Two Graves, Two Workshops, One Movie

The public space often confiscates private space in Israel. Since October 7, the distinction between them is negligible. Yet, every individual has a private space for negotiating the distinction, to protect one’s emotional wellbeing for personal joy and for personal grieving. One morning this week my friend became a widow. Her husband, also my friend, died. After the eulogies in the hall at the entrance to the cemetery, I joined the cavalcade of cars to the burial site, parking some 150 meters behind others parking before me.

A gloomy day in Jerusalem. Against gray skies, walking from my car, a large plot with graves marked for future use, and just a few gravestones in place. In Israel, gravestones are placed over graves for the shloshim, the 30^th day. One gravestone wrapped with the logo scarf of a soccer team introduced color to the landscape. Printed on the stone in Hebrew and English – Hersh. Goldberg-Polin is visible on a lower panel, if you come closer. With other friends walking from our cars to the burial of our friend, we detoured and following tradition, each placed a stone on Hersh’s grave.

Two days later, I attended an in-person workshop with Jewish Israeli women and Palestinian women citizens of Israel, relating to using social psychology tools in group interventions for change. Symbols, group identification and yellow ribbons recently seen in red provided an example demonstrating one of the lecturers’ points. The yellow ribbon symbolizing the call for returning Israel’s hostages shown in red alludes to the identity of some hostages as fans of a particular soccer team. The red ribbon made tapped into subgroup identifying in soccer fields this season.

Following that example, the lecturers shared their deliberation in preparing the lecture:  did this example speak singularly to the Jewish participants, Bedouin-Arab Palestinian citizens of Israel taken hostage, notwithstanding? Prior to that comment, a novel sensation permeated the intersection of my public and private space. I was in a binational group, though all Israeli citizens, and space was explicitly designated for Israeli hostages and an Israeli soccer team – though neither all Jewish. In that moment I recognized that since October 7, in group situations with Palestinian colleagues from the West Bank, even when I thought that we, the Israelis, shared our experiences, an auto-censor invariably deflated the breadth of our pain and fears.

The following day, I attended another workshop given by the same organization.  My takeaway evolved from evidence presented about leading people to feeling good about themselves before confronting them with negative aspects of themselves, in the process of interventions leading them to behavioral changes, for the better, for groups. However, I was curious about objections.

What if something is given a label, like the G-word, that most Jewish groups will object to accepting as something that has been committed by the group to which it belongs? One researcher’s response sufficed to give me raw materials for further questions. Wondering. Does it matter if you give a label to a set of actions? Or is it equally or more effective to describe events and actions under the label without invoking it? If the latter arouses lesser objections, or makes it easier to accept that such actions can be done by members of your identity group, does that generate progress towards changing those actions and preventing them from continuing to characterize your identity group in the future?

On the heels of these experiences, this afternoon, I knew it was time to open the tab on my Google Chrome ruler that has been waiting for weeks – the link to the Israeli-Palestinian Oscar-winning documentary, “No Other Land.” I didn’t expect to learn anything I didn’t already know. I simply suspected I was in a mind frame where I could watch it – watch Israeli house demolition practices in Yasafer Mata, watch Israeli soldiers’ interactions with Palestinian residents of Yasafer Mata, watch West Bank settlers attack Palestinians. Watch an Israeli advocating for their rights, helping spread their message.

Reminded of a Palestinian citizen of the State of Israel in one workshop this week matter-of-factly saying, “I don’t have another land.” Just as any Jewish citizen of the State of Israel says it. We’re meant to share this land. In peace. We will, before you know it.

Harriet Gimpel, March 7, 2025