Let's Just Talk

Spotlight On… Interfaith Relations

by Marcia Z. Nelson, Religion BookLine -- Publishers Weekly, 10/18/2006

It took a while for author Jeffrey Goldberg to finish writing the just published Prisoners: A Muslim and a Jew Across the Middle East Divide (Knopf, Oct.) He had originally contracted to do the book in 2000. But news happens—a second Palestinian uprising, 9/11. So Goldberg's day job as The New Yorker's Middle East correspondent kept him busy. Moreover, the book he was writing was changing.

"I thought I was getting my answer that reconciliation was happening, and then it didn't work," Goldberg told RBL from his Washington, D.C., home. "I also was a bit depressed about the state of this particular universe, the Israeli-Palestinian universe. I just didn't want to write something that was unremittingly black."

He didn't. The book focuses on the most unlikely friendship that develops over two countries and 15 years between the author, who served a stint in the Israeli army, and Rafiq Hijazi, a prisoner Goldberg guarded during his army service. "I wanted to write a book that went inside the hearts of people engaged in this fight," said Goldberg, who has won a National Magazine Award for his reporting.

After spending virtually all his adult life working on the Middle East, he believes that the two sides can talk even if they cannot agree. "I was only comfortable finishing the book when I could honestly tell the reader that I actually do believe it's possible for these two peoples to coexist," said Goldberg, now The New Yorker's Washington correspondent. Goldberg is promoting his book on a fall tour circuit, with stops at book festivals and also through the Jewish Book Network.

Goldberg and his friend discuss the Middle East over cups of coffee. In The Faith Club: A Muslim, A Christian, A Jew–Three Women Search for Understanding (Free Press, Oct.),authors Ranya Idliby, Suzanne Oliver and Priscilla Warner ask questions and shatter stereotypes as they meet over tea and chocolate. The three came together shortly after 9/11 when Idliby, an American Muslim of Palestinian descent, sought out two other mothers to collaborate on a book about faiths for children. Instead, the women's project became a series of honest—at times painfully so—conversations about commonalities and differences.

The book alternates the voices of the women and includes partial transcripts of their discussions. "I completely fell in love with the authors' voices," said Leslie Meredith, senior editor and v-p at Free Press. It's also strongly a women's book. The three are mothers who discuss faith and politics but also what to wear when they visit one another's places of worship. "A lot of peace movements have been driven by women," Meredith said.

The book ends with instructions on how readers can form their own "faith clubs." The authors were guests on The Today Show Oct. 3.