Jonina, et all, I haven't read Etaf Rum's book, but your query raises a similar response from me as the question regarding middle school books on Israel/Palestine, which is that the subjective experience of Jews and Palestinians in the region over the past 100 years has been so different as to be nearly incomprehensible and unbearable to the other. I hope you will change your mind and finish reading Etaf Rum's book. I couldn't have understood, nor born, the sentence that stopped you cold "Israel's invasion of Palestine" without having read two things that I hope others among us will read. One is My Happiness Bears No Relation to Happiness: A Poet's Life in the Palestinian Century by Adina Hoffman, a biography of the poet Taha Muhammad Ali who was 16 and living in Saffuriya a village in the Nazareth area in 1948. One thread of the book is Hoffman's investigation of Taha's claim that the IDF dropped bombs hear his village in July 1948, resulting in the villagers fleeing. Taha claimed to have seen the planes dropping the bombs. This account of planes dropping bombs in the area was widely spoken and believed by Palestinians, but in no accounts of the war, and vociferously denied by all Israelis, even soldiers who were there. However, Hoffman went into the archives of recently (recent to 2009) declassified IDF documents that detail the 91 bombing sorties of 3 crop-dusters in early July, military descriptions of exactly what Palestinians had recorded in oral histories.
The second piece I think is indispensable reading to a Jewish understanding of Etaf Rum's statement is something I only recently found in our Temple library in the book Great Jewish Speeches. It is the March 1946 address by Martin Buber and Judah Magnes arguing for a binational state. After reading this speech several times, my perspective changed, though it was well-known that if Palestine was divided and if the Jews declared a state there would be war, some of our best minds and spiritual leaders were desperately advocating for something else. This is well known. But what I felt changed for me, was that I could see how, from a Palestinian perspective, the declaration of the State of Israel was the initiation of the war, rather than the invasion by the Arab states. I look forward to reading Rum's book, and hearing other Jewish opinions of it. Clare Kinberg, Temple Beth Emeth Library, Ann Arbor On Sun, Jan 12, 2020 at 3:19 PM Jonina Duker via Hasafran < [email protected]> wrote: > Has anyone done an analysis of the very popular 2019 novel _A Woman is No > Man_- by Etaf Rum? I am a professional book discussion facilitator (among > other things) and for the first time declined to facilitate because I could > not make myself read the book (and I have in fact read in order to > facilitate plenty of both fiction and non-fiction that were awful, or whose > premises were deceptive, or distorted the facts, etc. etc. etc. Other > factors contributing: a Pittsburgh native, I started to read it just after > the Jersey City and Monsey domestic terrorist attacks; the group is the > "private" group as in not sponsored by an institution and all of them are > Jewish women in their seventies most of whom have known each other since > childhood). I was stopped on page 4 by this sentence, and just could not > read further ... the author is writing about Lyd and how the family's home > was taken by occupying Israeli forces in what is implicitly by earlier > dating 1948, what stopped me cold was " "Israel's invasion of Palestine". > Again, the implicit dating is 1948. (At that point, of course, the > referents for the word "Palestine" would only have been Jewish ones.) > Anyone have more on this one? Similar to the wonderfully helpful posting > Marjorie Gann just did. Or maybe the book got better ... I don't know, for > the first time in my long life of decades of professional facilitating and > volunteer facilitating since 7th grade, I couldn't read a book for a book > discussion. Thank you in advance. Jonina Duker > __ > Messages and opinions expressed on Hasafran are those of the individual > author > and are not necessarily endorsed by the Association of Jewish Libraries > (AJL) > ================================== > Submissions for Ha-Safran, send to: > [email protected] > To join Ha-Safran, update or change your subscription, etc. - click here: > https://lists.service.ohio-state.edu/mailman/listinfo/hasafran > Questions, problems, complaints, compliments send to: [email protected] > Ha-Safran Archives: > Current: > > http://www.mail-archive.com/hasafran%40lists.service.ohio-state.edu/maillist.html > Earlier Listserver: > > http://www.mail-archive.com/hasafran%40lists.acs.ohio-state.edu/maillist.html > AJL HomePage http://www.JewishLibraries.org > -- > Hasafran mailing list > [email protected] > https://lists.osu.edu/mailman/listinfo/hasafran > -- Clare Kinberg
__ Messages and opinions expressed on Hasafran are those of the individual author and are not necessarily endorsed by the Association of Jewish Libraries (AJL) ================================== Submissions for Ha-Safran, send to: [email protected] To join Ha-Safran, update or change your subscription, etc. - click here: https://lists.service.ohio-state.edu/mailman/listinfo/hasafran Questions, problems, complaints, compliments send to: [email protected] Ha-Safran Archives: Current: http://www.mail-archive.com/hasafran%40lists.service.ohio-state.edu/maillist.html Earlier Listserver: http://www.mail-archive.com/hasafran%40lists.acs.ohio-state.edu/maillist.html AJL HomePage http://www.JewishLibraries.org -- Hasafran mailing list [email protected] https://lists.osu.edu/mailman/listinfo/hasafran
