Hebron Stories. The title alone beckons the viewer to question. What period in Hebron's long history? And whose stories?

In fact, this volume of stories written by Yitzhaq Shami, has the underpinnings of Shami's roots in Hebron but is actually a greater reflection on Shami's observance of life in Hebron, Damascus, Tiberias, Haifa, Bulgaria and Ekron. While the stories reflect the issues of the times they also transcend time, which is often the mark of a great story teller.

Shami manages to paint vivid scenery with his use of words. The reader quickly develops a picture of the Sephardic-Jewish community which existed surrounded by their Arab neighbors in the first part of the twentieth century.

Born in 1888, Shami spoke Ladino with this mother and Arabic with his father. At the age of 17 he began studying in Jerusalem. It was there that Shami broadened his horizons, meeting pioneers who immigrated to Palestine from Eastern Europe. He became a teacher, specializing in Arabic language, literature and history. Shami died in Haifa, at the age of 60, in 1949. While he lived to see his dream of an independent Israel come true, he was also greatly troubled be the cost to the Arab refugees of Jewish independence.