I grew up learning that Jews represent less than 1% of the world. I learned that Jews throughout history have been bullied, knocked down repeatedly but always got back up again. I learned that I should have pride being Jewish and it is my duty to marry a Jewish girl and keep our traditions alive.
As you can see, religion doesn't control my life, however I cannot identify myself without saying I am Jewish. I have pride in my religion, my mom taught me that I am a member of the tribe and I must keep the torch burning. Having this type of background made it that much more difficult to draw a neutral opinion throughout the semester.
I will admit that I am biased towards the Israeli side of the conflict. How can I not be, it is who I am. At the beginning of this class the Palestinian side of the conflict somewhat bored me simply just because it was "Palestinian". Over the semester the way I observed the content evolved and it naturally became easier to be neutral on the subject matter...however there were growing pains.
I am so grateful that I have taken this course. In addition to gaining some general education on the Jerusalem conflict, the most valuable skill I have learned is how to take a biased topic and observe it from a neutral point of view. This is definitely a skill that I can see myself using in the professional world one day.
Rambling off, I have a suggestion for the first week of class of this course in the future(it may not be a great idea but suggestions cannot hurt so I might as well let my mind flow). Going into this course, I would say that the majority of students have little to no background information on the topic. Perhaps a "blind test" would get new student's minds flowing immediately. Giving simple statements of the current situation in Jerusalem and putting blank spaces where the terms Israelis and Palestinians go could really educate students of the current situation from the start. An example would read as:
built a wall around Jerusalem to block access from .
Who knows? Maybe an activity like this could take the bias out of people from the start of the class and eliminate the learning curve that provided struggle for me.
I completely relate to everything that you just wrote here. I also came from a similar background where I knew to support Israel even though my mom was scared of it and thought of it as a war zone. Now, it is easier to look at it from a neutral perspective after taking this class. Do you ever find yourself questioning the fact that the Israelis kicked out the Palestinians from their homes to live in Israel? This is my biggest issue that I am still trying to understand. Were the Israelis entitled or not? Were we not doing to the Palestinians what was done to us in WWII?
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