Week 8 Reading Response

This week's readings all warrant separate responses, so I'm going to go through each one individually to give it the attention it deserves.

"You're So Pretty--You Don't Look Moroccan"
Henriette's experience as a Moroccan Jew in Israel was surprising in one way and not at all surprising in another. After collectively experiencing the tragedies of the Holocaust and attempting to create a solidified Jewish state, the Jews of Israel were still not united for a common goal. After experiencing such intense discrimination in Europe, they still discriminated against each other. This is not to ignore the pluralism found in Israel that we've been studying. It makes sense that there would be tension among a population of Europeans, Moroccans, Arabs, and others, as there are huge social, cultural, and class gaps. However, it's still surprising that there was not more unity and such dehumanization of Moroccan Jews by other Jews. It was incredibly disheartening to read the essay. Hearing about someone suppress who they are in order to appease others is inexplicably depressing. But I also found that I wasn't too surprised about this type of behavior in light of how many Arabs describe their experiences in Jerusalem today.

"A Dog's Life"
Everyone loves a story with a dog in it. But this story unveiled a sad truth. Suad's use of her dog's passport to get into Jerusalem was strange for several reasons: (1) why does a a dog have a passport... and (2) why can a dog cross a border (WITH A PASSPORT), but a human cannot? Humans should be able to fairly easily pass through one border to another. While obviously the situation between Israel and Palestine is different than, for example, the US and Canada, Palestinians should still be able to cross a border with more simplicity than Suad experienced. Border crossings are definitely different stories than checkpoints or outposts in occupied territories. The beginning of the Ramallah Diaries was very uncomfortable to think about, as people were being forced to stand in straight lines and board buses when told. It reminded me of the countless stories I've read over the years of people being lined up and put onto trains to concentration camps, and the irony of the story was incredibly striking. Again, this is clearly a very different situation, but the similarities makes one think a lot about the hypocrisy in the actions of the IDF, at least in these types of situations.

"Palestinian Christians in Jerusalem"
When we talk about the issue of Jerusalem in terms of religion, in general we are talking about Jews and Muslims. Thinking about the Palestinian Christians as a minority group also made me think more about how Christians as a whole feel about Jerusalem and the sense of belonging that they feel to the city. As a Catholic, I recognize that the hierarchy of my religion as control over its own territory and, arguably, much of the state of Italy. While Catholics also feel an attachment to Jerusalem as a holy city, they don't feel kicked out of any area, or that they cannot travel to other places due to their religion. But the issue within the essay was a mixture of religion and ethnicity, of Christianity and the Palestinian identity, as it connects to Jerusalem. Many Christians travel to Jerusalem from all over the world during Holy Week and Christmas without an issue, but Palestinians that live right next to the holy city have difficulty traveling to their holy sites. This is heartbreaking for many people, and for me to even hear about. Not only are they denied a religious experience, but their identities are being denied not just as Christians, but as Palestinians. No other word but "sad" really sums up my reaction to the essay, despite it not really being new news. But the reminder is always a disappointment.

"Parallels and Paradoxes"
I'll just start by saying that I love Edward Said and that he is one of my favorite authors/intellectuals; so this reading was great for me and I would talk about it all day. But I'm going to focus on one specific point of the reading that made me think more about the idea of courage. When they are talking about the "art of compromise," Barenboim describes the method of a cowardly statesperson versus a courageous one within the analogy of a musical composition. He says that a coward will write in a more physically simple way; in other words, at the end of a crescendo, notes will remain louder and then eventually make a decrescendo into softer notes. A courageous person will write in a more difficult way, making a crescendo and then shifting into piano notes as opposed to forte notes. As a pianist, I can tell you that this is an art that's difficult to master and actually do well. It's definitely a more courageous way to write if your goal is to create something that's appeasing to the ear. However, I had a hard time agreeing with that in the context of diplomacy. Is it courageous to be unyielding, or is it more courageous to pick battles to satisfy all involved? Or maybe he was referring to it being courageous to not allow anyone to stop you from reaching a solution agreeable to everyone? I interpreted it to be the former, but it was strange to me that Said wouldn't argue with this idea more if that were the case. I'd like to know everyone else's thoughts on that, as it was quite thought-provoking.

Discussion Questions:
1. Did you find any parallels between the behavior towards Jews in Europe and the behavior towards Arabs in Palestine/Israel?
2. What did you think about the courage-coward idea that Barenboim discussed? What do you think he meant, and how would you define courageous and/or cowardly behavior on the part of statespeople?