Leap of Faith: Memoirs of an Unexpected Life

One finds it hard to review this book, as it really is two stories wrapped in one. The first is a rather simple romantic, King and I story about an American girl swept up into royalty like Grace Kelly. Sweetly, we hear how Noor, formerly known as Lisa Halaby, is courted and eventually married by the dashing young king Hussein, more than a decade here senior. While this part of the book has considerable appeal, the second book, buried within the first, is far spottier.
Noor presents a one sided view of the Middle East that is at shockingly shallow, ignoring facts and making up new ones in pursuit of her goal of painting the more than 200 million Arabs as victims of fewer than 6 million Israelis. The contortions she engages in to prove this thesis might be laughable, where it not for the fact that this book is being so widely marketed and read to readers for whom this will be there only exposure to the Middle East and the Arab Israeli conflict. A few facts, ignored by Noor stand out as remarkable.
* No one doubts her husband; King Hussein was a great man who eventually came to be a man of peace. However, in her effort to paint him as a moderate, she ignores the fact that he launched an aggressive attack on Israel in 1967, when he had not been attacked nor threatened or his willingness to let terrorists based in his territory murder dozens of innocent civilians in terrorist bombings.
* Blaming Israel for the plight of the Palestinians, without considering that her Husband and his uncle the former king ruled the West Bank from 1948-67 without showing any interest in giving the Palestinians a state of their own. Her husband's killing of thousands of Palestinians in the so-called "Black September Massacre," is likewise ignored.
* Ignoring the well-documented overtures Israel made in the 60's to return most of the West Bank to Jordan in exchange for Peace. Overtures ignored by her late husband who was too weak politically to make peace with Israel.
* Blaming Israel for the 22 Sheiks, Kings, and Despots who rule the 22 Arab countries including her husbands, rather than laying some of the blame on the Arab populations who so recently lionized a butcher like the Saddam Hussein.
* Glossing over her Husband's strong support for Saddam Hussein in the '91 Gulf War.
The greatest obstacle to modernization in the Middle East is the ability of the Arab media and culture to construct new fictitious realities when the reality on the ground does not suit them. Thus Israel is blamed for wide spread Arab poverty rather than corrupt regimes and suicide bombers who murder children can be easily labeled heroes. Noor would do a far greater service speaking the truth to Arabs, including those who live under her son, the current King's, "enlightened" despotism, instead of presenting rehashed propaganda to American audiences. Sadly, her loss of perspective is a loss to those who she claims to champion. The Middle East is awash in poverty and tyranny; being at the top of the marble tower for so many years clearly distorts her view of the squalid street.

When one reads "Leap of Faith," what strikes you is the amazing faith and grace with which Queen Noor has conducted her life. There is no question that this is a remarkable book, a peek into what it is like to live in the inner circles of a kingdom which has been at the center of so much of the breaking news over the past decades. This book is a contrast to another set in the middle east, "Daughter of Jerusalem" by Sharon Geyer who dreamed of being a Persian princess only to find her world rocked by an abusive husband who banished her from their home after she gave birth to two sons. The two books taken together show how leaps of faith effect lives in different ways. One becomes a queen while the other spends twenty years trying to get her sons back. Both are incredible books.

An enlightening and engrossing read by Queen Noor Al-Hussein of Jordan! Telling the stories of how she met her future husband, her reforms in palace life, and the many accomplishments she made as a very revered and respected woman who improved women's lives in Jordan. This autobiography was surprisingly very well-written and very interesting, something you don't find too much today. However, all of the more than 700 pages kept me interested and engrossed in Queen Noor's story. A delightful read and a bestseller for many months to come, I recommend this book to all royalty fans and anyone looking for a good read. Stolen Lives would be an exceptional recommendation to purchase along with this autobiography.

"Leap of Faith" can be deceiving. At first you think: cool upper middle class blonde marries much older(and shorter) King. Ah, a late 20th century Grace Kelly? An American Princess Diana?
Far from it. Queen Noor, who began her life as Lisa Halaby, is and always has been a serious, thoughtful woman who chooses to live her life for politics, philosophy, her family (both her one of origin and by marriage), and causes. She does not and appears to have never been a woman consumed by clothes, jewelry, gossip, and glamour. (Though some of her detractors might argue differently.)
This book traces her beginnnings in the upper middle and upper classes of American society. Her father, Najeeb Halaby, was a very successful Arab American who at various times ran the FAA and Pan Am. Her mother was of Swedish American descent. While Lisa/Noor appears to have inherited the looks of her Nordic ancestors, she clearly embraced her Arab American heritage far more enthusiastically as a child. Lisa, as she was then known, grew up in affluent sections of LA, Washington, DC, and New York. She was educated at the finest schools-westlake, national cathedral school, chapin and concord academy-and was a strong student and outstanding athlete (captain of the field hockey team). She took her studies and the politics of the 1960's very seriously and insisted on transferring from the apolitical Chapin to the more academically challenging Concord Academy. Eventually she lands at Princeton, in the first female class. After she receives a degree in urban planning, she moves from one international job to another and finally lands at an architecture firm in Jordan.
And the rest, as they say, is history. Noor details her leap-from all American (albeit one of the upper classes) Wasp girl to Muslim wife to royalty-in a clear, elegant, understated way. She clearly believes that she found her soulmate not only with her husband, King Hussein, but with the country of Jordan and its people.
Most of the book details the Arab Israeli conflicts of the 20th century from the vantage point of Hussein. I found these sections riveting. Certain incidents-for example, the assassination of Rabin after peace accords-took on an added poignancy through Hussein and Noor's eyes. She notes how difficult the American obsession with celebrity news-OJ, Tonya Harding-was for those in the Mideast struggling with the lives and deaths of millions.
While Noor does not overemote throughout the book about her husband, clearly she loved and still loves him deeply and passionately. Beyond being a biography, this book is a romance, though a very understated one and palatable to both genders. Her chapters on Hussein's final months, which she embroiders with such details as her bathing him daily at the Mayo Clinic, are deeply moving.
If I had one criticism of this book, I would note that Noor offers little self-analysis on some very important issues in her life. In addition to her mother's nordic looks, she also seems to exude a Swedish reserve. While she provides the details of her leap, she offers little insight into the impact on herself, her family and her friends. Certain things can be inferred: her father was a high powered, controlling, Arab American perfectionist as was her husband. You don't need Freud. Other issues might have benefited from analysis. At one point, she was against the war in Vietnam, a pioneering woman in Princeton's first female class, and independent soul. A few years later, she was a Muslim woman, enmeshed in some of the most controversial issues of the 20th century, and bound to the traditions of her new land. She was part of the first generation of women that didn't take their husband's last name. Yet in Halaby's case, she changed her last and first name upon her marriage, as well as her religion, citizenship, political views, and profession. In addition, I would have been interested if she or her parents had had Jewish friends who had difficulty (or didn't) with her choices. To be fair, Halaby simply may not have in it her for such analysis-she mentions at one point that she considered going to a therapist but realized that she couldn't for fear of her confidences getting out.
I would recommend highly this book to individuals who like serious biographies and/or current political issues. You will learn a lot. Your understanding of the Arab-Israeli world will be enriched.I would caution individuals with very strong pro-Israeli views that she is very (though not militantly) pro-Arab. I also would warn individuals who love biographies on celebrity princesses-Diana, Grace Kelly, Jackie Kenndy-that this book focuses on politics and philosophy and not clothes and hair. You'll learn about what people said at a State Dinner at the White House not what they wore that night.

As a Jordanian, this book is a great gift from our beloved Queen. Reading it, I relived beautiful and sad moments. It is definitely the book of the year!

I'm not really into biographies and this is the first obe I've read since I head so much about it. While the book is long and slow at some points, the Queen's views are quiet interesting. Her views on the Middle East and America while I don't fully agree with all of them were still interesting.

One of the best memoirs I have ever read. Not a lot of political stuff in this one. Lots of what should be in a memoir. Thoughts, feelings, history, personal perspective, reflection, and love. This is a powerful lady with a lot of knowledge about both the US and the Middle East. The Queen really had to be diplomatic and tactful in a country where women are not seen in leadership terms. She is compassionate and understands both sides of a very awful conflict between the Israelis and Palestinians. She provides wisdom and her feelings from the Jordanian side. Really impressed with her memory of events and her stories about her family and the families of others around her. Great information into how the domestic life goes on in the Jordan. You may or may not agree with her observations but this is a good read and a book to enjoy not try to destroy politically.

To say that this is the worst book I've read this year would be a vast understatement of monumental proportions. Two words: ghost writer. Two more: political diatribe. Two more: blatant anti-semitism. Furthermore, Lisa, who purportedly never liked her birth name anyway, runs on like a broken record about how idyllic and utopian her patrician marriage to King Hussein was on every page - it was all peaches and cream - sans any spats or problems in over 20 years of marriage - yeah, right.
Her self-aggrandizement and flatulent self-importance of how she was a dynamic pioneer as the first Queen to be a social reformer is self-serving at best. Her less than subtle pervasive ant-semitism proves most disturbing: "The Arabs feared, and it turned out rightly, that some of the Zionist Jews beginning to arrive in Palestine had no intention of sharing the land but wanted it all for their own." Her continual reference to "the powerful Zionist lobby" in America and how it controls America & has blinded Americans from the plight of the poor suicide bombers is unsettling to digest. Her constant harping on how Hussein's supposed sole mission in life was his unwavering quest for peace in the Middle East on every page made me nauseous. Her inclusion of "The Prophet Muhammad, May Peace be Upon Him" whenever mentioning Muhammad was the icing on the cake. Recommended to those philistine degenerates who savor fallacious political propaganda written by a ghost writer. Good stuff.

Queen Noor's book was an eye-opener. Jordan to me has always been somewhat of a neutral country in the middle east, nothing really came to mind when I thought of Jordan, now I have a clearer picture.
QN does a good job of shedding light on her life and that of the King as well as the political issues of the day. The other thing she does was enlighten the reader on the challenges facing her as a woman in the Jordanian society as well as being a wife to the King.
All in all, this book gave me a new perspective on Jordan and I am looking forward to visiting that lovely country.

I cannot believe that this book was published without a map!! Every page discusses areas of the Middle East. Most Americns have very little knowledge of geography generally much less the Middle East. Surely a map could have been included? I am enjoying the story.