The Parachute Paradox, Steve Sabella, Kerber Verlag – With a clever and intriguing cover, this book eagerly invites the reader to explore its contents. Perhaps the fact that the author is an accomplished artist and photographer explains the volume’s elegant appearance. The book’s content isn’t any less appealing. We learn the story of a Christian boy growing up among Arabs in Israeli-occupied Palestine, drowning in the toxic national and religious ideology that surrounds him. We later discover a young man who’s freedom does not exist except as an expression of his art, and as an endless love for the girl of his dreams. We finally encounter a mature, conflicted man pursuing his career in exile and using art as the vehicle of his liberation.

This memoir offers a glimpse into the perpetual Israeli-Palestinian conflict through the eyes of an innocent bystander, who struggles to survive and who learns to live free, if only in his mind. Meanwhile, the Palestinian and the Israeli existence continues to be linked like the parachute jumper and his trainer, who descend in a dangerous tandem toward an insecure future.

The Parachute Paradox | Second Version