Rabbis Remembering the Nakba
In the wake of the news that Avigdor Liberman is now trying to outlaw memory itself, you should know about a coordinated effort by rabbis across the country to provide a Jewish remembrance of the Nakba. Remarkable, important gatherings organized last Thursday in New York, Chicago, Philadelphia and the Bay Area…
While I believe that it is important for us to recognize the Palestinian narrative as authentic and to allow them the freedom to express that narrative I am very uncomfortable with Rabbis being the ones doing the expressing. There is no such thing as a “Jewish rememberance of the Nakhba”. Jews need to tell a Jewish story and Palestinians need to tell a Palestinian one.
I’ll say it again: it’s Nakba (????), with a kaf. Not Nakhba, not Naqba.
Oh right, Arabic characters (like Hebrew characters) don’t show up. Anyway, nun kaf ba ta marbuta.
Oy vey. Lieberman of all people should know that people, like watermelon seeds, when squeezed, fly further and with more force. Ban an activity, and it grows!
Let them have their remembrance but not on the streets. They shouldn’t have that right.
fm-
I don’t know the laws in Israel well enough, and i’m generally not a cheerleader of American democracy, but one thing that is essential and has always been a cornerstone is the right to free assembly–what is the use of free speech (the cornerstone of ANY democracy) if one does not have the right to assembly?
Let them have their PEACEFUL remembrance IN the streets. EVERYONE should have that right.
Banning Nakba day is the best way to motivate partially assimilated Arab youth to embrace it as a badge of solidarity with their fairly depressing, unheroic past, and thus create another fold in their dimensions of resistance to full cultural integration.
Lieberman has his strengths, but he is, unfortunately, also a reactionary. I don’t think he understands wars of narrative, but then, neither has any Israeli government in memory. From what I’ve read, and what I’ve heard him say, I think Sharansky does. We’ll see…