"Why has the Israeli/Palestinian issue proved so intractable? Why does the Western mantra affirming the separation of Church and State fail to resonate throughout the Middle East? Isn t it time to eschew platitudes and simplistic solutions? Shouldn t we start by heeding the dissonant chorus of those many stripes of Jews, Christians and Muslims living within Israel s borders? Who are these Israelis anyway? They are a heterogeneous array of more than thirty-three nationalities, ethnicities and religions, totaling eight million souls, who live cheek by jowl in an area (7850 sq. miles) roughly the size of New Jersey. The Negev Desert comprises three fifths of its landmass. Additionally, two hundred and fifty six million virulently hostile neighbors surround Israel, the majority of whom wish for nothing less than its total obliteration. FAMILY MATTERS, Courageous People in the Promised Land describes the multicultural, multiethnic, multi religious composition of Israel and the ideological evolution that has occurred, over three generations, in the twenty families interviewed and photographed. It relates these peoples ideals, goals, realities and changing attitudes spanning nearly a century. Their stories are amazing profiles of courage, faith, hardship, love, success and failure. Whether you are a Christian, Jew, Muslim, Druze, Baha i or Bedouin, had your ancestors immigrated to Israel rather than to America, such tales could have been yours."
"Barbara Katzenstein Jimenez was born in New York City on December 7th, 1942. She attended the Bentley School, as well as the Martha Graham School of Dance, the Art School of the Museum of Modern Art and the Dalcroze School of Music. She graduated from Sarah Lawrence College, Bronxville, N.Y in 1963 with a concentration in history/ political science and married her husband, Luis Enrique Jimenez Vallecilla ( an industrial engineering graduate of Stanford U.) in November of that same year. Subsequently, they moved to Colombia, S.A., where the author pursued graduate studies in Pre-Colombian archaeology. Most interestingly, as a prelude to this present endeavor, the author photographed extensively and translated for Conciviles, S.A. a national construction company in Colombia. This led her to write a series of illustrated newspaper articles describing an international coal mining venture. It was a contentious project that involved issues of foreign investment, population displacement, royalty payments and repatriation of profits."
