Jasmine Donahaye's Books

Whose People?

Wales, Israel, Palestine

By: Jasmine Donahaye

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Whose People?

Wales, Israel, Palestine

By: Jasmine Donahaye

Wales has a centuries-long history of interest in Palestine and Israel, and a particularly close interest in Jews and Zionism, which has been expressed widely in the literature. Whose People? Wales, Israel, Palestine is the first monograph to explore this subject. It asks difficult and probing questions about the relationship that Wales has had with Palestine in the past, and now has with the Israel-Palestine situation in the present, and it challenges received wisdom about Welsh tolerance and liberalism. Using publications in Welsh and in English across several centuries, this survey examines Welsh missionary efforts and colonial desires in Palestine; complex and contradictory attitudes to Jews, and the use of Zionism and the Hebrew language revival as a model for Wales. Beginning with an analysis of a so-called tradition of Welsh identification with Jews, the study locates its origins in the early twentieth century, and moves on to uncover provocative material in Welsh conversionist writing on Jews, Muslims and Samaritans in Palestine in the nineteenth century, and imaging of Jews in twentieth-century fiction and the periodical press. It concludes with a survey of Jewish literary responses to Wales that suggests that some Jewish writers have been active agents in reinforcing Welsh support of Zionism in particular. The evidence uncovered here shows a complex picture of a unique cultural and political relationship. Whose People? Wales, Israel, Palestine makes an important contribution to international Jewish studies, to the study of British colonial involvement in Palestine, and to Welsh and Jewish literary and cultural history.

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Page Count

274

Publisher

University of Wales Press

Published Date

ISBN 10

1783164972

ISBN 13

9781783164974

Birdsplaining

A Natural History

By: Jasmine Donahaye

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Birdsplaining

A Natural History

By: Jasmine Donahaye

Winner of the 2021 New Welsh Writing Awards: Rheidol Prize for Prose with a Welsh Theme or Setting 'Vivid, quick and iridescent, Birdsplaining is an absolute kingfisher of a book' – Mike Parker A wren in the house foretells a death, while a tech-loving parrot aids a woman's recovery. Crows' misbehaviour suggests how the 'natural' order, ranked by men, may be challenged. A blur of bunting above an unassuming bog raises questions about how nature reserves were chosen. Should the oriole be named 'green' or golden? The flaws of field guides across decades prove that this is a feminist issue. A buzzard, scavenging a severed ewe's leg, teaches taboos about curiosity. Whose poo is the mammal scat uncovered in the attic, and should the swallows make their home inside yours? The nightjar's churring brings on unease at racism and privilege dividing nature lovers, past and present. The skin of a Palestine sunbird provokes concern at the colonial origins of ornithology. And when a sparrowhawk makes a move on a murmuration, the starlings show how threat – in the shape of flood, climate change or illness – may be faced down. Jasmine Donahaye is in pursuit of feeling 'sharply alive', understanding things on her own terms and undoing old lessons about how to behave. Here, she finally confronts fear: of violence and of the body's betrayals, daring at last, to 'get things wrong'. Roaming across Wales, Scotland and California, she is unapologetically focused on the uniqueness of women's experience of nature and the constraints placed upon it. Sometimes bristling, always ethical, Birdsplaining upends familiar ways of seeing the natural world. 'Unusual, vivid... remarkably easy-to-read & enjoyable. Doesn't shy away from taking on difficult subjects... A means for personal reflection.' – BTO News [British Trust for Ornithology] 'An erudite, bold, questing and valid collection of beautifully written essays. Whilst one eye stays focused on the injustices and cruelties of the world, the other gulps in its jewels and preciousness. Moving, stirring, and vital.' – Niall Griffiths 'Superb... by turns moving, funny, illuminating... and... thought-provoking' – Katherine Stansfield 'Upends familiar ways of seeing the natural world ― and in doing so, creates its own ecological niche' – Karen Lloyd, Caught by the River 'A curiosity and passion so unapologetically alive that her words form wings' – Lotte Williams, Nation.Cymru 'Neither human-centred nor its opposite. Although she explores human grief, violence and recovery, Donahaye also has a beautifully conveyed passion for the unromantic aspects of the environment... She bridges the very gap [in nature writing] that she identifies.' – Saskia McCracken, The Welsh Agenda 'Whilst birds might not provide the answer to the meaning of life for Donahaye, they do have a part to play in finding meaning IN life, whether that be through personal symbolism and anecdotal encounters, or in larger questions about power and responsibility.' – Gwales.com 'A fresh way of looking at nature writing, a deeply personal account that embraces its own subjectivity' – Zoe Kramer, Wales Arts Review 'This is a beautiful collection where the nonhuman appears as a close neighbour... [and which] searches for hope and resilience in times of risk.' – Yvonne Reddick, New Welsh Reader

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Page Count

126

Publisher

Parthian Books

Published Date

ISBN 10

1917140118

ISBN 13

9781917140119

Whose People?

Wales, Israel, Palestine

By: Jasmine Donahaye

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Whose People?

Wales, Israel, Palestine

By: Jasmine Donahaye

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N/A

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Page Count

274

Publisher

University of Wales Press

Published Date

ISBN 10

1783164972

ISBN 13

9781783164974

Losing Israel

By: Jasmine Donahaye

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Losing Israel

By: Jasmine Donahaye

A fascinating and powerful book that provides a means to explore Israel's contested history. Unequal parts autobiography, travelogue and nature book, author and ornithologist Jasmine Donahaye's Losing Israel is a fascinating and powerful memoir.' – Haaretz 'Losing Israel weaves together memoir, travel, politics and birdwatching. It is a brave book, unflinchingly honest, and a beautiful one.' – Michael Kerr, The Telegraph 'Beautifully written: an open and deeply honest account of a troubled landscape and the search for the truth. This is also a riveting travelogue and an account of Donahayes lifelong passion for ornithology." Matthew Stewart 'Losing Israel is Donahaye's sorrowing account of how she peeled back Israel and saw that "the true peasants in Palestine were not the kibbutzniks, like my grandfather, but the Arab fellahin... displaced by capital in the 1920s and 1930s, and then by war in 1948. It is also an interrogation of accountability: has she "been complicit by loving a country... whose very existence is based on a wrong?"' – Ahdaf Soueif, TLS In 2007, in a chance conversation with her mother, a kibbutznik, Jasmine Donahaye stumbled upon the collusion of her family in the displacement of Palestinians in 1948. She set out to learn the story of what happened, and discovered an earlier and rarely discussed piece of history during the British Mandate in Palestine. Her discoveries challenged everything she thought she knew about the country and her family, and transformed her understanding of the place, and of herself. Losing Israel is a moving and honest account which spans travel writing, nature writing and memoir. Through the author's personal situation it explores the powerful and competing attachments that people feel about their country and its history, by attempting to understand and reconcile her conflicted attachments, rooted in her family story - and in a love of Israel's birds. A life-long bird watcher, Donahaye uses birds in Israel and her home in Wales to provide an unexpected and intriguing linking trope across the various themes of the book. Losing Israel stands apart from other titles about the Israel/Palestine situation with its focus on the British Mandate period, Palestine's history in the 1930s, and the kibbutz movement. Her writing is frank and often immediate: the locations in Israel and Wales are sensually alive, and the author's physical exertions felt by the reader. Her childhood memories of her mother's kibbutz, and her own experiences in Israel and Wales as an adult also bring originality to her writing. Losing Israel works on many levels - family relationships, the nature of patriotism and nationalism, cultural dislocation, the story of the Jewish diaspora and Israel, how history changes from one generation to the next, the histories of the dispossessed and the oppressed. In combining history, birdwatching, and her personal story Donahaye has written an accessible and human book about an habitual controversial conflict.

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Page Count

189

Publisher

Seren

Published Date

ISBN 10

1781722544

ISBN 13

9781781722541

Book's by Jasmine Donahaye

Whose People?

Whose People?

Birdsplaining

Birdsplaining

Whose People?

Whose People?

Losing Israel

Losing Israel

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