Upside-Down Love
“In a time of great brokenness, along comes this song of possible repair. Sari Bashi’s memoir is a powerful and vital indication that the best things can occur, even in the face of all available evidence. Every once in a while we can change our perspective and begin to turn the world upside down.”
Colum McCann, National Book Award–winning author of Let the Great World Spin
A Jewish Women's Archive Winter 2025 Book Club Pick
With a message of hope that is both timely and timeless, Upside-Down Love is an extraordinary memoir-irreverent, funny, and profoundly uplifting-of an Israeli lawyer, a Palestinian professor, and a love that transcends all division.
Osama is a Palestinian professor, originally from Gaza, who cannot leave the West Bank city of Ramallah. Sari is an Israeli-American lawyer and long-distance runner who petitions Israel's Supreme Court for his right to travel freely. When the case began, neither expected to fall in love-and when it was over, nobody expected their love to endure.
First published in Hebrew in 2021, Osama and Sari's star-crossed romance-an intimate, vulnerable portrait of an astoundingly resilient Israeli-Palestinian relationship-has since become a beacon of hope in the aftermath of October 7, 2023. Now on its way to becoming an international cult sensation, Upside-Down Love speaks to the unique circumstances of this specific moment in history, while also illustrating a timeless truth: Love will triumph over bigotry and destruction.
Praise