ABSTRACT
Borderlife, by Dorit Rabinyan, won the Bernstein Prize in 2015, a prestigious literary award given to Israeli writers under the age of 50. It tells the story of Liat, a translator from Tel Aviv, and Hilmi, a Palestinian artist from the West Bank, who meet in New York City and fall in love. Borderlife charts their relationship and its repercussion once Liat and Hilmi return home (to Israel and the West Bank respectively). However, despite being recommended to be added to the school curriculum by a committee of academics, Israeli senior education ministry officials disqualified Borderlife, saying that
intimate relations between Jews and non-Jews, and certainly the option of formalising them through marriage and having a family—even if it doesn't come to fruition in the story—is perceived by large segments of society as a threat to a separate identity.
(www.telegraph,co.uk/news/worldnews/middleeast/israel/12075676/Officialsban-book-depicting-love-story-between-Israeliand-Palestinian-from-Israeb-classrooms.html)