Book cover of The Making of a Human Bomb

Book description

In The Making of a Human Bomb, Nasser Abufarha, a Palestinian anthropologist, explains the cultural logic underlying Palestinian martyrdom operations (suicide attacks) launched against Israel during the Al-Aqsa Intifada (2000-06). In so doing, he sheds much-needed light on how Palestinians have experienced and perceived the broader conflict. During the Intifada,…

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Why read it?

1 author picked The Making of a Human Bomb as one of their favorite books. Why do they recommend it?

This is among the bravest and most original books that I’ve read in the past decade.

To quell violence, to truly make peace, one first needs to contemplate what James Baldwin wrote many years ago: “The most dangerous creation of any society is the man with nothing to lose.”

Palestinians in Gaza and the West Bank have been violently oppressed for decades. Nasser Abufarha, an anthropologist originally from Jenin, explores the conditions that almost inevitably lead to violent confrontations.

I have been in the West Bank and worked side-by-side with Palestinians and Jewish Israeli activists and other international volunteers who…

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December on 5C4 by Adam Strassberg,

Magical realism meets the magic of Christmas in this mix of Jewish, New Testament, and Santa stories–all reenacted in an urban psychiatric hospital!

On locked ward 5C4, Josh, a patient with many similarities to Jesus, is hospitalized concurrently with Nick, a patient with many similarities to Santa. The two argue…

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