Home to Stay

A firsthand personal view of a family on the front lines of war in Israel now revised and updated (previously published as If a Place Can Make You Cry).An outstanding work . . . powerfully and movingly written.Jerusalem PostWINNER OF THE BOOKS FOR A BETTER LIFE AWARDIn the summer of 1998 Daniel Gordis and his family moved to Israel from Los Angeles. They planned to be there for a year but a few months into their stay Daniel and his wife decided to remain in Jerusalem permanently confident that their children would be among the first generation of Israelis to grow up in peace.. Immediately after arriving in Israel Daniel had started sending out e-mails about his life to friends and family abroad. These missivespassionate thoughtful beautifully written and informativebegan reaching a much broader readership than hed ever envisioned eventually being excerpted in The New York Times Magazine to much acclaim.An edited and finely crafted collection of Daniels original e-mails Home to Stay is a first-person immediate account of Israels post-Oslo meltdown that cuts through the rhetoric and stridency of most dispatches from that country or from the international media.Above all Home to Stay tells the story of a family that must cope with the sudden realization that they took their children from a serene and secure neighborhood in Los Angeles to an Israel not at peace but mired in war.This is the chronicle of a loss of innocencethe innocence of Daniel and his wife and of their children. Ultimately through Daniels eyes Israel with all its beauty madness violence and history comes to life in a way weve never quite seen before.