“Lena on the Seventh Day” is about two women whose humanity has been forged in suffering. One a Jew, Lena Yaacobi, a retired Mossad agent, one a Palestinian, Sahar Labadi, a retired doctor.
The story takes place during a single day in 1987 in Jersualem when Lena loses a cherished friend to violence and Sahar is reunited with a loved one she had long thought dead. They start out strangers and enemies, but as the day progresses toward it’s inevitable violent climax, and through their individual courage and character, they put aside centuries of hatred and bloodshed to save their child. Lena, a woman in a yellow sundress, covered with blood, a 45 in her right hand. Sahar, a sophisticated doctor who now pulls the gun from the other and is determined to use it against her own kind if necessary.
The title is taken from a paragraph in Michael Oren’s great book, “Six Days of War”:
" The discomfort many Israelis felt with their victory, the guilt and pain of their losses, poured out in a post war collection of interviews, entitled fittingly, The Seventh Day. “We weren’t especially excited or happy about killing Arabs or knowing that we’d won. We just felt we’d done what we had to do, but there’s a big difference between that and feeling happy.”
“Lena on the Seventh Day” is ultimately about that – the real price we pay for our liberty and dignity.
