Letters to My Palestinian Neighbor

Yossi Klein Halevi

Nonfiction | Collection of Letters | Adult | Published in 2018

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Summary

Background

Chapter Summaries & Analyses

Letters 1-3

Letters 4-6

Letters 7-10

Key Figures

Themes

Symbols & Motifs

Important Quotes

Essay Topics

Tools

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Discussion Questions

Symbols & Motifs

Letters

The motif of letter-writing provides the dominant literary framework for the book. While the book’s sections are not letters in a proper sense—they have no definite addressee and are published as chapters rather than posted or sent individually—they nonetheless take the literary form of letters. Each one is headed with the greeting “Dear Neighbor,” and includes commentary and questions about the neighbor’s experiences and perspectives. Letters have a generally positive connotation, as they are usually shared between people with an established relationship or bond, and this contrasts the strong negativity normally associated with the Israeli/Palestinian dynamic. It is a disarming choice that automatically presents a more earnest, conversational tone.

This motif serves to build the theme of Interfaith Dialogue throughout the book, offering a structural form by which that potential dialogue is expressed. Halevi writes to his Palestinian interlocutor by speaking as a person of faith to another person of faith. The motif of letter-writing permits the potential dialogue to include a longform exposure to one another’s ideas, requiring the patience of listening to the other and digesting their perspective before making one’s own reply. This contrasts with the structure of traditional nonfiction texts, typically a one-way form of communication, which, in a context like the Israel/Palestine debate, could raise tensions.

Religious and National Observances

The motif of religious and national observances provides the occasion for some of the letters in the book, thus adding literary depth to the motif of letter-writing and underscoring the themes of Jewish Peoplehood and Interfaith Dialogue. Many of the letters in the book begin with a reflection on an event in the Israeli or Palestinian calendar, with each letter purporting to be written from that temporal context.

Halevi consistently presenting the Jewish and Palestinian interpretations of these traditions, such as making note of the overlap of the Israeli Independence Day and the Palestinian’s marking of the Nakba, emphasizes his regard for both cultures. For example, Letter 7 takes its context not from an Israeli holiday but from the beginning of the Muslim festival of Eid al-Adha. This inherently relates to the overarching desire to lend equal credibility to Jewish and Muslim faiths and traditions and underscores the book’s theme on interfaith dialogue.

Neighbors

The motif of neighbors is employed throughout the book, with added prominence from its position in both the title and the greeting that begins each of the book’s sections. As a motif, the idea of the neighbor is primarily a relational one, marking the contacts between two sets of characters (people or families) who live in close physical proximity to one another. In Halevi’s case, the motif of the neighbor expresses both a realized reality—the fact that he is writing to the people who share his physical location, just beyond the security wall that separates East Jerusalem and the West Bank—and an unrealized reality, as his dialogue partners will remain abstract and unidentified until they choose to respond.

The motif of the neighbor supports the motif of letter-writing, as the neighbor functions as the recipient of each letter, and the concept again holds a positive connotation in broader society that sharply juxtaposes the situation at hand. In the Christian Bible, for example, readers are instructed in the book of Matthew to “love thy neighbor.” The implicit intertextual reference helps allude to the book’s themes of Interfaith Dialogue and The Culture-Shaping Effects of Stories. Halevi regards his dialogue partners not as enemies or adversaries, but as neighbors, because he recognizes that they have a valid narrative that shapes the way they connect to the land that Israelis and Palestinians both inhabit. By calling them his neighbors, Halevi is implicitly giving credence to the story of their claim on the land while simultaneously upholding the Jewish claim. The rhetoric of neighbors is ultimately non-adversarial, assuming a sympathy of interests that is not often included in other treatments of the Israel/Palestine controversy.