The Israel-Palestine Book Club – Transcript
SASHA COHEN: The world stands divided on Israel and Palestine, and the last seven months of Israel’s war on Gaza have only exacerbated a widening fracture among the American Jewish population.
Reporter Janna McPartland followed one young Jewish-American who began to question her support of Israel after October 7. Not knowing who to talk to about it, she started a book club to learn more about the history of the region. This is the story of her transformation.
JANNA MCPARTLAND: Is it ever too late to change your mind? Take a moment and think about your strongest held opinion. You might think, “Nothing could ever change what I think, what I know to be true.” But life can surprise you. This is a story about changing your mind when you least expect to.
[JULIA YOUTH GROUP TAPE]
Julia: [00:00:03] So this is for Shabbat… And then I’m also going to be the leader in the group.
Shir hamaalot, b’shuv Adonai et shivat Tziyon hayinu k’chol’mim.
[Translation: A song of ascents. When God restored the exiles to Zion it seemed like a dream.]
JM: You’re listening to New York City resident Julia Senise, singing the Birkat Hamazon, or in English: The “Grace After Meals.” It’s a series of blessings that Jewish people recite after sharing a meal together.
[JULIA YOUTH GROUP TAPE]
Julia: …Az yomru vagoyim: “Higdil Adonai la-a-sot im eileh.”
[Translation: Then was it said among the nations: “God has done great things for them.”]
JM: This recording is from several years ago, when Julia was in high school. You can hear her still practicing her pronunciation before she leads her youth group through Shabbat dinner.
[JULIA YOUTH GROUP TAPE]
Julia: May God who makes peace in high places make peace for us, for all of Israel, for all of humanity.
V’imru: Amein.
[Translation: Let us say: Amen.]
JM: Julia’s in her early twenties now, living and working in Queens, where she was raised by a Jewish mother and a Catholic father.
Julia: [00:05:05] We did both holidays. We wouldn’t do presents for Hanukkah. We would just do presents for Christmas.
JM: But when she talks about her school days, her favorite memories take her back to one place in particular: B’nai Birth Youth Organization – an after-school youth group for Jewish teens. We all remember high school, right? You’re experimenting with everything, from clothes, to sports, to boyfriends. And you’re trying on different labels – theater kid, debate captain, prom king – hoping one or two might feel right. For Julia, high school was when she embraced being-
Julia: [00:27:45] Jewish is what I am, like, that’s like the thing that I practice the most. I think BBYO helped me find the love for the religion. I wasn’t the only Jew that I knew.
JM: She was quickly elected to a leadership position in BBYO and went to their national conventions, which were basically huge sponsored parties for hyperactive, horny teenagers. The conventions were also where Israel advocacy groups, like Birthright and March of the Living, would connect with young Jewish Americans and encourage them to make aliyah to the Jewish homeland.
Julia: [00:24:00] So, making Aliyah is moving to Israel. And it’s yours, and it belongs to you and you should have never even left, you know?
JM: Aliyah is just one example of how personal Israel can feel to Jews around the world who maybe have never even been there before.
Janna: [00:51:50] At these conventions or any kind of like larger sponsored meetups, did you hear any of these terms in these places?
Julia: Like Palestine? Never. Not once. Ever. Like, literally never. I It was really framed that all people can live in Israel and be happy. The Palestinian perspective was just never relevant, ever.
JM: American Jews have a long history of voting for Democratic candidates and leading social justice movements. But many liberal American Jews of Julia’s generation who were raised believing that Zionism – the political ideology that Jews should have a homeland – is an inseparable part of their Jewish identity, are now facing an uncomfortable question: Has Zionism excused Israel from treating Palestinians as equal citizens?
[FREE PALESTINE DC RALLY AND MARCH TAPE] Protestor: [00:00:11] Resistance is justified when people are occupied!
JM: I first spoke to Julia back in November 2023 about where she was on October 7. In the past, Julia found that Zionism and liberalism fit neatly under her belief in equality and safety for all people. But October 7 muddied everything. She was left …
Julia: [00:16:00] Really confused. This is like, really splitting the left, I feel. And it’s just confusing, and I just want to be on the right side of history, and I just don’t know what that is.
JM: Sometimes that’s the best place to start: admitting that maybe you don’t have all the information you need. Julia began to see pictures of protest signs naming Israel a “settler” or “apartheid state” on Instagram.
Julia wanted to stay Pro-Israel, but it was getting harder to justify the mass Palestinian deaths at the hands of the Israeli government.
[FREE PALESTINE DC RALLY AND MARCH TAPE] Protestor: [00:00:22] It’s been 28 days since we realized that we have to convince the world of our humanity.
JM: Julia wanted to gain a deeper understanding of what was going on in the region before the founding of Israel in 1948. At the end of our first call, she told me that amid all this noise, she was starting a book club.
Julia: [00:00:28] It’s specifically about Israel-Palestine. I think it’ll be really good. Maybe each book, we do a different perspective. One Palestinian perspective, an Israeli perspective….
JM: I got back in touch with Julia a couple months after the book club began. They were in the middle of their first book: One Palestine Complete: Jews and Arabs under the British Mandate, by Israeli historian Tom Segev.
JM: At over 500 pages, it was an ambitious first pick, surely not lacking in any detail.
When I asked Julia how it was going, she said:
Julia: [01:09:35] I thought I was gonna be able to be like, “No, this is wrong. This is why Israel is good.” And then my head turned on a 360 and it’s, “Oh, Israel has not been good.”
[LOGGING ONTO ZOOM] Julia: [00:04:45]: Okay, should we just jump into it then?
JM: Many weeks on the book club zoom, it’s just Julia and Jennie, another young Jewish New Yorker.
Julia aims to cover two chapters every meeting.
Julia: [00:05:35]: Who was discussed in the chapter? Notable names, characters, populations…
JM: That may not sound like much, but there’s a lot of history to sort through. Today they’re discussing Chapter 10.
Moved by anti-Semitism and the mass slaughtering of Jews, known as pogroms, in Eastern Europe, Theodor Herzl, founder of the Zionist movement, wrote in 1896: “The Idea which I have developed in this pamphlet is a very old one: it is the restoration of the Jewish State.”
The collapse of the Russian Empire at the end of the 1910s led to more pogroms. Many, in search of a safer life. chose to go to Palestine only after the United States closed its door to mass immigration in 1924.
Jennie thumbs through the chapter.
Jennie: [00:22:00] It just started making me think of , like, were these immigrants that were being denied, were they, were they in the holocaust?
JM: Julia and Jennie make note of rising tensions between Jews and Arabs in 1920s Palestine.
Julia: [00:25:45] The Arab majority argued that the national home policy contradicted the principle of democracy and Arabs’ own right to self-determination.
Jennie: [00:27:00] In modern times, like I learned as a Jewish person, like, oh yeah, the reason why Palestinians can’t be Israeli citizens is because then that would throw off the numbers and then it would no longer be a Jewish majority. Literally reading that they went about changing the country’s demographic mix to work for them, kind of, like, feels a little, like, disturbing, like… you want to have Jewish democracy, but, like, there’s other people here, too. It’s just disheartening, I guess.
JM: I later asked Julia what has most surprised her about reading the book.
Julia: [01:06:30] I think before 10/7 I really thought, oh, Zionism is just like the belief that Jews have a right to the homeland. You could say Zionism to one person and the next person will have such a different definition. Same with from the river to the sea, like same with free Palestine, like everybody’s got a different, you know, definition. // [01:07:00] Since reading the book, the word Zionism is the political Zionist movement. And, you know, its connection to the British government. I know the historical roots of colonization in Israel now. And I’m not so defensive about that because, you know, because that’s what happened.
JM: Jennie went to Hebrew school, spent a gap year living in Israel and has a brother who lives there on a kibbutz with his Israeli wife and their two children. Over time, Israel has only felt more and more personal.
Jennie: [00:21:00] It’s very informative and It’s pushing me out of my comfort zone. And it also talks more about the Arab history in the land, which I also don’t know much about.
// [00:18:30] It is me and Julia for a lot of it and I feel like Julia, I really trust her. It’s like a safe space, like a non-judgmental space. Or even if there’s judgment, it’s like inquiring judgment. Like, tell me more about why you think that way, it’s not like… oh I’m going to cancel you because of this question that you have or this thought that you have.
[LOGGING OUT OF ZOOM] Julia: [02:38:15] Ughh, my brain hurts. We’ll have some time before the next one. Have a good night everybody.
JM: I wondered how book club was affecting the kinds of conversations Julia and Jennie were having with other people in their lives. I asked them if they could share their experiences in the book club so far with their mothers. This is how it went for Julia.
Hillary: [00:01:20] My name is Hillary and I’m Julia’s mom. My feeling about the past six months is mixed between disbelief, and just general headshaking. I can’t understand how so many people can’t see what I believe to be a clear instance of right and wrong. Any other country in the world has the right to defend themselves when attacked. But Israel doesn’t have the right to defend itself. All that has to happen for this war to stop is for the terrorists to let the hostages go…. That’s all that has to happen.
Julia: Do you know about my transformation? It’s not like anything really major. It’s more about the history.
Hillary: My transformation is one of anger. I feel less tolerant. And I feel more severe punishment has to come forward, rather than sitting down and negotiating.
Julia: What do you think about my transformation?
Hillary: I’m not, I, I, I haven’t had a real in-depth conversation about how you’ve been transformed. I’m assuming from this that you feel that there are valid arguments on each side. Is that right?
Julia: That’s accurate.
Hillary: How do I feel about that? I feel it’s your business. And what I see as nonsense, you may see as, you know, valid points… What’s the matter?
Julia: I don’t know. Oh my gosh.
Hillary: [00:08:30] It’s okay. What are you upset about?… I think you’ve probably learned a lot from the book club. And you’ve discovered facts and information that I probably don’t know about, which has given you a broader picture of the situation. And I think that’s great. That’s great. But from my standpoint, I don’t have that patience that you have. // [00:09:30] I’m too angry about everything.
Julia: [00:10:00] The violence and the death and, innocent people, that’s so black and white, but then, the history of the region is not black and white-
Hillary: Right- I just want to reiterate how proud I am of you for doing something, for taking action, and for creating an opportunity for people to come together and talk.
Julia: Thank you.
Hillary: You’re not just sitting back and moaning and saying, Oh, what’s this? Or being upset. You’re doing something about it, and that’s the most important thing in the world.
Julia: Thank you.
JM: Julia and Jennie got together later to debrief.
Julia: [00:24:30] I felt myself tweaking, yeah like I didn’t want to say the wrong thing and like, the specific thing is like, hearing my mom say, like, I think Israel has the right to defend itself. Yeah, but I don’t think Israel has the right to kill children, you know? In my head that was just like playing over and over and I couldn’t articulate that in the moment.
Jennie: [00:36:00] I also felt like I had some self-doubt when I started talking about my transformation because I think when I initially brought the questions to my mom, she was like, I don’t really know much even about your book club. I felt like I had been telling her stuff, like I felt like I had been like, oh my god, I read about the history of kibbutzim but then it’s like, wait am I actually not having that much of an impact. But then again, I have noticed, like, I feel like when my mom tells me stuff, maybe I have more pushback now. After we stopped the interview, we were still sitting there and I was like, Oh, I actually have like another question about what you said. And we started talking more about the politics and I feel like we’ve never like really sat down and had like, a conversation. It’s kind of like book club in a way that it’s like when you’re talking to someone, you can trust I feel like you can have a more effective conversation, maybe… I’ve never just sat down and, and, and really spent time just listening to what she had to say. So I enjoyed it.
Julia: [00:39:30] If the goal is to, like, change someone’s mind you have to alter your communication because [00:30:30] people don’t want to listen to someone who’s yelling at you. Or if you start, like, speaking to someone who is super pro-Israel and you’re like, you are committing genocide, you are complicit in genocide, like, that shuts people down, like, completely.
JM: Change is hard, and rarely takes place over night. Sometimes, one conversation, even if tense, uncomfortable, or frustrating, can open the door just a crack to more conversation. And more questions. And, hopefully, more understanding. That’s what Julia and Jennie will continue to do, in and outside of the book club.