My Hijacking

A Personal History of Forgetting and Remembering

By: Martha Hodes

Narrated by: Laurel Lefkow

Length: 12 hrs and 54 mins

Publisher's summary

In this moving and thought-provoking memoir, a historian offers a personal look at the fallibilities of memory and the lingering impact of trauma as she goes back fifty years to tell the story of being a passenger on an airliner hijacked in 1970.

On September 6, 1970, twelve-year-old Martha Hodes and her thirteen-year-old sister were flying unaccompanied back to New York City from Israel when their plane was hijacked by members of the Popular Front for the Liberation of Palestine and forced to land in the Jordan desert. Too young to understand the sheer gravity of the Israeli-Palestinian conflict, Martha coped by suppressing her fear and anxiety. Nearly a half-century later, her memories of those six days and nights as a hostage are hazy and scattered. Was it the passage of so much time, or that her family couldn’t endure the full story, or had trauma made her repress such an intense life-and-death experience? A professional historian, Martha wanted to find out.

Drawing on deep archival research, childhood memories, and conversations with relatives, friends, and fellow hostages, Martha Hodes sets out to re-create what happened to her, and what it was like for those at home desperately hoping for her return. Thrown together inside a stifling jetliner, the hostages forged friendships, provoked conflicts, and dreamed up distractions. Learning about the lives and causes of their captors—some of them kind, some frightening—the sisters pondered a deadly divide that continues today.

A thrilling tale of fear, denial, and empathy, My Hijacking sheds light on the hostage crisis that shocked the world, as the author comes to a deeper understanding of both what happened in the Jordan desert in 1970 and her own fractured family and childhood sorrows.

©2023 Martha Hodes (P)2023 HarperCollins Publishers

Childhood memories…a puzzle to solve.

Ms Hodes introspection into childhood memories of the hijacking was very engaging. What is remembered, what is not and why are questions many adults deal with and never resolve. I give her a lot of credit for having the courage to relive the events. My hope is that this journey brought Ms Hodes some closure and comfort.
I would highly recommend this true story.

Couldn’t stop listening to it!

In Sept of 1970 I was starting my freshman year in a YU high school for girls in Manhattan. I was 14. I remember the hijackings. I am almost certain that there was a sophomore girl from our HS on one of those planes. The book was riveting. Martha Hodes writing interwoven with the Little Prince was brilliant. It was as if layers of an onion were being peeled off to get to the essence. In the process I learned so much more about this incident from all the incredible research and digging she did. I actually went to look up some of the archival information on line. The narrator was excellent as well. I hope Martha can find some peace in having done all this hard work to make sense of her life. I do not sympathize with the hijackers, but I can see why a young girl could be moved by their plight.
It was a true story that felt like a novel. I could see it as a movie too.