Before you, reader, are words of pain. Powerful words. Stories of connection.
Beloved Erella, my oldest and dearest friend, manages in these pages to meet people beyond boundaries, to create connections in places of deliberate separation and to hold out a compassionate hand beyond the limitations of the regime.
……….These are letters to friends, letters to the world. A collection of difficult stories, stories of the day-to-day, which describe the reality of life under occupation.
……….Erella meticulously describes this reality which for most Israelis is neither grasped nor real and she presents it as it is: the daily reality of Palestinians’ lives under occupation, men and women, children and elders, who live right next to us and who are, nonetheless, so far away.
……….Simple, powerful stories reveal a distorted world order, one that has become the ordinary world of the occupied. These are stories of careful observation that touch on the choices of people facing hardship and the sources of strength they draw on in order to continue and survive no matter the price.
……….Like the heroes of these stories, Erella also chooses to elicit strength from difficulty, pain and despair, a strength that envelops her, allowing her to carry on, without giving up the essence of her life – great love, hard, simple, human compassion, and respect for all human beings.
……….I had the honor of playing a small part in collecting and editing these stories, a painful, shattering and empowering process. For this, friend of my heart, I profoundly thank you.