How Long O Lord?: Christian, Jewish, and Muslim Voices from the Ground and Visions for the Future in Israel/Palestine
Author(s): Marine Tobin (Author)
Publisher: Cowley Publications
Publication Date: 25 May 2003
Language: English
Print length: 291 pages
ISBN-10: 1561012149
ISBN-13: 9781561012145
Book Description
How Long O Lord? The prophet’s ancient cry for justice sounds as plaintively and passionately today as it ever has. In this penetrating and provocative collection of essays, Maurine and Robert Tobin have brought together a group of peacemakers—Christian, Jewish, and Muslim—whose religious convictions compel them towards a common aim: a just peace for Israel/Palestine. Anyone looking for easy answers to one of the most complicated political and religious struggles on the globe will not find them here. Instead, the voices of these women and men challenge and confront many commonly held assumptions. They disturb and unsettle comforting illusions of order and security, and they unmask and name powers and principalities for what they are—perpetrators of injustice and evil. Those who pray with their Bibles in one hand and the newspaper in the other will find this book an invaluable aid in active prayer and engagement.
Editorial Reviews
Review
it is the points of view of those contributors which mak this a valuable resource for anyone concerned about the future of the peoples inhabiting the ancient land of Palestine….Before picking up the book this reviewer fancied himself better read and informed than most Americans on the issues lying at the heart of the Palestinian-Israeli conflict. But after a brief initial foray into the book, I found that I was ill-informed (and perhaps intentionally misinformed). As my reading progressed I was left with the inescapable conclusion that Palestine is the locale of one of the most misunderstood and underappreciated civil rights struggles of the twentieth and twenty-first centuries.
No Peace in the middle east without justice, no justice without truth-telling . . . Fifteen authors-Jewish, Muslim, and Christian-confront the irreconcilable facts of Israeli settlements and Palestinian dispossession. A provocative offering which finds hope in forging non-violent alternatives to the cycle of violence. A must read.
The cycle of death and hopelessness in the ongoing Israeli-Palestinian agony, shrouded by a fog of media distortion, has left many Americans confused and numbed. We yearn to hear fresh voices with some clear answers to the vexing questions that torment us. How did things go so awry when, only a few years back, peace seemed so close? What can we here in the U.S. do to help end the torment? For anyone who wrestles with these questions, this superb collection is required reading. It is fair and factual and lucid. It cuts through the fog and in doing so sheds light on some hopeful new possibilities for justice and peace in the holy land.
The Tobins . . . are to be commended for bringing together such a rich collection of thought and spirituality, and for their efforts to do the real work of peace: telling the truth about this conflict, the settlement of which may be the key to any lasting happiness in both their part of the world and ours.
This impressive collection of writings . . . provides penetrating historical and political analysis and fresh perspectives on possibilities of hope for the people of Isreal and Palestine.
About the Author
MAURINE AND ROBERT TOBIN have been actively working for a just peace in Israel/Palestine since their first visit there in 1994. Robert is the rector of Christ Church in Cambridge, Massachusetts.