Blending travel writing, reportage, and personal reflection, Hillel Cohen walks throughout East Jerusalem and the West Bank in search of conversations to bridge one of the world's most enduring conflicts.
In this powerful illustrated memoir, journalist and scholar Hillel Cohen recounts his travels in Israel and Palestine as a youth. Fervent and unafraid, the teenage Cohen wanders through Palestinian villages and homes with confidence because to do so is his birthright—or so he has always been told. But outside the segregated city of Jerusalem and its tightly-knit Jewish community, his certainty begins to waver. Each new shared meal and open-hearted conversation call into question the religious beliefs of his upbringing—as do the hostile clashes he comes to witness along the way.
With candor and humanity, Cohen's coming-of-age following the Six Day War amid a newly occupied land offers sharp and unflinching reflections on identity, memory, ethics, and nationhood. Featuring vivid illustrations and graphic panels by Yana Bukler, Between the River and the Sea moves beyond political binaries to reveal the human complexity behind a divide that has spanned generations.