This event is for Jewish Currents members only. Become a member today!
Since the publication in October of A Day in the Life of Abed Salama: Anatomy of a Jerusalem Tragedy, author Nathan Thrall has been in the news. Scheduled book talks have been canceled. Universities have rescinded invitations. All for a work that has been named a Best Book of the Year by Time magazine and the New Yorker.
Why the controversy? Thrall’s writing provides crucial context to the violence of October 7th and Israel’s ongoing assault on Gaza, exploring root causes that many want to ignore and obscure. By telling the heart-wrenching story of an accident that killed Abed Salama’s five-year-old son, Thrall presents the struggle over Israel/Palestine at a human scale. Situating the personal narrative in the context of structural forces, A Day in the Life of Abed Salama elucidates the daily injustices faced by the roughly 3.2 million Palestinians living under occupation in the West Bank and details the painful realities of life in the region.
As a special offer, we are sending a copy of Thrall’s award winning book to all those that become Jewish Currents members this month. And as our first event in an ongoing series of book discussions with authors, all Jewish Currents members are invited to join Nathan Thrall and Abed Salama in discussion on Wednesday, January 10th, at 12pm ET.
Members can register here to join Nathan Thrall and Abed Salama in conversation on Wednesday January 10th at 12pm ET.
If you are not yet a Jewish Currents member, join today!
This live event and its recording will have automated closed captioning. For accommodation requests or questions about accessibility, please reach out to events@jewishcurrents.org.
Nathan Thrall is the author of A Day in the Life of Abed Salama: Anatomy of a Jerusalem Tragedy and the critically acclaimed essay collection The Only Language They Understand: Forcing Compromise in Israel and Palestine. His reported features, analyses, and criticism have appeared in The New York Times Magazine, The Guardian, the London Review of Books, and The New York Review of Books. Thrall’s writing has been cited in the United Nations Security Council, General Assembly, and Human Rights Council, as well as in reports by Amnesty International, Human Rights Watch, and the UN Special Rapporteur on the occupied Palestinian territories. His commentary is often featured in print and broadcast media, including the Associated Press, BBC, CNN, Democracy Now!, The Economist, Financial Times, The Guardian, The New York Times, PRI, Reuters, Time, The Wall Street Journal, and The Washington Post. He spent a decade at the International Crisis Group, where he was director of the Arab-Israeli Project, and has taught at Bard College.
Abed Salama is a Palestinian living under Israeli rule in the enclave of Anata in greater Jerusalem, who lost his five-year-old son Milad in a harrowing school bus accident.
