Ghosts of a Holy War: The 1929 Massacre in Palestine That Ignited the Arab-Israeli Conflict
Yardena Schwartz
(Author)
21,000+ Reviews
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Description
An award-winning journalist presents an even-handed, thoroughly researched examination of the Arab-Israeli conflict, and illustrates how a shocking yet little-known massacre one century ago in what was then Palestine became ground zero of a war that continues to devastate. "[A] compelling story. . . . If you are going to read one book to help you understand the current Middle East tragedy, this is it." --Yossi Klein Halevi, senior fellow, Shalom Hartman Institute, and author of the New York Times bestseller Letters to My Palestinian Neighbor In 1929, in the sacred city of Hebron--then governed by the British Mandate of Palestine--there was no occupation, state of Israel, or settlers. Jews and Muslims lived peacefully near the burial place of Abraham, patriarch of the Jewish and Arab nations, until one Saturday morning when nearly 70 Jewish men, women, and children were slaughtered by their Arab neighbors. The Hebron massacre was a seminal event in the Arab-Israeli conflict, key to understanding its complexities. The echoes of 1929 in Hamas's massacre of October 7, 2023, illustrate how little has changed--and how much of our perspective must change if peace is ever to come to this tortured land and its people, who are destined to share it. Noted journalist Yardena Schwartz draws on her extensive research and wide-ranging interviews with both sides to tell a timely, eye-opening story. She expertly weaves the war between Israel and Hamas into a historical framework, demonstrating how the conflict today cannot be understood without the context of ground zero of this century-old war, which began long before the occupation, the settlements, or the state of Israel ever existed.
Product Details
Price
$29.99
$27.89
Publisher
Union Square & Co.
Publish Date
October 01, 2024
Pages
432
Dimensions
6.1 X 9.1 X 1.6 inches | 1.71 pounds
Language
English
Type
Hardcover
EAN/UPC
9781454949213
BISAC Categories:
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About the Author
Yardena Schwartz is an award-winning journalist and Emmy-nominated producer who worked at NBC News, including stints at the Today show, Nightly News with Brian Williams, and MSNBC's Andrea Mitchell Reports. Her reporting has appeared in the New York Times, New York Review of Books, the Wall Street Journal, The Economist, TIME, National Geographic, and Rolling Stone, among other publications. She graduated with honors from Columbia Journalism School in 2011 and received an Emmy nomination for her work at MSNBC in 2013. She then spent a decade reporting from Israel, earning the 2016 RNA award for excellence in magazine reporting. She now lives in New York's Hudson Valley.
Reviews
"In this groundbreaking account of the origins of the Arab-Israeli conflict, Yardena Schwartz tells a compelling story of how one American's tragic life converged with a seminal moment in history. Focusing on the ancient city of Hebron, Ghosts of a Holy War masterfully weaves together past and present, the historical and the personal. With a keen reporter's eye, Schwartz reveals the best and the worst in both sides of the conflict. If you are going to read one book to help you understand the current Middle East tragedy, this is it."
--Yossi Klein Halevi, senior fellow, Shalom Hartman Institute, and author of the New York Times bestseller Letters to My Palestinian Neighbor "With meticulous archival research and journalistic skill, and aided by a fascinating trove of letters left by a doomed young American, Yardena Schwartz gives us a valuable account of one of the key tragedies in the meeting between Jews and Arabs in Palestine. Ghosts of a Holy War fills in a missing piece in our understanding of a conflict that continues to echo worldwide, reminding us of the human characters at the heart of global dramas."
--Matti Friedman, author of Who by Fire: Leonard Cohen in the Sinai "The Hebron massacre is a pivotal event in the history of the Jewish-Arab confrontation, one with profound resonance with our own troubled time. Yardena Schwartz has written an engaging, accessible, and deeply personal account of the massacre and its enduring legacy in the post-10/7 Middle East."
--Oren Kessler, author of Palestine 1936: The Great Revolt and the Roots of the Middle East Conflict, winner of the 2024 Sami Rohr Prize for Jewish Literature "Important, timely, deeply researched, and beautifully written. Yardena Schwartz has made a key contribution to understanding the roots of the Israeli-Palestinian conflict. A family story is seamlessly woven into the political narrative, which explains comprehensively the present sad state of affairs."
--Martin Fletcher, former NBC News Bureau Chief in Tel Aviv and author of Promised Land: A Novel of Israel "Hebron is the epicenter of the extremism that has fueled a century of conflict between Arabs and Jews. Yardena Schwartz's deep dive into the city's violent past and disturbing present is moving and incredibly timely."
--Gershom Gorenberg, author of War of Shadows: Codebreakers, Spies, and the Secret Struggle to Drive the Nazis from the Middle East
