A Life Worth Living: The Story of a Palestinian Catholic

Amidst a sometimes confusing barrage of news about the Middle East Dr. Bernard Sabella a Palestinian Christian offers an enlightening often humorous personal narrative accompanied by reflections on lessons learned from his life in a conflict zone. Displaced from his home in infancy with his refugee family and educated in Jerusalems Old City before pursuing university studies in the US he blossomed into a committed educator scholar member of the Palestinian Parliament and director of a church aid agency. Throughout his life Dr. Sabella has never lost his focus on the goal of promoting peace through understanding and he has never been diverted from his path of absolute nonviolence. A Life Worth Living speaks with a voice worth listening to alternately anecdotal and analytical touching our hearts while pondering the past present and future of the Holy Land. A terrific memoir. . . . With an authentic voice with a humane touch Bernard Sabella invites us to listen intently to his story and that of his multigenerational family as they live their Christian faith and Palestinian culture in Jerusalem and beyond. A servant-leader and a professor his mission is to inspire positive change replacing dispossession with perseverance injustice with justice occupation with liberation and darkness with light. Thats what truly makes life worth living. --Saliba Sarsar Professor of Political Science Monmouth University More than a memoir Bernard Sabella presents a sociocultural religious and historical description of Palestinian life in the Holy Land from the 1940s to the present. Writing as a Catholic Palestinian intellectual he pleads for religious understanding and the necessity of education while emphasizing the Holy Land is not simply a place of roots but a home where everyone can live as citizens. It is a necessary read for anyone seeking understanding of this region. -- Kail C. Ellis Dean College of Liberal Arts and Sciences Villanova University Bernard Sabella a distinguished professor of sociology at Bethlehem University has written a compelling memoir. He eloquently recounts his experiences amidst environments as varied as conflict-torn Jerusalem a small Appalachian town and the rarefied academic heights of Princeton. The reader is struck by his ability to extract profound insights from small and often contradictory events by his love for the rich historical religious and cultural traditions of the Palestinian people and by his belief in the power of education to shape understanding and perhaps eventually reconciliation between conflicting peoples. --Louis Sell Foreign Service Officer retired Adjunct Professor University of Maine Farmington Bernard Sabella currently serves as the executive secretary of the Department of Service to Palestinian Refugees of the Middle East Council of Churches as well as an elected member of the Palestinian legislature. He has retired from a career as a professor of sociology at Bethlehem University in Palestine. Relishing his roles as father and grandfather Dr. Sabella lives in Jerusalem with his wife Mary.