Crossing Boundaries, A Traveler's Guide to World Peace

By Nate Feldman

In 2020, Aziz Abu Sarah wrote a book called Crossing Boundaries, A Traveler's Guide to World Peace.  This book is not your typical travel book in that it is not focused on travel hot spots or great dining locations.  Instead it focuses on ways that travelers can visit places more responsibly and in a way that builds good relationships between people of different backgrounds.  

A Palestinian from East Jerusalem, he begins the book by mentioning how taking a Hebrew class in Israeli West Jerusalem helped change his perspective of the other side in the ongoing Middle East conflict.  He recalls the story of how his older brother died after being imprisoned by Israeli soldiers, but how he learned not to hate through encounters with people on the other side.  Since then, he has formed an organization that tours people of Israel and the Palestinian Authority, giving visitors an opportunity to hear from people from both sides about their experiences.

In the book, the author recommends that when we travel we find ways to interact with the local culture.  He advises us to visit off the beaten track communities and support local businesses.  He advocates visiting places of religious worship to gain knowledge of other people's faiths.  While he supports volunteer work, he feels if people want to help out overseas, they should gain experience in their own communities first and to only do work in other countries if they have the time to commit themselves to it.  

All in all, I found this book to be extremely informative and highly recommend for others to read it.  Even if you don't agree 100% with everything he says, it is a very interesting and much needed perspective on both travel and learning about other cultures.


Comments

Post a Comment

Popular posts from this blog

Get a Grip, Vivy Cohen! by Sarah Kapit

  By Nate Feldman Get a Grip, Vivy Cohen! is a story about Vivy, a young Jewish autistic girl who aspires to become a baseball player.  The book is written as a series of emails between Vivy and VJ Capello, a Cy Young Award winning pitcher for the San Francisco Giants.   Vivy admires VJ because he is great at throwing knuckleballs, something she is exceptional at.  However, because she is a girl, and she has no desire to play softball, she hasn't played organized baseball.  That changes when Coach K, a coach for a local little league team called the Flying Squirrels catches Vivy practicing with her brother Nate at a baseball diamond one days.  The coach is impressed with her abilities and offers her a spot on the team.   Vivy faces many challenges.  First of all, her overprotective mother doesn't understand why Vivy wants to play baseball in the first place.  Also, many players on the team, especially Kyle, the coaches son, taunt he...
Read more

With the Might of Angels

Title: With the Might of Angels Author: Andrea Davis Pinkney Year: 2011 A Review by Nate Feldman Dawnie Rae Johnson is a young African American girl growing up in Hadley, Virginia in the 1950s when the Supreme Court rules that segregation in American public schools is unconstitutional on her twelfth birthday.  She dreams of attending Prettyman Coburn, the local white school, which she describes as having beautiful classrooms, and detests the all black school she must attend, which she portrays as dilapidated.  However, in the beginning her parents make it clear that this can never happen. Following the United States' Supreme Court's decision that segregation was not equal in the Brown vs. Board of Education case in 1954, Dawnie is able to attend the school of her dreams (Prettyman Coburn) due to her outstanding academic achievements.  Unfortunately, the white community is vehemently opposed and works hard to prevent this at all costs.  At first, the school del...
Read more

A Horse Called Hero by Sam Angus

Image
By Nate Feldman During World War II, a sister and brother from England, Dodo and Wolfie, have to move from London to the countryside.  Their father, a decorated war hero from the First World War, is under arrest, accused of having deserted the army while the English soldiers were escaping at Dunkirk, avoiding the oncoming German army.  The father professes his innocence, but he is viewed nationally as a traitor, and children and adults alike treat Dodo and Wolfie as outcasts. They eventually take residence with one of their teachers and her father, a local Christian minister.  While there, Wolfie takes care of Hero, a horse and becomes deeply attached to him.  Through letters, he tells his father about his daily routines and life with Hero.  He even takes part in a race with Hero and wins it. Eventually, Hero disappears one night, presumed to be kidnapped by local horse and pony thieves.  A while later, Wolfie discovers that Hero is being used in local mine...
Read more