From Jerusalem to Beverly Hills: Memoir of a Palestinian Jew

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AuthorHouse, 2010 - Biography & Autobiography - 352 pages

This is a riveting story of the author's journey for survival as a war refugee and overcoming poverty. The story begins in Jerusalem as the British Empire crumbles and World War II ends. The ensuing turmoil in Palestine lead to Israel's War of Independence and the Arab siege of Jerusalem that shaped Eitan's childhood and the journey he travelled as a construction laborer, shepherd in a kibbutz, "Top Gun" fighter pilot in Israel Air Force, engineer for the Space Shuttle and a businessman in Beverly Hills. On his quest for independence and justice he endured family displacement, hunger, personal loss, and a government corruption scandal that nearly unraveled all he had worked to create. This compelling story, however, is ultimately one of triumph.

Jerusalem, at once provincial and cosmopolitan, where lives of Christians, Jews and Arabs intermingle, is the colorful ground for a true story of a boy growing up during the tumultuous waning years of the British rule. The author describes scenes from the Arab-Israeli war, from a rare vantage point of a little boy, turned refugee in the ravaged city.

As a teenager, he becomes a member of a socialist youth movement and joins his friends to establish a kibbutz. Toiling as a shepherd in the hills of Judea, and disappointed by the communal system, he leaves to join the Israel Air Force and becomes a fighter pilot. At the age of 22, he takes Dina, his wife, to Africa to create the newly independent Ghana Air Force.

Fulfilling his lifelong dream, the author goes to America, but tragedy drives his young family back to Israel for eleven years. Following the Yom Kippur War, his keen sense of justice compels him to expose government corruption that inevitably teaches him that "no good deed goes unpunished," but at the end of the day makes him victorious.

A memorable scene aboard an El Al flight provides an emotional end.

Visit jerusalemtobeverlyhills.com

 

Contents

Section 1
1
Section 2
8
Section 3
18
Section 4
25
Section 5
33
Section 6
41
Section 7
49
Section 8
50
Section 25
184
Section 26
195
Section 27
198
Section 28
199
Section 29
206
Section 30
207
Section 31
212
Section 32
213

Section 9
60
Section 10
64
Section 11
69
Section 12
73
Section 13
85
Section 14
95
Section 15
105
Section 16
106
Section 17
111
Section 18
119
Section 19
125
Section 20
133
Section 21
137
Section 22
146
Section 23
155
Section 24
170
Section 33
220
Section 34
229
Section 35
231
Section 36
242
Section 37
250
Section 38
254
Section 39
262
Section 40
271
Section 41
279
Section 42
289
Section 43
304
Section 44
325
Section 45
329
Section 46
336
Copyright

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About the author (2010)

Eitan Gonen was born in 1938 in Jerusalem, Palestine (Eretz Israel), to pioneers who came from the Soviet Ukraine diaspora over a decade earlier. He started his education in a religious school, but graduated from the most progressive high school in Tel Aviv. He was a member of Kibbutz Harel, a pilot in Israel Air Force, and holds a Master of Science degree from California Institute of Technology.Eitan lives with his wife Dina in their contemporary home in Beverly Hills, not far from their grown children and grandchildren.Visit jerusalemtobeverlyhills.com

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