In this powerful illustrated memoir, Hillel Cohen—journalist, political activist, and a leading expert on the Israeli–Palestinian conflict—sets aside cultural bias and professional neutrality to trace his own travels through the West Bank as a youth. Fervent and naive, the teenage Cohen wanders through Palestinian villages and homes with assuredness because to do so is his birthright—or so he has always been told. But outside of Jerusalem and its tightly-knit Jewish community, his certainty begins to waver. Each new face, shared meal, and open conversation across a religious divide calls the tenets of his upbringing into question—and in a different way, so does the shock of hostile, sometimes life-threatening clashes.

With candor and humanity, Cohen moves across times and space to offer an unflinching reflection on identity, memory, ethics, and nationhood. In deceptively spare, understated prose, and featuring expressive illustrations by Yana Bukler, Between the River and the Sea offers readers an empathetic entry point to a war that has spanned generations.