2024 book seleCTion
Fall 2023 / Winter 2024
Several months ago the Spiritual Life Team chose the book, I Shall Not Hate, for our Fall/Winter Book Club selection. Little did we know how timely this choice would become.
Today, as we struggle to make sense of the horrific acts of the past month in Israel and Palestine, the story shared by Dr. Abuelaish serves to remind us of the always-available option of choosing reconciliation and peace over revenge and hatred. His deepest hope was for no more innocent lives to be sacrificed after three of his daughters were killed during a 2009 Israeli incursion into the Gaza Strip. Unfortunately, that hope will remain unrealized as thousands have been needlessly killed in the violence currently taking place in the region.
The case Dr. Abuelaish makes for peace between Israelis and Palestinians is more urgent now than ever. We encourage you to read this book by a great humanitarian, doctor, and father; join us in January to discuss the lessons offered; and then help decide what we can do, individually and as a group, to foster peace amongst all peoples.
In peace and with hope, Annemarie Delgado
WIN Executive Director
By turns inspiring and heart-breaking, hopeful and horrifying, I Shall Not Hate is Izzeldin Abuelaish's account of an extraordinary life. A Harvard-trained Palestinian doctor who was born and raised in the Jabalia refugee camp in the Gaza Strip and "who has devoted his life to medicine and reconciliation between Israelis and Palestinians" (New York Times), Abuelaish has been crossing the lines in the sand that divide Israelis and Palestinians for most of his life - as a physician who treats patients on both sides of the line, as a humanitarian who sees the need for improved health and education for women as the way forward in the Middle East. And, most recently, as the father whose daughters were killed by Israeli soldiers on January 16, 2009, during Israel's incursion into the Gaza Strip. His response to this tragedy made news and won him humanitarian awards around the world. Instead of seeking revenge or sinking into hatred, Abuelaish called for the people in the region to start talking to each other. His deepest hope is that his daughters will be "the last sacrifice on the road to peace between Palestinians and Israelis."
