She asked, gingerly

Perhaps the most intriguing question posed to me this school year came a few months ago when a student asked, gingerly, indeed politely but delicately, “Why are Americans so obsessed with the Holocaust?”As with everything, don’t you know, context helps us explain and understand things more.

This student, one of that wonderful coterie of students at KA I have taught every day for the last four years, is Jordanian-Palestinian-Lebanese but has lived most of her life in California. She really does understand and enjoy both worlds.

Her question did not come out of nowhere. We had been studying the Berlin Olympics of 1936, and one of the saddest realizations of the aftermath of studying that Olympics designed and executed with German precision and taste, is that many of the European Jewish athletes who attended and won medals in Berlin would later die in Nazi concentration camps. Naturally, our discussion morphed into the meaning and the teaching of the Holocaust.

When this diligent, happy, marvelous student asked her question, “Why are Americans so obsessed with the Holocaust?” many faces quickly looked to see if I was upset with her query. But they were riveted with what my answer might be. Of course I wasn’t upset—one of the greatest joys of my four years in Jordan is that I am often allowed to be out of my comfort zone and learn things, reflect on things, decide about things that would not come up in the United States.

This excellent historian then asked, “Do Americans study the Armenian genocide as much? Do they study the kulaks in the Soviet Union? the Filipinos under the care of the Americans? The Chinese of Nanking under the Japanese occupation in the 1930s? The Muslims of Bosnia in 1990s Yugoslavia?” Again, she did not ask any of these rapid-fire questions stridently. As we all know, Americans have little interest or knowledge about these other examples of genocides or mass killings. In our History of the 20th Century class, we had discussed all those other examples, and as you might imagine, the class sat dumb-founded at the too-many examples of reckless mass killings and carnage of the 20th century. She really wanted to know—why, then, are Americans so interested in the Holocaust?

Here was a great teachable moment—we wondered if the answer is that there are so many people of Jewish descent? No, that is not the case. Nor can it be that so many Americans have known Holocaust survivors. (I met my first survivor when I moved to New York in 1994.) Is it guilt over the Holocaust that creates such zeal to teach about it in American curricula? Off the top of my head I wondered, if in part, Americans have been drawn to the Holocaust because of the sheer amount of evidence left to us by the Germans. The Germans documented things so well—in large part since they were creating a “Museum of Inferiority” which would showcase the Final Solution in a seriously-folks-they-planned-it-for-real-museum which would have been in Prague. The photographs, film, interviews, statistics, etc. all are so available that that makes it so much in the forefront of our brains. There is not much evidence about the Armenian genocide of 1919. Indeed, there is so little evidence that the Turkish government insists it is exaggerated and did not really happen as survivors claim. And what of the movies? There have been dozens of films about the Holocaust in the last 45-50 years…where are the Hollywood films about the other peoples’ plights?

It made for a great discussion, simply trying to figure out why Americans have studied that example of injustice and hatred more than any other world history grievance. And, then I asked, ”Why are Arabs so opposed to any mention or study of the Holocaust?”

I knew most of what their responses were, but it was instructive to listen to each other and formulate an answer. None of their answers really had anything to do with anti-Semitism, although that would be what most of us would assume. Some of the answers lay in the question, simply why can’t there be a balance of all people’s suffering? One student finally cracked open what some wondered would come to light, or at least public light in our class. “The state of Israel has capitalized so much on the Holocaust, and has cheapened it, so that some people are just tired of that being the answer and reason for everything.”

This sentiment is one of the most important to understand about the Middle East, but not just the so-called exploitation of the Holocaust. It cuts to the core of the most searing problem in Jordan—the issue of Palestine.

Let’s go back to all this context…I mentioned this exchange in class today because I wanted to set the stage for why it was daring to produce I Never Saw Another Butterfly here in Jordan. Yes, it is a beautiful play about survival, about family and friends, and a memorable teacher. But the subject makes some people uncomfortable and some would prefer it never be broached. Never. Not in school. Certainly not in the faculty lounge.

I had the idea to produce my warhorse play about the children’s concentration camp in Czechoslovakia, not simply to raise the idea of the Holocaust here. In some ways, the Holocaust does not intrude much on the play. You never see a Nazi, and there is no gratuitous violence. But I got the idea for the play when last autumn a group of student-actors appeared at our school doing monologues about the Israeli occupation and war of 2009. As these teen-agers performed their “Gaza Monologues” I was struck by the parallels between this contemporary drama and I Never Saw Another Butterfly. But of course, it shouldn’t have been so surprising—both were dramas about the refugee experience, the phenomena of having daily life disrupted or shunted due to an occupation force. I couldn’t get over how similar the feelings were. I went to our headmaster and suggested I direct I Never Saw Another Butterfly and pair it with the Gaza Monologues. I made clear that we were tackling a subject that could create controversy. He read the play and agreed that the message needed to get out there.

Again, some context helps enormously to see the magnitude of this play choice. Yes, I had directed the play a bazillion times in the USA, but in this region of the world schools are not encouraged to teach about the Holocaust. Pages are ripped out of some textbooks, The Diary of Anne Frank is banned, and I swear that I heard that Fiddler on the Roof was performed in Amman with all the Jewish references taken out! Seriously????!!!

After I spoke with our headmaster, I spoke with Fatina, my friend and colleague of four years. I go to her with every question I have about the Middle East (“Why do your people do this?” I have often asked, and then she sighs, and says, “My people do this because…”). I told her about I Never Saw Another Butterfly and said, “Do you think we can, we should, do this play?” Fatina said it would create some tension, but that definitely the message of the play was vital. Fatina is so important here, and she does insist on teaching the Holocaust even though few teachers in this region would. She teaches about it so that the students understand the desperate need for a national homeland for Jews after World War II.

That lies at the heart of the problem, the tension, the confusion. When we discussed in class about why Jordanians don’t want to discuss the Holocaust, or want to deny it happened, it again is not anti-Semitism, per se. As one student said, “There is so much pain for us associated with the formation of Israel." Over half of Jordan is comprised of refugees expelled from Israel in 1948 or in 1967. I mentioned in class then about the possibility of doing a play about this. I just happened to have a scene from I Never Saw Another Butterfly, ready to read and discuss…I had anticipated the discussion. The scene was the family scene, and if you changed the names and place of Prague, it could easily have been a scene understood by Palestinian families in 1948 and 1967. They understood the worry and fear that everything they knew would change.

The class was extremely interested in the play. One of my most vocal and dynamic students suggested we didn’t need to pair the two plays—he thought it important for our community to really consider the feelings and attitudes of this Jewish family. Of course when the play schedule was shortened, as I mentioned in the other blog, it became necessary to toss out the comparison of the two plays.

However, it is never as simple as collecting some key person’s approvals. On the day of the play, some people at school became quite upset that I would offer a play that would remind people of the pain of the Nakba, the great 1948 expulsion of Palestinians (or worse, glorify the ones who did the expelling). The headmaster and Julianne steadfastly supported me, but a handful of people were quite hurt that I would want to hurt the community so much. I offered to speak to anyone and explain that the play is not a political play, it is not about Zionism, it is a play about survival, and friends and family, and the refugee heartache. Only one of those so upset would speak to me, and while I know they were upset at me, I also did not want our school to go along with the norm and not discuss the issue. It is not about sympathy for Israel, it is about the triumph of the human spirit. It was about the fact that sadly, these experiences have happened too often in the last century and the experiences seem more similar than not.

I did not want to belabor the point that when the Nazis created their Final Solution genocide was the goal. As much as the refugee experience has been similar, Israel has not had that genocidal goal. But I did feel that the experiences had parallels. It made it all the more interesting to watch young, vibrant, Muslim Farah tackle the part of Raya/Raja.

One last little tidbit about context: I told them of a story about how I formed an opinion and how socialization and stories can help construct our opinions. I told them about how in 1978, I watched the Oscars for the very first time. As an 8th grader I was in love with the movies, and watched and cheered on the movie stars. When Vanessa Redgrave won her Best Supporting Oscar for Julia, she was booed and heckled. I thought, “Who is this awful woman? She must be hideous since all of Hollywood is booing her!” A few years later she wins the part of a Holocaust survivor in a movie, and again is castigated for her beliefs.

At the time I just figured, given the Hollywood reaction, this Vanessa Redgrave must be a horrible person. I later came to understand she came under such fire because she believed that Palestinians deserved the right to return, that Israel had acted improperly in the 1948 expulsion of Palestinians.

We sat in class discussing how our impressions are made, how heroes and villains are born and treated, and reminded ourselves to look for as much context as possible to better understand the many facets of the complicated issues of our time.

One last comment about the play—it was received well, but for some it is hard to get past the pain. A student said to Fatina, “That was the first time I felt sorry for a Jew. That surprised me.” Fatina considered the situation and said, “It wasn’t that you thought of her as Jewish or not—she was simply human.”

Human. Humanity. Maybe we are getting closer all the time…