New Books In Literature

In this double interview I talked to Michael Kinnamon, author of A Rooftop in Jerusalem and Philip Graubart author of Here There Is No Why. A Rooftop In Jerusalem: When Daniel Jacobs decides to spend his junior year abroad in Israel, he never dreams he'll fall in love with both Jerusalem's Old City and an Israeli woman, Shoshana. It's the year religion becomes a part of his identity, from the heights of a simple rooftop. A year he encounters the tragic complexity of the Israeli-Palestinian struggle. A year that begins a four-decade-long love affair, as complicated and heartbreaking as the political conflict with which it's intertwined. As Daniel moves through life-through marriage and divorce, career and travel-he returns periodically to Jerusalem, where his heart faithfully remains. A Rooftop in Jerusalem brings the Old City's walls, holy sites, and inhabitants to life, while putting a human face on headlines from the Middle East. Here There Is No Why: Did Chaim Lerner, acclaimed Israeli author and Holocau