“Habibi,” by Naomi Shihab Nye
Simon and Schuster, New York, 1997, 259 pages, Grades 5-7.
The history of Jerusalem (the Holy City) has been fraught with peril for centuries. The nation of Israel was conquered and Jerusalem captured several times before the birth of Our Lord. In 70 A.D., the Roman Army leveled the Holy City, destroyed the Temple and expelled the Jews. This led to the dispersal of most Jews from the Middle East.
After World War II and the horrors of the Holocaust, many Jews returned to the Mid East and founded the nation of Israel, but of course Israel (the Holy Land) was occupied in 1945.
Though Christians, Jews and other people lived there, the predominant group was Palestinian Muslims. Commonly called Arabs, this group lost much land and suffered greatly from 1948-2016.
Today much animosity remains between the Jews and the Arabs. Many books have been published in English telling the Jewish side of this question. Very few books in English tell the Arab point of view. Naomi Nye writes from this second viewpoint in her sensitive novel, “Habibi.”
Liyana Abboud is a 14-year-old girl from St. Louis. She cannot speak Arabic and knows little about her father’s Palestinian homeland. Her father is an American-trained doctor and her mother is a well-educated woman.
On her 14th birthday, Dr. Abboud tells his unenthusiastic daughter that he has decided to take the family back to Palestine so they can learn about their roots. The father is joyful, the mother is stoic and the children are bewildered.
Liyana and her younger brother, Rafik, pack their things and soon arrive in Jerusalem. The Abboud clan of dozens of cousins, aunts and uncles holds a large celebration for the return to Palestine of Dr. Abboud and his family.
But soon Liyana is faced with the issue of her identity. She can’t quite figure out what it means to be both Arab and American. Her family isn’t even Muslim. As all these issues are swirling around in her heart, she enrolls in a private school in Jerusalem, run by Armenian educators and is of high academic quality. Though the school is fine, Liyana is now thrown into a third culture.
She soon becomes enamored with a young man named Omer and can’t quite understand how he moves so easily throughout the different parts of Jerusalem. That is, until Liyana discovers Omer is Jewish.
The action picks up when a bombing in the Jewish section causes a retaliatory strike by the Israeli Defense Force. A close Arab friend is shot and her father is arrested. Where are Liyana’s loyalties and what painful questions tear at her heart?
What happens? Does Liyana’s friend recover? Is her father released from jail? Does this just start a new round of hatred in Jerusalem? What can a teenage girl do about 2,000 years of animosity? To find out what Liyana chooses, go to the library and check out this sensitive novel.
Though there are scenes of excitement in the book, much of the novel discusses the inner thoughts and feelings of Liyana. In this sense, it resembles a coming-of-age novel of a teenage girl. But Nye also presents the Arab point of view about the political situation in the Holy Land. In this she makes a contribution toward understanding the political situation in the Holy Land. Though there are no easy answers, the characters in “Habibi” try to understand each other. It is a worthwhile goal.
