My Promised Land, by Ari Shavit
New York Times columnist Tom Friedman suggested that Obama and Netanyahu should read it: the book “is a real contribution to changing the conversation about Israel and building a healthier relationship with it.” …
My Promised Land – facilitator’s guide
What do you need?
- You need to have read the book yourself…
- You need for everyone attending the discussion to have read the book (or up to the chapter you are discussing, in the 9-part series) – no short cuts!
- You need to have worked through the guide, making decisions for yourself.
- You are welcome to print out any of the materials you wish. You can also run the entire session carbon-free.
- You need a quiet, well-lit room with comfortable seating for the discussion itself.
- Set up a flip-chart or white board. (more…)
My Promised Land – whole book structured discussion
Bettering or Battering?
A recurring theme in Shavit’s narrative is the difference, sometimes chasm, between intentions, actions, and results.
- What would you say were Shavit’s intentions in writing this book?
- Did he succeed?
The Jewish community throughout the world tends to be suspicious of those who criticize Israel and Zionism. This may be because criticism can serve two opposing intentions. Sometimes criticism is a call for destruction, and sometimes criticism is a call for improvement and reconstruction.
- How would you classify “My Promised Land” – reconstructive? destructive?
- Do you believe Shavit’s intentions were towards construction or destruction? (more…)
My Promised Land – working with the conversation units
The conversation units
We have created for you eight individual discussion units based on particular chapters of the book. You can work with these units in a nine-part series of meetings that culminate in the Whole Book Discussion, or you can work with the units as individual stand-alone modules.
For each discussion you will need
- to have read the book yourself…
- for everyone attending the discussion to have read the particular chapter under discussion AND Chapter One – At First Sight (this first chapter offers crucial context) – no short cuts!
- You need to have worked through the guide, making decisions for yourself.
- You are welcome to print out any of the materials you wish. You can also run the entire session carbon-free.
- a quiet, well-lit room with comfortable seating for the discussion itself.
- a flip-chart or white board. (more…)
My Promised Land – Provocative Facilitation
Here are some of what we may call the principles of provocative facilitation, in no particular order:
- Dialogue is not consensus
- Comfort must be hard-won, not worshipped
- Learning means going to visit
- Push for “authentic speech”
- We live with questions that can’t be answered (more…)
First Conversation Chapter Two: Into the Valley, 1921
Precis
This chapter focuses specifically on the Harod valley, (the south eastern part of the Yizrael valley), populated by a few poor Arab villages before Zionism arrived there in the Autumn of 1921. For centuries the valley had been sparsely populated and lightly farmed. A place of brackish water and disease. Shavit describes the new situation of Eastern European Jews and of Zionism at the end of the First World War. The crisis of the former had become much more acute and the forces awakening in the Zionist movement had responded with more radical and widespread solutions, including the idea of large scale settlement in the Yizrael (Jezreel) valley, a valley that resonated with Biblical memory. (more…)
Second Conversation Chapter Four: Masada, 1942
Precis
Masada in 1942 lies at the center of the chapter symbolically but Shavit’s narrative begins in the violent years of the Arab revolt of 1936 to 1939. These three years of almost unrelenting terror put Jew clearly against Arab and made it impossible for the Jews to maintain any kind of blindness to the Arab question that so many had exhibited up till then. In Shavit’s description, the 1936 campaign brought about a toughening of the Jewish psyche, a final realization that non-violent confrontation would be impossible.
Third Conversation Chapter Five: Lydda 1948
Precis
“Lydda 1948” takes us to another valley, the Lydda valley in the centre of the country and tells the story of the Zionist development of the valley from the first initiatives before the First World War through to the deportation of the inhabitants of Arab Lydda in the course of the 1948 war. (more…)
Fourth Conversation Chapter Six: Housing Estate 1957
Precis
In chapter six, Shavit chronicles a time when the population more than doubled as hundreds of thousands of immigrants poured into the young country. The majority of immigrants came from great trauma, whether the trauma of the Shoah or the trauma of radical and sudden dislocation from Arab lands. Through four personal stories, three from central and eastern Europe and one from Iraq, Shavit leads us into the lives of some of the traumatised Jews who arrived in the country in these years. (more…)
Fifth Conversation Chapter Eight: Settlement 1975
Precis
Shavit opens his chapter on settlement by exploring the effects of the 1967 and the 1973 wars. The Six Day war of 1967 brought Israeli control of the territories and liberated a potential messianic force within the ranks of religious Zionism. The 1973 war was a war of deep trauma for Israel and the eventual victory could not change the deep discontent regarding the war, the government and indeed, the entire leadership. A malaise was revealed and the country went into a kind of spiritual tailspin. Many sought new directions and new certainties. It is in the contrasting but cumulative effects of these two wars that Shavit locates the roots of the whole settlement enterprise. (more…)
