My father was my mother's home, the one place that she knew she could be safe. It was all a journey of faith for him, and I think he felt like if you don't find more love and understanding at the end of a journey like that, then you are lost - and if you only find hate and resentment, it will destroy you. I believe that.
Rula JebrealMy first memory as a child growing up is of playing in the gardens, the mosque is really a gigantic garden, probably the biggest in all of East Jerusalem. Our house was about 100 meters from the mosque.
Rula JebrealI was 16 when my father died, and I had a choice to come back and live in his house or I'd stay at the school. But I felt if my father wanted me to go to that school when I was 5, there must have been a reason - and I understood that reason when I was a teenager, because that school became the only place where I was safe.
Rula JebrealI think the first time I really felt that I was Palestinian was a time when I was trying to go back to school with my father at night and there was a curfew for Palestinians. My father said, "I will walk first, but you have to understand, the police will not let me go... So keep moving and don't look at me and don't look back."
Rula JebrealAs a woman, you don't have really much freedom of choice in the Middle East - very often, by the time they are 13 or 14, girls get married.
Rula Jebreal