Jerusalem Girl is a biography of my grandmother, Ursula Jones née Nehab. She was born in 1927 in Berlin to a Jewish father and Gentile mother. The family had to leave Germany in the 1930s, to what is now Israel. Whilst her parents and her sister, my great aunt Ruth, returned to Germany a few years after the war, my Granny "Ema" as we called her, remained in Jerusalem where we she began working and in 1953, married a British vicar who was practising in the Anglican Church in Jerusalem. Both my grandparents kept fascinating diaries of life in the British Mandate in Palestine and then Israel. These include my grandfather's, the Revd. Hugh Jones's incredibly detailed account of being in the crossfire during the 1948 conflict. As well as their diaries, I have some immensely interesting documents concerning things that were happening in these decades, including a publication on "Freedom of Religion" in Israel in the early years of her nation-statehood.

I am writing the story of her life in three parts, the first of which I am now beginning to release as Part One: The Years in the Land (1946-1965). She was in fact in the Land from the late 1930s, but at present my writing really begins from her coming of age and when she affirms her faith, in 1946. Later on I may include more on her earlier life in Berlin.

This week I am delighted to invite people to download Chapter One of Book One from this website and to attend an online event in which I will introduce the book in further detail, give a reading, and invite discussion.

This event will be the first in an eight-week series between 12th November and 10th January that will see the completion of the release of Book One, which will be eight chapters in total. At the end of this period, the full book will be published, probably on Amazon.