A friend of mine from Tel Aviv pinpointed what irked me so about Bartov's talk: the complexities of public memory were never addressed. She said she'd wanted to ask him what he thought about there being no public memorials in Israel to the Arabs killed by the Israeli army. If you address the property stolen from the Jews int he 1940s, don't you also have to talk about the displacement of Palestinians in Israel today with the same sense of indignation?
She was working with some kids in Israel, and they did this thing where they brainstormed to think of possible solutions to the issues with Palestine. THey drew up a whole list. Some of their suggestions were deliberately outlandish (let's kill them all!), other proposed solutions were more subtle (limited citizenship under the one state). They voted on a final list, and when all was said and done, they were left, more or less, with the Nuremberg Laws. Food for thought.
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From grad school to the classroom, with a big break in between.
