Rachel Berghash’s lyri­cal, impres­sion­is­tic mem­oir charts her rela­tion­ship with her home­land dur­ing a life­long jour­ney of self-dis­cov­ery.

Born in Jerusalem under the British man­date, Berghash was raised in an Ortho­dox home. Her father was a fifth-gen­er­a­tion Ashke­naz­ic Jerusalemite.

An only child enveloped in her par­ents’ atten­tion, the young Rachel dis­cov­ers the won­ders of the majes­tic, restric­tive city she grows to love. At eigh­teen, she serves in the Israeli army, where she has a lov­ing rela­tion­ship with a fel­low sol­dier. In her twen­ties, she mar­ries an Amer­i­can artist, and leaves her home­land to build a new life in New York. She grap­ples with a divid­ed world and self, aban­don­ing her close adher­ence to reli­gious stric­tures.

Inti­mate and evoca­tive, Half the House touch­es on issues of emi­gra­tion, exile, fam­i­ly, and the under­ly­ing kin­ship between Israeli Jews and Pales­tini­ans. It shows how Berghash is able to build a new house of the spir­it, draw­ing on the foun­da­tion of her past while embrac­ing life’s new possibilities.