Part of that story was hearing my parents talk about hiding Jewish folk from the Nazi extermination machine. It was formative for me and it was told in the context the Chosen people that was the scripture lens we were reading through. In my late teens I was very taken by the historical novels of Leon Uris (Exodus) and then by the works of Chaim Potok, particularly, The Chosen, My Name is Asher Lev and Davida’s Harp. I was captivated by the peculiar world of New York’s Hadic Jewish community. When I started teaching, I was introduced to Issac Bashevis Singer and taught some of his short stories and later his novel The Slave. That was followed by a favorite musical Fiddler on the Roof which I directed for high school, with its beloved main character Tevya. I could and still can relate to him. I have long had a fascination with Holocaust films and novels and still read them as they are published.
But I confess that I was ignorant to the fact that there was another narrative that was playing out in Palestine all that time and I feel like that last ten years have been a frantic attempt to be attentive to a deep and tragic injustice that has been unfolding, an unholy story in a Holy Land.
Nigerian novelist Chimamanda Ngozi Adichie in her TED Talk from a number of years ago, The Danger of a Single Story talks about the importance of reading widely to avoid wearing blinders to history. Life is more complex than that. There are places to look and listen to another story. Mapping Israeli Occupation is one of those places; a beginning place to realize that there is no single story.