End of Summer Roundup

September 21, 2019 / IlanaB / Leave a comment

I had an incredibly busy summer with approximately a zillion editing projects. Working with other people’s voices unfortunately affects my own voice. You could say I had a kind of laryngitis of my own writing voice – along with a lack of time, inclination, inspiration, and energy.

Baby steps to find my way back to the blog…

Elections

Israel just had its second election in five months. Seriously, America, you gotta up your game! What is the deal with a nearly two-year campaign to elect one person?

To be fair, while we can have an election really quickly, the result does leave something to be desired. There’s not much use in analysis right now since we don’t have a coalition and if one can’t be formed, we’ll have yet another election. Yay?

Am I Disloyal?

I really wanted to write when this hit the news cycle, but it took me a while to process this one because as a citizen of two countries, I’m the poster child for “dual loyalty.”

When I vote in Israel, I vote as an Israeli. I think about what is good for Israel. When I vote in US elections, I vote as an American. I think about what is good for the United States. It’s weird to me to vote for a US president who is “good for Israel.” It would also be weird to me to choose a party in Israel that is “good for the United States.” I expect the US president to think about the United States and its citizens before he or she thinks about what’s good for other countries. I expect the prime minister of Israel to think about what’s good for Israel and its citizens before he or she thinks about what’s good for other countries. It’s a pretty strict compartmentalization, but for me that’s the only way to think about how to use my voting power.

Does that make me disloyal? Not to my own principles and values.

Fiction Illuminates Reality

I did manage to take a few breaks (no spoilers).

Beforeigners

Along with my love of Korean drama, I really enjoy Nordic Noir (think Girl with Dragon Tattoo and the original The Bridge). This short series has a paranormal twist: people from the past appear in the bay in Oslo. A short time in the future, many more of these “beforeigners” have arrived and there are huge populations of, for lack of a better term, “Norwegians” from the Stone Age, the age of Vikings, and the 19^th century. Many don’t understand modern ways and live in the streets. They cook on open fires in parks. Some don’t believe in a Christian god. Graffiti shows up: “Norway for Nowaday People!”

In short, this show is able to show any horror that a refugee or immigrant might face without any backlash from any group. All the “foreigners” are from the exact same area, only a different time. There are a few scenes showing that beforeigners are picked up out of the water and taken to tent camps. They are scared, confused, and some lost their memories. They have nothing but the clothes on their backs. They are quarantined, drugged, sent to classes to help them adjust. Workplaces are openly prejudiced against beforeigners.

Illumination: It is a default response to reject the Other – someone different from us. To elevate ourselves, we have to acknowledge it and not pretend that there is some rationalization for “us” vs “them.” Build connections and find commonality. And then we can create a better future with everyone in it.

Spider-Man: Far From Home

I have to be careful here to avoid spoilers. (By the way: 2 Thumbs up!)

Villain: “The truth is what I say it is!”

Whoa Nelly! He’s the villain because he’s forcing his worldview on everyone else. I think we see that a lot in our online culture. We also see it in the many truths of multiple narratives. There may be a truth there, but it is not the only truth.

Illumination: What we learn through the movie is that you have to retain a sense of self to see through the illusion that others project onto you and the world around you. The key, of course, is to remember that yours too is not the only truth. (P.S. This will make more sense if you stay through to the end of the credits!)

Commitment

From here, I want to get back to a regular writing practice. I’ve missed it.

TV Review – Timeless

January 12, 2019 / IlanaB / Leave a comment

Short review: A historian, a soldier, and an engineer fighting a worldwide conspiracy to change history by traveling through time? Yes, please! Bonus: Goran Višnjić!

This was one of those shows that had to fight to stay on the air, but we got two good seasons. Thankfully, they had a Christmas special to tie up the loose ends and keep the door open a crack for a new series in the future.

As a historian, I found myself curious about the time periods and characters that they met. I spent time afterward looking up names and dates and thought about moments in history that might have ripple effects in the future – personal moments or historic moments. Just for sparking curiosity, I think this series is worth watching and I can’t wait to see more from Eric Kripke and Shaun Ryan.

Long review: More detailed descriptions of elements I liked. Not exactly spoilers, but if you don’t want to know, you’ve been warned.

I’ve written before about narratives in history and versions of truths and ultimate truths. And this series takes those ideas and turns them into an interesting story that opens the door to hidden histories. Each episode goes to a different time period and while we might think that the Time Team, as they are called online, is there to stop or save a big event, sometimes it’s a small event that has repercussions generations later.

This can be personal or simply an unknown story. For instance, I had no idea that a little recording session in 1936 by a guy named Robert Johnson would spark blues music, which would lead to rock and roll, the 1960s movements, and eventually to questioning authority (what the bad guys don’t want).

When you deal with merging multiple voices and multiple narratives the right way, you learn about characters you didn’t know before, like Grace Humiston, the first female Special Assistant US Attorney. She was known as Mrs. Sherlock Holmes for helping to solve cold cases involving missing women.

One fun episode was running into Ian Fleming in Nazi Germany. Fleming is the author of all the James Bond novels and he was a real-life spy during World War II. Another is stopping by the 1893 World’s Fair in Chicago. Having read Devil in the White City, I already knew that this was about one of the US’s most famous serial killers. Bonus for that episode: Harry Houdini. And what do you know about Hedy Lamarr? She wasn’t just a pretty face on the silver screen in the 1940s; if you use Bluetooth technology, then you are using something based on the principles she developed. If you haven’t seen the movie Hidden Figures, would you know anything about Katherine Johnson, a black woman working at NASA in the 1960s who made the lunar landing possible with her calculations?

A seemingly benign episode might have bigger repercussions if you think about it. The trio go back and meet the first black NASCAR driver, Wendell Scott. A number of auto executives were going to attend the race. So what happens if the execs get killed by the bad guys? Who would control the whole auto industry?

My favorite thing about the show is that it sparked my curiosity. We all know the basics of history, but to get the full truth, you have to hear all the voices. This was a great way to introduce untold stories to US audiences who suffered through white man’s history. (Or, in the vernacular of my liberal arts university: his-story.)

The great thing about this show is that we see people outside stereotypes. The historian is a young-ish woman. The engineer is a black Star Wars geek who graduated MIT. Another engineer is a Lebanese woman who likes Star Trek. The special agent in charge is Indian (from India) and is married to a black woman. The one character that is stereotypical is the Delta Force soldier; he’s a tasty morsel of all-American origin.

The show takes on the challenge of what a woman or a black man can do in history when neither one of those was respected in society. History is not seen through rose-colored glasses, but it’s not seen as the Dark Ages either. People survived and even thrived. The trio also has to make some tough choices. Would you try to stop the assassination of Abraham Lincoln?

If you watch a lot of TV and movies (who me?), then you’ll also get the inside jokes. Some of the most fun moments are when they make up names to hide their identities. Cagney and Lacey are investigators. Lando Calrissian is a record producer. John Maclane and Hans Gruber team up. Denzel Washington is a Civil War soldier. Every episode has fun Easter eggs if you’re quick enough to catch them.

Bottom line: If you like history, if you like turning what you know on its head, if you like to be challenged, and if you like laughing, then this show is for you.

Hunkering down

November 17, 2018 / IlanaB / 4 Comments

While I’m sure other stuff has been happening around the world, the last couple of weeks in Israel and the United States have been crazy.

How we deal with it at my house

In the US, we had a blue wave in the House, more firings in the White House, CNN had a stand-off with the president, the president popped over to France, and major elections had recounts.

In Israel, the apathy of the citizens of Jerusalem was staggering – the new mayor won by about 6,500 votes in a city with a population of 865,000 with only 30% of eligible voters voting. Israel is defending its citizens against attacks by Gazan rockets (460 rockets over several days from Gaza into Israel), but now there is a cease-fire. However, the defense minister stepped down, which rocked the delicate coalition, and that may bring about national elections.

And that’s just the tip of the iceberg.

“Truth is stranger than fiction.”

Yeah? I’ll have some of that fiction now, please.

The nice thing about fiction is that it’s clean and all the boring unimportant bits are taken out. You don’t have to waste your time on details that don’t push the story along. Real life has just too much stuff going on and you don’t know what’s really important or which way to look.

I’m a fan of thrillers, mysteries, police procedurals, and I’m not averse to vigilantes with strict internal moral codes. At the moment, my fictional world is making a lot more sense than real life. But I do need fiction that makes me think. I need a theory or a particular worldview to chew on.

A few weeks ago, a British show called Strangers caught my attention. A few of the main characters are British, but it was filmed in Hong Kong with Chinese actors speaking Chinese (scenes with subtitles!). My original thought about reviewing this series was to point out that Britain is now getting in on the Asian drama wave. But I’m going to take it in a different direction.

What I loved about this show was that it was filled with twists and turns I didn’t see coming. I know the usual tropes, so I really appreciate a show that keeps you guessing. For instance, here is a synopsis of the first fifteen minutes: A woman is driving while crying on the phone. She’s hit by a truck. A self-satisfied professor starts his lecture and is pulled out of the lecture hall to be told his wife has died in a car accident. He’s afraid of flying, but goes to Hong Kong to identify his wife’s body and bring her back to England. He sees a man holding a picture of his wife. Who is this man? None other than her Chinese husband who she’s been married to for the past 20 years.

Say what? I’m hooked. And it goes on like that for eight episodes: an unexpected twist every fifteen minutes or so.

I won’t spoil it for you. The unraveling of the mystery is very well done; I enjoyed the meandering pace.

What made me think, though, was a nearly throwaway line in the first minutes of the show. The smug professor wrote a book called Do Nations Exist? The brown-nosing student says “Nations are imagined; they only exist in our minds.” The professor answers, “Surely a group of people claiming to be a cohesive whole is, at best, a lie agreed upon.”

You can watch the whole show without ever thinking about this line ever again. However, given the events of real life, you might see that the story shows you the answer. Our professor leaves his ivory tower and arrives in a dirty, dark, smoggy Hong Kong. He finds that everything he thinks is true is not, everything he expects in the world is upside-down, and all of his British cultural touchstones have no meaning in Hong Kong. He expects the police to help, they don’t. He expects the British consular officers to help, they don’t. He thinks the Chinese husband is working against him, he isn’t. Then there’s the journalist, the university friend, the activist, the refugee, the Triad gangster, the conglomerate owner, the British consul, the hotel manager – no one is who they appear to be. And what about the elections in Hong Kong? There are protests and the usual rumors and power plays. But how does it fit in? (As I mentioned, nothing is introduced that isn’t important. It’s clean and we know where to look, even if it might be misdirection on the part of the writer.)

It’s possible that the important bit of the line is “a lie agreed upon.” When you hold up the mirror of fiction to real life, you might find that everything you think is true isn’t. All your expectations are baseless. Your interactions in the world go awry because you are a stranger in a strange land.

But then why throw in nations at all? Do they exist? Well, I suppose it depends on who you ask. If you are inside, then they don’t – or don’t have to. If you are outside, then they most assuredly do.

As for me, for the moment, I prefer to stay in my fictional world that makes some kind of sense. Real life is just too crazy right now.

Here’s the opening of Strangers

And a quick teaser

“Won’t you be my neighbor?”

September 22, 2018 / IlanaB / Leave a comment

“Mom, can I go visit with Mr. Rogers?”

Taking her 5-year-old’s request very seriously, she asked, “Well, how long will you be gone?”

“Oh, about a half an hour.”

“Ok. Have a good time.”

And I plunked myself down in front of the television and had an undisturbed visit with Mr. Rogers.

***

This Google Doodle is only in the United States and I know Mister Rogers is more or less an American phenomenon. I wish it was global.

“There is only one person in the whole world like you, and people can like you just because you’re you.”

A great message to give to children.

“You are special and so is everyone else in this world.”

A reminder that we should not only value ourselves, but that each person has value.

“Childhood lies at the very heart of who we are and who we become.”

Our childhoods don’t have to be perfect, but if we are allowed to use the tools to learn and grow from our experiences, then we can make ourselves and the world around us better.

***

All of Mr. Rogers’ messages fit in with the Jewish value of choosing life.

And where there is life, there is hope.

Perhaps this Google Doodle will remind people, especially people in power, of a few simple truths:

“I feel that those of us in television are chosen to be servants. It doesn’t matter what our particular job, we are chosen to help meet the deeper needs of those who watch and listen – day and night!”

“I’d like to be remembered for being a compassionate human being who happened to be fortunate enough to be born at a time when there was a fabulous thing called television that could allow me to use all the talents that I had been given.”

So now, in the New Year, and a day before my birthday (my own new year), I wish you all a life of purpose and meaning, doing the things that you love that make you, your families, and the world around you better.

And if you need a little inspiration, go have a visit with Mr. Rogers. It is surely time well spent.

“True”

January 12, 2018 / IlanaB / 7 Comments

The news has taken a lot of my attention this week and I want to share a thought about the controversial book, Fire and Fury. There was this quote (image from the Kindle preview and full disclosure, I haven’t read the book)

It sounds like what he’s saying is that untruth is part of this book. So then what do you believe? This is something that has been touched on in different reports, but is not explored in depth.

It reminded me about biased journalism against Israel that reporters often deny. One well-known example of this is the battle in Jenin in 2002. Journalists faithfully and accurately quoted the residents of Jenin and Palestinian spokespeople who said that 400-500 Palestinians were massacred in Jenin and that the Israelis committed war crimes. These allegations spread throughout all the news outlets because they were indeed accurately reported. It’s just that what was said was not at all true. In fact, 52-54 Palestinians and 23 IDF soldiers were killed in the fighting. By the time that came out, no one was listening and so when people think of Jenin, the first thing they usually think is “massacre.” (It’s also true that Israel did not handle the media properly at the time and restricted their access.)

I’m not defending the Trump White House here, but Michael Wolff has basically done the same thing. He has faithfully and accurately reported things that were said to him, but he has no way of knowing which parts are true unless he was a witness. Does DT go to bed at 6:30pm with a cheeseburger? Who knows? Did all those people call him different variations of stupid? Only if Michael Wolff heard it with his own ears. Did he not want to win the presidency? Unknown.

Some in the media think that it’s enough to say that what they are reporting is “true” simply because it is exactly what someone said. They need to also check that what is being said is objectively true. When Sean Spicer said that the crowd was the biggest that there had ever been for an inauguration, the media did their due diligence and showed that this was objectively untrue. They need to apply the same standards across the board to all their news stories. They need to remember that they are not just reporters of statements (or tweets), but investigative journalists who have a responsibility as the Fourth Estate to find out what is true, and not limit their investigations to what fits their own personal agendas and the story they want to tell. That means that whether a journalist is pro or anti Trump or pro or anti Israel, their first responsibility is to get as close to the objective truth as they can.

I saw an interesting piece about journalists in the Netherlands grilling US Ambassador to the Netherlands Pete Hoekstra about false statements he made about Dutch politicians being burned and “no-go zones” taken over by Muslim extremists. The Dutch journalists banded together and no one asked any other question except if he would give an example or retract his statements. They asked quietly and respectfully, but did not back down.

If we can get the media to investigate something, what I’d like to know is: If the president is playing golf and cutting back on his schedule (starting his day at 11am and scheduling “executive time” for hours every day), then who is picking up the slack? I can imagine that the ship of government continues to sail without a strong rudder, but shouldn’t someone be at the helm? Is there an autopilot? Can the ship run aground? And if so, what happens then? Or, and I may be veering into conspiracy theory territory here, perhaps there is someone in the background (who did not run for president) who is actually steering the ship? Is the apparent chaos in the White House a distraction?

The 24-hour news cycle and ratings/clicks-driven stories don’t necessarily leave a lot of time for journalistic integrity and investigation. But maybe we as consumers need to demand more, demand better, and demand verifiable and objective truths.

Metaphors-R-Us

March 31, 2017 / IlanaB / 1 Comment

Here’s the news today.

Scary!

This is what it looked like outside at 11:30 am.

Reason #37 to be on a news diet.

“Alternative Facts”? Sure, I’ve heard of those!

January 27, 2017January 27, 2017 / IlanaB / 4 Comments

I just liked this headline from The Guardian

When Kellyanne Conway used this phrase this week, my first thought was that if she had any sense she would have said that it was a “different interpretation of facts.” And then it occurred to me, “Hey, we have plenty of ‘alternative facts’ reported about us in Israel.”

A few weeks ago 4 soldiers were run over by a truck driver on purpose in a targeted attack. Here’s what the BBC first reported.

Screenshot from my computer

There is actually nothing untrue in this headline. A truck driver was shot. It happened in Jerusalem. There were allegations that he hit people and injured them. And the Israeli media reported it.

But do you see the problem here? It’s the arrangement and presentation of the facts.

Does it feel different when you see the headline this way? Here’s their later post.

Screenshot from my computer

Still true, but now you understand who the victims are and who the perpetrator is and that it was an attack – not an alleged attack according to others.

I’m an editor. I work with words for a living and it matters how facts are framed. For instance:

Four young soldiers murdered in vicious truck ramming attack.

Four killed by truck.

Truck driver runs over four soldiers.

Terrorist shot in his truck after he killed four soldiers.

Truck driver shot after fatal accident kills four.

All of these sentences have the same facts, but you feel differently about each because of how those interpretations are framed. And yet none of them is a lie.

The most shocking example of different interpretations of facts I’ve heard of was in 2007 when a master’s student won an award for a research thesis that looked into the question of why IDF soldiers don’t rape Palestinian women. Her conclusion – hold on to your socks – it’s because IDF soldiers are racists and dehumanize Palestinian women so they wouldn’t even want to rape them. Let me repeat. She WON AN AWARD for this work and Hebrew University stood behind the decision. (Here’s an analysis of the paper done by a professor at Haifa University. Here’s a shorter article about it.)

That’s an alternative fact if ever I’ve heard one.

I’m not defending Kellyanne Conway. I’m not defending journalists who write news stories with their own biases and agendas. And I’m not defending the academic world.

I’m appealing to you, dear reader, to be aware. Read multiple news sources. Read news you don’t agree with (in moderation if you have high blood pressure). Watch out for fake news. Analyze and deconstruct what you read and hear. More than anything else, hold people accountable for the words they use and how they use them.

UNESCO Rewrites History

October 15, 2016October 17, 2016 / IlanaB / 6 Comments

Mom told me a story once about her mother and how she had once been a history teacher in the Soviet Union. She was helping her students prepare for a big exam and reminding them how a certain general was a “hero of the people.” During the week of preparations, this general became an “enemy of the people,” so all the questions about him were changed to reflect his new status. Grandma was disillusioned and changed careers to become an accountant.

That was the Soviet Union then. This is now.

This week a UNESCO resolution is trying to rewrite history and suggest that Jews and Christians have no connection to the Old City of Jerusalem. I mentioned the resolution in a blog post in July and discussed very briefly the postmodern idea of “narratives of history” in May.

The main problem (among many others) with the resolution is that it purposely eliminates or minimizes the Jewish names of the holy sites: Al-Aqsa Mosque/Al-Haram Al-Sharif is never referred to as the Temple Mount and Buraq Plaza is the name for the “Western Wall Plaza” (quotation marks in original). Full text is reprinted here.

The “Buraq Plaza” of 1916-1917 – not much of a plaza and not a Muslim site.

Source

The Office of Foreign Affairs posted this on their Facebook page to highlight the changing of history aspect of the purposeful elimination of names.

Prime Minister Binyamin Netanyahu issued a statement that said:

To say Israel has no connection to the Temple Mount is like saying that China has no connection to the Great Wall of China or that Egypt has no connection to the pyramids. With this absurd decision, UNESCO has lost the modicum of legitimacy it had left.

And he followed it up with this tweet.

In my opinion, the most worrisome thing is the vote. The resolution was approved in committee 24 for and 6 against, with 26 abstentions. The countries that stood up to vote against this resolution were: Estonia, Germany, Lithuania, The Netherlands, United Kingdom and United States. I applaud their strength! I wonder about the countries that abstained. They chose not to vote yes, but could not bring themselves to vote no. Abstaining doesn’t mean they get to pretend this resolution didn’t happen.

UNESCO’s Director-General issued a lukewarm statement mentioning that all three monotheistic religions have a connection to the Old City, but did not cancel or condemn the resolution.

In response, Israel’s government has suspended cooperation with UNESCO at this time. And rightly so.

Being a UNESCO Heritage Site used to be a badge of honor. But if UNESCO can vote on and pass resolutions that skew and twist history to suit a particular agenda, doesn’t it call into question all of UNESCO’s decisions and resolutions? Is UNESCO a new totalitarian regime telling us what history is?

Legends of the Ari: Truth and faith

May 27, 2016 / IlanaB / Leave a comment

This story has many versions, but the basic outline is generally the same.

There once was a rabbi in Tzfat (Safed) who gave a sermon about the loaves of bread in the tabernacle. A baker was so inspired by this that he went home and baked additional loaves of Shabbat challah and put them in the Aron Kodesh (the cupboard where the Torah scrolls are kept) as a gift to God.

A poor man who helped clean the synagogue came to sweep after prayers and stood before the Aron Kodesh and prayed to God for help to feed his family for Shabbat. He opened the Aron Kodesh and found the bread inside. It was a miracle!

The next morning when the Aron Kodesh was opened at services, the baker saw that the loaves had been taken and he was overjoyed. God accepted his gift!

This went on week after week for many years.

Finally, the rabbi saw the baker put the loaves in the Aron Kodesh and shouted at him: “Why are you putting bread in there?” The baker answered, “I’ve been doing this for many years and God accepts my gift every week.” “You’re an idiot! Do you think God eats challah?” The baker was embarrassed, but they decided to hide and see what happened.

The poor man came to clean and then stood before the Aron Kodesh praying. He opened it and took the loaves. The rabbi popped out and said, “Aha! What are you doing?” The poor man said, “I’m taking the challah that God has provided for me.” “You’re an idiot! Do you think God bakes?”

The Ari heard the story and gave his ruling: The rabbi was in the wrong. The two men did what they did with pure and loving faith and the rabbi destroyed it. He asked the two men to continue the tradition – the baker would provide the bread to honor God and the poor man would accept it with gratitude to God. The rabbi had been ill at the time of his original sermon, but had been given a reprieve because he had inspired such faith in the two men. Now that he had broken their faith, his illness was returned to him.

Usually this story is told to inspire faith, to suggest divine intervention, and to reveal the wisdom of the Ari. I’m going to turn that interpretation sideways to link this story with last week’s post.

We need to have facts and objective truths (the rabbi), otherwise “history” becomes story, legend, or myth (the two men’s narratives of weekly miracles). External recorded facts (the bread was provided by the baker and taken by the poor man) provide the framework to question or confirm our narratives and this eventually brings us to a deeper and more profound understanding (our paths cross for a reason and we should continue to do good even if the reason is human and not divine). Then we can truly learn from history and will not be doomed to repeat it.

Why bring up the Ari this week?

This week we celebrated Lag B’Omer. Most Israelis don’t really know the history of the holiday, but what they do know is that one of the traditions is to light bonfires and celebrate into the night.

Hundreds of thousands of people travel to Mt. Meron near Tzfat to participate in a huge bonfire at the grave of Rabbi Shimon Bar Yochai, the author of the Zohar. The Zohar is the primary text for the study of the Kabbalah. The Ari (the Lion) is the nickname for Rabbi Isaac Luria, one of the greatest Kabbalist scholars of all time.

The Truth about History

May 21, 2016May 21, 2016 / IlanaB / 5 Comments

When I was in university many years ago, I studied history. I didn’t learn a linear collection of facts, I learned feminist history (also known as her-story), varieties of narratives, and that history is complicated. I was happy to learn history this way and I still believe that it’s valuable and necessary. The world IS complicated. Many people have a lot to add to the commonly known facts. But I think we’ve come to a crisis about history and what is true.

In a short little essay, it’s impossible to deeply explore this idea, so this is no more than a brief consideration about a few things that struck me this week.

I like being in Israel in the springtime and I like the spiritual journey that Israel as a country and as a people takes to get to Independence Day. It’s no secret that I consider myself a Zionist. But right around Independence Day there is another commemoration day called Nakba Day. Nakba is the Arabic word for “catastrophe.” On May 15, the Palestinian population marks the catastrophe of a Jewish state being created that at the same time created a refugee crisis.

I think people today consider history to be a story that is told about the past. There are heroes and villains. It’s not a gigantic leap to suspect that each nation is the hero in its own story. Even if we accept that not all heroes are perfect and not all villains are totally evil (a common theme in today’s storytelling), we still kind of need to see a cohesive storyline about the events of the past. We find comfort in cause and effect. It’s sensible and logical. Otherwise, it’s all just chaos and nothing matters. So when we tell ourselves stories about our past, we don’t simply recite facts in chronological order. We want to be entertained.

Wikipedia says that postmodernism is “typically defined by an attitude of skepticism or distrust toward grand narratives, ideologies, and various tenets of Enlightenment rationality, including the existence of objective reality and absolute truth, as well as notions of rationality, human nature, and progress.” We are also told that this is where the idea of relativism comes from, which includes the idea that truth is relative, both yours and mine.

So we circle back to Israel. According to postmodern history, Independence Day and Nakba Day are two equally true truths. From the point of view of Israel, its narrative is that five Arab armies attacked and Israel fought a war to give birth to the state. From the Palestinian point of view, they got kicked out of their homes and a new state was created that had no place for them. Postmodern theory tells us that with these two equally true truths – and the understanding that there may be more equally true truths – here we have a full picture of history.

The problem for me is that without the idea of an objective truth – tangible evidence and a series of provable facts – to balance each narrative against, then what exactly is true about any narrative? It’s true to you and therefore it’s true to everyone? I believe there is a place for narrative, but there also has to be a place to measure that narrative against facts and evidence. Additionally, if two narratives exist in parallel, do they even have to intertwine or can they stand alone and still be true?

Pulling all these thoughts together, I’m led to a spine-chilling fear. History is a story. Our narrative is true. We are heroes in our own stories. Today, we need to tell our stories in 144 characters or less. So the one with the shortest, most compelling, most entertaining, most memorable slogans wins history? After all, the most often repeated narrative becomes the first among equally true truths. I hope that this is not what we have come to.

This short essay is not an attempt to debate the truth of the Nakba or the truth of Independence Day. There are large sections of many libraries doing that without my input. The point of this essay is to suggest that all of us have a responsibility to remember that there are many voices that add to our understanding of the past and we should rejoice in the complexity of the world, but if we allow that all truth is relative and subjective, then everything and nothing is true. Somewhere there is a middle ground where we can have all the voices and a measure of truth.

The Write Place (for me)

All the writings, all right here

truth