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Few westerners will ever be able to understand Muslim or Afghan society unless they are part of a Muslim family. Twenty years old and in love, Phyllis Chesler, a Jewish-American girl from Brooklyn, embarked on an adventure that has lasted for more than a half-century. In 1961, when she arrived in Kabul with her Afghan bridegroom, authorities took away her American passport. Chesler was now the property of her husband's family and had no rights of citizenship. Back in Afghanistan, her husband, a wealthy, westernized foreign college student with dreams of reforming his country, reverted to traditional and tribal customs. Chesler found herself unexpectedly trapped in a posh polygamous family, with no chance of escape. She fought against her seclusion and lack of freedom, her Afghan family's attempts to convert her from Judaism to Islam, and her husband's wish to permanently tie her to the country through childbirth. Drawing upon her personal diaries, Chesler recounts her ordeal, the nature of gender apartheid―and her longing to explore this beautiful, ancient, and exotic country and culture. Chesler nearly died there but she managed to get out, returned to her studies in America, and became an author and an ardent activist for women's rights throughout the world. An American Bride in Kabul is the story of how a na�ve American girl learned to see the world through eastern as well as western eyes and came to appreciate Enlightenment values. This dramatic tale re-creates a time gone by, a place that is no more, and shares the way in which Chesler turned adversity into a passion for world-wide social, educational, and political reform.
- Sales Rank: #809036 in Books
- Brand: Brand: Palgrave Macmillan
- Published on: 2013-10-01
- Released on: 2013-10-01
- Original language: English
- Number of items: 1
- Dimensions: 9.46" h x .99" w x 6.41" l, .99 pounds
- Binding: Hardcover
- 256 pages
- Used Book in Good Condition
From Publishers Weekly
In 1961 renowned feminist, professor, and psychotherapist Chesler was as a young, intellectually curious Jewish woman intent on rebellion and freedom. She envisioned her marriage to a man she met in college, a Westernized Muslim from a wealthy Afghani family, as a romantic adventure filled with travel and intellectual pursuits; however, their visit to Afghanistan quickly turned into a living nightmare as Chesler became confined to the harem at his luxurious family compound. My unexpected house arrest was not as shocking as was my husband's refusal to acknowledge it as such, Chesler writes. The author divides her engrossing memoir into two sections: her time as a young bride living with of one the wealthiest families in Afghanistan and struggling to return to the United States, and her husband's attempts to force her return to Afghanistan. Chesler candidly relates her continuing friendship with her former husband and his family over the last 50 years, detailing how life in Afghanistan forged her feminist perspective and how 9/11 altered the original focus of the memoir. Chesler adroitly blends her personal narrative with a riveting account of Afghanistan's troubled history, the ongoing Islamic/Islamist terrorism against Muslim civilians and the West, and the continuing struggle and courage of Afghan feminists. Agent: Jane Dystel, Dystel and Goderich. (Oct.)
From Booklist
Second-wave feminist Chesler delves into her past with this memoir detailing her long-ago marriage to an Afghan man and the months spent with his family in Kabul. To her credit, Chesler, who is Jewish, focuses less on a bitter recounting of a disastrous marriage than on her 1961 diary, which reveals the clash of cultures that ensued upon her arrival. She had no reason to suspect that her urbane young husband would so easily relinquish his Western ideals to Muslim traditions once he returned home. Chesler was relegated to harem life and now shares the harsh realities of gender separation and the pervasive dullness of isolation. She was mortified by routine cruelties and the anti-intellectualism encouraged among women and children. After nearly dying, Chesler was sent home by her benevolent and powerful father-in-law. Divorced, she began a new life. Though her inclusion of her political opinions about Israel and the Palestinians bogs down the narrative, Chesler’s personal story is fascinating, and her insights on women’s lives in Afghanistan are certainly worth reading. --Colleen Mondor
Review
“Engrossing...Chesler adroitly blends her personal narrative with a riveting account of Afghanistan's troubled history, the ongoing Islamic/Islamist terrorism against Muslim civilians and the West, and the continuing struggle and courage of Afghan feminists.” ―Publishers Weekly
“No human culture compromises the rights of women more than Islam. Today over 700 million women are directly or indirectly affected by the Koran and the teachings of Mohammed. Phyllis Chesler is by far the bravest and most outspoken American feminist to address the plight of Muslim women. In this book she shares with the reader her first encounter with Islam in Afghanistan. It is a moving account of the harrowing experience of one woman who almost meets her death in a culture that could not be more alien to her American upbringing. Yet every page is laden with compassion and love for the ex-husband and his family she unwittingly joined. I recommend this book be put on the reading list of every American school.” ―Ayaan Hirsi Ali, Author of Infidel and Nomad
“Boom. Suddenly Phyllis Chesler is a prisoner in Afghanistan. Without a passport. As a wife without rights of any kind. Her bridegroom, once her equal when they met in New York, now in his own land, is a stranger…she is in an utterly male society where women and children are a man's property--"his to protect or abuse. They are his to kill. It is the way things are." This is disconcerting to say the least…She escapes. This is how it all started. This is a bold book; intimate and rich in detail; as revealing a story about class, gender and religious differences as one will find. Chesler is a voice crying out for women. She had the right training. She will never stop.” ―Kate Millett, author of Sexual Politics and Going to Iran
“This is a wondrous, invaluable memoir and meditation on women, culture, history, and the meaning of freedom. Phyllis Chesler tells a moving story in a direct, unaffected style and is able to draw conclusions of a wider import: reflections on the complex interplay of culture, more complex than the clich� of "a clash of cultures." Chesler is remarkably generous to her husband. In trying to understand him, she is able to tease out valuable historical and cultural lessons. After fifty years of reflection, Chesler is able to distil mature and wise judgments from her dramatic experience, on the persecution and suffering of Muslim women. Chesler's own feminism really began with these experiences in Afghanistan. One of the other merits of the book is her introduction to the reader of a whole host of writers, travelers, and diplomats who have written perceptively about Islamic countries in general but on Afghanistan in particular, especially the treatment of women and slaves.” ―Ibn Warraq, author of Why I am Not Muslim and Defending the West: A Critique of Edward Said's Orientalism
“With a deft pen and a half-century of experience, Chesler revisits her brief, unpleasant, but life-changing and ultimately precious time in an Afghan harem. Although hardly the only feisty Western woman to despair at finding, on their visiting his home country, her debonair Muslim husband turned into an unrecognizably primitive tyrant, she drew unique benefits from the experience. These included finding her career focus (feminism), her field of study (psychology), her world outlook (principled liberalism) –and this marvelous book.” ―Daniel Pipes, Director of the Middle East Forum, author of In the Path of God: Islam and Political Power.
“In her fascinating new memoir, Phyllis Chesler offers a vivid account of landing in Afghanistan in 1961 as a young bride – and finding herself a victim and virtual prisoner of that country's cruel anti-women customs and habits. Ms. Chesler was only 20, the product of a sheltered Orthodox Jewish household in Brooklyn, when she married a fellow student, a Muslim who came from a prominent Kabul family. Her companion was seductive, exotic, alluring, and seemed to promise her the world. But Ms. Chesler, who would go on to become a famous feminist leader and the author of the classic Women and Madness, attributes some of her later accomplishments, including her passionate stance on behalf of women, to insights she gained in that period. She finds herself trapped in a household replete with madness, including a mother-in-law who is sadistic and punitive and a husband who emerges as mean and uncaring. Despite her in-laws' wealth, she is often hungry, denied the foods that she can eat, and she can't even go out on her own to see a country she had longed to explore. Stripped of her U.S. passport when she landed, she finds her movements severely restricted. Many of the book's insights about 1961 Kabul seem oddly relevant to Kabul in 2013 – a culture that, if possible, has become even more heinous to women with the advent of the Taliban. This is an eye-opening work.” ―Lucette Lagnado, author of The Man in the White Sharkskin Suit and The Arrogant Years
“With An American Bride in Kabul, Phyllis Chesler, brilliantly brings to life the plight of so many Muslim women helplessly trapped in the prison which is Islamist misogyny. Through the eyes of her innocent and insightful Brooklyn girl, Chesler provides humanity a service--a window into the internal workings of the male-dominated Islamist familial conspiracy against women. Her story is believable because it is sadly repeated millions of times around the globe. A must read, An American Bride will leave readers finally able to feel the powerlessness which overwhelms Muslim women who are victims of honor abuse and violence. Readers will leave understanding like so many Muslim reformers already do that Islamist misogyny is a Muslim problem that needs Muslim solutions.” ―M. Zuhdi Jasser, MD, President, American Islamic Forum for Democracy, author of The Battle for the Soul of Islam: An American Muslim Patriot's Fight to Save His Faith.
“I love this book and could not put it down. It is the romantic and riveting story of a young woman from the orthodox Jewish neighborhood of Borough Park, who rebelled against a sheltered life in which women were religiously dominated by men and who then traveled to Afghanistan where she saw women who were far more oppressed and who lived under conditions of polygamy, purdah, poverty, and the burqa. This journey sowed the seeds of a very American feminism. We learn about other westerners, especially women, who travelled this route and we learn about the ancient history of the Afghan Jewish community. This book has the power to inspire a new kind of interfaith dialogue. Book club members will discuss this work for a good long time.” ―Rivka Haut, Author and Orthodox agunah activist, Co-Editor of Daughters of the King: Women and the Synagogue, Co-Editor of Women of the Wall, and Co-Editor of Shaarei Simcha Gates of Joy
“I loved every second of reading Chesler's amazing book. Kudos to her for standing in her truth. An American Bride in Kabul is a very courageous piece of work and I am in awe of Phyllis Chesler's determination to tell the truth of her experience, a truth which confirms the stories of so many Muslim women. I couldn't stop reading this book and felt Phyllis's powerful words grabbing my heart and opening up the deep emotions. A must read!” ―Soraya Mir�, Author of The Girl With Three Legs
“Phyllis Chesler's An American Bride in Kabul is the most compelling autobiography I have read in a long time. It not only vividly tells us about women's lives in Afghanistan from the perspective of an American woman, but more importantly how and why American women fall into the trap of an Islamic marriage.” ―Nonie Darwish, author of The Devil We Don't Know: The Dark Side of Revolutions in the Middle East
“Phyllis Chesler's brilliant and courageous memoir will resound in your heart and mind long after you turn the final page. Dr. Chesler, an American Jewish woman, escaped from starvation and isolation in Afghanistan--and came close to death in the process. Perhaps most inspiring is Dr. Chesler's voyage in using those unimaginable experiences as a springboard to become a leader of women's rights around the globe. Her decades of academic and professional work advocating for women who cannot cry out for themselves is a tremendous legacy: the seeds of this deep calling were sown in Afghanistan and are now recounted here in this moving and marvelous book.” ―Sara Aharon, author of Kabul to Queens: The Jews of Afghanistan and Their Move to the United States
“Chesler pens a cautionary tale of the perils of far-flung passion and the hazards of romantic exoticism. In precise, pungent and, at times, granular detail, she summons a world festooned by fanatsy and myth. In An American Bride in Kabul, she gives full-throated voice to the beguilements of the East, etching a portrait-in-the-round, at once grand and engrossing.” ―Michael Skakun, author of On Burning Ground: A Son's Memoir
“Phyllis Chesler's newest book is rich and operatic, taking us into a world few of us have known about, telling us in descriptive, historical, political, religious, and deeply personal detail things that can transform our ways of thinking and feeling about everything from interpersonal dynamics to global politics. And this book illuminates one major reason she has for decades been the insightful, ardent, tireless feminist educator and activist she became.” ―Paula J. Caplan, Ph.D., Harvard University psychologist and author of, among others, The Myth of Women's Masochism and Don't Blame Mother
“A renowned psychotherapist’s richly compelling memoir about how her experiences as an Afghan man’s wife shaped her as both a feminist and human rights activist.
At 18, Chesler (Psychology and Women’s Studies, Emeritus/City Univ. of New York; The Death of Feminism: What's Next in the Struggle for Women's Freedom, 2005, etc.) fell in love with the scion of a wealthy family from Afghanistan. She was Jewish, and her “prince,” Abdul-Kareem, was Muslim. Their affair was as unexpected as it was unlikely and led to an even more improbable marriage. Dreaming that she and Abdul-Kareem would travel the world “like gypsies or abdicating aristocrats who have permanently taken to the road,” they went to Abdul-Kareem’s home in Kabul. A starry-eyed Chesler soon found herself stripped of her passport and a prisoner of her husband’s family. Using diaries, letters, interviews, and research and other writings about Afghanistan and the Islamic world, the author offers an illuminating depiction not only of her time as a harem wife, but also of the “gender apartheid” under which Afghan women must live. Chesler could go nowhere and do nothing, including see a doctor, without her husband or other male relative’s permission. She also found herself at the mercy of a maniacal mother-in-law who forced her to convert to Islam and a husband-turned-tyrant bent on keeping his wife in Afghanistan by any means necessary, including pregnancy. A life-threatening illness eventually moved her father-in-law to get her an exit visa to the United States. Chesler managed to get a divorce only after great difficulty. Yet her contentious relationship with the man whom she once saw as her spiritual “twin” endured. Intelligent, powerful and timely.” ―Kirkus
“At 18, Chesler (Psychology and Women's Studies, Emeritus/City Univ. of New York; The Death of Feminism: What's Next in the Struggle for Women's Freedom, 2005, etc.) fell in love with the scion of a wealthy family from Afghanistan. She was Jewish, and her "prince," Abdul-Kareem, was Muslim. Their affair was as unexpected as it was unlikely and led to an even more improbable marriage. Dreaming that she and Abdul-Kareem would travel the world "like gypsies or abdicating aristocrats who have permanently taken to the road," they went to Abdul-Kareem's home in Kabul. A starry-eyed Chesler soon found herself stripped of her passport and a prisoner of her husband's family. Using diaries, letters, interviews, and research and other writings about Afghanistan and the Islamic world, the author offers an illuminating depiction not only of her time as a harem wife, but also of the "gender apartheid" under which Afghan women must live. Chesler could go nowhere and do nothing, including see a doctor, without her husband or other male relative's permission. She also found herself at the mercy of a maniacal mother-in-law who forced her to convert to Islam and a husband-turned-tyrant bent on keeping his wife in Afghanistan by any means necessary, including pregnancy. A life-threatening illness eventually moved her father-in-law to get her an exit visa to the United States. Chesler managed to get a divorce only after great difficulty. Yet her contentious relationship with the man whom she once saw as her spiritual "twin" endured. Intelligent, powerful and timely.” ―Kirkus
“Chesler is to be lauded for plunging into dark and treacherous waters, for penning a book in which each page is brimming with rich insights, and for serving as an avatar of inspiration for all oppressed peoples fighting for freedom.” ―Jewish News Service
Most helpful customer reviews
71 of 75 people found the following review helpful.
An Important Book
By B. McEwan
I have been an admirer of Phyllis Chesler for a long time. An icon of Second Wave Feminism, I first noticed Chesler when she wrote a book called Women and Madness, which presented credible evidence for a grossly unjust double standard when it comes to assessments of women's mental health in comparison to that of men. Basically, Chesler convincingly shows that when women don't behave as men expect -- as our assigned gender roles dictate -- men decide that we crazy and lock us up in mental hospitals. Certainly, things have improved since Chesler wrote the original book 30 years ago, but this sort of oppression is still a problem and it was completely unrecognized before Chesler's pioneering work.
But that's another story. In this book, Chesler reveals something surprising about herself. She, foolishly it turned out, married an Afghan national when she was a young college woman, and went with him to his native Afghanistan. Once there, her husband turned into another person altogether, expecting Chesler to convert to Islam and become a compliant, burka-wearing wife. While she developed a deep regard for the landscape and its historical importance, she also developed a deep mistrust of her husband and his family. She was essentially a prisoner in "purdah," a term that refers to the drastic separation of women from the world. She lived cut off from everyone except the other women in her family, including the three wives of her polygamous father-in-law, who ruled the roost with an iron hand. She nearly starved, then contracted hepatitis, was forcibly impregnated by her husband and denied medical care. It's amazing she survived. Chesler's descriptions of that time and place in her life are at once oddly lyrical and chilling.
She seems to have a highly ambivalent attitude toward Afghanistan, and thus with Islam and its culture. She remains in touch with her husband, from whom she escaped with the aid of -- get this -- the father-in-law, who apparently just wanted to rid himself of the American embarrassment his son had dragged home. The son/husband, however, was adamant that she return to him, as he believed his social status would be diminished if it was known he "couldn't control" his wife. The whole tale is just appalling and brings to mind several similar works, most prominently for me the film, "Not Without My Daughter," about an American woman named Betty Mahmoody who was held captive by her husband in Iran.
Chesler's story would be quite enough to make a good read, but there is more to this book than just a story. In fact, she seems to be telling us her tale in order to demonstrate her qualifications for making a judgment that is the book's main message. That is -- radical Islam is not benign and people who are suspicious of claims made by Islamists are not "Islamophobic," merely realistic. Chesler's book is a warning to naive Americans that the culture gap between the US and Islamic nations is real, and we will fall into it if we make assumptions that good will is all that's required to resolve our differences.
Chesler has read a great deal about Afghanistan and lists many good sources, both old and new, in the book's bibliography. Her book is well researched and her story put in the context of history and current events. Remember Omar Abdel-Rahman, the so-called "Blind Sheik" who master minded the bombing of the World Trade Center in 1993? Chesler cites him as an example of an Islamist who was not taken seriously enough on several occasions, and whose freedom is still sought after by many in the Muslim world who would take US hostages in an attempt to exchange them for the sheik, who is serving a life sentence in a US prison. In other words, there is a lot more than meets the eye when we are dealing with a culture that most of us don't understand and often fail to fully respect.
And that word 'respect' figures prominently in Chesler's book. She has managed to come to terms with her past and her Afghan relations, many of whom she remains fond of. She reiterates that she honors their spirit and their role in history while at the same time honoring her own culture as the child of Orthodox Jewish -- yes! -- parents, who must have been thrilled when their daughter quit an elite college to marry a Muslim and go off with him to Afghanistan. In fact, her parents helped her repatriate, which was no small accomplishment in the 1960s, when wives were considered foreigners and, basically, the property of their husbands, even by the American embassy in Kabul.
I could go on, but I hope that by this point I have made it clear that Chesler is not an Islamophobe or a hate monger. She is a fine writer who is telling her story as a cautionary tale and, I suspect, to accomplish some sort of personal goal for herself, a coming-to-terms evaluation that she needs to do now that she is in her 70s with more years behind her than ahead.
I hope that I have done Chesler and her book justice in this review. It's the kind of book that I know will stay with me for awhile, and that I will come to understand better after its content kicks around in my head for a bit. The bottom line is this: If someone with Chesler's progressive credentials is sending a warning, we should take heed. This is a 'must read' book for everyone.
86 of 92 people found the following review helpful.
Part Baffling, Part Enlightening
By Bee
As a memoir, this book left me baffled and somewhat annoyed. As an examination of the treatment of females in Afghanistan and many other Muslim countries, this book serves as an important reminder of the horrors of their plight and the challenges of trying to facilitate change.
The book is marketed as a memoir, but those looking for a lot of detail and insight should be warned that little is offered. I was hoping to learn about the experience of a young New York Jewish woman marrying an Islamic man and moving with him to Afghanistan. I was disappointed to discover that Chesler provides little detail about her own experience, and no context for understanding the decisions she made. (She still seems bewildered by her feelings and behavior, even 50 years later.) There is essentially no description of her life before she met Abdul-Kareem, other than the mention that she grew up in an Orthodox Jewish family. No information is shared about her own family-of-origin, which I found perplexing, especially given her training as a psychotherapist. I learned much more about her early years and her family from the brief Wikipedia entry than from her memoir.
The story starts with her courtship and marriage, and it quickly moves to her ordeal living with his extended family in Kabul. (I gather that she was there only a few months.) She says he became a different person in Afghanistan; his treatment of her ranged from neglect to abuse. Throughout the book, she tries to come to terms with her husband's transformation. I found it quite shocking that a woman who devoted her career to feminism could rationalize so much of her husband's misogynistic behavior as culturally inevitable and therefore somehow not his fault. It may be what she had to do to keep the connection to him and to his family even after she divorced him. But I wonder what price she has paid for seeing him as a relatively innocent victim of cultural conditioning. This oversight seems to have kept her in a relationship with a man who seems to view her as little more than a handmaiden to his delusions of grandeur.
This all came together for me in the last few pages of the book, where she describes a number of his personality patterns. In her words: "He never speaks without making sure his listener knows that he has moved in circles of power, among celebrities, heads of states, great artists, and beautiful women." She describes his conviction that "only he has the solution for Afghanistan," but when she encouraged him to share his solution with the reading public, he always had excuses for why he couldn't do it. She declares, apparently without resentment, that "he does not need me to speak. He needs me only to listen...." He tells her that she hasn't realized her potential, since she did nothing more than "writing a few books for a small circle of people." She writes "He is blind to-perhaps he despises-who I am and what I have accomplished." How could she not see these as deeply narcissistic behaviors? Didn't any of her friends point it out? Didn't she ever meet men with Muslim backgrounds who were not narcissists? It strikes me as unfair for her to blame it all on his culture. There were times when I felt I was reading the memoir of an abused woman who doesn't truly grasp that she is abused and who still tries to find non-blaming explanations for the abuser's behavior.
But setting all of this aside, I think that serious attention should be paid to Chesler's descriptions of the treatment of females in fundamentalist Muslim countries. She provides examples that are haunting, and she addresses the dilemmas of western nations as they try to balance cultural sensitivity with the protection of human rights. Despite her overly generous use of cultural sensitivity when dealing with her ex-husband, she comes down strongly on the side of human rights when it comes to the oppression of women who do not have the privileges and connections that helped her avoid what could have been a life of abuse and degradation.
62 of 69 people found the following review helpful.
MEMOIR=2 STARS, WARNING=5 STARS
By Sharon Beverly
Shame on the publishers (Palgrave Macmillan) for marketing this book as a memoir. It's misleading. This is an incomplete memoir, at best and reads more like a treatise about Islam and the subjugation of women. Dr. Chesler's dire warning, however, is well worth reading.
Let's deal with the negatives first. This is an extremely limited memoir that focuses on ten weeks in the author's life. The reader expects to find background information of her earlier life: her parents, childhood situations, the motivations that led her to her choices as a young adult. Almost nothing is revealed to us. Similarly, she doesn't address her life's details after returning to America. The essence of a memoir is an intimate story covering life's events. The reader's hungry anticipation of an intimate story is akin to going to a grand buffet, only to discover the food is an illusion. As a memoir, this is a failure.
There is a lovely expression in Yiddish, loosely translated; with one backside, you can't dance at two weddings. It describes the dual roles this book is trying to fill. It contains a scholarly work's bibliography of close to 200 references and many are cited within the book. This detracts from the cozy readability of a memoir.
Reading an Advanced Reader's Copy (ARC), I know that changes are still to be made. Text may change and photos appearing in black and white may be in color in the finalized print edition. Yet, the book's cover is an absurdity. It depicts a tall, blonde woman; much unlike the author. It's meant to sell books of fiction, not of an autobiographical nature. This bothers me. Coupled with the inappropriate categorizing of this as a memoir, I feel duped.
Now for the positives. Dr. Chesler has written clearly and succinctly about a topic few of us in the West truly understand. She describes the role Islam plays in the religious and cultural aspects of life for Moslems. She explores the subjugation of girls, women, and slaves and how it impacts the lives they lead. Simply put, if your gender is female, you are chattel. You have no rights.
Dr. Chesler helps us understand the mentality of the Muslim male. He both fears his father/political leaders and plots to overtake him/them. This duality hampers his ability to forge an allegiance to people and ideals he truly believes in on his own.
If ever a population could be accused of paranoia, it is the Muslim males. Dr. Chesler portrays them as fearful of what others will think of them: their religious practices, their associates, and their choices of wives (and their domination of them). Every choice, every step, is observed. It's the ultimate `Big Brother is watching'.
As a psychotherapist, Dr. Chesler explains a critical, political point that we, as Westerners must grasp. She is warning us and we must listen. When we deal with others we do it from our own points of view. Our thoughts about how to treat others and how to negotiate stems from our own beliefs and mor�s. To successfully deal with the Arabs, we must abandon thinking along the lines of our own cultural system and deal with them using their mentality. Compromise is a sign of weakness. Total victory over one's enemies is the only acceptable outcome. The call for jihad is against the West. It includes Christians, Jews, Blacks--anyone and everyone who is an infidel, a non-believer of Islam. This holy war will not end until either we completely overpower them or, we are destroyed and our way of life reflects their culture, not ours. If this is reminiscent of the crusades of the Middle Ages, it is; only now the intended conversion is to Islam and not to Christianity. And as in those times, he who controls the mosque (church), controls the power; politically, geographically, and financially.
Dr. Chesler is a feminist. She understands that control of women is only the first of a myriad of subjugation to come. Just as in Pastor Martin Niem�ller's Holocaust quotation (below), Chesler warns that, none of us is immune to the jihadists' intentions. Her insights and warnings make this book a must-read.
First they came for the Socialists, and I did not speak out--
Because I was not a Socialist.
Then they came for the Trade Unionists, and I did not speak out--
Because I was not a Trade Unionist.
Then they came for the Jews, and I did not speak out--
Because I was not a Jew.
Then they came for me--and there was no one left to speak for me.
Other authors I can recommend and have reviewed are: Azar Nafisi (Reading Lolita in Teheran: A Memoir in Books; Things I've Been Silent About); Ayyan Hirsi Ali (Infidel); Malika Oufkir (Stolen Lives: Twenty Years in a Desert Jail) and Souad (Burned Alive: A Survivor of an Honor Killing Speaks Out). Each of these authors writes admirable memoirs, including the suffering of women in Moslem countries. None, however, accurately depicts the psyche of the Muslim male as brilliantly as Dr. Chesler. And nowhere will we find as lucid an understanding and alarm for all Westerners as the one Dr. Chesler is sounding.
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