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Dr. AbdulKarim Al Makadma is an internationally respected pediatrician and academic. Born and raised in Al Shati refugee camp in Gaza, he lived under military occupation and survived two major wars before leaving Gaza for medical school in Egypt in 1976. Dr. Al Makadma has practiced medicine in different Middle Eastern countries, rising to prominence in the fields of pediatrics and adolescent medicine. He is the author of several books in the health field and has published articles in prestigious international medical journals. As a clinician, teacher and mentor and through his humanitarian efforts, he has made friends across the globe. Dr. Al Makadma immigrated to Canada in the early 2000s, but his heart will always remain in Palestine.
Reviewed by Jack Magnus for Readers' Favorite
The Tears of Olive Trees: An Autobiographic Story Featuring Poems From Mahmoud Darwish is a non-fiction memoir written by AbdulKarim Al Makadma, with illustrations by Rawya M. Wadi. The author was born and grew up in a refugee camp in Gaza. His family was uprooted from their ancestral lands and home during the Nakba in 1948, when it was decided that Palestine would become the new Jewish homeland. No one stopped to consider the fate of the approximately one million Palestinians who had farmed their lands and raised their families for centuries, and who were now homeless. Karim’s father, Saeed, maintained a lifelong hope that the family lands in the village of Beit Daras would one day be restored to him and his children. That dream kept him going as he made the Beach Camp his new home, and he carried the key to his ancestral home with him until the day he died. Karim, his brothers and his sister were raised in a small and primitive dwelling, but their lives were filled with the love, hope and counsel of Saeed and their mother, Miriam. Karim excelled in school and worked summers in a variety of jobs, and was able to attend university and medical school in Egypt.
AbdulKarim Al Makadma’s nonfiction memoir, The Tears of Olive Trees: An Autobiographic Story Featuring Poems From Mahmoud Darwish, is a stunning achievement that succeeds in the author’s goal to tell the world the story of the Palestinians who were displaced from their homes. Karim writes simply and elegantly, and his story is a compelling one indeed. While I had heard and read things that made me suspect that the history we learned in school and read about in newspapers was not the entire story, I found myself totally unprepared for what I read in this book. The fact alone that there are grandchildren of the original displaced Palestinians still living homeless and stateless, and with fewer options than the author had when he was growing up, is a modern tragedy that cries out for a resolution; one that’s sixty years overdue since that ethnic cleansing that forever altered so many lives.
The author’s voice is not one full of anger and hatred, however, or one seeking vengeance. The lessons his father Saeed taught so well: lessons of “infinite forgiveness, acceptance and resilience” resonate throughout this thoughtful and honest work. His story is a first-hand eyewitness account that shares with the reader the life and lives lived in the Palestinian refugee camps and the plight of those stateless families. The Tears of Olive Trees: An Autobiographic Story Featuring Poems From Mahmoud Darwish is most highly recommended.
