Sunday, May 15, 2016

Khirbet Khirzeh

Here's one book worth reading for anyone wishing to learn more about the tragic Israeli-Palestinian conflict. Khirbet Khirzeh by S. Yizhar. This novella was first released in Hebrew in 1949 just after the Israeli War of Independence. It is widely a masterpiece of Hebrew literature and is taught in schools. In 1978 it was adapted into a TV series. However it was only published in English in 2008.

Here is a synopsis.
It's 1948 and the Arab villagers of Khirbet Khizeh are about to be violently expelled from their homes. A young Israeli soldier who is on duty that day finds himself battling on two fronts: with the villagers and, ultimately, with his own conscience.
Published just months after the founding of the state of Israel and the end of the 1948 war, the novella Khirbet Khizeh was an immediate sensation when it first appeared. Since then, the book has continued to challenge and disturb, even finding its way onto the school curriculum in Israel. The various debates it has prompted would themselves make Khirbet Khizeh worth reading, but the novella is much more than a vital historical document: it is also a great work of art. Yizhar's haunting, lyrical style and charged view of the landscape are in many ways as startling as his wrenchingly honest view of modern Israel's primal scene.
Considered a modern Hebrew masterpiece, Khirbet Khizeh is an extraordinary and heartbreaking book that is destined to be a classic of world literature. (Source.)
It is available for the Kindle here.

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