The father is Mendel Cohen, a humble carpenter from Jerusalem. The king is Abdullah; the autocratic, charismatic man who ruled Jordan until 1951. The time is the 1930s and '40s, when Jordan's kingdom included Jerusalem. Hearing high praise about Cohen's work, Abdullah hired him to work on his palace in Amman. So began the adventure of a lifetime. Dazzled and bemused by the opulence and strangeness of palace life, Cohen recounts with touching simplicity and grace his growing friendship with the king, and how it endured until overwhelmed by war and assassination.The themes are as relevant today as then: relations between Arabs and Jews, the saga of Arab nationalism and Zionism, the tortuous path to peace -- and those, like Abdullah and Rabin, whose lives have been lost along the way.Cohen's daughter and her husband have translated his story into English for the first time, and place it into a historical context. My Father's King is about wonder, hope, and the triumph of a friendship in a part of the world where, for far too long, distrust and despair have ruled.