A Meditation on Silences: Talking about the Israeli/Palestinian Conflict

Abstract

Through interweaving personal experience and feminist analysis, I explore the meaning of silences as they emerge in attempts by U.S. Jews to discuss their political differences over the Israeli/Palestinian conflict. After briefly describing how feminists have interpreted classroom silences, I look at three activist moments in which I held back, rather than fully speaking my mind, in response to an attack on my Women in Black politics. These moments involved silence out of fear of powerlessness, silence arising from confusion about the ethical implications of a shared Jewish identity, and silence resulting from deference to male authority. The question I raise throughout the essay is: how can or should Jews relate to each other?