סליחה, זה שלך? Excuse Me, Is This Yours?

A pizza invitation in Jerusalem becomes an unforgettable journey through the most contested land on earth.

Tuvia Tenenbom returns with his trademark blend of biting humor, blatant irreverence, and piercing curiosity in a bold work of literary journalism. What starts as a simple offer to share a pizza with a charming Jerusalem journalist turns into a wild odyssey through the hills and wadis of Biblical Israel — a land known by many names: the West Bank, Judea and Samaria, the Occupied Territories, or simply, "that place."

As ever, Tenenbom plays the outsider-insider: a proud Jew roaming in search of friend and foe alike, armed with a suitcase full of questions and, of course, contraband Indonesian cigarettes. The tone is raw, hilarious, and deeply moving. His affection for his subjects is real — and so is his heartbreak over what has become of reasoned discourse, in the Holy Land and beyond.

Some readers will bristle at the book's political incorrectness and its refusal to offer tidy conclusions. But that is precisely its strength. Excuse Me, Is This Yours? is a book that dares to offend because it dares to care — a fearless, sharply observed antidote to a public conversation grown ever more polarized and predictable.

Tuvia Tenenbom is a best-selling author, journalist, dramatist, and the founder of the Jewish Theater of New York. He studied for his doctorate in English literature at St. John s University, earned his MFA in playwriting at CUNY-Brooklyn, BS in mathematics and computer science at Touro, and finished his rabbinical studies in Jerusalem. He also studied Christianity and Islam in Israel and New York as well as journalism, acting, theater, and finance (at NYU). Tuvia was named one of the best minds in America by Germany's prestigious Die Zeit, and his theatrical work was hailed by the New York Times as irresistibly fascinating and by the Village Voice as theater of integrity, inquiry and chutzpah. Tuvia's articles and essays have been published in leading Western media, including Die Zeit of Germany (in which he has a semi-monthly column), Corriere della Sera of Italy, Yedioth Ahronoth of Israel, and the American Fox News and Forward. He is the author of the Spiegel Top-10 Best Seller Allein unter Deutschen (I Sleep in Hitler's Room in English), and the number one best seller in Israel Catch the Jew!