Image: Ephrem Kossaify
No Akam and no Jasmine opening their hummus shop, no day laborer Yussef selling oranges at his stand, no bus drivers, a lack of doctors in hospitals and prisoners who have disappeared from prison without a trace – one day there will be no trace of the Palestinians anywhere in Israel. The confusion is great, especially since the disappearance seems to have taken place without a drop of blood being shed. For some it is the solution to all problems, a “miracle of God”, while others fear that Palestinians living abroad and in refugee camps will storm the country. The airports are closed, the army and secret services are on alert.
Ariel’s friend Alaa has also disappeared. They both live in the same apartment building in Tel Aviv, grew up in the city and are friends. Ariel, the journalist, is Jewish, Alaa, who works as a freelance cameraman, is of Palestinian origin. They are the main characters of Ibtisam Azem’s exciting thought experiment.
While Ariel describes the mood in the country, the author has the disappeared tell of a historical disappearance, the so-called Nakba. Every year on May 15, the Palestinians protest against the loss of their homeland on the occasion of the founding of Israel in 1948. It is assumed that at that time, during and after the first Arab-Israeli war, 700,000 people fled or were expelled from what is now Israel.
The author makes Alaa’s grandmother a symbol of the homeless. Although she stayed in the country at the time while her first husband and family fled, she was resettled from Jaffa to the Ajami district, living behind barbed wire and under military administration: wounds that never healed, written by Alaa in a red notebook. When Ariel finds it in his friend’s apartment while looking for it, he begins to translate it into Hebrew, wanting to chronicle the time before the disappearance.
Fiction and the history of a country/a people meet in this book, are presented in a multifaceted way and leave you feeling moved.
- Ibtisam Azem: “The Book of Disappearance”, Verlag Lenos Babel, 271 pages, 27.50 euros
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I am an author and journalist who has worked in the entertainment industry for over a decade. I currently work as a news editor at a major news website, and my focus is on covering the latest trends in entertainment. I also write occasional pieces for other outlets, and have authored two books about the entertainment industry.
