Mornings in Jenin by Susan Abulhawa (74 of 2024)

"Susan Abdallah, a Palestinian, knows the recipe for making  a terrorist:

Deprive him of food and water.

Surround his home with the machinery of war.

Attach him with all means at all times, especially at night.

Demolish his home, uproot his farmland, kill his loved ones.

Congratulations: you have created an army of suicide Bombers."

And thus Eduardo Galeano in Mirrors introduced me to Susan Abdallah.

In eight parts few starting with El and named as El Nakba (the catastrophe), El Naksa (the disaster), The Scar of David, El Gurba (state of being a stranger) , Albi fi Beirut (My heart in Beirut), Ellen Byna (what there is between us), Baladi(my country), Nihaya o Bidaya (an end and a beginning)

Spanning four generations starting in Ein Hod, a beautiful village in Palestine, the story follows the family of Amal, the protagonist, who is born in the refugee camp in Jenin, then she moves to Jerusalem orphanage from where she is fortunately able to move to US on scholarship and  then to Lebanon reuniting with his brother and family, where she meets her husband and then back to the United States for safety where she delivers her daughter as a single mother and finally again to Jenin. 

A family that has lived on the same property for generations in Ein Hod, growing olives is suddenly displaced to a refugee camp in Jenin with the formation of Israel. What they thought was temporary slowly turns permanent. Amals grandfather, slowly loses himself trying to get back to his land. His elder son Hasan,  and his spirited gypsy of a wife turns shadows of themselves and turns inward, trying to fight their inner demons. Their younger  son Ismail gets lost as they flee and ends up in an Israeli home and grows up as David, eventually and inevitably fighting against his own elder brother Yousef. Amal, their daughter is born in the camp and grows up listening to the stories of their long lost glory. Her father would read to her every morning.  The life and advises there shapes her life. Especially the one from her mother,  whatever you feel, keep within you. From her mom she learns the skillsets of being a midwife.

Everything Amal loved comes crumbling around her, but beautiful souls help her physically escape the war.

When the family goes back to their ancestral home after years,  the current owners shut the door on them saying they’ve seen too many of their kind. They want to be left in peace.

All for the land without people for people without land. Through David/Ismail Susan drives home the point how we are all siblings, lost unaware and end up killing our own tribe/family. The plight of David's mother Jolanta, on how she was tortured by German's and she having lost all her family members in the holocaust there shows how both sides have been victims. 'Palestinians paid the price for the Jewish holocaust. For David Jews killed his one mother and her family,  because German's had killed his another mother's.

It’s a story of survival, endurance,  betrayal, hope, love and friendship that cross the borders of class and religion. Friendship between Dr.Ari Peristein and Hasan. Friendship between Amal, Huda and Fatima. Um Abdallah and Dalia.