The Dialogue Industry

This past Shabbat, I stayed over at my school so that I could attend the educators’ conference on Saturday. The house parent found me a free apartment in the kfar, and I joined my students for dinner in the dining hall on Friday night. They took my presence in stride, although they were a bit nonplussed by the rituals before I ate—only the Israeli at the table leaped to his feet as I made Kiddush, reminding me that I was still in Israel.

On Shabbat morning, teachers from schools around the region—ours, the Israeli kfar hayarok school, Haifa, Tulkarem, Gaza, East Jerusalem, among others—sat in a circle in the library, introducing ourselves. I noticed that I was the only Jew on my side of the circle, and then thought that something about being American makes me hypersensitive to the importance of crossing such invisible lines. On one side of me sat a Gazan teacher I’d become friends with earlier in the year, and on the other our school’s economics teacher from East Jerusalem.

There were three introductory speeches. An Israeli, a Palestinian, and a German who had organized this network of teachers explained their objectives and hopes. Most interesting was the German, who spoke disparagingly of the “dialogue industry” that has grown up in this region and his hope that dialogue has not yet lost its potency as a force for change.

The only point in the whole day in which actual conversation happened was informally, at lunch and between workshops. Mostly we planned future events for our students. And yet there were two moments that particularly interested me; the first when all the Arabic speakers in the room started yelling at each other, and the second when several Hebrew speakers started an argument with each other. Neither group could understand what the other was saying, but I was sitting between my friends from Gaza and East Jerusalem, so I got a pretty good picture of what the Arabic argument was about.

A teacher from Tulkarem interrupted the presentation that the director of the Gazan school was giving. As he shouted questions, my Gazan colleague turned to me, and asked, “can you believe this guy? So disrespectful.” I nodded sympathetically and then, hoping it wouldn't impede the effect of my sympathetic nod, asked, “umm, what is he saying?” Turns out, the Tulkarem teacher wanted the Gazan to be more honest, to really share what he thought, to admit that most Gazans are not as moderate as he is. Suddenly all the Arabic speakers were engaged in a loud debate, with my East Jerusalem friend telling me, “I’m going to calm everyone down” and joining the fray. The Israelis sat silently with goofy little grins on their faces, waiting for it to subside.

Later in the day, we were broken into small groups. One of the Israelis suggested planning a student listening activity about identity, but not about the conflict. A second challenged her: why not address the conflict? Isn’t that what this is all about? But the first refused—it’s too loaded, too controversial. The Israelis at my table erupted into Hebrew, saying essentially the same thing the Arabic speakers had said before: “what, are we not going to say what we really think? Are we supposed to stay quiet and politically correct?”

I left the conference shrugging my shoulders humorously. At no point did the whole group speak honestly about the difficulties of dialogue. The one thing that was made clear was that each side—if there are sides—were conflicted about the advisability of being honest with the other. The truth is, neither of us can talk to ourselves—perhaps it’s best we stick to polite commonplaces with each other. On the other hand, my Gazan colleague and I were the two who found the situation the most humorous. Perhaps common understanding is not a question of identity, but one of personality, after all.