It was once called “the Valley of the Jews” because it was the Jewish neighborhood of Beirut. Now, after a 15-year civil war, two Israeli invasions and the 2006 July War, the area in downtown Beirut is empty. But BBC Arabic journalist Nada Abdelsamad says nostalgia for the old times is still there. Her book on the Lebanese Jewish community, written in Arabic but eventually to be translated into English, will be on stands Friday, December 18 at the Arab Book Fair in Beirut, starting at 5 p.m.

Where did the idea of a book about Lebanese Jews come from?

Nada Abdelsamad: It started three years ago. After the 2006 war I was commissioned to do something about the Shia in Lebanon [for the BBC Arabic channel]. And then I decided to do something about the Jews in Lebanon, about the memory of the community, the neighbors and friends in Wadi Abu Jamil.  So I did five audio packages for the radio with interviews about the Jews in Lebanon.

It’s a vacant area now. People were displaced during the war, everybody left. After the [civil] war we had the Solidere project, so nobody lives there anymore; not the people who used to live there. Wadi Abu Jamil used to be called Wadi Yehud [Valley of the Jews], because they were concentrated in it. I wasn’t able to interview anybody from the Jewish community in Lebanon. We don’t know how many of them are left. There are only 30 maximum maybe, but they are not living in Lebanon as Jews. They changed their religion, their names…

Who were the people telling the stories?

Abdelsamad: I interviewed Jews in Canada, and I was surprised at their positive feedback related to their lives in Lebanon. I was also surprised at the positive accounts the Lebanese had. It was a surprise for me at first, so I continued. I did around 40 interviews with people who used to live there.  I heard many stories about [the same people]. So I rebuilt a few characters from Wadi Abu Jamil, their personalities, the way they used to live.

Tell me more about the characters you chose to highlight in the book…

Abdelsamad: It is a simple book about normal people. I have 21 stories… few stories were about important people. There is one about a Lebanese Jew who had managed to reach a top position in the government.

All of [the rest of] them are normal people. For example: there was a Jewish family who had a TV, and it was the only TV in Beirut so everybody used to go there to watch TV. I have a story about a Christian lady who married a Jewish man and left with him to Israel, and her son came during the invasion in 1982 to ask about his friends. I also have the story of Major Mike, who left here as a child and came back to Beirut and was compelled to arrest one of his childhood neighbors after an attack on the Israeli army in Sanayaa. It’s a book with true stories, but written as a novel. So it’s not journalism. I talked about love stories, I talked about doctors – one was very famous and used to be called “the doctor of the poor” both for Christians and Muslims. I talked about spies, those who were in fact spies, but also about the phantom of the spies. I hope that in a second phase I will be able to look for my characters and have them tell their own stories.

This is a sensitive topic for Lebanon. How do you think the book will be received?

Abdelsamad: It wasn’t easy to find a publisher, because people were asking, “Why now? Why this topic? Are you with them? What is your message?” There is no message. These people used to live here; it’s a vanished community. Not talking about them doesn’t mean they didn’t exist, that they didn’t have their stories, their relationships and a good memory of them. I’m expecting all kinds of reactions after the launch.

How did you convince your editor to publish the book?

Abdelsamad: Simple. They read the book and they liked it. It is the first book written by a Lebanese on this topic, and the first book in the style of a novel. It’s not scientific research. Like I said, I’m expecting all kinds of reactions.