An attempted translation of a short story by Yossel Birshtein

I am but a shadow/ Yossel Birstein (from “Stories Dancing in the Streets of Jerusalem”)

A famous poet came to my house. Walked around in my room with a drink in his hand, and talked about himself and about Jerusalem.
Was enthusiastic with both.
So much so that he sat in the chair and did not realize that he was sitting on me.
I signaled my wife not to shout. Let me be a shadow. He’s heavy. He’s weighing down on me. And I am involved but I cannot interfere.Jerusalem too weighs down on me. But when a new story emerges on the horizon, and even it is weighing down on me, I choose to remain a shadow – involved but not interfering.

May 24 Conference Meeting

These are some clarifications I would like to make about what I’ve said at the last video conference. I thought about it a lot and I think my discomfort with the position I found myself in during this course, has distorted some of what I had to say. A great deal of my discomfort was actually my discomfort with my being an Israeli. At the beginning of this course, before we started the video conferences, I read a piece about what happened to the Palestinians in Haifa during the 1948 war. I told Vered then, that Israelis can debate their history's accuracy but I'm not sure we can be proud of it. I see my frustration as a positive thing: this course frustrated me, in part, because it made me do what I've been avoiding from doing for a long time- facing the reality. I'm grateful for having had the chance to do so. Although I still think that in order to establish a fruitful dialogue, the materials should have been more balanced, what I meant for was to raise the following question, must a sense of belonging to a place (Makom) rely solely and exclusively on a connection to the land itself. I feel that as an Israeli in the context of such a course, I'm at a competition I'm supposed to lose and I have no desire to compete with anyone. It's not debatable that historically the Palestinians are more connected to the land itself, but Israeli's also have a very strong connection to the place, some of it- a connection through text. Is a connection to the land exclusively defines the connection to the place, or do other possibilities of connection are equally valid? I would like to take this opportunity to once again thank Aaron for his remark; I guess keeping an open mind means willing to accept even the unexpected. Since this is the end of this course, I just wanted to say thank you all for an enlightening experience.

First week's readings

First I'd like to apologize for me limited use of English. I'm trying my best. After reading the articles (a long time ago; sorry for my delayed response; so many apologies…) I've read the comments posted here. I'm sad to admit it but I do question the very possibility of an open discussion about Palestinian-Israeli matters, even in an allegedly politics-free context such as this course, because only half of the possible efforts are being put to use. One of the thing that were rose from both Galit's piece and Suad's was the discourse's (as well as the practice's) inability to break free of the Political context. And it should be so. If I have any criticism here, it is towards the somewhat naïve attempts, you sometimes encounter, to create a non-political communication. I do not want those attempts to stop either. I give full credit to any attempt of establishing dialogue between Israelis and Palestinians. If there's anything clear by now, it is that the politicians take their sweet time not talking to one another at the expense of people's suffering. It's clear that open discussion, as an inseparable characteristic of the two people's culture, could emerge only from the people themselves, not from their so-called leaders. I'm merely suggesting here that we change the way we talk to each other (and talk more often): we should combine the two discourses- the political and the non-political. If we want to create change we cannot leave a portion of the matter unhandled. We have to be brave enough in both directions- listening to one another and stating what we have to say. The challenge is not just talking to each other; this is not a historical-geographic cocktail party. Lives are on the balance here and we cannot afford to pretend we're making real progress when were not. We must rise up to the challenge that is discussing what combines us (folklore and ethnography can serve us well to locate that) and also what separates us, namely- the conflict. Perhaps some real progress would have been made back then if the teams of the geopolitical project worked together with the teams of the cultural- academic project. We might not have gotten either- the festival or peace- but maybe, just maybe, we would have gotten one. That could have been real progress. That could have meant hope.