Readers know that I was really impressed by meeting American volunteer Morgan Bach in Palestine. When you watch this video I made in the little village of Al Aqaba, you’ll understand why.
Bach, 24, who blogs here, is a volunteer in Palestine for the Rebuilding Alliance.
Some important moments in the video:
1:01 A friend who doesn’t like Bach’s facebook posts expresses surprise at who Bach is dating.
2:10 Other friends ask, Why would you study abroad in Jordan? “Deep prejudice there.”
2:48 Bach reflects emotionally on a racist thing she said in responding to friends.
3:40 Bach speaks of an older liberal mentor friend with values she admires, who is very active in the Jewish community. He has been discouraging to her when she writes about Palestine– “no such place.” And her blog is “rubbish.”
4:20 Bach is “defriended.”
6:00 Right around here you’ll see Morgan Bach’s host, Haj Sami Sadeq, the village mayor, coasting by in the background in his wheelchair. Israeli soldiers paralyzed him when he was 16….
7:20 Some Jewish teachers are very interested in Bach’s reports from Palestine.
8:12 Bach on Jewish identity construction and the difficulties of a non-Jew interrogating that construction.
10:10 Her fears about being too blunt about Palestine, lest she offend.
The background to this video:
When I got to Jerusalem, Bach invited me to the little Palestinian village she’s helping to defend from being uprooted in the Jordan Valley, Al Aqaba. And I went out to visit.
Here’s Bach, below, with Mayor Haj Sami Sadeq overlooking a Israeli military base in the right background.
That military base has stolen lands of Al Aqaba, and is drawing a noose around the community. Most of the population has fled.
And here’s Bach teaching the ABC’s to Palestinian children.
for me losing friends for siding with the palestinians is a recurring story, while initially somewhat disconcerting, with the passage of time one looks upon such losses as a small price to pay (compared to what the palestinians pay) for resisting the occupation of their homeland.
Not only have I lost friends, it seems most of them become very angry enemies.
this is a very moving video for me. there seems to be a vast gap between her love for palestine and her emotions around the injustice she likely witnesses all around her and a lack of freedom in expression for just putting that out there.
maybe i’m crazy and projecting or something but from the sound of her voice and body language i thought it sounded like her voice was going to crack at one point building from ‘something you don’t say to a friend..told me my blog was rubbish’..and then…hear it? she grabs for the empty glass as if forgetting it is empty, her mind knowing nothing is there so she turns it in her hand as she says..’so i knew …probably not a friendship…’ she swallows, you ask her where is the friendship and she moves the empty glass away.
it is very personal, this love of hers. this is a brave person who is holding back her emotions and trying to navigate her way safely thru a social maze far away.
A brave woman, but I agree with annie that the she came off as very emotionally fragile during the video. Or at least that’s how she came off to me.
As for her story, I can only say that few people are as devoted to other people as she is. She probably has a very moral character which is rare for most people. I hope she moderates that sometimes, so she doesn’t burn herself out emotionally.
As for the reactions she has gotten.. she must realize that Jews are no different than other human beings(despite the ethnocentric propaganda you sometimes hear in closed circles). We’re also susceptible to propaganda, and a lot of us have been told all the evils of the world about the arabs. Besides, this isn’t a normal issue for a Jew, like the abstract notion of how high the tax rate should be. This is intensely personal.
This is, in the mind of many, a matter of survival. Lose Israel and it’s another (potential) holocaust. I’m sorry, but that’s how quite a few think deep down. And they pass on this attitude to their children, even if they make no such conscious choice. Children absorb a lot from their parents and the people their parents surround themselves with. I grew up with this too and it takes years to gradually think for yourself, especially something as close as the identity that you carry and a nation tied to it.
So if she’s meeting a lot of racism, I hope she understands that all human beings succumb to this when it comes to their own. Jews saw much more clearly what Jim Crow was like because we were not the enforcers of that system, and we are a minority, so we are not very much affected by who has the majority, we have to work with all groups. The WASP establishment had much more to lose, and fought back much harder as well as the general populace in the South.
Israel is the Jewish equivalent of the American South. It’s a psychological trauma which is unlikely to be unresovled entirely by our own. Just like back then, there are quite a few courageous Jews standing up(just like quite a few white WASPs were during the 60s), but many others are silenced by the conservative community leadership and fear for the social price that they know will be paid. Who wants to be a pariah?
People are not strong, at least not as a strong as this woman is. People are afraid, even if they know what they are doing is wrong. There were Nazi guards who were crying while they were executing Jews. But they still did it. They were afraid of the consequences of saying no.
This means that, just like back in the day, outside influence will only increase, much to Jewish dismay(as it was for Southern Whites). This is the reason the cries of ‘anti-Semitism’ only howls louder and louder.
This woman ought to understand that she stands on the cusp of a major change, it might take 10-20 years, but it’s already underway and there’s no way to stop it.
Palestinian is the new Jew.