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Arabic for Beginners
When Hannah accompanies her husband and small children to Jerusalem for the year, she becomes fascinated with a group of expat women at her son's daycare, as well as a young Palestinian woman named Jenna. As she grows close to Jenna she starts to question her own marriage and her relationship to Israel. A novel of domestic and political ambivalence, Arabic for Beginners is about marriage, motherhood, friendship, nation, and the complicated ways we think of home. It is the winner of the J. I. Segal 2018 Mona Elaine Adilman English Fiction and Poetry Award on a Jewish Theme.
303 pages, Paperback
Published February 24, 2017
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Displaying 1 - 8 of 8 reviews
March 1, 2017
An intelligent and finely crafted novel with a story that pulls you in and doesn't let you go.
July 22, 2023
After finishing Léa, the rousing biography-novel on labour activist Léa Roback, I was eager to pick up another book by Montreal author Ariela Friedman. I loved the specificity in her descriptions of characters, her breezy, short chapters that forgo cliches and traditional plotting, and her acute attention to detail in describing locations that I’ve passed by in my life before.
Imagine my excitement to learn that Freedman wrote another, earlier book, this one about a Canadian Jew living in Israel for a year, which I picked up only weeks after returning from my own year-long sojourn!
Hannah, a Canadian Jewish PhD student, is living in Jerusalem for the year with her two sons because her husband landed a visiting professor gig at Hebrew University. Although it is not her first time visiting the Holy Land, she meets a Palestinian mother named Jenna at her sons’ daycare that introduces her to a new side of Jerusalem she has never encountered before.
The whole plot of “Jewish American goes to Israel and comes to sympathize with the other side of the conflict” is nothing new, but Freedman adds new perspectives that spice up a tired, overcrowded genre. Reading this book made me realize how seldom I read stories written from the perspective of mothers of small children. In that regard, I loved how Hannah (realistically) is constantly worrying about her small children and their day to day realities, *in addition to* her political awakenings and observations about life in Israel. I also related to the descriptions of Israelis and the cultural differences between Israel’s tribalism and Canada’s staid properness on a personal, perhaps spiritual level.
If Freedman had written a travel memoir, I would be keener to give this book a higher rating. But the issue is that she advertises her book as a novel, when there is no real narrative structure, and the characters don’t undergo much change over the course of the year. I wanted to know more about Hannah and Simon’s marriage, or Jenna’s future goals or ambitions, or at least how Hannah changed her life in Montreal after her year in Jerusalem. It’s all observations and commentary about contradictory feelings living in a place fraught with conflict, with no real plot or character development. I left the book the same way I felt leaving Israel: enamoured by the sights, sounds and tastes of somewhere new and exhilarating, but also ambivalent, craving a resolution that never quite arrived.
Overall: 🐑 🐑 🐑 (3 sheeps)
Imagine my excitement to learn that Freedman wrote another, earlier book, this one about a Canadian Jew living in Israel for a year, which I picked up only weeks after returning from my own year-long sojourn!
Hannah, a Canadian Jewish PhD student, is living in Jerusalem for the year with her two sons because her husband landed a visiting professor gig at Hebrew University. Although it is not her first time visiting the Holy Land, she meets a Palestinian mother named Jenna at her sons’ daycare that introduces her to a new side of Jerusalem she has never encountered before.
The whole plot of “Jewish American goes to Israel and comes to sympathize with the other side of the conflict” is nothing new, but Freedman adds new perspectives that spice up a tired, overcrowded genre. Reading this book made me realize how seldom I read stories written from the perspective of mothers of small children. In that regard, I loved how Hannah (realistically) is constantly worrying about her small children and their day to day realities, *in addition to* her political awakenings and observations about life in Israel. I also related to the descriptions of Israelis and the cultural differences between Israel’s tribalism and Canada’s staid properness on a personal, perhaps spiritual level.
If Freedman had written a travel memoir, I would be keener to give this book a higher rating. But the issue is that she advertises her book as a novel, when there is no real narrative structure, and the characters don’t undergo much change over the course of the year. I wanted to know more about Hannah and Simon’s marriage, or Jenna’s future goals or ambitions, or at least how Hannah changed her life in Montreal after her year in Jerusalem. It’s all observations and commentary about contradictory feelings living in a place fraught with conflict, with no real plot or character development. I left the book the same way I felt leaving Israel: enamoured by the sights, sounds and tastes of somewhere new and exhilarating, but also ambivalent, craving a resolution that never quite arrived.
Overall: 🐑 🐑 🐑 (3 sheeps)
June 21, 2017
Life in Israel is explored through the eyes of Hannah, a Canadian in Israel for a year during her husband's Sabbatical. A quiet analytical book, examine the complexities of life in Israel through friendships with Israeli and Palestinian women. Very interesting and beautifully written. I
August 18, 2017
Ariela Freedman's detail, her vivid descriptions, are stunning, as is her ability to weave the concrete with the psychological.
January 3, 2018
I very much enjoyed reading this book about a family on a one year sabbatical in Jerusalem.
June 22, 2018
A fictionalized account of the author & her family on a sabbatical for one year in Israel. She writes of her relationship with other expats, daily life in Israel, and raising children.
September 22, 2017
Excellent! If you enjoy armchair travel and 'people' you'll enjoy this book very much. Thoughtful without being 'heavy and significant'.
October 18, 2017
An interesting look into life in Jerusalem and its unique complications by an author who seems to have lived a lot of the experiences she put into fiction.
Displaying 1 - 8 of 8 reviews