Middle East artists depolarize politics in USC class

On a recent weekday morning, nearly 20 USC freshmen gathered for a seminar that looked at the contemporary Israeli and Palestinian experience through literature, poetry, film and television. But instead of highlighting the differences between the two groups, as is so often the case, this semester-long class, which ended the last week of April, focused on what they have in common.

“Exile and Identity in Modern Israeli and Palestinian Culture” was taught by Yaffa Weisman. Weisman, 64, is director of the Frances-Henry Library at Hebrew Union College–Jewish Institute of Religion (HUC-JIR), which is located near the USC campus. She is also an adjunct associate professor at HUC-JIR’s Jerome H. Louchheim School for Judaic Studies, which has been offering Jewish studies courses to USC undergraduates since 1971, the year HUC-JIR moved to its current location. 

In the past, Weisman, whose specialty is comparative literature, has taught the “Literature of Resistance,” a class she described as “dealing with how various cultures and societies deal with repression,” also through the Louchheim School. But the exile and identity class was the first time she offered a class focusing solely on modern Israelis and Palestinians.

“In my ‘Literature of Resistance’ class, I have been careful about not teaching literature about the conflict, talking myself into the idea that I may be too biased,” Weisman said. “But then I realized it doesn’t matter where I go. I am still going to be an Israeli.

“My own politics are of reconciliation and peace,” added Weisman, who grew up in Ramla, Israel, in a peaceful neighborhood of Jews, Christians and Muslims. “I didn’t know this was an ideal picture. Jews and Arabs lived together in my life, so I started looking into ways to convey that idea in nonpolitical ways: the idea that there is or should be hope, and there are points of reconciliation, and that there are more points of commonalities than differences between Palestinians and Israelis. I wanted to show how both cultures express ideas and feelings about the situation. But it felt too broad. So I started focusing on two concepts: the ideas of exile and identity.”

Weisman, who has a background in theater, was inspired to create the class, in part, by conversations she had with friends. “I have not lived in Israel for 35 years,” she said. “But I am very tuned in when it comes to collaboration. I have heard from a lot of my colleagues in Israel about work that is being done in theater and realizing there is a whole world of coexistence. Poets talk to each other, writers talk to each other, filmmakers.” 

Her goal, she said, was “to have the students see that this particular conflict is more than the sum of news headlines, and that creative expressions of Israelis and Palestinians shed light on the human aspects of the conflict.”

Among the works the students examined in Weisman’s class were poems by Israeli poet Yehuda Amichai and Palestinian poet Mahmoud Darwish. They saw several films, including the 1964 satire “Sallah,” generally considered the most successful film in Israeli history, as well as Palestinian director Elia Suleiman’s semi-autobiographical 2009 film, “The Time That Remains.” They read short stories by Israeli Benjamin Tammuz and Palestinian Ghassan Kanafani and listened to the national anthems for both Israel and Palestine. Of course, Weisman was limited in her choices; she could use only those works that had been translated into English.

“I tried very much not to be one-sided,” Weisman said. “I didn’t shy away from what for me are very painful descriptions of Palestinian refugees in 1948. I chose texts that show both the pain and the hope, the aspiration.” 

The works that were the subject of the most spirited classroom discussions, according to Weisman, were two interviews. One was a lengthy interview of Darwish by Helit Yeshurun, an Israeli poet. In it, Darwish says, among other things: “Do you know why we, the Palestinians, are famous? Because you are our enemy. Interest in the Palestine problem comes by way of interest in the Jewish problem. … You have given us defeat, weakness and publicity.” In the other interview, from Amos Oz’s 1983 book, “In the Land of Israel,” the Israeli writer sits down with three Palestinian men in Ramallah. They bond over cigarettes and Coca-Cola and talk about power, peace and war.

Based on conversations she had with students and reflection papers they wrote, Weisman considers the class a success and plans to teach it again next spring. “Some of [the students] are at least willing to consider two things: that art can change the world and that there is an ongoing dialogue. And once you open yourself to listening to the other side, or both sides, you get a different perspective on the conflict and I think a little more hopeful perspective.”

Noah Etessani, 18, found the class enlightening. “All the exposure I have gotten on this topic has been very one-sided: just pro-Israel, not really giving voice to the Palestinians,” said Etessani, who grew up in Beverly Hills and is Jewish.

Now, he said, “I have a lot more sympathy toward the ordinary Palestinian people, not the people in charge, [but] the people just born there, trying to live their everyday lives. I definitely came out of [the class] feeling different.

“At the end of the day, I really realized that the vast majority of people on both sides are ordinary people trying to live their lives normally.”

Another student in the seminar had a more personal takeaway. Jess Jun, 18, who was born in Korea and came to the United States when she was 6 — her family lives in Orange County — said she now has a general understanding of the situation in the Middle East and the inner workings of the Israeli and Palestinian people. 

But, Jun added, “I myself, as an immigrant, had trouble determining if I was Korean or American or Korean-American. But taking the class and seeing what Israelis and Palestinians felt made me think about how I should be thinking about the issue. I know [my] issue is very incomparable to what they are going through. But I do think I was able to relate in some way.”