I Shall Not Hate: A Gaza Doctor's Journey on the Road to Peace and Human Dignity
Izzeldin Abuelaish, 2011
Bloomsbury USA
256 pp.
ISBN-13: 9780802779496
Summary
By turns inspiring and heartbreaking, hopeful and horrifying, I Shall Not Hate is Dr. Izzeldin Abuelaish's account of his extraordinary life.
A Harvard-educated Palestinian doctor, he was born and raised in a refugee camp in the Gaza Strip and "has devoted his life to medicine and reconciliation between Israelis and Palestinians" (New York Times).
On January 16, 2009, Abuelaish lost three of his daughters and his niece when Israeli shells hit his home in the Gaza Strip.
Instead of seeking revenge or sinking into hatred, he has called for the people of the region to come together so that his daughters will be "the last sacrifice on the road to peace between Palestinians and Israelis." (From the publisher.)
Author Bio
• Birth—February 3, 1955
• Where—Jabbalia Camp, Gaza, Palestine
• Education—M.D., Univesity of Cairo; Ob/Gyn, University of London; M.P.H., Harvard University
• Currently—lives in Toronto, Ontario, Canada
Izzeldin Abuelaish, MD, MPH, is a Palestinian physician and infertility expert who was born and raised in the Jabalia refugee camp in the Gaza Strip. He received a scholarship to study medicine in Cairo, and then received a diploma from the Institute of Obstetrics and Gynecology, University of London.
He completed a residency in the same discipline at the Soroka Medical Center in Israel, followed by a subspecialty in fetal medicine in Italy and Belgium. He then undertook a masters in public health at Harvard University.
Before his three daughters were killed in January 2009, Dr. Abuelaish worked as a senior researcher at the Gertner Institute at the Sheba Medical Center in Tel Aviv. He now lives with his family in Canada, where he is an associate professor at the Dalla Lana School of Public Health at the University of Toronto. His Web site and foundation can be found at Daughters for Life. (From the publisher.)
Book Reviews
Abuelaish's no-frills account of a life lived under siege. A man with many Israeli friends, Abuelaish puts real human beings back at the heart of one of history's more intractable conflicts.
Independent (UK)
(Starred review.) Abuelaish knows anger, but in this impassioned, committed attempt to show the reader life on the sliver of land that is Gaza, he demonstrates that "anger is not the same as hate."
Publishers Weekly
This is a serious book, often painful to read. I cannot imagine the strength of character it takes to endure the losses he has without entertaining thoughts of revenge. Hug your kids. —Therese Purcell Nielsen, "Memoir Short Takes", Booksmack!
Library Journal
Inspiring…[and] deeply affecting narrative told in a voice of poignant simplicity, punctuated by injunctions to love that are far from corny, tried as they are by the searing experiences of a righteous man striving to act decently in a place of madness.
Kirkus Reviews
Discussion Questions
The following questions were graciously submitted to LitLovers by Nuha Miley and the Lutheran Church of the Master Book Club in Coeur d Alene, Idaho. Thank you!
1. Talk about what Muslims do for their dead (p. 78).
2. Why is it so easy to hate what we don't know, and why shouldn't we hate (p. 42)?
3. What does intifada mean?
4. What made Izzeldin Abuelaish decide to become a doctor?
5. Abuelaish says anger is not the same as hate. What is the difference? How do any of us prevent one from leading to the other?
6. What lessons can all of us, individuals and countries alike, learn from Dr. Abuelaish?
7. By any standards, the hospital in Gaza is in a shocking state of disrepair. How was such a vital institution allowed to deteriorate?
(Questions by Nuha Miley. Please feel free to use them, online and off, with attribution to both Nuha and LitLovers. Thanks.)