In My Mother's Footsteps: An Evening with Author Mona Halaby

2315 Durant Ave,Berkeley CA 94704

03 August, 2022

Description

“I know you want to know what happened, but it’s not easy, Mona dear, to go back to those times,” warns Zakia, Mona Halaby’s mother. But “to go back” is exactly what Mona passionately yearns to do, both to understand her mother’s past and to return to the neighborhood in Jerusalem, where Zakia had lived until 1948, when the Israelis confiscated her home and drove her family into exile. Mona’s book, In My Mother’s Footsteps: A Palastinian Refugee Returns Home, tells about her emotional journey to reclaim her roots. It’s actually a poignant, double homecoming because Mona eventually takes her elderly mother back to the house with the orange tree and green shutters that Zakia had not seen for 59 years. In an illustrated talk, Mona will discuss her book and its evolution at our Arts & Culture program on Wednesday, August 3, at 7 p.m. Tickets, available on Eventbrite, are $5 for City Club members and $10 for non-members; masks will be required. Copies of In My Mother’s Footsteps will be available for purchase. The widely-praised book includes the history of the Palestinian-Israeli conflict, the details of her year teaching conflict resolution to traumatized children at the Ramallah Friends School, and the culmination of her lifelong dream to walk — literally — in her mother’s footsteps. Mona skillfully intertwines her own experiences with letters her mother wrote to her in Ramallah, letters that portray Zakia’s life before and after the Arab-Israeli war of 1948. Mona describes her book as “a memoir and a love story,” but she does not gloss over what happened to her people and the day-to-day hardships in Israeli-occupied Palestine. “I cannot and do not want to forget the tragedies that have shaped my family and my people’s lives,” she writes. “I want to honor the memory of their forced exile and share their story with the rest of the world.” Mona was born in Alexandria, Egypt. ​​When Nasser rose to power, Mona’s parents lost their home and became refugees in Geneva, where Mona attended high school and college. She married a Palestinian-American and moved to Berkeley, where she pursued her undergraduate and graduate studies in Comparative Literature at UC Berkeley. Once her three sons were grown, Mona continued her education at Mills College, where she received her teaching credential. She then spent ten years teaching at Mills College Children’s School and twenty years teaching and mentoring student teachers at Park Day School in Oakland. She is the author of Belonging: Creating Community in the Classroom and the co-author of No-Fault Parenting. Mona also curates the British Mandate Jerusalemites Photo Library (BMJ), a Facebook page that contains historic black-and-white photos of Jerusalem and its residents during the British Mandate period. Don’t miss this chance to “travel” with Mona as she learns about Palestine, both through her own eyes and her mother’s.