Detroit, Nov. 9—Dr. Alice Rothchild, feminist obstetrician-gynecologist, received the National Arab-American Museum annual book award for Old Enough to Know. Her book was written for elementary-aged children. In the book, recent immigrant Palestinian children who have been bullied in school, learn the history of Palestine through their grandmother’s stories. Rothchild’s earlier work for young adults, Finding Melody Sullivan, won a Gold 2024 Moonbeam Children’s Book Award.

“We have to distinguish between weaponized antisemitism, and when antisemitism is truly valid,” she said. She is presently writing a graphic novel about a cat in a refugee camp with a brilliant Gazan illustrator, who tells her he wants to live to finish the book. “Every day I face death,” he said.

Others at her talk amplified Dr. Rothchild’s depiction of the current situation. Nabil said the Israeli Army is bombing his home city, Baalbek, Lebanon, for no military reason whatsoever. He believes it is only to destroy the ancient Roman temples in this sacred historic city, and to cancel Lebanese culture. Hasan said the depopulation of Gaza was to open the door for new Jewish settlement. “I still suffer from the Nakba, the war in which Israel was founded and I was separated from my mother. I came to the United States. In 1967 I was in medical school but felt like a Jew in Germany. I keep saying, what can I do? I write poetry but it is not enough! What is enough? What sustains me is the young Jewish activists today.”

Dr. Rothchild’s books can be ordered online at: www.cunepress.com

–Susan Van Gelder