Unexpected Bride In The Promised Land
Journeys in Palestine and Israel
$19.95 paperback, $7.99 eBook
After hitchhiking from Paris to Jerusalem, Jordan in 1967, Iris Keltz had to wait three days for permission to cross a U.N. checkpoint into Jerusalem, Israel. That was enough time for this young Jewish woman from New York to meet a Palestinian poet, musician, and world traveler. After a whirlwind courtship of less than three weeks, they married and were planning their honeymoon when the Six Day War broke out. The day Israeli soldiers barged into the basement apartment where the newlyweds had found sanctuary with other Palestinians, Iris was frozen with fear. She meant to cry out, “I’m Jewish, American and these are my friends.” Her silence that day compelled her to write this book.
Scrapbook of a Taos Hippie:
Tribal Tales from the Heart of a Cultural Revolution
The ’60s-the music, the clothes, political and sexual idealism-were a watershed in the way America sees itself. Hippie culture was at the very zenith of that watershed, and Taos was its beating heart, a Mecca which beckoned young pilgrims from all over the country. Iris Keltz was one of the pilgrims who went to Taos in the 60s. She stayed to become a folk historian of the tribe. She began writing her stories down and transcribing the stories of her friends, and slowly the book was born.
Iris’ book has the old-time vibes of a family scrapbook, a marvelous collection of stories and oral histories from the people who lived in the communes that flourished in Taos-Morningstar, New Buffalo, Lama, Reality Construction Company, and others. Now, decades later, they talk openly about communal life, about making adobes and growing gardens, about natural childbirth and raising children, about New Age mysticism and the Native American Church, about money and food stamps, about regret and what’s been learned.
Scrapbook of a Taos Hippie is full of wonderful then-and-now photographs with up-to-date biographies, newspaper articles and other memorabilia that the reader a true sense of the passionate life of hipies during the great flowering of communes in New Mexico.
Iris Keltz got the idea for this book because her kids kept begging, “Tell us about your hippie days, Mom.”
Reviews
Psychedelic Taos Time Machine
“This book is a fantastic read – especially for anyone with ties to northern NM. I lived there in the 90s and 2000s and knew a bunch of the people who were interviewed and in the stories. It explains a lot of things about the early commune days and some of the highly entertaining personalities and places central to the NM hippie scene. I just couldn’t put it down and it left me with the sunny, happy feeling of resting my back against a warm adobe wall with friends while watching the sun set in a blaze of glorious colors. The Gay 90s Hondo bar story made me laugh so hard that I actually fell off my couch! I know, I know… nothing lasts – but this book might be the closest we’ll ever get to a time machine. Thanks Iris!
–Amazon Review
An important read for anyone interested in finding hope in what seems to be a hopeless situation
“I thank Iris for sharing her unique story with us and for inviting us into her heart. In her personal story, Iris lays bear her feelings and her thoughts about an injustice that she experienced first hand to the very people she grew up believing were her natural enemies. Among her “enemies” she found love and safety that changed her outlook and her approach on how to view the “others”. She carries with her the lessons she learned from her experience of being trapped in Palestine during the Six Day War till today. I am grateful to Iris for humanizing the Palestinian people and for demonstrating that the human experience is what gives people hope for a better tomorrow.
Through My Eyes 