Letters to My Palestinian Neighbor

The motif of letter-writing provides the dominant literary framework for the book. While the book’s sections are not letters in a proper sense—they have no definite addressee and are published as chapters rather than posted or sent individually—they nonetheless take the literary form of letters. Each one is headed with the greeting “Dear Neighbor,” and includes commentary and questions about the neighbor’s experiences and perspectives. Letters have a generally positive connotation, as they are usually shared between people with an established relationship or bond, and this contrasts the strong negativity normally associated with the Israeli/Palestinian dynamic. It is a disarming choice that automatically presents a more earnest, conversational tone.

This motif serves to build the theme of Interfaith Dialogue throughout the book, offering a structural form by which that potential dialogue is expressed. Halevi writes to his Palestinian interlocutor by speaking as a person of faith to another person of faith. The motif of letter-writing permits the potential dialogue to include a longform exposure to one another’s ideas, requiring the patience of listening to the other and digesting their perspective before making one’s own reply. This contrasts with the structure of traditional nonfiction texts, typically a one-way form of communication, which, in a

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