Travels with Bassem: A Palestinian and a Jew Find Friendship in a War-Torn Land Contributor(s): Sager, Mike (Author) |
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ISBN: 0991662997 ISBN-13: 9780991662999 Publisher: Sager Group OUR PRICE: $9.73 Product Type: Paperback Published: June 2015 |
Additional Information |
BISAC Categories: - History | Middle East - Israel & Palestine |
Physical Information: 0.16" H x 5.5" W x 8.5" (0.21 lbs) 66 pages |
Themes: - Cultural Region - Middle East |
Descriptions, Reviews, Etc. |
Publisher Description: In the summer of 1988, about six months into the First Palestinian Intifada-an uprising by Palestinians against the Israeli occupation of the West Bank and the Gaza Strip-journalist Mike Sager, a Jew, was sent by the Washington Post Sunday Magazine to investigate the human toll of the uprising. While much was known about the political situation at the time, little had been reported about the actual conditions of Palestinians living as refugees in squalid camps on or near lands that were once owned by their ancestors. Once in Jerusalem, walking through the Old City on a Shabbat evening after visiting the Western Wall, Sager met Bassem Hallak. Hallak was a Muslim and the proprietor of a family shop specializing in Palestinian antiquities on the Via Dolorosa, the cobbled street over which Jesus Christ is said to have carried his cross on the way to his crucifixion. At times, Hallak, who spoke English, German, French, Italian, Hebrew, and Arabic, worked as a tour guide and as a translator for visiting journalists. Meanwhile, he was secretly working as part of the resistance movement that spawned the Intifada. |