“Keep two thoughts before your eyes; all your pain will go away: First, God’s shadow will protect you whether you depart or stay.”

“Women we called grandma were fifty. The palm tree trunks dripped sweat even in the dark. The water tasted of sugar and cinnamon. Our hands were twelve. Our legs were twelve. All of our organs were twelve and completely unaware of being organs.”

“I went with Sarah my mother to the Strauss Clnic on Balfour Street and they’d give me a shot every week with the giant needle and after my portion of torments, we’d leave there, go down to Allenby Street, and Sarah my mother would buy me an ice cream at the Shnir and call it “some consolation” for what I had gone through.”

As Christians all over the world celebrate Christmas, we travel to the Galilee region of Israel through the eyes of the novelist Anton Shammas.

“The bed knew many things. What was buried underneath, the weight of bodies, hot memory. It knew positions and breaths of relaxation and fervor and further it knew how to dream and draw inventions from the subconscious. Is there anything beyond its imagination?