The Dove Flyer tells the story of the last years of the Jewish community in Baghdad, before their expulsion in 1950 and settlement in Israel. The young narrator, Kabi, watches as the members of his extended family each develop different dreams and a different sets of fears throughout these tumultuous, transitional times: his mother wants to move out of the new Jewish quarter and back to their old Muslim neighborhood where she felt safer; his father wants to emigrate to the promised land, the new State of Israel, where he will farm and grow rice; his uncle Hizkel, a Zionist, is arrested and taken off to prison to await trial and a possible death sentence; his headmaster, Salim, believes in the equality of Arabs and Jews; and his uncle Edouard just wants to hang out on the rooftop with his doves. Meanwhile, as World War II draws closer and Israeli statehood seems more assured, a noose begins to tighten around Jewish Iraqis. Houses are appropriated, Jews are beaten in the streets and hung in public, and young Kabi watches as the storied legacy of the Jewish community in Baghdad is dismantled piecemeal and finally decimated. As for the land of milk and honey, there is neither milk, nor honey. It is a desert, a place as barren and coarse as the community Kabi and his family left behind was vibrant, bountiful, and dreamy.

Under Quarantine is the riveting story of Shaar Ha'aliya, Israel's central immigration camp. Focusing on the conflicts surrounding the camp's medical quarantine, this book brings the history of this place and the remarkable experiences of the immigrants who went through it to life.

A fascinating discussion of Jewish multiculturalism through the range of Jewish lingualisms, cultures, and history

A Palestinian-Israeli poet declares a new state whose language, "Homelandic," is a combination of Arabic and Hebrew. A Jewish-Israeli author imagines a "language plague" that infects young Hebrew speakers with old world accents, and sends the narrator in search of his Arabic heritage. In Poetic Trespass, Lital Levy brings together such startling visions to offer the first in-depth study of the relationship between Hebrew and Arabic in the literature and culture of Israel/Palestine. More than that, she presents a captivating portrait of the literary imagination's power to transgress political boundaries and transform ideas about language and belonging. Blending history and literature, Poetic Trespass traces the interwoven life of Arabic and Hebrew in Israel/Palestine from the turn of the twentieth century to the present, exposing the two languages' intimate entanglements in contemporary works of prose, poetry, film, and visual art by both Palestinian and Jewish citizens of Israel. In a context where intense political and social pressures work to identify Jews with Hebrew and Palestinians with Arabic, Levy finds writers who have boldly crossed over this divide to create literature in the language of their "other," as well as writers who bring the two languages into dialogue to rewrite them from within. Exploring such acts of poetic trespass, Levy introduces new readings of canonical and lesser-known authors, including Emile Habiby, Hayyim Nahman Bialik, Anton Shammas, Saul Tchernichowsky, Samir Naqqash, Ronit Matalon, Salman Masalha, A. B. Yehoshua, and Almog Behar. By revealing uncommon visions of what it means to write in Arabic and Hebrew, Poetic Trespass will change the way we understand literature and culture in the shadow of the Israeli-Palestinian conflict.

"I'm an Arab Jew. I listen to classical music in the morning and Arabic music in the evening." Surprisingly for someone so young, Nuri Imari (whose family we encountered in The Dove Flyer), is appointed advisor on Arab affairs to the Israeli government. With little guidance he is asked by his boss to "set up an office in East Jerusalem, sniff around to see what's happening there, meet their effendis, and provide me with your evaluations." Everyone is reeling from the aftermath of the Six Day War. The Palestinians cannot comprehend their losses, whilst the Israelis are waking up to a new political reality - and new responsibilities. Nuri discovers complexities and loyalties he could never have imagined. He tries to steer a humane course but soon finds himself confronting bigotry and hatred on both sides. And then he meets Yasmine, a Palestinian woman recently returned from Paris...