{"id":9083,"date":"2013-09-01T23:07:56","date_gmt":"2013-09-02T05:07:56","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.crescentcityjewishnews.com\/?p=9083"},"modified":"2013-09-01T23:07:56","modified_gmt":"2013-09-02T05:07:56","slug":"husband-of-terror-victim-pens-memoir-of-quest-to-meet-bomber","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.crescentcityjewishnews.com\/blog\/husband-of-terror-victim-pens-memoir-of-quest-to-meet-bomber\/","title":{"rendered":"Husband of terror victim pens memoir of quest to meet bomber"},"content":{"rendered":"<p>By TALIA LAVIN<\/p>\n<p>NEW YORK (JTA) &#8212; David Harris-Gershon, author of the forthcoming memoir &#8220;What Do You Buy the Children of the Terrorist Who Tried to Kill Your Wife?,&#8221; is frank about the contradictions in his personality.<\/p>\n<p>An admitted \u201cnatural introvert,\u201d Harris-Gershon describes himself as \u201csurprisingly good\u201d at public speaking. In 2013, he won the GrandSLAM Storytelling Championship at the Pittsburgh branch of the Moth, a nationwide storytelling organization, with <a href=\"http:\/\/www.dailykos.com\/story\/2013\/01\/19\/1180375\/-I-Just-Won-The-Moth-GrandSLAM-w-This-Story-About-Canvassing-for-Obama-in-Adult-Romance-Chat-Rooms\" target=\"_blank\">a tale <\/a>of using unorthodox tactics to drum up support for Barack Obama by posing as a woman in adult romance chat rooms.<\/p>\n<div id=\"attachment_9088\" style=\"width: 310px\" class=\"wp-caption alignleft\"><a href=\"https:\/\/www.crescentcityjewishnews.com\/blog\/wp-content\/uploads\/2013\/09\/David-Harris-Gershon.jpg\" target=\"_blank\"><img loading=\"lazy\" decoding=\"async\" aria-describedby=\"caption-attachment-9088\" class=\"size-medium wp-image-9088 lazyload\" title=\"David Harris-Gershon\" data-src=\"https:\/\/www.crescentcityjewishnews.com\/blog\/wp-content\/uploads\/2013\/09\/David-Harris-Gershon-300x211.jpg\" alt=\"\" width=\"300\" height=\"211\" data-srcset=\"https:\/\/www.crescentcityjewishnews.com\/blog\/wp-content\/uploads\/2013\/09\/David-Harris-Gershon-300x211.jpg 300w, https:\/\/www.crescentcityjewishnews.com\/blog\/wp-content\/uploads\/2013\/09\/David-Harris-Gershon-1024x723.jpg 1024w\" data-sizes=\"(max-width: 300px) 100vw, 300px\" src=\"data:image\/gif;base64,R0lGODlhAQABAAAAACH5BAEKAAEALAAAAAABAAEAAAICTAEAOw==\" style=\"--smush-placeholder-width: 300px; --smush-placeholder-aspect-ratio: 300\/211;\" \/><noscript><img loading=\"lazy\" decoding=\"async\" aria-describedby=\"caption-attachment-9088\" class=\"size-medium wp-image-9088 \" title=\"David Harris-Gershon\" src=\"https:\/\/www.crescentcityjewishnews.com\/blog\/wp-content\/uploads\/2013\/09\/David-Harris-Gershon-300x211.jpg\" alt=\"\" width=\"300\" height=\"211\" srcset=\"https:\/\/www.crescentcityjewishnews.com\/blog\/wp-content\/uploads\/2013\/09\/David-Harris-Gershon-300x211.jpg 300w, https:\/\/www.crescentcityjewishnews.com\/blog\/wp-content\/uploads\/2013\/09\/David-Harris-Gershon-1024x723.jpg 1024w\" sizes=\"(max-width: 300px) 100vw, 300px\" \/><\/noscript><\/a><\/p>\n<p id=\"caption-attachment-9088\" class=\"wp-caption-text\">David Harris Gershon in his forthcoming memoir &quot;What Do You Buy the Children of the Terrorist Who Tried to Kill Your Wife?&quot; shares his psychological journey following the 2002 Jerusalem terrorist attack that severely injured his wife. (Pittsburgh Post-Gazette)<\/p>\n<\/div>\n<p>\u201cI love being in front of an audience,\u201d said Harris-Gershon, 39, who works as a Judaic studies teacher in Pittsburgh, \u201cbut it drains me.\u201d<\/p>\n<p>Nonetheless, Harris-Gershon maintains a very public profile as a liberal commentator on Middle East politics, blogging for the progressive publications Tikkun magazine and Daily Kos.<\/p>\n<p>But with the publication of his memoir, Harris-Gershon delves into the deeply personal events &#8212; some catastrophic, some therapeutic &#8212; that have led to his political stance.<\/p>\n<p>The memoir, due in U.S. bookstores on Sept. 10, begins with the Hebrew University bombing in 2002 that killed two of his friends and severely injured his wife, Jamie, who had shrapnel lodged in her body.<\/p>\n<p>Harris-Gershon says Jamie is a \u201cvery private person\u201d who preferred not to have her private ordeal immortalized in a book. So the memoir is not the story of her recovery but his own.<\/p>\n<p>\u201cDespite the fact that the book begins with the attack, her injury and her recovery, she understands that it is primarily a chronicle of my story and my experience &#8212; myself as a secondary victim,\u201d Harris-Gershon said.<\/p>\n<p>After the couple left Israel in 2003 after spending three years living in Jerusalem, Harris-Gershon began suffering symptoms of Post Traumatic Stress Disorder, including crippling anxiety attacks. The book delves deeply into his recovery process, including the traditional and innovative forms of therapy he tries.<\/p>\n<div id=\"attachment_9089\" style=\"width: 204px\" class=\"wp-caption alignleft\"><a href=\"https:\/\/www.crescentcityjewishnews.com\/blog\/wp-content\/uploads\/2013\/09\/What-Do-You-Buy-For-the-Children.jpg\" target=\"_blank\"><img loading=\"lazy\" decoding=\"async\" aria-describedby=\"caption-attachment-9089\" class=\"size-medium wp-image-9089 lazyload\" title=\"What Do You Buy For the Children\" data-src=\"https:\/\/www.crescentcityjewishnews.com\/blog\/wp-content\/uploads\/2013\/09\/What-Do-You-Buy-For-the-Children-194x300.jpg\" alt=\"\" width=\"194\" height=\"300\" data-srcset=\"https:\/\/www.crescentcityjewishnews.com\/blog\/wp-content\/uploads\/2013\/09\/What-Do-You-Buy-For-the-Children-194x300.jpg 194w, https:\/\/www.crescentcityjewishnews.com\/blog\/wp-content\/uploads\/2013\/09\/What-Do-You-Buy-For-the-Children-664x1024.jpg 664w, https:\/\/www.crescentcityjewishnews.com\/blog\/wp-content\/uploads\/2013\/09\/What-Do-You-Buy-For-the-Children.jpg 1725w\" data-sizes=\"(max-width: 194px) 100vw, 194px\" src=\"data:image\/gif;base64,R0lGODlhAQABAAAAACH5BAEKAAEALAAAAAABAAEAAAICTAEAOw==\" style=\"--smush-placeholder-width: 194px; --smush-placeholder-aspect-ratio: 194\/300;\" \/><noscript><img loading=\"lazy\" decoding=\"async\" aria-describedby=\"caption-attachment-9089\" class=\"size-medium wp-image-9089 \" title=\"What Do You Buy For the Children\" src=\"https:\/\/www.crescentcityjewishnews.com\/blog\/wp-content\/uploads\/2013\/09\/What-Do-You-Buy-For-the-Children-194x300.jpg\" alt=\"\" width=\"194\" height=\"300\" srcset=\"https:\/\/www.crescentcityjewishnews.com\/blog\/wp-content\/uploads\/2013\/09\/What-Do-You-Buy-For-the-Children-194x300.jpg 194w, https:\/\/www.crescentcityjewishnews.com\/blog\/wp-content\/uploads\/2013\/09\/What-Do-You-Buy-For-the-Children-664x1024.jpg 664w, https:\/\/www.crescentcityjewishnews.com\/blog\/wp-content\/uploads\/2013\/09\/What-Do-You-Buy-For-the-Children.jpg 1725w\" sizes=\"(max-width: 194px) 100vw, 194px\" \/><\/noscript><\/a><\/p>\n<p id=\"caption-attachment-9089\" class=\"wp-caption-text\">The cover of David Harris-Gershon&#39;s memoir, which is due in U.S. bookstores on Sept. 10. (One World Publishing)<\/p>\n<\/div>\n<p>Harris-Gershon\u00a0describes watching a piece of shrapnel extracted from his wife\u2019s body, noting the \u201copaque film of unknown fluids\u201d on the twisted metal.<\/p>\n<p>Much of his struggle is portrayed as extended dialogues between the author and himself, or with his therapist or inanimate objects &#8212; a playful literary technique that Harris-Gershon says reveals the influence of postmodern masters like Dave Eggers.<\/p>\n<p>Ultimately, however, Harris-Gershon\u2019s recovery was enabled not by conventional therapy but by an unprecedented encounter &#8212; one that led to a political awakening.<\/p>\n<p>Spurred by an article in which the cafe bomber, Mohammed Odeh, expressed remorse for his actions, Harris-Gershon set out on a quixotic quest to meet the terrorist.<\/p>\n<p>The memoir details Harris-Gershon&#8217;s unsuccessful attempts to meet Odeh, a member of Hamas who is being held in an Israeli prison. Blocked repeatedly by the thorny machinations of Israeli bureaucracy, Harris-Gershon&#8217;s search serves as a catalyst for a series of revelations about the Israeli-Palestinian conflict that range from the unjust policies of the British Mandate to the poignancy of Palestinian life under Israeli occupation.<\/p>\n<p>The book culminates in a meeting between the author and Odeh\u2019s family in Silwan, a Palestinian neighborhood in eastern Jerusalem. Harris-Gershon describes the encounter as a \u201creckoning&#8221; that drove home the realization that Palestinians are, as he writes, \u201cnot monsters.\u201d<\/p>\n<p>The product of a Conservative Jewish upbringing in America, Harris-Gershon expresses bemusement that it took an act of terror for him to reach this epiphany.<\/p>\n<p>\u201cGrowing up, I just thought of Palestinians as another enemy of the Jewish people,\u201d he said. \u201cI thought of them as a caricature of evil. And that is sadly common among American Jews.\u201d<\/p>\n<p>But struggling to understand the motivations of a terrorist and speaking with Odeh&#8217;s family, Harris-Gershon said, \u201cmade me understand their history and experience, their intense suffering, in ways that I had never understood before.\u201d<\/p>\n<p>Harris-Gershon says that in the wake of the encounter, he feels \u201ctransformed\u201d and plans to continue to act on his newfound political beliefs, writing about Middle East politics and America\u2019s role in the region.<\/p>\n<p>\u201cIt may take the form of a new book in the near future,\u201d he said. \u201cMy writing on this issue is definitely going to continue.\u201d<\/p>\n<div style=\"padding-bottom:20px; padding-top:10px;\" class=\"hupso-share-buttons\"><!-- Hupso Share Buttons - https:\/\/www.hupso.com\/share\/ --><a class=\"hupso_toolbar\" href=\"https:\/\/www.hupso.com\/share\/\"><img decoding=\"async\" data-src=\"https:\/\/static.hupso.com\/share\/buttons\/share-medium.png\" style=\"border:0px; padding-top: 5px; float:left;\" alt=\"Share Button\" src=\"data:image\/gif;base64,R0lGODlhAQABAAAAACH5BAEKAAEALAAAAAABAAEAAAICTAEAOw==\" class=\"lazyload\" \/><noscript><img decoding=\"async\" src=\"https:\/\/static.hupso.com\/share\/buttons\/share-medium.png\" style=\"border:0px; padding-top: 5px; float:left;\" alt=\"Share Button\"\/><\/noscript><\/a><script type=\"text\/javascript\">var hupso_services_t=new Array(\"Twitter\",\"Facebook\",\"Google Plus\",\"Pinterest\",\"Linkedin\",\"Tumblr\",\"Email\");var hupso_background_t=\"#EAF4FF\";var hupso_border_t=\"#66CCFF\";var hupso_toolbar_size_t=\"medium\";var hupso_image_folder_url = \"\";var hupso_url_t=\"\";var hupso_title_t=\"Husband%20of%20terror%20victim%20pens%20memoir%20of%20quest%20to%20meet%20bomber\";<\/script><script type=\"text\/javascript\" src=\"https:\/\/static.hupso.com\/share\/js\/share_toolbar.js\"><\/script><!-- Hupso Share Buttons --><\/div>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"","protected":false},"author":3,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"closed","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"ngg_post_thumbnail":0,"footnotes":""},"categories":[1884],"tags":[3624,3620,3623,8795,3622,8788,3621],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.crescentcityjewishnews.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/9083"}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.crescentcityjewishnews.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.crescentcityjewishnews.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.crescentcityjewishnews.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/3"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.crescentcityjewishnews.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=9083"}],"version-history":[{"count":2,"href":"https:\/\/www.crescentcityjewishnews.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/9083\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":9090,"href":"https:\/\/www.crescentcityjewishnews.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/9083\/revisions\/9090"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.crescentcityjewishnews.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=9083"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.crescentcityjewishnews.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=9083"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.crescentcityjewishnews.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=9083"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}