Christian Representations of Jerusalem

So, I've been thinking about/noticing Christian references to Jerusalem, and I thought I'd share them. Well, one references Jerusalem; the others reference the Jordan River.

You can't really hear the lyrics super well to this next one, but I wanted to post it b/c it's such an awesome rendition! The chorus of this song goes "I'm gonna lay down my burden / down by the riverside, down by the riverside, down by the riverside / I'm gonna lay down my sword and shield / down by the riverside/ gonna study war no more." (Quakers LOVE this one!)




And this last one - well, I'm not a huge fan of Beyonce's rendition. But I think it's really interesting that she did a recording of this!



One of the things that really strikes me about this is that a lot of the songs that reference Jerusalem and The Jordan River (at least in the U.S. context) are African-American spirituals, many of which were born out of slavery. I have my own theories here, but why do you all think this might be the case?

Reflections on Dr. Hermann's Visit

I found this particular image of the wall in Israel-Palestine particularly moving, so I thought I'd share it.

For me, at least, Dr. Hermann's visit to the class was incredibly, incredibly helpful. I feel like I have a much better understanding of the contemporary situation in both Jerusalem and larger Israel-Palestine. I was also impressed by the way that he was able to present multiple viewpoints. I felt like his presentation much more balanced than we often see in the media, as well as in activist circles. I'd love to hear even a fuller history from him!

We're just imagining it . . . or are we?

Dr. Hermann alluded to the idea of the nation as an imagined community in his presentation to our class last week. This concept is something that I've been kind of obsessed with since I initially came across it, and it's also something that the readings this week caused me to revisit. Basically, the idea of the imagined community - Benedict Anderson's term - is that nations are not inherent communities, and they are imagined because they are not based on any sort of concrete interactions. Okay. I'm going to link to wikipedia right now. I know this is not particularly scholarly, but it gives a good run-down of the concept: http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Imagined_communities

All in all, I buy this argument. It makes sense to me. And yet, we invoke this idea of the nation as home, the nation as some sort of *real* community all the time. I even think of it when I go home to Maine for a visit; I feel that I am part of a real community. And yet, I don't know most people in that community based on state borders. The community is imagined. Ali Qleibo also draws on the idea of the nation - or at least, location - a some sort of real, concrete community. He writes, "They do not have to know me personally, nor do I need to know them on a personal level. The warm feeling of belonging as registered by the little twinkle in the eyes, the polite lifting of the hand in salute, the warm evening greeting, masa' al-kheir, still dispel the deepest feeling of loneliness from my heart."

So, I guess my question about this reading would be . . . Is this his imagination? Is this actually something about Jerusalem that offers this sense of community, of belonging? Or, rather, is it simply that it an upbringing, a way of life that causes this sense of community? For example, if he grew up there, could Tulsa, Oklahoma be Jerusalem? Is this more about believing and/or imagining that Jerusalem (or Palestine, or Israel) is a community than it is about nations/states actually *being* communities?

Still dreaming . . .

This is the original post (the one that started it all!) that I wrote about the festival, so I thought I'd repost it since we're discussing that again today. :-)

I'm thinking a lot about dialogue. To be honest, I'm thinking about dialogue on a fairly constant basis, but I am thinking about it especially after doing this week's readings and because of the subject matter and nature of this class in general.

In Women's Studies (as well as in some other disciplines in the humanities), we LOVE to talk about dialogue. We love it. We see it as very core to what we - as scholars, academics, activists - do. For example,the Women's Studies classroom - and the feminist movement(s) more broadly - is really centered around dialogue. We speak of bringing a "multitude" or a "diversity" of voices into a space in order to displace the idea of a singular, over-arching authority figure. It's a way of legitimizing and honoring different people's knowledges and experiences. It's also a gesture toward embracing and including voices that have been marginalized.

In my own work, I too talk about dialogue. Grad students (for better or worse) become very good and spitting out our research interests in two sentences or less. When I speak of mine, I talk about looking at conflict narratives and "putting them in dialogue with each other." Even as I type this, I have trouble clearly conceptualizing what that means. It's the part of my research that still seems a bit fuzzy. I think that this project of looking for dialogue will mean reading women's narratives with, through, and against each other in order to see if there is any "conversation" taking place, to see if these narratives "speak" to each other in any way.

I'd love to hear what we each are personally hoping to get out of this project of dialogue. Why enter into this sort of transnational dialogue? What are our aims? How do we enter into this dialogue productive and realistically? Is it okay to be idealistic and hope that dialogue truly does have the power to transform? Does it?

Wow. I'll stop asking questions now. These are just some of the questions I've been carrying with me. I thought perhaps I'd share them.

Final Project

So, for my final project, I plan to go around the campus and ask people at random (probably largely on the Oval and in the Union) the following questions:

- What are you studying?

- What's your age?

- Where are you from?

- How do you identify yourself politically, if you do identify yourself politically?

- How do you identify yourself religiously, if you do identify yourself religiously?

- What do you know of the situation in Israel-Palestine?

- How do you think Jerusalem is crucial to the conflict?

- Do you think there is any possible resolution to the conflict?

I'm then going to make a video of the responses (or, at least some of the responses). I'm interested to see if any patterns emerge as well!

Jerusalem International Chamber Music Festival

Well, in exploring the web and looking for musical events in Jerusalem, I found The Jerusalem International Chamber Music Festival.

This caught my attention for a number of reasons, but the first was that the site is available in English and Hebrew, but not Arabic. So, it seems to me that it's clearly meant for a particular audience. Then, I looked at the sponsors and benefactors, and many (most) of the sponsors and benefactors are based in the U.S. and Europe, and my guess (based on names) is that many of those who provide funding for the festival are Jewish or connected to Judaism in some way. Also, it's interesting to note that the music being featured is mostly European.

I wonder, what are the political ramifications about a festival like this that seems to be intentionally exclusionary? (And this is not to say that Palestinians don't have festivals that are exclusionary as well.) What might the Arab Jews in Jerusalem think of this? I find that question particularly interesting since they can at least access and read the website, etc. yet it seems that "Europeanness" is very important in this festival.

Nativism and The "Holy Land"

I’m wrestling a bit with the term “nativism,” especially in regard to the conflict in Israel-Palestine. I have heard “nativism” used in both the positive and the negative ways that Dr. Tamari outlines in his article – as an identity-based political tactic aimed at restoring land, economic, and cultural rights, and I have also heard the term use in pejorative, essentialist, and colonizing ways. In some ways, I see the value of nativism. In the U.S. context, for example I think that American Indians, as native to the land, are absolutely entitled to land rights that reach far beyond the tokenized, oppressive gesture of reservations. But then I wonder, which nations could really call themselves native? Certainly some American Indian nations have suppressed – or even killed off – other nations in order to secure land. In those situations, does nativism apply?

This quickly becomes a slippery slope. If Palestinians claim nativism, yet are suppressed by Israelis, are Israelis then “the next in line?” And, if a dominant force doesn’t buy into claims of nativism, what, then, is its use value? In the Palestine-Israel situation, claims of nativism can be met by claims of a “Promised Land,” so it seems to quickly reach a kind of stalemate. In the U.S., European colonizing forces made claims that what they were doing was for the American Indians’ “own good.” So, it seems doubtful that during these periods of conflict and occupation that claims of nativism would sway the dominant forces, and could risk essentializing and belittling the cultural practices of native communities. But, outside of the direct conflict – either temporally or geographically – perhaps nativist claims can still be a legitimizing force.