Mona Hajjar Halaby

'Refugees are like seeds that scatter in the wind, and land in different soils that become their reluctant homes' my mother once told me. As a small child, I looked up at my mother and clutched her hand. The puffiness of her palm reminded me of a loaf of warm pita bread, and when she laced her fingers into mine like a pretzel, I felt safe. I would have walked with her to the ends of the earth. When Mona moved from California to Ramallah to teach conflict resolution in a school for a year, she kept a journal. Within its pages, she wrote her impressions of her homeland, a place she had only experienced through her mother's memories. As she settled into her teaching role, getting to know her students and the challenges they faced living in a militarized, occupied town, Mona also embarked on a personal pilgrimage to find her mother's home in Jerusalem. Mona had dreamed of being guided by her mother down the old souqs, and the leafy streets of her neighborhood, listening to the muezzin's call for prayer and the medley of church bells. But after fifty-nine years of exile, it was Mona's mother who held her daughter's hand as they visited Jerusalem together, walking the narrow cobblestone alleys of the Old City. Their roles were reversed. Mona had become her Mama's legs and her memory - and the one to tell her story going forward. In My Mother's Footsteps is a moving and heart-rending journey of a daughter discovering her roots and recovering her mother's beloved past. It's also an intimate and tender account of daily life for Palestinians as never seen before. For fans of The Bookseller of Kabul and The Beekeeper of Aleppo. Read what everyone is saying about In My Mother's Footsteps 'This is a beautifully written story told with honesty and passion...It will jerk those tears right out of your head...Surely one of the best books of 2021.' Goodreads reviewer, ⭐⭐⭐⭐⭐ 'Beautiful. Poignant. Phenomenal...I cried and I smiled...Truly a gem.' Goodreads reviewer, ⭐⭐⭐⭐⭐ 'Moving, evocative and poignant...a really insightful and touching book as well as an intimate narration of family history and deep-rooted love of Palestine and I learnt a lot from it.' Resnas_readagram, ⭐⭐⭐⭐⭐ 'Informative, powerful, moving...Her descriptions of the places she visits in Palestine are exceptionally evocative...I felt transported to the streets of Jerusalem and Ramallah, almost as if I was walking alongside her...an extremely necessary book, narrated in a beautiful prose and which I found very insightful and poignant...If you loved works of fiction such as The Beekeeper of Aleppo or A Thousand Splendid Suns, this memoir will not disappoint.' Goodreads reviewer, ⭐⭐⭐⭐⭐ 'A beautifully written and intimate portrait of a relationship between a mother and daughter.' the_suitable_girl, ⭐⭐⭐⭐⭐

A Palestinian Refugee Returns Home

In My Mother's Footsteps

Remmi Ahmed

 "I don't want to cry for the dead, for the loss and the pain we all suffered. I don't want you all to suffer what I've endured”, she had said, as though her sorrow were an infectious disease.

My father sat quietly behind us. Hed always been a man of a few words. For him, this trip was a gift to his wife, a trip to make her happy, in the same way that everything he ever did in their sixty-three years of marriage was to make her happy the dozens of roses, the exquisite, expensive jewelry, the luxury vacations, the poems he wrote. Papa was a hopeless romantic. He was totally devoted to his wife until the day she died when, upon hearing of her death, his knees buckled and he collapsed in my arms. We all knew Mama had been his spine.

It was only years later that I came to understand that identity is where your heart lies. It is not the product of offcial documen or genealogy. In my case, it was fashioned by love, by stories, by a sense of belonging, all inspired by my mother, who like the lonely loon paddling on the lake at night, sang her mournful song abour Palestine from the day I was born. I grew up learning that tune.

Something that was especially hard to bear was the sight of the brightly colored neon lights posted everywhere in Jerusalem, showing stylized ramparts and a big four-zero. The Israelis were celebrating their forty-year conquest and Occupation of the West Bank and Gaza. It seemed incongruous to be celebrating holding an entire population in by bondage.

But the Palestinian spirit is resolute. Against all odds the Palestinians have survived the Occupation, and over seventy years of displacement and dispossession. They are not thriving, for who could thrive economically and emotionally when a twenty-five- foot concrete Wall is erected outside your window, separating you from your crops and your family, let alone blocking your share of sunlight? And who could thrive when turned back from a checkpoint to enter Jerusalem for medical treatment? And who could thrive when your home is demolished in the middle of the night and you are only given a half an hour's notice to carry your sleeping children out of bed?

They will not surrender their struggle for liberation. 

One day I said to my friend Salma, "I have finally igured out why so many people here have become more religious." She was eager to hear my reasoning. "Because no one can control the degree of devotion they have to their faith. No one can stop them from believing, or from practicing their faith. It is the most intimate relationship there is. No checkpoint, and no Wall, can come in the way of your relationship with God. It is personal; ir is private; it is intimate. And Israel certainly cannot control it. 

I cannot turn a blind eye to the injustices perpetrated agains the Palestinians, or to any dispossessed or subjugated people. Can I forgive, or forget, what was, and is still being done to the Palestinians? With work, forgiving is doable, but forgetting is unthinkable. I cannot and do not want to forget the tragedies that have shaped my family and my people's lives. I want to honor the memory of ther forced exile and share their story with the rest of the world. 

 Did they know that their roads are laced with blood and tears? Did they know that every inch of Palestinian land has a story to tell, a story that is conveniently muted, or erased?

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