Trish Marx, with photographs by Cindy Karp
Sharing Our Homeland: Palestinian and Jewish Children at Summer Peace Camp
Lee and Low Books, 2010.

Ages  4-8

Sharing Our Homeland is a contemporary photographic essay about a “Peace Camp,” a program that brings together Israeli children from Jewish and Palestinian backgrounds for a safe, fun, friendly experience. Trish Marx, an award-winning children’s writer, documents the two-week day camp, culminating in a sleepover, with background material on two children in particular, Yuval, a Jewish boy and Alya, a Palestinian girl. Cindy Karp’s photographs show scenes from the camp and the two children at home with their families.

As their schools, homes, and customs are completely separated during the rest of their lives, Palestinian and Jewish children know little of each other’s personal lives. During the camp, the children swim, play games, make crafts, and compete in sports together. They visit a kibbutz, where they make challah, and a Palestinian village, where they make another kind of bread, taboon. While Yuval and Alya don’t become friends themselves, the camp provides them with rich experiences in common, and Alya aspires to be a camp counselor herself.

The dangers children face because of tensions in their country are not glossed over. One day, “firefighters, medics, police officers, and border guards,”  bring a bomb squad van to the camp and demonstrate an emergency rescue. A picture of the high, imposing wall separating Israel from the West Bank is accompanied by two descriptions of violence towards Jewish Israelis from a “gunman” and a “terrorist.”

Sharing Our Homeland presents Peace Camp’s admirable good intentions, suggesting that Arab and Jewish Israelis are united in their distaste for the dangers caused by those outside the wall. But some questions remain unexamined. Yuval’s kibbutz is clearly more prosperous than Alya’s village. Only Jewish youths, not all Israelis, serve in the army. The wall designed to protect Israelis also separates Palestinians from each other.

The back matter features suggestions for further reading, websites of interest and an author’s note that includes Marx’s comment that she and Karp were aware of the fact that they were "documenting just one story about a very complex part of the world where there are many compelling stories… but [the camp could] change perspectives, futures, and perhaps the future of a country.” Teachers and parents may want to expand on Marx’s caveat with information about the plight of peaceful West Bank and Gaza Palestinians.

Charlotte Richardson
December 2010