Author | Khawla Hamdi |
---|---|
Original title | في قلبي أنثى عبرية |
Country | Tunisia |
Language | Arabic |
Subject | Coexistence between religions |
Genre | Fiction, Romance novel |
Publisher | Kayan Publishing (In Tunisia) |
Publication date | 2012 in Arabic |
Pages | 386 in Arabic Edition |
ISBN | 9789938052107 Arabic Edition |
In My Heart A Hebrew Girl is a novel by Khawla Hamdi, [1] in which the author describes how she became acquainted with the protagonist of the story Nada. Initially, Khawla Hamdi publishes on a web site the story that she has heard, where she can communicate with the protagonist, Nada, to find out more. After hearing the story thoroughly and gathering the details, she turns it into a love story that happened between Nada as story hero and Ahmad as hero of the Lebanese resistance. A love between the Arab Jewish community and the Lebanese resistance community. [2] [3]
The novel impartially tells the true story of the real heroes, according to the author. The story of Rima, a Muslim girl, that after the death of her mother, adopted by Jacob and her wife Tanya and their two children, Sarah and Pascal, who are all Jewish. There is also the story of Nada, a Jewish girl, and Ahmad, a Muslim boy from the Lebanese Resistance Force, who tells of the reaction of Nada and Ahmad's sister, Samah, after Ahmed's disappearance. But soon the author abandons her impartiality and begins to provide evidence to persuade the reader to her religion. [4]
The novel takes place on the island of Djerba, one of the Tunisian islands. The story of this island is interesting in its own way. In the distant past some Jews moved to this island after the kingdom of Nebuchadnezzar I -the king of Babylon and the commander of its armies- due to chaos in the east of the country. After settling on this enchanting island, they established their most famous synagogue, that now is the oldest in Africa. They also built many temples and shrines adjacent to muslim's mosques. The current number of Jews on the Djerba island does not exceed two thousand person, knowing that they are the descendants of the first immigrants to be mixed with the inhabitants of the land and that their survival on the religion of their fathers (Judaism) shows that Islam is not a hostile religion, otherwise this group of Jews had either been exterminated or expelled from the country. [5] [6] [7]
The novel centers on the true story of a Jewish girl named Nada, who lives in Tunisia with her Jewish family. As the novel depicts the full details of Nada's life and Rima's life, it shows how fate drives them together to meet. Rima, a girl less than 15 years old, is raised by a Jew after her mother's death, until this Jewish man realizes that his daughter is interested in wearing the Islamic veil because of Rima and he sees this as a threat to his daughter so he asks Rima to leave his house. Rima comes from Tunisia to Lebanon after being evicted from her Jewish godfather's home, where she meets Nada and works as a maid at her home. The story continues until at a night, a masked young man knocks on Nada's house door to help heal his friend Ahmad, who was injured in clashes between the Lebanese resistance and Israel. Ahmad is one of the Lebanese Resistance Forces fighting against the occupation regime of Zionist. Ahmad, who was wounded and taken to Nada's home, is taken care by Nada. As a result, Ahmad becomes interested in Nada and ignores religious and sectarian differences. [8] [9] [10]
The story takes place in two areas: the first on the Djerba island in Tunisia and the second in the ancient city of Qana in southern Lebanon. Set in a Jewish neighborhood in southern Tunisia, the novel revolves around Rima, an orphaned Muslim girl raised in the shadow of her "uncle Jacob" Jewish family, whose beliefs begin to change and she tends to wear Islamic veil. Meanwhile, Uncle Jacob and his wife, Tanya, became angry with Rima and demand that she be removed from their children so that they will not be influenced by her beliefs about Judaism and Islam, so they send Rima to Lebanon and finally Rima meets the story hero Nada there. [11]
In southern Lebanon, the novel deals with the life of Nada, a Hebrew girl entitled by this novel whose belongs to the Jewish religion, though Nada was raised in a Christian home but chose Jewish religion following her mother. Nada's life is deeply affected after meeting Ahmad. A Muslim boy belonging to the ranks of Lebanese resistance against the occupation regime of Israel. [11]
The novel illustrates the relationship of Muslims with others, especially Jews, and also highlights the differences between Muslim women and Jewish women and their positions in the Quran. It also shows how Nada has been subjected to persecution and exile by her family after her conversion to Islam. As for Rima's fate, she is killed by a bombing in Qana when shopping at the market. The novel depicts the weakness of the Jewish religion by depicting terrorism, barbarism, and underestimating the status of women. [12] The novel seems to convey the author's wishes and does not describe the reality of life, because in the Jewish community in Arab world, their relationships are largely limited to themselves. [13]
The author attempts to compare religions in blatant triumph for Islam, and in some parts deliberately attempts to make this comparison expressed by the protagonist Nada, for example throughout the story heard: Muslim prayer are different from Christian worship that performed loudly and by richness songs, but close to Jewish worship, especially when Jewish worshipers repeat the Bible sentences softly or in their minds without talk about it. [14]
Antisemitism has increased greatly in the Arab world since the beginning of the 20th century, for several reasons: the dissolution and breakdown of the Ottoman Empire and traditional Islamic society; European influence, brought about by Western imperialism and Arab Christians; Nazi propaganda and relations between Nazi Germany and the Arab world; resentment over Jewish nationalism; the rise of Arab nationalism; and the widespread proliferation of anti-Jewish and anti-Zionist conspiracy theories.
Djerba, also transliterated as Jerba or Jarbah, is a Tunisian island and the largest island of North Africa at 514 square kilometers (198 sq mi), in the Gulf of Gabès, off the coast of Tunisia. Administratively, it is part of Medenine Governorate of this North African country. The island had a population of 139,544 at the 2004 census, which rose to 163,726 at the 2014 census. Citing its long and unique history, Tunisia has sought UNESCO World Heritage status protections for the island, and, in 2023, Djerba was officially designated a World Heritage Site.
Dhimmitude is a polemical neologism characterizing the status of non-Muslims under Muslim rule, popularized by the Egyptian-born British writer Bat Ye'or in the 1980s and 1990s. It is a portmanteau word constructed from the Arabic dhimmi 'non-Muslim living in an Islamic state' and the French (serv)itude 'subjection'.
ʻAṣmāʼ bint Marwān a female Arab poet said to have lived in Medina in 7th-century Arabia. Early writers of Muhammad's biography claimed that she was assassinated for her agitating against Muhammad.
The ancient El Ghriba Synagogue, also known as the Djerba Synagogue, is located on the Tunisian island of Djerba. It is situated in the Jewish village of Hara Seghira, several kilometres southwest of Houmt El Souk, the main town of Djerba.
The history of Jews in Algeria goes back to Antiquity, although it is not possible to trace with any certainty the time and circumstances of the arrival of the first Jews in what is now Algeria. In any case, several waves of immigration helped to increase the population. There may have been Jews in Carthage and present-day Algeria before the Roman conquest, but the development of Jewish communities is linked to the Roman presence. Jewish revolts in Israel and Cyrenaica in the 1st and 2nd centuries certainly led to the arrival of Jewish immigrants from these regions. The vast majority of scholarly sources reject the notion that there were any large-scale conversions of Berbers to Judaism.
Arab Jews is a term for Jews living in or originating from the Arab world. The term is politically contested, often by Zionists or by Jews with roots in the Arab world who prefer to be identified as Mizrahi Jews. Many left or were expelled from Arab countries in the decades following the founding of Israel in 1948, and took up residence in Israel, Western Europe, the United States and Latin America.
The history of the Jews in Tunisia extends nearly two thousand years to the Punic era. The Jewish community in Tunisia is no doubt older and grew up following successive waves of immigration and proselytism before its development was hampered by anti-Jewish measures in the Byzantine Empire. The community formerly used its own dialect of Arabic. After the Muslim conquest of Tunisia, Tunisian Judaism went through periods of relative freedom or even cultural apogee to times of more marked discrimination. The arrival of Jews expelled from the Iberian peninsula, often through Livorno, greatly altered the country. Its economic, social and cultural situation has improved markedly with the advent of the French protectorate before being compromised during the Second World War, with the occupation of the country by the Axis. The Nakba and the creation of Israel in 1948 provoked a widespread anti-Zionist reaction in the Arab world, to which was added nationalist agitation, nationalization of enterprises, Arabization of education and part of the administration. Jews left Tunisia en masse from the 1950s onwards because of the problems raised and the hostile climate created by the Bizerte crisis in 1961 and the Six-Day War in 1967. According to the Jewish Virtual Library, the Jewish population of Tunisia, was estimated at 105,000 individuals in 1948. These Jews lived mainly in Tunis, with communities present in Djerba. The 2022 Report on International Religious Freedom by the U.S Department of State stated that "according to members of the Jewish community, there are approximately 1,500 Jewish citizens in the country".
The Lebanese people are the people inhabiting or originating from Lebanon. The term may also include those who had inhabited Mount Lebanon and the Anti-Lebanon Mountains prior to the creation of the modern Lebanese state. The major religious groups among the Lebanese people within Lebanon are Shia Muslims (27%), Sunni Muslims (27%), Maronite Christians (21%), Greek Orthodox Christians (8%), Melkite Christians (5%), Druze (5%), Protestant Christians (1%). The largest contingent of Lebanese, however, comprise a diaspora in North America, South America, Europe, Australia and Africa, which is predominantly Maronite Christian.
The Nahda, also referred to as the Arab Awakening or Enlightenment, was a cultural movement that flourished in Arab-populated regions of the Ottoman Empire, notably in Egypt, Lebanon, Syria, and Tunisia, during the second half of the 19th century and the early 20th century.
Lebanon is an eastern Mediterranean country that has the most religiously diverse society within the Middle East, comprising 18 recognized religious sects. The religions are Islam and Christianity. The Druze comprise around 5% of Lebanon's population.
The Arab world consists of 22 states. As of 2021, the combined population of all the Arab states was around 475 million people.
Of the religions in Tunisia, Islam is the most prevalent. It is estimated that in 2022, approximately 99% of Tunisia's inhabitants identified themselves as Muslims.
La Ghriba is a picturesque documentary about the 2,600-year-old Jewish community on the Tunisian island of Jerba, where Jews and Muslims live side-by-side peacefully.
Rima Fakih Slaiby is an American former professional wrestler and beauty pageant titleholder who was crowned Miss USA 2010. Having previously been crowned Miss Michigan USA 2010, Fakih was the first Arab American woman and the third woman from Michigan to win the Miss USA title.
Relations between Nazi Germany (1933–1945) and the Arab world ranged from indifference, resistance, collaboration and emulation. Nazi Germany used collaborators throughout the Arab world to support their political goals. The cooperative political and military relationships were based on shared hostilities towards common enemies, such as the United Kingdom, the French Third Republic, along with communism, and Zionism. Another foundation of such collaborations was the antisemitism of the Nazis and their hostility towards the United Kingdom and France, which was admired by some Arab and Muslim leaders, most notably the exiled Palestinian leader, Grand Mufti of Jerusalem, Amin al-Husseini.
The Gabès riots targeted the Jewish community in Gabès, Tunisia. A notable exception to the relatively good Jewish-Muslim relations in the city, it was the worst outbreak of violence against Jews in North Africa during World War II.
I Was in Raqqa is a book about Mohamed Fahem, a former member of Islamic State (ISIS), written by Hedi Yahmed. Fahem is a Tunisian jihadist who joined ISIS in November 2015.
Khawla Hamdi is a Tunisian-born Arabic-language author born on July 12, 1984, in Tunis, Tunisia. She is a professor at the King Saud University in Riyadh, where she teaches Information technology and currently resides in Riyadh. She has several best-selling novels in her literary career.
Amira Charfeddine is a Tunisian novelist. Her first novel, Wild Fadhīla, was written in Tunisian Arabic and is the first major Tunisian novel to feature a gay protagonist. The novel was commercially successful, selling 2,000 copies within a month of its release in April 2019. It was awarded the Ali Douagi prize from the Derja Association for best work written in Tunisian Arabic in 2019.