The Object of Memory: Arab and Jew Narrate the Palestinian Village
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Book Overview
There was a village in Palestine called Ein Houd, whose people traced their ancestry back to one of Saladin's generals who was granted the territory as a reward for his prowess in battle. By the end of the 1948 Arab-Israeli War, all the inhabitants of Ein Houd had been dispersed or exiled or had gone into hiding, although their old stone homes were not destroyed.
In 1953 the Israeli government established an artists' cooperative community in the houses of the village, now renamed Ein Hod. In the meantime, the Arab inhabitants of Ein Houd moved two kilometers up a neighboring mountain and illegally built a new village. They could not afford to build in stone, and the mountainous terrain prevented them from using the layout of traditional Palestinian villages. That seemed unimportant at the time, because the Palestinians considered it to be only temporary, a place to live until they could go home. The Palestinians have not gone home. The two villages--Jewish Ein Hod and the new Arab Ein Houd--continue to exist in complex and dynamic opposition. The Object of Memory explores the ways in which the people of Ein Houd and Ein Hod remember and reconstruct their past in light of their present--and their present in light of their past. Honorable Mention, 1999 Perkins Book Prize, Society for the Study of NarrativeFormat:Paperback
Language:English
ISBN:0812215257
ISBN13:9780812215250
Release Date:June 1998
Publisher:University of Pennsylvania Press
Length:320 Pages
Weight:1.26 lbs.
Dimensions:0.8" x 6.0" x 9.2"
Customer Reviews
1 rating
Excellent book, but lacking some
Published by Thriftbooks.com User , 20 years ago
This is a very thorough and well-written book about the Palestinians of what used to be Ein Houd. It has one big weakness-- the title is misleading. It is about Palestinians working to keep the memory of their old village alive, not Jews. There isn't a whole lot about the Jews who now live in Ein Houd (now called Ein Hod), which is a problem. Also, you should know before buying this book that it's not about the Israeli Palestinian conflict, it's just a case study of one village. Having said that, though, the research is amazing. It covers the history, politics, literature, art, customs, and the new homes of Ein Houd's Palestinians. If you already know a lot about the conflict and aren't looking for a general overview but for a detailed example, this is definitely the book for you.
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