Susan Slyomovics's Object of Memory explores the ways in which Arabsand Jews (primarily Palestinian Arabs and Israeli Jews) narrate thePalestinian village, focusing on the pre-1948 Palestinian village of Ein Houd, located in theCarmel Mountains south of the city of Haifa. The Palestinian inhabitants of Ein Houd weredisplaced during the 1948 war and prevented by the Israeli government from returning to theirhomes there. Most of them became internal refugees, designated “presentabsentees” under Israeli law. Others became refugees in surrounding Arab states and in thepart of Palestine that became known as the West Bank. Their properties were confiscated byIsrael under the Absentee Property Law.