All the Rivers by Dorit Rabinyan
From one of Israel’s most renowned novels comes a contentious, award-winning tale about the passionate but unworkable relationship between an Israeli woman and a Palestinian man.
On a windy fall afternoon in Greenwich Village, Liat encounters Hilmi and finds herself irresistibly drawn to him. Hilmi is a charming and attractive young artist from Palestine. The following summer, Liat, a prospective translation student, intends to go back to Israel. Liat allows herself to be enchanted by Hilmi while knowing that their love can only be fleeting and that it can only exist outside of their troubled homeland. She is enchanted by his vivid imagination, his lovely hands and knowledgeable eyes, his tenderness and dedication.
All the Rivers by Dorit Rabinyan
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Together, they take in the city’s sights while exchanging jokes, fantasies, and homesickness pangs. The shame Liat feels for keeping him a secret from her family in Israel and her Jewish acquaintances in New York, however, cannot be overcome by the unbridled delight they bring to each other. Liat must choose if she is prepared to take the chance of alienating her family, her community, and her sense of self for the love of one guy as her departure date approaches and her love for Hilmi grows.
The extraordinary book by Dorit Rabinyan, which Israel’s Ministry of Education has outlawed from classrooms, has numerous themes. All the Rivers, which is also known in Israel as Borderlife, is a fearless exploration of the tensions and pleasures of a forbidden relationship. It is also a love story, a war narrative, a New York story, a Middle East story, and an unflinching look at the forces that unite and separate us.
This book is a pleasure to read and keeps the reader interested from start to finish. This outstanding book is about two people who fall in love in New York. A young Palestinian painter named Hilmi and an Israeli girl named Liat is in a clandestine relationship. They both meet in New York and fall in love right away. The story starts in 2002, when the US was still getting over the catastrophic Twin Tower fall on September 11, 2001, which was brought on by Al Qaeda terrorists crashing two passenger jets into these towers. FBI detectives paid Liat a visit at her flat and questioned her. Someone had mistaken her Hebrew laptop typing for Arabic after observing her at a cafe. After the Twin Towers catastrophe, the US was on high alert and viewed immigrants with mistrust, particularly those from Arab nations. Liat’s bad experience was made worse by the fact that she has very dark skin, which naturally raised questions. The FBI detectives left her apartment after realizing she was innocent during their inquiry.
The plot develops, and shortly after they first meet, the two major characters fall in love. Despite the reservations each had about the relationship since they understood that it would be frowned upon by their own civilizations, they still loved each other. Despite the remaining concerns in her thoughts about how her family in Tel Aviv would react to this connection, Liat describes her experiences and her intense affection for Hilme throughout the first-person narrative. She made the decision to keep it hidden from them. She didn’t want to disturb her family in Tel Aviv because she was close to them. She was working diligently on an English-to-Hebrew translation project while residing in New York. The connection and their way of life are both described in great depth by the author.
The Israeli-Palestinian Conflict somehow always hangs over the story, adding to the passion, love, and ups and downs that both partners go through as a result of their contrasting histories. The book isn’t supposed to be political; instead, it’s a story about how love can conquer all barriers. Due to the fact that they are both from the same region—Israel and Palestine—Liat and Hilme had a lot in common. Both people endured the harsh New York winter, which the author beautifully describes, making the reader feel bad for both of them.
