‘Ghosts of a Holy War’ author to speak at Albert Wisner Library

On Wed, June 3, 6 p.m., at Albert Wisner Public Library in Warwick, Yardena Schwartz, author of “Ghosts of a Holy War: The 1929 Mas­sacre in Pales­tine that Ignit­ed the Arab-Israeli Conflict,” will share her knowledge of both historical- and present-day Hebron, and the role of the 1929 massacre in shaping the region.

About the book

When a family in Memphis, Tenn., discovers a box of century-old letters in their attic, a journey begins: not only to learn about the young man who wrote the letters from the holy city of Hebron in British Mandate Palestine, but about the massacre that took his life in 1929. Award-winning journalist Schwartz draws from these letters, along with extensive research and wide-ranging interviews of Israelis and Palestinians now living in Hebron, to tell a timely, captivating narrative. By illuminating the echoes of 1929 in Hamas’s massacre of Oct. 7, 2023, Schwartz vividly illustrates how little has changed—and how much of our perspective must change if peace is ever to come to this tortured land and its people, who are destined to share it.