I met Kay Wilson just over a couple of years ago when I visited Israel along with Tommy Robinson as guests of Brian of London. Meeting Kay in her home in the southern region of Israel I came to know the wonderful person that she is, full of vigor and life that’s salt and peppered with a sense of humor that few can match. That’s my first impression of Kay, and it’s a lasting one, she is who she is, and that will never change, nor should it.
While reading her excellent memoir, that is the Kay that comes across. Everyone who has ever met her, or more precisely, who have come to know her, will tell you that I’m not exaggerating. Kay’s style of writing draws you into her world, how she views people, nature around her, and life in general.
I don’t want to be a spoiler here, I believe that just by telling you of the author, Kay Wilson, that wonderful human being anyone would love to have as a friend and neighbor, is enough. Get her book at Amazon, and set yourself up for a good read, and if you’re like me, it’ll be hard to put down until you read it in full. Her story will make you a fan of her.
We are all the more fortunate to have her still breathing the fine crisp Israeli air. Love you Kay!
‘RAGE LESS TRAVELED’ AUTHOR’S JOURNEY FROM TERROR TO TRIUMPH
On December 18, 2010, two Palestinian-Arab men nearly beat the life out of Kay Wilson. As she lay feigning death, Wilson was witness to the murder of her friend Kristine Luken.
Out for a hike on the Israel Trail, the women’s only crime was being Jewish – except Luken was not Jewish. Wilson is a British-born Israeli tour guide, jazz musician and cartoonist.
Wilson is the author of a new book, The Rage Less Traveled, which came out this week as she traveled from Israel to Washington for the AIPAC policy conference. Wilson is part of a One Family Fund delegation. She told her story Monday on the AIPAC stage, including a piano rendition of “Somewhere over the Rainbow,” which she told The Jerusalem Post was “written by two Jews just before the Holocaust. It speaks of the hope and the yearning to be at home in a hostile world.”
She told the Post how on the day of her attack, as she stumbled from the site of her intended grave, she played “Somewhere over the Rainbow” in her head as she made her way down the thorny hills, barefoot and bleeding, gagged and with bound hands, to safety in the National Park picnic spot.
If she was not going to just roll over and die in the Jerusalem hills, she certainly was not going to let broken bones, a punctured lung and emotional trauma ruin the rest of her life, she said.
Wilson described a theme that today characterizes her life now: “Even emerging from that dark place, you can find the resources to tap into the goodness of life.”
The Rage Less Traveled tells the story of the attack and shares with readers its impact on her, how she coped with the immediate police investigation, later meeting her murdered friend’s parents and then facing her assailants in court.
Wilson agreed to talk with the Post about her book and her life from her home in Jerusalem:
JP: Why did you write this book?
Wilson: It started out as part of my trauma therapy. As part of the healing process, I was to write what had happened to me. The first draft was very detailed, but like an account you give the police, a chronology of what happened. It took months to put myself as a feeling person into the story and to tell it as I experienced it.
Those I showed it to were overwhelmed with my writing and suggested I write a book. As a Jew, I felt it imperative that I bear witness. Writing is one way that I could show the world how a Christian woman was murdered because she was thought to be Jewish, and to keep her memory alive. I wanted people outside of Israel – Jews and non-Jews – to understand the ongoing pogrom against us.
People are inquisitive. They want to know what it is like to go through something like what happened to me. It was never intended to be a self-help book, because there are no answers to what happened to me. Yet, by being vulnerable and depicting my journey as honestly as I can, I hope that people will see the aspects that are helping me heal.
