My Promised Land

Last fall, my history class, Middle East: Past and Present, recently hosted an open book discussion about Ari Shavit’s “My Promised Land”.  One of our principle guidelines was to always refer to the book, rather than our own opinions.  The problem with this is that the book is biased itself.  We did our best to keep the discussion purely objective, and it mostly worked out that way.  

The discussion kicked off with about twenty five people in the Harris Center, which seats roughly a hundred people.  Us students, as well as Mr. Conlon, were lined up to face the seats, as we were the discussion leaders.  It initially started slow.  Only a few people were willing to break the ice, but more people chimed in as the discussion went on.

I decided to take this class because I had little prior knowledge about the subject, especially Israel, unlike many people I go to school with.  Our discussion made its way from the book itself to peoples’ personal experiences, which was very interesting to me.  We had teachers from Parker, Latin, and the University of Chicago, as well as people who had been to or lived in Israel, which provided a wide scope of opinions.  It felt like we strayed from our rule of sticking to the book as the discussion went on, but we eventually reminded everyone to do so, which is a testament to how controversial the subject is.  Despite how far Israel is from Chicago geographically, it was interesting to see how people in my own community felt about the subject.

Still, there was conflict between attendees.  Even those that shared beliefs about Israel and Ari Shavit’s book disagreed with each other.  That just goes to show that maybe there is not a correct or absolute possible resolution to this conflict.  As the discussion came to a close, I felt a little more knowledgeable about both the academic subject and the people that I lived around.  I think Ari Shavit’s “My Promised Land” may have taught me more about objectivism than it has about Israel.