Tracing Homelands: Israel, Palestine, and the Claims of Belonging

A raw and courageous memoir of the 1948 war and its aftermath and searing personal journey to uncover the suppressed traumas, facts, and myths that undergird the so-called Israeli-Palestinian conflict. When author Linda Dittmar stumbles upon the ruins of an abandoned Palestinian village, she is faced with a past that sits uneasily with her Israeli childhood memories--and the history she was raised never to question. Tracing Homelands is an intimate, beautifully written account that uncovers inconvenient truths about an embattled Israeli-Palestinian history that is often buried in silence. Its eloquently personal voice charts a reluctant eyewitness' journey to uncover the ruins of Palestinian villages destroyed in the 1948 war, while weaving flashbacks to the author's Israeli youth and Zionist upbringing. A braided narrative told with empathy and unflinching honesty, it reflects on the Palestinian and Jewish lives entwined in this searing history. As Dittmar revisits the sites and sight