cover image Next Year in Jerusalem

Next Year in Jerusalem

Daphna Golan-Agnon. New Press, $24.95 (298pp) ISBN 978-1-56584-930-3

At once a memoir and a plea for a better understanding of the Israeli-Palestinian dilemma, this poignant offering from Golan-Agnon, instructor at the Hebrew University in Jerusalem and co-founder of the human rights organizations B'Tselem and Bat Shalom, decries human rights violations perpetrated against Palestinians. ""The most frightening similarity"" between the apartheid in South Africa and the Israelis' persecution of Palestinians, she writes, is ""the precise and consistent use of the legal system to normalize the abnormal state of discrimination."" The author describes how many of her Palestinian friends and interview subjects have faced the demolition of their homes by Israeli authorities, the reduction of funding for their children's schools and abrupt, unexplained deportations that separate husbands and wives. Regardless of whether Palestinians or Israelis have the right to claim Jerusalem as their own, Golan-Agnon asserts that it is unacceptable that, ""in the realpolitik of the Middle East, the validity of international laws and resolutions"" meant to ensure human rights ""seems not to apply to Palestinians."" Golan-Agnon relates the tragic stories of several Palestinians and candidly shares her own heartbreak in having to raise her two children in a land ruled by fear, violence and discrimination. In so doing, she delivers her humanitarian message in a deeply moving, meaningful way.