How to understand Israel from comic books alone

As anyone who follows this blog knows, I love reading autobiographical comic books that are set in other countries. I don't know much about Israel, but during the past couple of years two interesting graphic memoirs came out about people's experiences in Israel, so, naturally, I bought 'em, read 'em, and learned a thing or two!

The first book is Sarah Glidden's How to Understand Israel in 60 Days or Less , and the second was Jerusalem: Chronicles from the Holy City by Guy Delisle.

Glidden's book is a memoir of her Birthright Israel trip, beautifully illustrated with watercolors throughout. First thing I learned: just for being Jewish one can get a free 10-day, all-expenses-paid trip to Israel!

Glidden's story isn't so much about Israel itself as it was about how young Jewish-American liberals feel about Israel -- also an interesting topic, BTW:

I found the book a little frustrating, though, because she set off with the express intention of confirming her belief in the pure black-hearted villainy of Israel, and her grand epiphany was that it's more complicated than that. Well, duh, it's more complicated than that. If the situation were simple, the conflict would be resolved. Yet, weirdly, she seems taken aback to discover that Israelis have justifications for some of their controversial actions:

Glidden did a lot of interesting research before her trip, and told some great stories about the things she saw matched up with her expectations (or didn't). Yet, there's a limit to how much insight you can gain from a 10-day guided tour, and in the end I was mostly just glad not to have so much emotional baggage around such a complex and important issue. (Of course I'm sure I have equivalent baggage surrounding other equally complex and important issues...)

Delisle, by contrast, spent a year living in Jerusalem where his wife was working for Doctors Without Borders:

Delisle identifies as Christian (he's a francophone Canadian), but he mentions in the story that he doesn't believe in God. (Glidden also mentions in passing that she doesn't believe in God.)

His occupation for that year was a combination of stay-at-home-dad and comic book author/artist -- in particular keeping his eyes open for interesting stories in his surroundings. I had an easier time relating to him since he came upon subject of Israel without a lot of preconceived ideas, just looking to learn what he could. And it was actually kind of fun simply to encounter a story in which a man has to juggle his childcare obligations with trying to find time to do his own projects.

Delisle met tons of fascinating people during his stay, and saw some remarkable things. He taught comic-drawing workshops to a variety of students -- Palestinian as well as Israeli, and the contrast is pretty amazing. He visited Hebron multiple times, guided by people on all different sides of the conflict. He met Bedouins and Samaritans. He met people who were separated from their lands and livelihood by the wall (as mentioned in Glidden's comic above). He watched the Doctors Without Borders mobilize during an armed conflict in Gaza -- and much more! And all of the characters and stories were fascinating and surprising.

ETA: also often entertaining and funny. I hesitated to write that the first time because so many of the situations are serious -- yet the human condition is funny, often even in tragedy.

I have to admit I liked Delisle's book better -- it gave a more extensive and varied portrait of the lives of different people living in Israel and Palestine. But I heartily recommend both of them, not just to learn a thing or two, but as interesting human stories.

Le Hammourabi

Continuing in my series on ethnic curiosities of Bordeaux, this past week I had lunch at the restaurant Hammourabi!!!

I had to try this place out because I was intrigued by the idea of a Sumerian-themed restaurant. It originally had a sign written in cuneiform, which really made me curious about the place. Now the sign is partially written in Aramaic:


Both this photo and the one at the top were taken from inside the restaurant looking out -- I inverted this photo so you can read it more easily.

It turns out that the proprietor is a Syrian (Eastern Orthodox) Christian, and very interested in the culture of his native region. He showed me a sheepskin document he had written (a wall-hanging in the restaurant) and explained that it was the Lord's prayer which he had written himself in Aramaic, pointing out that that was the actual language spoken by Jesus (unlike every other Christian sect, who all read Jesus in translation...):



The culture is apparently a direct continuation of the Mesopotamian civilization, which has the oldest known recorded history. Hammurabi was the king at the time of the first written code of laws.

I brought along my husband and a colleague of his (a mathematician visiting from Lebanon) to have lunch at the restaurant. Now I know you're probably thinking "Great, Chanson, he's visiting from Lebanon, and you immediately think to take him to a Syrian-Lebanese restaurant..." But the thing is that he's visiting France for a full month, and I'm sure all of the other French mathematicians will be proudly taking him to places where he can sample the local (French) cuisine, so he was willing to try this out. It was fun because he was able to describe and recommend some dishes, and explained that region of Syria that the restaurant owners are from is particularly famous for its cuisine (Aleppo).



Here are some tasty stuffed grape leaves, with some Sumerian art in the background for atmosphere. It also turned out that the Lebanese wine that was featured at the restaurant was made by some sort of relative of our Lebanese friend.



This is Makdoos which I had as an appetizer, and below is what I chose as a main course, Kibbe Labniyye.



I'm not really a restaurant critic, so I can't describe the food in detail, but it was quite delicious, and a fun cultural and educational experience!!! :D

Don't know much about the Middle East...

But I can't be accused of not trying to make an effort to learn, in my own way.

Here's my one story about it, which I posted to exmo-social in February of 2005:

It was 1996. Rabin had recently been assinated and hardliner Netanyahu had just been elected in Israel. I was a grad student at Rutgers.

One night I went out drinking and partying with two of my girlfriends, both Jewish, in the Arab quarter of New Brunswick, as we loved to do!! Those were the days!!!

It was an interesting experience for me to participate in a discussion of the recent Israeli election with these Jewish girls and their Arab (Lebanese Christian) boyfriends. We were all disappointed about recent events because of course we all wanted peace, and it looked like things were going in the wrong direction.

At one point one of the guys said something negative that to me seemed mild (I don't remember what it was), but one of my two girlfriends took offense and belligerently said "It's attitudes like those that make me glad he got elected!"

I remember thinking "OMG, I don't think you want to be saying that here..." It was night and we were in a closed cafe, just us three girls and the cafe's owners and their friends (all Arab guys) and we were all drunk!!!

My other girlfriend -- the one who was a grad student in Mathematics like me -- smoothed things over. She talked about how Jews and Arabs are really the same people, and should work together rather than letting the west gain advantage by playing them off each other. We all agreed with that, and peace was once again restored to our little microcosm.

Then we talked about something else!!!