A Life Worth Living

Amidst a sometimes confusing barrage of news about the Middle East, Dr. Bernard Sabella, a Palestinian Christian, offers an enlightening, often humorous, personal narrative accompanied by reflections on lessons learned from his life in a conflict zone. Displaced from his home in infancy with his refugee family and educated in Jerusalem's Old City before pursuing university studies in the US, he blossomed into a committed educator, scholar, member of the Palestinian Parliament, and director of a church aid agency. Throughout his life Dr. Sabella has never lost his focus on the goal of promoting peace through understanding, and he has never been diverted from his path of absolute nonviolence. A Life Worth Living speaks with a voice worth listening to, alternately anecdotal and analytical, touching our hearts while pondering the past, present, and future of the Holy Land. ""A terrific memoir. . . . With an authentic voice, with a humane touch, Bernard Sabella invites us to listen intently to his story and that of his multigenerational family as they live their Christian faith and Palestinian culture in Jerusalem and beyond. A servant-leader and a professor, his mission is to inspire positive change, replacing dispossession with perseverance, injustice with justice, occupation with liberation, and darkness with light. That's what truly makes life worth living."" --Saliba Sarsar, Professor of Political Science, Monmouth University ""More than a memoir, Bernard Sabella presents a sociocultural, religious, and historical description of Palestinian life in the Holy Land from the 1940s to the present. Writing as a Catholic Palestinian intellectual, he pleads for religious understanding and the necessity of education while emphasizing the Holy Land is not simply a place of roots, but a home where everyone can live as citizens. It is a necessary read for anyone seeking understanding of this region."" -- Kail C. Ellis, Dean, College of Liberal Arts and Sciences, Villanova University ""Bernard Sabella, a distinguished professor of sociology at Bethlehem University, has written a compelling memoir. He eloquently recounts his experiences amidst environments as varied as conflict-torn Jerusalem, a small Appalachian town, and the rarefied academic heights of Princeton. The reader is struck by his ability to extract profound insights from small and often contradictory events, by his love for the rich historical, religious, and cultural traditions of the Palestinian people, and by his belief in the power of education to shape understanding and, perhaps eventually, reconciliation between conflicting peoples."" --Louis Sell, Foreign Service Officer, retired Adjunct Professor, University of Maine, Farmington Bernard Sabella currently serves as the executive secretary of the Department of Service to Palestinian Refugees of the Middle East Council of Churches as well as an elected member of the Palestinian legislature. He has retired from a career as a professor of sociology at Bethlehem University in Palestine. Relishing his roles as father and grandfather, Dr. Sabella lives in Jerusalem with his wife Mary.