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| Revenge: A Story of Hope | 
 enlarge | Author: Laura Blumenfeld
Publisher: Washington Square Press
Category: Book
List Price: $24.95
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Avg. Customer Rating:  (32 reviews)
Sales Rank: 278590
Languages: English (Original Language), English (Unknown), English (Published)
Media: Paperback
Number Of Items: 1
Pages: 384
Shipping Weight (lbs): 0.8
Dimensions (in): 8.2 x 5.3 x 1.1
ISBN: 0743463390
Dewey Decimal Number: 364.152095694
EAN: 9780743463393
ASIN: 0743463390
Publication Date: April 1, 2003
Availability: Usually ships in 1-2 business days
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Product Description
Laura Blumenfeld's father was shot in Jerusalem in 1986 by a member of a rebel faction of the PLO responsible for attacks on several tourists. Her father survived, but Blumenfeld's desire for revenge haunted her. This is her story -- and a fascinating study of the mechanics and psychology of vengeance.While plotting to infiltrate her father's shooter's life, Blumenfeld travels the globe gathering stories of other avengers. Through interviews with Yitzhak Rabin's assassin; members of the Albanian Blood Feud Committee; the chief of the Iranian judiciary; the mayor of Palermo, Sicily; the Israeli prime minister; priests; sports fans; fifth-grade girls; prostitutes; and more, she explores the dynamics of hate -- and the fine line that sometimes separates it from love. Ultimately, Blumenfeld's target is more complex than the stereotypical terrorist she'd long imagined. In a surprising twist, she gets revenge, but not according to traditional expectations. She discovers a third way, a choice beyond "turn the other cheek" or "an eye for an eye." And with it she answers the age-old question: what is the best revenge?
Amazon.com Review
In 1986, a Palestinian terrorist shot author Laura Blumenfeld?s father. More than a decade later, Blumenfeld, a reporter for The Washington Post, decided to find the man who tried to kill her dad; she also wanted to learn about vengeance. ?I was looking for the shooter, but I also was looking for some kind of wisdom,? she writes. ?I wanted to master revenge.? Blumenfeld interviews a variety of people, from religious figures to assassins, about the meaning of revenge. The heart of the book, though, is her own journey to find the man who pulled the trigger. First she locates his family and learns vivid details about his life--he was a standout in his public-relations course at the University of Bethlehem. Blumenfeld?s own emotions aren?t far from the surface of this narrative. When she meets the shooter?s own father, for instance, she asks herself: ?Am I supposed to shoot him now?? Finally she begins a creepy correspondence with the gunman, who is in prison. Their letters back and forth are oddly compelling--at first the shooter doesn?t know her real identity, though she eventually reveals it. In the end, Blumenfeld says her quest helped her find hope in a dangerous world, even as the final words of her book reflect upon September 11 and its immediate aftermath, when so many other Americans longed for their own vengeance. --John Miller
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| Customer Reviews: Read 27 more reviews...
 In 2003, "A Reader" Dared to Spew Hateful Radical Left Rhetoric. Let Me Show You the Folly of that Exercise. December 29, 2007
2 out of 2 found this review helpful
You fool; you insensitive--no, malevolently cruel fool: You can wax philosophic and even have a point. But there are times when such an intellectual exercise is inhumane to the extreme. This woman is writing about something intensely personal, about a loved one who was targeted for death. Your dragging politics into this is ugly and self-centered. Yes, YOU are self-centered and self-righteous, not the author. You are also half-baked; you didn't even read the summary of the book right here on Amazon. You pathetically lazy pseudo-intellectual. If you had read the summary, let alone the book (imagine that), you would in fact have found that the author forced herself to overcome her pain and proceeded to familiarize herself up close and personal with the sorrow of the Palestinian people. But that would refute your hateful thesis. Yes, you read me right: She develops compassion for the man who committed the crime, exactly because of the sad history you glibly cite. How many of us would have the emotional courage to do that?! And you, glib one, have you survived a shooting? Has one of your loved ones? Did you then go out and research the historic grievances of the would-be murderer? Is it not amazing that this woman did? But you are too blind to see what's before your very eyes, because your hatred clouds your vision; it even stops you from reading further: As soon as your prejudice is "confirmed," you perceive no need to read any further. Your comment exemplifies how the radical Left is just as malevolent and hateful as the radical Right. Radicals are blinded by hatred and the world suffers as a result. I don't think you will ever understand the human condition at any level unless misfortune comes your way, and you most certainly deserve such a "learning experience" in the happy event that someone with an axe to grind with the group with whom you affiliate goes after you. I hope you survive, so that you can spend the rest of your life wallowing in self-pity. That's all you would do: The lesson would be lost on you. You coward. Your ugly "wisdom" will crumble like a rotten log should you be unfortunate enough to experience what the author did. And, yes, I survived a drive-by shooting (with bullets penetrating my stomach, limbs and major arteries, the MDs were never quite sure how I lived through surgery I had lost so much blood) committed by someone who had a general grievance that was old-school racist in nature. Should I perhaps apologize for this criminal, explaining that neo-Nazis have their grievances and we have been remiss in addressing them?! Absurd comparison? I am making a point, Einstein. "Moral" apologetics are bankrupt in both cases: Thou shalt not kill, regardless of how angry you might be. This is not a religious precept: It is a basic human axiom that governs acceptable behaviour. You are wretched to miss that simple point. Remember, the extreme right hates you as much as it hates me. Shame on you, if you have the belated decency to even feel that level of remorse.
 interesting but very flawed October 22, 2007
0 out of 2 found this review helpful
Despite the fascinating interviews with vengeful and forgiving victims and with remarkable authorities, I almost dropped this halfway through, because Blumenfeld's drama-queen personality and self-indulgent writing style were getting hard to take; ultimately the book did not ring true for me. I stuck with it partly hoping to see the author (and her mother) get their come-uppance (hmmm...reader's revenge?). I felt truly sorry for her father (diminished more by her portrayal than by the shooter's action), and for her new husband, who kept a record indicating one out of four days in their new marriage was 'insufferable and intolerable.' (Her actions even made me feel sorry for Netanyahu!)
Yet Laura plowed on -- oblivious to anyone else's needs or discomfort, deceiving and constantly manipulating people, cooly describing and then rationalizing her behavior, and scrutinizing her own tiresome emotional navel. Self-display is not the same thing as honesty or insight.
Many reviewers are entranced by her writing -- and she has a really fine eye for telling detail, and at times turns a remarkable, poetic phrase -- but too often I found her writing felt forced, overwrought, or repetitive.
Not really a book I can recommend.
Revenge - A Story of Hope February 2, 2007
2 out of 2 found this review helpful
Researched info. and ideas on taking revenge.
Makes one sit back and think.
Trouble putting the book down because I had to find out what was going to happen. Yes, suspensful!
A good book to read for anyone. If one is feeling revengeful, it would be helpful to read this book.
 Excellent insights into a very complex problem September 24, 2006
2 out of 2 found this review helpful
I really enjoyed this touching narrative. The insights into a Palestinian family were great and the reader learns a lot about the best of Arab culture. We also learned about Jewish culture as well and it's strong points. Laura did something unprecendented and her story is superb.
I do think Laura is a little too self-centered. My experience is that peace comes from being able to put yourself in others shoes and showing genuine empathy ( not sympathy ). I would have liked to see Laura show she can understand Palestinian's point of view. Might is not right and money can not buy freedom. All people have humanity that should be respected. The books shows this which is good.
A hopeful odyssey through the minefields of vengeance June 18, 2006
5 out of 5 found this review helpful
How does one begin to describe a book that is at once a courageous odyssey of the mind and heart, an educational primer on the taking of revenge, a cornucopia of vivid personalities, an examination of the morality behind the world's responses to outrage, a journalistic investigation of a crime, a peek into familial dynamics, and a penetrating in-depth look into the soul of its author--warts, neuroses, and conflicted yearnings all on prominent display. "Revenge: a story of hope" by Laura Blumenfeld (a reporter for the Washington Post), is all of these things, as well as being a riveting, emotional, occasionally hilarious page turner. The story is set in motion in 1986 when the author's father is shot by a terrorist as he walked the streets of Jerusalem. Though not seriously injured, this act wounded his daughter's sensibilities deeply. A college student at the time, she wrote a poem about the incident, addressed to the terrorist that ended with a promise for revenge:
". . . this hand will find you--I am his daughter."
This unsettling idea remained in the back of her mind, needling her, until 12 years later she and her new husband moved to Israel for a year, setting in motion her inchoate plan to exact retribution. Plan? More like an ill-focused need or desire in search of a goal. She proceeded to read what she could get her hands on about the subject of vengeance, while taking trips all over Europe and the Middle East talking to individuals who had lost loved ones to acts of vengeance, to individuals who had taken revenge, to purported experts on the subject, to religious and philosophical leaders, to heads of State, to strangers on the street, to friends, to family, and finally to the shooters family. Along the way she meets a would-be avenger for the Holocaust who planned to poison tens of thousand of random Germans in an act of collective revenge--who nonetheless thought the idea of personal vengeance to be criminal. She interviews Anez abu Salim, a Bedouin Tribesman, who achieved revenge by composing a poem recounting how his wife had betrayed him. She slips into the holy city of Qom, Iran while in disguise (not at a little risk to herself, being Jewish, foreign, and a woman) to ask a Grand Ayatollah whether, according to precepts of Islam, she was entitled to revenge. All of this is fascinating reading, giving the reader a clear sense of how far man has yet to travel before finding a balance between the competing needs of retribution, compassion, and order--a distance so great that the book might have left a despairing taste--if not what lies at the heart of this volume. It is the author's personal journey that ultimately buoys this work, propelled by an earnest openness and accessible prose, as we follow her through some surprisingly neurotic detours while her thoughts slowly coalesce into an idiosyncratic plan of action--a form of "revenge" that is almost as surprising as it proves cathartic and profoundly moving. I can hardly conceive of an individual (outside of the odd terrorist) who will not find this odyssey through the desert of despair to an oasis of reconciliation and hope utterly compelling.
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