistical (though no less pressing) ones like where to find bread or how to keep the elements of an impending winter at bay. In publishing his diaries, the author not only exposes the acts of the Israeli Defense Force to a world determined to look away, but also demands compassion and offers a critique of how the world makes news of war and genocide.
Desperate, devastating, and difficult to read, making it all the more necessary.Pub Date: March 5, 2024
ISBN: 9780807016848
Page Count: 288
Publisher: Beacon Press
Review Posted Online: March 13, 2024
Kirkus Reviews Issue: April 15, 2024
BOOK REVIEW
An important dialogue at a fraught time, emphasizing mutual candor, curiosity, and respect.
Two bestselling authors engage in an enlightening back-and-forth about Jewishness and antisemitism.
Acho, author of Uncomfortable Conversations With a Black Man, and Tishby, author of Israel: A Simple Guide to the Most Misunderstood Country on Earth, discuss many of the searing issues for Jews today, delving into whether Jewishness is a religion, culture, ethnicity, or community—or all of the above. As Tishby points out, unlike in Christianity, one can be comfortably atheist and still be considered a Jew. She defines Judaism as a “big tent” religion with four main elements: religion, peoplehood, nationhood, and the idea of tikkun olam (“repairing the world through our actions”). She addresses candidly the hurtful stereotypes about Jews (that they are rich and powerful) that Acho grew up with in Dallas and how Jews internalize these antisemitic judgments. Moreover, Tishby notes, “it is literally impossible to be Jewish and not have any connection with Israel, and I’m not talking about borders or a dot on the map. Judaism…is an indigenous religion.” Acho wonders if one can legitimately criticize “Jewish people and their ideologies” without being antisemitic, and Tishby offers ways to check whether one’s criticism of Jews or Zionism is antisemitic or factually straightforward. The authors also touch on the deteriorating relationship between Black and Jewish Americans, despite their historically close alliance during the civil rights era. “As long as Jewish people get to benefit from appearing white while Black people have to suffer for being Black, there will always be resentment,” notes Acho. “Because the same thing that grants you all access—your skin color—is what grants us pain and punishment in perpetuity.” Finally, the authors underscore the importance of being mutual allies, and they conclude with helpful indexes on vernacular terms and customs.
An important dialogue at a fraught time, emphasizing mutual candor, curiosity, and respect.Pub Date: April 30, 2024
ISBN: 9781668057858
Page Count: 256
Publisher: Simon Element
Review Posted Online: March 13, 2024
Kirkus Reviews Issue: April 15, 2024
BOOK REVIEW
BOOK REVIEW
BOOK REVIEW
A fierce, penetrating, and empowering call for change.
Artist and activist Vaid-Menon demonstrates how the normativity of the gender binary represses creativity and inflicts physical and emotional violence.
The author, whose parents emigrated from India, writes about how enforcement of the gender binary begins before birth and affects people in all stages of life, with people of color being especially vulnerable due to Western conceptions of gender as binary. Gender assignments create a narrative for how a person should behave, what they are allowed to like or wear, and how they express themself. Punishment of nonconformity leads to an inseparable link between gender and shame. Vaid-Menon challenges familiar arguments against gender nonconformity, breaking them down into four categories—dismissal, inconvenience, biology, and the slippery slope (fear of the consequences of acceptance). Headers in bold font create an accessible navigation experience from one analysis to the next. The prose maintains a conversational tone that feels as intimate and vulnerable as talking with a best friend. At the same time, the author's turns of phrase in moments of deep insight ring with precision and poetry. In one reflection, they write, “the most lethal part of the human body is not the fist; it is the eye. What people see and how people see it has everything to do with power.” While this short essay speaks honestly of pain and injustice, it concludes with encouragement and an invitation into a future that celebrates transformation.
A fierce, penetrating, and empowering call for change. (writing prompt) (Nonfiction. 14-adult)Pub Date: June 2, 2020
ISBN: 978-0-593-09465-5
Page Count: 64
Publisher: Penguin Workshop
Review Posted Online: March 14, 2020
Kirkus Reviews Issue: April 1, 2020
© Copyright 2024 Kirkus Media LLC. All Rights Reserved.
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