The Lemon Tree

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p. Describe the encounter between Bashir and Dalia in Ramallah (pp. 154-63). If you like, two people in the discussion group can role-play, reading verbatim from their conversation (especially pp. 158-163). In either case, describe the respective positions both young people stake out – Bashir, in the injustice of his family’s dispossession; Dalia’s, in the love for Zion and the need for the Jews to have a safe haven.

the Lemon Trees Grow by Zoulfa Katouh | Goodreads As Long as the Lemon Trees Grow by Zoulfa Katouh | Goodreads

The author's youthfulness helps to assure the inevitable comparison with the Anne Frank diary although over and above the sphere of suffering shared, and in this case extended to the death march itself, there is no spiritual or emotional legacy here to offset any reader reluctance.Humane and literate—and rather daring in suggesting that the future of the Middle East need not be violent. This is a magnificent book. Unflinching, unsentimental, even brutal at times – but also tremendously uplifting.” The story is compelling enough on its own, but Tolan interjects history throughout that I found illuminating and helpful.

THE LEMON TREE | Kirkus Reviews

t. (RG8) In 1988, near the beginning of the intifada, Bashir was deported to Lebanon. On the eve of his deportation, Dalia wrote an open letter to Bashir that was published in the Jerusalem Post (pp 200-203). Weeks later, Bashir replied (pp. 216-220). Describe your reaction to both letters. If you like, two people from the group could read the letters for the entire group. I spent weeks in Jerusalem and the West Bank, interviewing fighters, politicians, and historians, and reading history: Israeli military history, Palestinian oral history, primary and secondary historical accounts. I wanted to find a way to connect these histories -- of many thousands of Jews coming to the new state of Israel after the Holocaust; of 700,000 Palestinians fleeing and being forced out of their homes in the war -- through a single place, or, better yet, through an actual thing you could touch. The Lemon Tree by Sandy Tolan…True, tragic and calculated to make the most apathetic person realize a need to engage in more solidarity work and not to keep being fobbed off by those who say “ah but you see it’s too complex ” Three days later, on May 22, 1967, Gamal Abdel Nasser announced the closure of the Straits of Tiran, declaring, "The Jews threaten us with war and we say to them, ahlan wa sahlan [you are welcome]. We are ready!" a. (RG1) The book opens with the journey of Bashir and his cousins on a bus to their childhood homes in al-Ramla. What must have been going through their minds during that time? Can you imagine the internal dialogue in their heads, as they rode the bus, then walked around their old hometown? How would you have felt if you were Bashir, approaching the old home, and pressing the bell?

l. After the Six Day War, Bashir and his cousins arrived at the doorstep of Bashir’s old home (pp. 144-48), where Dalia and her parents now lived. Imagine that you are Dalia when you hear the bell and come to the gate, to see three Arab men – the enemy – staring at you from across the gate. They ask you for permission to visit the home. What do you do, and why? To Dalia and her family, the words meant what they said -- annihilation. Whatever their intent, Nasser's choice of words amounted to a monumental gamble. Israeli general Matitiahu Peled would call it "unheard-of foolishness." Despite King Hussein's warnings of a preemptive Israeli strike, Nasser was in for the surprise of his life. Most people, however, have responded to the story of the “Other” with passion and courage. In Seattle, as the C-Span cameras rolled, an Arab man stood up to tell his family’s story, as Jewish members of the audience listened intently. In Milwaukee, a Jewish mother rose to say her son was on his way to Israel, and had decided to visit Dalia as the result of the book. In Gloucester, Massachusetts, a lifelong supporter of Israel said this was the first talk about the subject of Israel and Palestine that he had not left feeling angry. In San Francisco, an Arab native of Ramla spoke up during a Jewish book fair to say that The Lemon Tree reflects the history of her own family, and that understanding can only come from a recognition of each other’s history. d. Chapters Four (pp 66-69) and Five (pp. 80-85) describe the experience of leaving home, from the Khairis’ and Eshkanazis’ perspective. How were these departures, in the things that they carried and the things that they left behind, similar? How were they different? Can you imagine what must have been going on in the minds of Ahmad and Moshe, the fathers of each family, as they looked forward into the unknown?