Visiting Israel was never a bucket list item for Gerroa author David Kerr.
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Thankfully he joined his wife Christine and visited Israel in 2013. For it was during that trip that Kerr would meet a man who would change his life forever and give him the idea for his first novel.
Some eight years later, as the world reels from the latest manifestation of the tragic and often bloody Israel-Palestine conflict, Kerr is preparing to launch his novel set amidst the simmering tensions of the Middle East.
Wall of Tears: The Human Face of the Israel-Palestine Conflict is Kerr's first novel, but second book.
The book's central characters are members of an Israeli and a Palestinian family, and the story Kerr has woven around his characters is based on events that actually happened.
In 2013 Kerr stood at the Western Wall in the Old City of Jerusalem - or as it's often referred to in the West, The Wailing Wall. Beside him was a Jewish friend that Kerr and his wife Christine had met earlier on their visit to Israel.
Their friend told them that he had stood there as a young boy beside his father, an Auschwitz survivor, on their first visit to one of Judaism's most sacred sites.
"My friend said he knew his father wanted to go closer but couldn't make the final 10 metres to the Wall," Kerr said. "He watched his father shake with emotion and a single tear trickled down his face. He'd never seen his father cry and was very concerned.
"Later in life my friend heard the terrible truth behind that tear. When I heard his story - my book was born."
The author used his friend's story as the basis for Uri, the central character in Wall of Tears - his novel set in the complex Israel-Palestine struggle that has engulfed the Middle East post-World War II.
"My friend gave me permission to use whatever information I chose to shape the novel, that blends the events in the lives of his countrymen and Palestinians," Kerr said.
"I was also privileged to meet many Palestinians who gave me their perspective on the situation: like a wonderful Palestinian businessman whose family had owned a house near the Western Wall that was taken by Israel soon after the Six-Day War in 1967. He and his family have never received any compensation.
"And Elias Charcour, the retired Archbishop of Haifa of the Melkite church, has had a significant influence on the book. He also had his home and land confiscated by Israel in 1948."
Kerr said his main motivation in writing his novel was to challenge some of the positions of people who formulated either a very strong pro-Israeli position or a pro-Palestinian view without ever really looking at the full history and a lot of the dynamics involved.
"I wanted to make a difference and to provoke discussion," he said.
"If people buy the book and then decide to do more research on the issue, I'll be very happy."
COVID delayed the book's original planned launch date last year, with Kerr saying it was tragically ironic that another bloody chapter of the conflict had erupted in May.
Former Illawarra Mercury editor Nick Hartgerink will interview Kerr during the official book launch at Kiama Library on July 17 from 2.30pm.
"David Kerr has successfully straddled that most bitter of divides, the Israel-Palestine imbroglio, to create a novel of both warmth and wisdom," Hartgerink said.
Email dwkerr@westnet.com.au or call 0422 837 287 to register for the book launch.
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