Symposium very worth a sunny day indoors

Author: Stephanie Morales '05

This past weekend I attended the Idea of Jerusalem Symposium held at Middlebury College from April 15-17. I have to embarrassingly admit that I have never participated in an academic conference of this caliber so I might be coming from a completely inexperienced vantage point which would then make my observations a bit naïve. Nonetheless, I feel compelled to make them.

On Saturday a paper was presented by Professor Bernard Wasserstein - an extremely well-established and renowned scholar on the "walls" of Jerusalem - that drew connections between the Western Wall, the walls of the Old City, the walls that mark the different quarters within the Old City, as well as the current "security" wall being built by the Israeli government. Professor Wasserstein concluded his paper by appropriately quoting Robert Frost,

"Before I built a wall I'd ask to know What I was walling in or walling out, And to whom I was like to give offence. Something there is that doesn't love a wall, That wants it down." -- Mending Wall, 1915

Professor Wasserstein expressed his disapproval for the wall and the immense repercussions that will and are already being wrought by it. During the discussion period another professor challenged his evidence and for presenting his values and personal opinions on the issue - the building of the wall, saying that they had no place in an "academic" conference.

The room was awash with tension. Professor Wasserstein listened and then responded quite powerfully. He backed up his knowledge with three books that he has written on the issue and asserted that his values had every right to be involved in his academic pursuits; he did not see them as separate entities. I want to applaud Professor Wasserstein's paper and response. Being honest and direct with one's opinions with respect to one's research is a responsibility that the academia needs to take more seriously - especially in times when knowledge and information are being dangerously manipulated.

On Saturday evening, Sari Nusseibeh, President of Al-Quds University in Jerusalem spoke. Professor Nusseibeh addressed the prospects of peace in the Israeli-Palestinian conflict with respect to the city of Jerusalem. It was immediately clear that this man's fame and standing were well earned. His presence was soothing in a spiritual way that is hard for me to articulate.

Professor Nusseibeh's voice, mannerisms and message were all in some other dimension that I have never experienced. He was absolutely striking. He emphasized that his personal life was extremely relevant and he needed to share it with us in order to be able to express his opinions. He spoke about his triple identity as Palestinian, Jordanian and as a Jerusamalite and how this infuriated him for so long but that he had found some way of dealing with it. Professor Nusseibeh emphasized the need for people in this conflict to remember their humanity and that his hope lied in people's honesty, directness and commitment to building a future together because, really, that is all we have.

He said that people can disagree on the present but that they won't necessarily disagree on the future. This seemingly simple comment is filled with the depth that epitomized his talk. Professor Nusseibeh clearly has an academic background with degrees in political science, economics and philosophy but this did not prevent him from sharing personal details about his life and expressing his values. He had nothing to prove. I was transformed as I listened to him. Professor Nusseibeh told a student who asked about how Israelis and Palestinians were ever going to build a future together with a wall disastrously separating them. He said that the power was in each and every one of us - we are the muscles of our own destiny and we need to believe that and not wait for some leader to take us to a better place. After Professor Nusseibeh was done talking I went up to him to thank him for inspiring me and I shook his hand and lost the ability to talk, I think he asked me where I was from but I was too struck to remember. I walked outside and saw Professor Nusseibeh surrounded by young people, Middlebury College students, smoking cigarettes and talking. It was a beautiful sight. This man was so unpretentious and it contrasted the earlier tension that had arisen from an academic telling another academic to leave his values at the door. As Barbara Streisand tells Robert Redford in "The Way We Were," "People are their values." I want to thank Professors Tamar Mayer and Suleiman Mourad for organizing a truly impressive, challenging and, for me, transformative conference. Despite the beautiful weather I would not have chosen to spend my weekend elsewhere.