Operation Olive Tree

Book excerpt: Operation Olive Tree is about two opera-talented, Oasis of Peace High School teenagers, Irith Goldman, an Israeli, and Jamal Shaheen, a Palestinian. Their passion for opera grows into a friendship and a dream to sing for peace. Despite initial support from the Israeli Ministry of Education and intensive opera coaching from Tel Aviv University’s award winning voice trainer Susan Roth, they are frequently haunted by cultural prejudices related to decades of warfare over territory and religion. In addition, the support of family and friends is dormant because of their collective mistrust of Irith’s partnership with her Palestinian singing prodigy who has family ties to an uncle, a terrorist suspect, and a childhood friend, an abused risk taker with regular brushes with the law. On the other hand, Jamal’s father fears losing him to opera, preferring his career to advance along the path of his older siblings in the medical field. But, nobody could have predicted the direction their careers take following their exposure to the life of a Mossad agent in Baghdad, Iraq, where Irith emerges as Russian-Swiss opera star Tatyana Smirnoff, and Jamal an escaped fugitive from Israeli law!