Andrew Zitcer is the cultural assets manager at the University of Pennsylvania. A big job. He is responsible for the Rotunda, a beautiful historic facility at the school. Having founded a progressive synagogue with his wife, Zitcer has now hosted the shocking exhibit by Breaking the Silence, documenting soldiers' abuses in the Occupied Territories and the moral "red lines" that Israelis have repeatedly crossed in the name of security.
There has already been grumbling about the exhibit. Why wasn't it kept at Hillel? In the ghetto. Reports the student newspaper:
The Rotunda became a site for the exhibition after Facilities and Real Estate Services spokesman Andrew Zitcer took a tour of Hebron with "Breaking the Silence."
I took that tour myself. It is completely disturbing and life-changing. Zitcer went back from it to his prominent job, which includes managing this "multipurpose, multigenerational space," and presumably anyone who challenges him he will tell about what he saw in Hebron. American Jewry is changing.
A balanced trip to Israel.
Yad Vashem
Hebron
Sderot
Haifa
Bethlehem
The Galilee (including the sites of Syrian shelling from the Golan, from 1963-67)
The Wailing Wall
Al Aqsa Mosque
Balance.
Ancient and modern traumas. Ancient and modern backbone.
I visited Hebron in 1968, at 13.
Even at 13, it was profound to visit the burial site of Abraham, my and Islam's hero.
"If there are ten in the town, will you spare it"?
The expansionist Zionists – "no". The expansionist Islamists – "no". The militant Palestinian factions – "no".
So much for honoring one's archetypes.
How much balance was there before Carter and W/M entered the MSM? Finklestein versus the MSM, Congress, Executive branch, American textbooks, American thinktanks? Lot of catching up to do, no?
And don't forget American Cinema, e.g., Leon Uris
I deeply and sincerely hope American Jewry is changing, for "transformation" is essential, discovering the humanity (and oppression of) the Other. Arun Gandhi was of course correct, but walked unwittingly into the "buzzsaw". Israeli Jews live in a "closed society" where any data not consistent with that world view is simply dismissed (alla Lawrence Davidson's writings). If Israelis are going to change, only "transformed" Diaspora Jews will be allowed to tell them!