Daniel Monterescu is Associate Professor of Anthropology at the Central European University and author of Jaffa Shared and Shattered: Contrived Coexistence in Israel/Palestine (2015).
Haim Hazan is Professor of Anthropology at Tel Aviv University and Co-Director of the Minerva Center for the Interdisciplinary Study of the End of Life.

The city of Jaffa presents a paradox: intimate neighbors who are political foes. The official Jewish national tale proceeds from exile to redemption and nation-building, while the Palestinians' is one of a golden age cut short, followed by dispossession and resistance. The experiences of Jaffa's Jewish and Arab residents, however, reveal lives and nationalist sentiments far more complex. Twilight Nationalism shares the stories of ten of the city's elders-women and men, rich and poor, Muslims, Jews, and Christians-to radically deconstruct these national myths and challenge common understandings of belonging and alienation.

Through the stories told at life's end, Daniel Monterescu and Haim Hazan illuminate how national affiliation ultimately gives way to existential circumstances. Similarities in lives prove to be shaped far more by socioeconomic class, age, and gender than national allegiance, and intersections between stories usher in a politics of existence in place of politics of identity. In offering the real stories individuals tell about themselves, this book reveals shared perspectives too long silenced and new understandings of local community previously lost in nationalist narratives.

Introduction: Toward Twilight Nationalism
1. Besieged Nationalism: Fakhri Jday and the Decline of the Elites
2. Worn-Out Nationalism: Rabbi Avraham Bachar and the Community's Betrayal
3. Surviving Nationalism: Isma'il abu-Shehade and Testimony amid the Ruins
4. Circumventing Nationalism: The Hakim Sisters and the Cosmopolitan Experience
5. Domesticated Nationalism: Nazihah Asis, a Prisoner of Zion
6. Dissolved Nationalism: Subhiya abu-Ramadan and the Critique of the Patriarchal Order
7. Overlooking Nationalism: Talia Seckbach-Monterescu In and Out of Place
8. Suspended Nationalism: Moshe (Mussa) Hermosa and Jewish-Arab Masculinity
9. Masking Nationalism: Amram Ben-Yosef on a Tightrope
10. Speechless Nationalism: Abu-George on the Edge
Conclusion: From Identity Politics to Politics of Existence
Epilogue: Earth to Earth: Posthumous Nationalism