The Lemon Tree
An Arab, a Jew, and the Heart of the Middle East
Bloomsbury · Print & ebook · November 3, 2020
In 1967, a twenty-five-year-old refugee named Bashir Khairi traveled from the Palestinian hill town of Ramallah to Ramla, Israel, with a goal: to see the beloved stone house with the lemon tree in its backyard that he and his family had been forced to leave nineteen years earlier.
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- Who it’s for
- A personal story of friendship and belonging unfolds amid competing claims to the same home.
- Themes
- Displacement and the meaning of home, Friendship amid political conflict, Israeli-Palestinian claims to land
- Genres
- Middle East History for Kids, Holocaust for Kids, The Middle East
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In 1967, a twenty-five-year-old refugee named Bashir Khairi traveled from the Palestinian hill town of Ramallah to Ramla, Israel, with a goal: to see the beloved stone house with the lemon tree in its backyard that he and his family had been forced to leave nineteen years earlier. When he arrived, he was greeted by one of its new residents: Dalia Eshkenazi Landau, a nineteen-year-old Israeli college student whose family had fled Europe following the Holocaust.
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She had lived in that house since she was eleven months old. On the stoop of this shared house, Dalia and Bashir began a surprising friendship, forged in the aftermath of war and later tested as political tensions ran high and Israelis and Palestinians each asserted their own right to live on this land. Adapted from the award-winning adult book and based on Sandy Tolan's extensive research and reporting, The Lemon Tree is a deeply personal story of two people seeking hope, transformation, and home.
Home, Held in Tension
A personal story of friendship and belonging unfolds amid competing claims to the same home.
Come here for
- An intimate encounter with Palestinian and Israeli perspectives
- Questions of memory, displacement, and who gets to call a place home
Expect
- A human-scale story shaped by war and rising political tensions
- Hope and friendship without easy answers
Where it sits
| Middle East History for Kids | 53% |
|---|---|
| Holocaust for Kids | 48% |
| The Middle East | 38% |
Percentages are BookFrontier’s reading of the book.
Publisher categories
- Middle East History for Kids
- Islam for Kids
- Judaism for Kids
- Authors
- Sandy Tolan
- Publisher
- Bloomsbury
- Published
- November 3, 2020
- Format
- Print & ebook
- Theme
- Displacement and the meaning of home · Friendship amid political conflict · Israeli-Palestinian claims to land
- Reading lane
- Middle East History for Kids