Sandy Tolan's "The Lemon Tree."

Author Sandy Tolan's book "The Lemon Tree" originated as a radio documentary for the NPR show Fresh Air in 1998. The year is especially significant because it marks a defining moment in the history of the Middle East. On May 15, 1998, Israelis celebrated the 50 anniversary of the creation of their state. That same anniversary is experienced by Palestinians the world over, especially the millions of them who remain stateless refugees, as the 50 anniversary of Al-Nakba (the Catastrophe); the day on which Palestine was lost.

"The Lemon Tree" takes us on the rich journey of the lives of Palestinian Bashir Khairi and of Israeli Dalia Eshkenazi, two lives that appear to be at total political odds, but that remain constantly and deeply connected. Tolan's book is a powerfully humane telling of the Israeli-Palestinian conflict through the experiences of two families who lived through and were indelibly shaped by its history. He brings the complicated and layered historical events leading up to May 1948 and its outcomes to life by introducing the reader to the Khairis and the Eshkenazis. The families' lives are intertwined by a house in the city of Al-Ramla.

In July 1948, the Palestinians lost the war with Israel and were subsequently expelled from their city. The city was then transformed into Ramla by its new Israeli residents, and many of its Palestinian homes are given to Jewish immigrants arriving in Israel. Through his spare account, relying on historical documents and detailed interviews with members of both families, we learn that the home as symbol of security and of loss is a powerful force in the lives of two different people.

The remarkable achievement in Tolan's book lies in the telling, side-by-side, of the joyous and the tragic, the freedom and deliverance of one people and the resulting dispossession of another. In the Israeli-Palestinian narrative, Tolan shows us, one people's victory is another's total loss and destruction. The Eshkenazis' story illuminates the fears and the hopes that many immigrant Jews brought with them to Palestine. Tolan recounts the moment when the Eshkenazis, arriving on a ship from Bulgaria, first glimpsed the coast of Palestine and the lights of Haifa on the horizon. The moment is well-known to Western readers who are familiar with the story of Jews fleeing post-Holocaust Europe in search of a homeland to call their own.

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In "The Lemon Tree," and perhaps for the first time, the narrative is made whole by telling the story of the forcible expulsion of the Khairi family from that very home, only a few months before the arrival of the Eshkenazis. The reader rejoices for the passengers aboard the ship but grieves knowing that this joy comes at an unfathomable cost to the Khairis.

Throughout the book, Dalia Eshkenazi speaks eloquently of the collective trauma that dominated the psyche of her new Israeli neighbors. We learn of Israeli ambivalence and often hostility towards the Palestinian owners of the homes that were parceled out by the Israeli state "which had declared itself the 'custodian' of the houses it considered 'abandoned property (103)." She describes the story that the Jews were told and chose to believe, "they had simply run away, Moshe and Solia [Eshkenazi] were told, with their soup bowls steaming on the table (105)." However, Tolan recounts the harrowing days of war spent on the Khairi family compound, and the mayor and family elder, Sheikh Mustafa's desperate attempts to keep residents safe in their homes.

The author shows through the Khairi family's account and confidential U.S. State Department records that when al-Ramla finally fell in mid-July of 1948, "it was increasingly clear…that the people of al-Ramla had been forcibly expelled (91)."

Over the course of almost forty years, Dalia and Bashir and their families exchange visits and engage in a courageous and poignant dialogue about the unfolding conflict that engulfs their lives. The conflict comes at great personal cost to each of them, especially Bashir, who spends almost a quarter of his life incarcerated by Israeli occupation forces. Their home in Al-Ramla also changes to reflect their friendship.

There can be no doubt that Dalia and Bashir both are enriched by a friendship that forces them to see one another in their full humanity, not simply as enemies on opposite sides of a conflict. However, one aspect of Dalia's life, her long-term service in the Israeli Defense Force (IDF), remains in the shadows and is not fully explored in Tolan's book.

In the chapter entitled "Explosions," we learn that Bashir is tried and convicted of the bombing of the Supersol grocery store in West Jerusalem. The conviction results in a fifteen year prison sentence and takes an enormous toll on Bashir and his family. It also takes an emotional toll on Dalia. "Yeah, everything stopped,… no contact. It was too much for me (172)" she said of her communication with Bashir.

The remark that follows is particularly compelling: "she became zealous in the defense of Israel and participated wholeheartedly in the nation's defense as an officer in the Israeli army." Throughout the book, Dalia poses questions about Bashir's involvement in armed resistance against Israel, and urges him in numerous ways to give up the right of return. It is clear that she has internalized much of the Zionist belief that the right of return is incompatible with Israel's survival. However, no one seems to ask Dalia the logical counterpart to this question: would she renounce Israel's state-sponsored terror against Palestinians in the name of peace? It would be interesting to know if Dalia, as part of her whole-hearted defense of Israel, ever served in the occupied West Bank and Gaza?

Tolan details many of the atrocities committed against Palestinian civilians under occupation, including detention of thousands, like Bashir, by occupation forces. Many Israelis still justify this occupation to themselves as a "defense" of the state. The reality for Palestinians is that the occupation advances the founding Zionists' expansionist vision, grabbing more and more land through settlements and now the apartheid wall, while driving out the native inhabitants. In order for the story to be complete, Dalia should have to grapple with these moral issues as well, not just the history of the house in Al-Ramla that bound her family's history to that of Bashir.

Despite the missing link, Tolan's book is nothing short of remarkable. It documents more than the life-stories of a Palestinian and Israeli. It captures a heart-wrenching journey that Bashir and Dalia undertake to preserve their identities and their homelands in a region shackled with injustice and suffering. On this journey, their unique and unlikely bond underscores that they are both survivors of the living past that still dominates the lives of Israelis and Palestinians.

The Lemon Tree is available on Amazon.com.