Jennifer Miller
Miller grew up in a suburb of Washington, D.C., surrounded
by the chaotic politics of the Middle East. Her father was
a U.S. State Department negotiator at the Oslo and Camp
David peace summits, and dinnertime conversation in the
Miller househould often included discussions of the Middle
Eastern conflict. But it was when Miller joined Seeds of
Peace, a youth program that brings Middle Eastern kids to
Maine for intensive sessions of conflict resolution that
her real experience with the Middle East began. As she
befriended young Palestinians, Israelis, Egyptians, and
Jordanians, Miller came to realize that their views were
missing from the numerous debates over the Holy Land. By
letting these young voices be heard, she knew she could
reveal something vitally new and deeply challenging about
the future of this torn region. Miller learned fast that it was one thing to hang out at an
idyllic camp in Maine and quite another to confront young
people on their own turf--in the alleys of East Jerusalem,
behind the armed gates of West Bank settlements, in the
teeming refugee camps of Gaza. Friendships that had
blossomed back in the U.S. withered in the aftermath of yet
another suicide bombing. Big-hearted teens on both sides of
the conflict shocked Miller with the ferocity of their
illusions and the twisted logic of their misconceptions.
But she also found rays of hope in places where others had
reported only despair--surprising open-mindedness among the
ultra-religious, common ground shared by those who had lost
loved ones to the violence, a yearning for peace amid the
rubble of refugee camps and the shards of bombed cities. A deft writer, she interweaves startlingly candid
interviews with the vibrant realities of life in the
streets. Just as Miller was forced to confront her biases
as an American, a Jew, a woman, and a journalist, so she
challenges readers to reexamine their own cherished
prejudices and assumptions. Jennifer Miller graduated from Brown University with a
degree in English Literature and creative writing. She
lives in Providence, Rhode Island, where she works as a
freelance writer.
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Series
Books:Mr. Nice Guy, October 2018
Trade Size
Inheriting the Holy Land, September 2005
An American's Search for Hope in the Middle East
Hardcover
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