Synpsis

Gaelle Lehrer Kennedy has worked as an actress and writer in film and television in the United States and Israel. Night in Jerusalem is her debut novel, which she is adapting to film. She lives in southern California with her husband and daughter. She writes in an author's note:

I lived in Israel in the 1960s, a naive twenty-year-old, hoping to find myself and the place in the world where I belonged. To me, the possibility of war was remote. I imagined the tensions in the region would somehow be resolved peacefully. Then, the Six Day War erupted. I experienced it firsthand in Jerusalem, where the moods and atmosphere of the city took on a new dimension.

     I have drawn Night in Jerusalem from my experiences during that time. The historical events portrayed in the novel are accurate. Although shaped by my imagination, its characters are based on the people I knew in the city. Like me, they were struggling to make sense of their lives, responding to inherited challenges they could not escape that shaped their destiny in ways they and the entire Middle East could not have imagined.

About the Author