From the Bookshelf of Bound Together…

Sadness Is a White Bird

Moriel Rothman-Zecher

Start date: September 7, 2019

Finish date: September 21, 2019

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Nov 03, 2017 Diane S ☔ rated it it was amazing

Once in a while if we as readers are lucky, pick up a book that effects us profoundly. For me, it was this book, I kept putting it down, to think about what I was reading, and yes even to let my emotions level out. The subject is a complicated one, Jewish and Arab relations in Isreal, but the author gives us a personal viewpoint, using three friends, two Arab, one Jewish. When the book opens, Jonathan sits in a jail, he is our narrator and their story is revealed as Jonathan writes to his Arab f Once in a while if we as readers are lucky, pick up a book that effects us profoundly. For me, it was this book, I kept putting it down, to think about what I was reading, and yes even to let my emotions level out. The subject is a complicated one, Jewish and Arab relations in Isreal, but the author gives us a personal viewpoint, using three friends, two Arab, one Jewish. When the book opens, Jonathan sits in a jail, he is our narrator and their story is revealed as Jonathan writes to his Arab friend, Laith.

Using a letter, we are privvy to Jonathan's most personal thoughts and experiences, essentially placed inside his mind. His conflicted thoughts, as now shortly after his nineteenth birthday, he is in the military, something all Isrealis of this age must do, but can't figure out where his loyalties lie. Do they like with the country he has sworn to protect, his grandfather insists the Jewish people are his family and that is all he needs to consider. What about his derp friendships, love for Laith and his twin sister? Where does this fit in, and how can he fight against a people who he can't hate. Learning the back stories of his own grandfather and the grandmother of the twins, leads him to only more doubt.

As far as novels go this is short in pages, but large in content. It is powerful and intense. The author presents all sides in this conflict, and it is these many sides that Jonathan tries to solidify into a cohesive whole. It is a novel of a deep friendship, and a young man who feels greatly. I sometimes wonder what would happen if the young people on both sides of this conflict, well any conflict really, put down their guns and refused to fight any longer. No longer wanting to watch their friends die, their families and countries torn apart. Just said no more to following leaders blindly. It will never happen, but wouldn't it be wonderful if it did?

Another read with Angela and Esil, this book probably the best one we have read together. I cherish these reads and the thoughts we share.

ARC from Edelweiss. ...more

158 likes · Like · see review

Nov 03, 2017 Angela M rated it it was amazing · review of another edition

Shelves: netgalley-reviews

When I started to read this story about a young Israeli man who develops a close relationship with a Palestinian brother and sister, it reminded me of a book I read this year, All the Rivers . That one is about an Israeli woman and Palestinian young man who are living in New York and fall in love . Both of these books reflect on the difficulty of deeply emotional relationships charged with the current political and historical reality of the conflict. This beautifully written story begins with Jo ...more

132 likes · Like · see review

Sep 02, 2019 ☮Karen rated it really liked it

Shelves: hear-hear-on-bt, read-in-2019, audio, hoopla

4.5 stars. Available on Hoopla.

Wars are everywhere in the history books, but we are lucky these days that it seldom touches us on our own soil, as it still does in Israel. My first generation American-born grandfather had first and second cousins his age in Germany, yet he often recounted to 9 year old me how he was sent there in 1917 to "shoot at" his "own relatives." For him to tell me those stories repeatedly, it must have weighed heavily on his mind; and I have never forgotten how confused i ...more

26 likes · Like · see review

Nov 23, 2017 Biljana rated it it was amazing

Shelves: netgalley, 2017

Sadness is a White Bird is a beautiful and sad story of Jonathan, who is in a military jail in Israel. Much of the book is addressed to Laith and serves as a letter of love/apology to Laith and his twin sister, Nimreen. Prior to joining the Israeli army, Jonathan befriends Laith and Nimreen, who are Palestinians; his new friends lead to a great conflict for Jonathan, who has always identified prominently as a Jewish man and Israeli.

He finds himself torn between a) his love for his family, his f ...more

13 likes · Like · see review

Jun 05, 2018 Alena rated it it was amazing

Wow. Wow. And wow again.
I could not put this book down last night or today. I fell instantly in love with 17 year old Jonathan/Yonatan and the brink of everything on which he exists. His coming of age in an international conflict zone would have been enough of a story, but this book is so much more.
Intense, lyrical prose, snippets of Arab and Israeli poetry. Complex relationships and the struggle between desire and duty. Full immersion into a part of the world we should all know more about — n ...more

7 likes · Like · see review