When David Har­ris-Ger­shon and his wife, Jamie, moved to Jerusalem, they were young and full of hope. Then a bomb ripped open Hebrew Uni­ver­si­ty’s cafe­te­ria, hurl­ing Jamie across the room, punc­tur­ing her body with shrap­nel, killing the friends sit­ting next to her. The bomb­ing sent David on a psy­cho­log­i­cal jour­ney which, years lat­er, led him to East Jerusalem and the fam­i­ly of the Hamas ter­ror­ist who set every­thing in motion — the ter­ror­ist he was seek­ing. Not out of revenge. Out of des­per­a­tion. This is the sto­ry of one man’s attempt to heal by under­stand­ing his ene­my — an ene­my who inex­plic­a­bly expressed remorse upon being cap­tured by Israeli police. It’s the sto­ry of rec­on­cil­i­a­tion between an Amer­i­can Jew and the Pales­tin­ian fam­i­ly of the per­pe­tra­tor. And it’s the sto­ry of dig­ging, of unearthing shad­owy deci­sions made by Israel which under­mined a his­toric cease-fire attempt by Pales­tini­ans just days before the attack. Part Autobiography/​Memoir, part jour­nal­is­tic inves­ti­ga­tion, this fear­less debut con­fronts the per­son­al costs of the Pales­tin­ian-Israeli con­flict and our capac­i­ty for recov­ery and rec­on­cil­i­a­tion.

Read David Har­ris-Ger­shon­’s Posts for the Vis­it­ing Scribe

How My Mem­oir Con­vinced the New York Post to Advo­cate for Israel’s Destruction

Claim­ing Myself as a Vic­tim of Terror