The Middle East and the Middle Bury

I arrived at Middlebury College almost four years ago. I had just spent my senior year of high school in Israel, hiking, washing dishes, attending rallies, exploring cities, learning another language and another way of being.

Arriving in Vermont, I was skeptical as to how much I could learn about the issues I cared about from an American liberal arts college. In Vermont.

That skepticism was quickly turned on its head when I met, in my first day at Middlebury, Shabana Basij-Rasikh and Zaheena Rasheed, two women whose stories put my tales of attending pleasant Jewish-Arab peace gatherings in the desert to shame. (If you haven’t heard their stories, find some way to do so.

In brief, oversimplified terms, Shabana was fighting for women’s rights in Taliban-ruled Afghanistan and Zaheena brought a lawsuit against her government in the Maldives which in many ways spurred the country’s transition to democracy). So, maybe there was something to be gained from this little college in Vermont after all.

Almost four years after arriving at Middlebury from Israel, I stand poised to return to the Middle East, to Israel and Palestine, to work for Israeli-Palestinian peace and Jewish-Arab understanding. I also honestly feel a bit blown away at the amount of knowledge I have gained about the Middle East during my four years at Middlebury.

However, instead of waxing autobiographical for my seven loyal readers, I decided instead, in prime sentimental-senior form, to impart a few words of advice based on the specific things that have enabled me to learn so much here.

So, if you want to learn about the Middle East at Middlebury, here are 10 things you should do:
1. Learn the language. Take Arabic or Hebrew, or both (both programs are phenomenal). There is no way to deeply understand a people or a culture without understanding their language.
2. In addition to learning your language(s) of choice, take a class with Professors Quinn Mecham (Political Science), Febe Armanios (History) or Tamar Meyer (Geography). Do it. All three are incredible. Even if the Middle East is not your primary focus, a class with any of these three will substantially deepen your understanding of world affairs and politics.
3. Bring a speaker. Whether it’s an author you’ve read in one of your classes, or a journalist whose work you admire, the resources and support Middlebury offers are incredible. You can probably get anyone you want if you push hard enough, and then you get to form a personal relationship with this thinker you admire.
4. Attend cultural events on campus. The Arabic house usually has great things going on, and there are lots of movies and screenings happening. It’s worth your time, and you will learn more from a two-hour movie than you will from staring off into space/facebook in your library carrel stressing about whatever project you are working on for your classes.
5. Join a Middlebury-Middle East group. J Street U Middlebury, which deals with education about the Palestinian-Israeli conflict and advocacy for an active US role in achieving a two-state solution is an excellent group, if I do say so myself (full disclosure: I co-founded it). MiddEast action, Arabesque, Hillel and the Islamic Society have all also done excellent programming in the past, and I am sure they will continue to do so in the future.
6. Go to a conference. MESA (Middle East Studies Association)? J Street National Conference? The Association for Folks Who Usually Like to Learn About Things Relating to the Middle East (AFWUL LATR ME)? Middlebury has ways to fund you. Go. You can miss a day of classes. Go.
7. Go the Middle East! Apply for one of the kabillion funding opportunities Middlebury offers (ACE grants, Davis Peace Project, Stonehenge and I’m sure more. If you have a project and don’t have funding, you can find funding. Seriously).
8. Put on Your Own Lecture Series. Take note from Toby Israel ’14, who wanted to learn more about various contemporary issues, some of them relating to the Middle East, and thus started her own student-led lecture series, H.I.P.
9. Have dinner with one of the 62 Middle Eastern students on campus. They are all very nice.
10. Make up something that is not on this list. In short, the opportunities are there for you, here in this tiny-mini-bisty-flumpy spot in Vermont, to learn about the Middle East. And about other parts of the world, I guess.

So. That’s all. Come visit me in the region. Until then, Middlebury, I’m out. Thank you so much. It’s truly been incredible.
Ka-Bam!