We Just Want to Live Here ~ by Rifa'i and Ainbinder

We Just Want to Live Here ~ by Amal Rifa'i and Odelia Ainbinder, 2003, nonfiction

"Violent opposition will bring nothing but a violent reaction. ... When somebody hits you, you hit back. That's not how it should be." --Odelia, page 48

Two teenage girls met in Switzerland, sent there together with other teens by a group called Peace Child Israel. There were misunderstandings, of course, how could there not be? These youngsters were meeting their neighbors, their enemies. Jewish Israelis and Muslim Palestinians, living within five minutes of each other in Jerusalem, yet miles and miles apart.

"I heard about the incident when the Jewish group invited some of the Arabic kids for an evening out at discotheques and in bars. But I was told that the Arabic kids really were angry, and that they were insulted that the Jewish kids had asked them out for a drink, and taken them to places their religion forbids them to enter." -- Amal, page 23

The Jewish youth tried to share something they enjoyed, not knowing it was against the religion of the Muslims to drink anything alcoholic. So their invitation backfired and the others were insulted. This little book (155 pages) is an eye-opener, a gift from these two girls who, with the help of Sylke Tempel, began to write letters to each other in spite of the war between their peoples. As they began to know each other better, they opened up and got more honest. Remember they are teens, struggling with a world they inherited. They don't personally have anything against each other, but neither do they understand each other.

Amal cannot understand why Odelia would join the army; Odelia explains that military service is a duty for Israeli teenagers when they finish high school and before going to college. But Odelia adds that she wants to avoid the fighting corps. On the other hand Odelia cannot imagine getting married at 18, as Amal is planning to do. Worse, how could Amal want to marry someone she is not allowed to know before marriage? Amal tries to explain her tradition and her desire to live always near her relatives. Live with a boy first? No, no, how could she do that?

As each of the girls struggles to make sense of the worldview of the other, they are opening the understanding of the reader to the 6,000-year-old animosity between Jews and Arabs and also the rightness each side feels that the land of Palestine-Israel belongs to her own people. I recommend this book for teens and adults who want to have a better feel for what's going on in the Middle East today. Rated 8/10, very good.