News Release

Clashing Religions:

Reconstructing My Mother’s Genocide Story

Author Joe David will be the luncheon speaker at the Women’s National Democratic Club (WNDC), November 11, 2014, from 11:30 a.m. to 2 p.m. where he will discuss the story behind his book, The Infidels, a fictionalization of a genocide his mother miraculously survived 100 years ago in Persia.

“I will always remember my mother’s bullet wound below her left breast, which I first saw as a child,” David said. “The scar was my reminder of her childhood tragedy that changed her life forever. To reconstruct what had happened to her, I had to spend many long nights researching her past,” the author added. “What I uncovered was a minefield of raw emotions.”

The Infidels is set in Northwestern Persia in 1914. It is the year when the Turks, with the blessings of the Germans, began savagely massacring millions of Christians during a jihad, declared to cleanse the Ottoman Empire of “infidels.” “One of the most terrifying experiences anyone can experience is to be helplessly surrounded by an evil enemy, determined to destroy you,” the author said. “This is what my mother once knew as a young girl in Persia, and what many Christians and non-believers of Islam know today in the Middle East.”

“Clashing Religions: Reconstructing my mother’s World War I Genocide story” is a talk about the past and the author’s attempt to connect the broken pieces of his mother’s childhood and bring them to life for his readers to understand.

The Luncheon is open to non-members of the WNDC. Luncheon is $30 (non-members); $20 (members); and $10 for only the talk. Autographed copies of The Infidels will be available for purchase at $18.95 each.

For reservations, contact:

Women’s National Democratic Club

1526 New Hampshire Avenue, NW

Washington, DC 20036

202-232-7363; www.democraticwoman.org

The Infidels by Joe David

**A disturbingly controversial story**

about a religious war 100 years ago

Joe David’s latest book is in the great tradition of novels like Forty Days of Musa Dagh and histories like the Rape of Nanking. It reveals the scars of brutality and inhumanity as history intersects with the ordinary lives of innocent people.

Editor George Thomas Kurian

The World Christian Encyclopedia (Oxford University Press, 2001)

The Nelson New Christian Dictionary (Thomas Nelson, 2002)

I found Joe David’s version of a rarely discussed genocide, the plotted murder of the Assyrians by the Kurds and the Turks during World War I, to be thoroughly engrossing. In writing his novel, David not only demonstrates a significant knowledge of the customs and history of the times, but he also vividly brings to life the past in an exciting and meaningful way.

Anahit Khosroeva, PhD

Senior Researcher, Institute of History

National Academy of Sciences of Armenia

The Great War began with two shots: one aimed at the Archduke Franz Ferdinand, heir to the Hapsburg throne, and the other aimed at his wife, Sophie. What many thought would be just another Balkan squabble quickly escalated into a major war felt around the world.

As Europe burst into flames and millions of soldiers began battling the forces of nationalism, the Ottoman Turks joined arms with the Germans and extended the conflict to their longtime enemies, the Russians and the Christians. Incited by secular leaders in Constantinople, northwestern Persia became a warzone in which radical religious tribes invaded Christian villages and systematically martyred hundreds of thousands of ‘infidels” who dared to resist conversion.

On a small slice of ancient, isolated land owned by a wealthy Assyrian family, a young Christian girl awakens to the brutal massacre of her race in a war that she is too young to understand. Stripped of her privileged and comfortable existence, pursued by a Muslim governor – a symbol of the rising new world order – and surrounded by hostility and greed, deep-sated hatred and unspeakable horrors, she must somehow come to terms with the nightmare that her life has become.

Visit the past to grasp the present – and the terror facing us in the future

Author: Joe David’s first book, The Fire Within, because of its successful dramatization of important issues in education, made the reading list at two universities and received national public attention in the 1980s. For nearly nine years, he was a frequent radio and television talk show guest in major U.S. cities, where he candidly discussed issues in education.

Over the years, he has written for professional journals, newspapers, magazines, newsletters, and books, including the Annenberg/CPB Math and Science Project, NPR Radio (The Best of Our Knowledge), The Forum (University of West Florida), U.S. Airways, Basic Education (Council for Basic Education), Christian Science Monitor, and much more. He is the author of six books.