Reports from the IIGA Workshop “Roots and Wings in the Group”

The following reports (on the Israeli Institute of Group Analysis 4th International Workshop held near Jerusalem, 4th – 6th April 2019) first appeared in the GASi Forum:

9 April 2019

I’m still here in Israel, in Jerusalem, after the IIGA workshop Roots and Wings and today is election day.  It feels surrealistic with pictures of Bibi and another, I am told Right Wing ultra-orthodox ‘leader’ now dead, staring down from lamp-posts. I don’t see any evidence of any other politicians, left wing perhaps.  The taxi driver who picked me up at the airport, suggested that before the election the walls talk to you but afterwards you only have the walls to talk to.

Before the workshop, I went on two pre-congress tours that were very illuminating in terms of discovering some realities literally on the ground.  The first was led by a young author, Noga Kadman and organised by Dale Godby.  Her book, the result of an MA dissertation, Erased from Space and Consciousness, was the result of her research on the origins of over 400 Palestinian Villages depopulated in 1948.

On the second tour, Uni-divided City, organised by Sarah Kalai and Ruthie Duek, we went with a guide from an organisation called Ir Amim (Hebrew: עיר עמים‎; “City of Peoples” or “City of Nations”). We drove and walked around East Jerusalem with a very informative map.  What was very interesting to me as an architect was to realise that despite the fact that the whole of greater Jerusalem, is under the jurisdiction of the Israeli Municipal authority, it was only the Jewish settlements that had a proper infrastructure with pavements, parks, schools, parking spaces lighting and so on.  The construction of new roads had  even been designed so that Israeli Jews do not have to see the Palestinian villages in their midst. I could say much more but this email is long-enough.

For your information, Ir Amim is an Israeli activist non-profit founded in 2004 that focuses on the Israeli-Palestinian conflict in Jerusalem. It seeks to ensure the dignity and welfare of all its residents and to safeguard their holy places, as well as their historical and cultural heritages. Ir Amim regularly provides information to the Knesset and to the Jerusalem Municipal Government about actions in East Jerusalem that they believe undermine Jerusalem’s stability, impede parity amongst residents, or threaten the possibility for future final-status negotiations in Jerusalem (such as settlement building in Palestinian neighbourhoods). The organization also brings cases to the Supreme and Municipal courts on topics such as building permits and social services in East Jerusalem.

Roots and Wings itself was powerful and beautifully constructed with lots of space for reflection and rest with limited formal lecture input.  Two lectures that did inspire me was one by Rachel Elior with the title, Community of Memory (roots of the past) and covenant of dreams and vision (wings for the future) talking about the meaning of Judaism in the present day and the other by Avi Berman, Take me under your Wing, the law of the mother and its contribution to the roots of group analysis, in which he described how we tend to too readily accept the dominant masculine discourse not only in group analysis but also in the political sphere leading us into wars and aggressive nationalism everywhere.

In the large group, conducted by two women, Marit Joffe Milstein and Jutta Menschick, we finally began talking about one of the great taboos in Israel, the power of the religious in politics and everyday life, mostly also a masculine discourse.

Teresa

10 April 2019

Thank you, Teresa

We are still in Israel too, on election day. We spent two nights in the very special Neve Shalom/Wahat Al Salaam/Oasis of Peace, a village for Jews and Palestinians, before heading off on Monday, hiking to Shoresh through stunningly beautiful forests and glades. The flowers make it easy to believe the Garden of Eden cannot be far away.

Today, more…. to get to Yad Hashmona. Shoresh was a hilltop Palestinian village, Saris, until 1948. Yad Hashmona is a moshav, settled by Finnish Christians in the 70s.

The only evidence of troubles – military or election-wise – have been a number of helicopters…. and pandemonium in a popular eatery when we stopped for morning coffee, everyone on holiday, as Dale explained. Life is lived. We’ve seen no soldiers, not even at the airport, unlike previous visits.

The walking has been a wonderful way to digest and reflect on roots and wings, and the intense, informative and intimate workshop. There were about 170 participants of whom 40 or so were not from these parts. As far as I am aware, there were two Palestinians, one Christian, one Muslim.

Let me add an account of the pre-workshop Belinda and I attended, to Teresa’s. Two Israeli GAs – Suzi Shoshani and Pnina Rappaport – have been running a group for the interested citizens of the Palestinian village, Ein Rafa, attended also by some in the neighbouring Jewish village of Mevaseret Zion. The two communities had previously not been in contact except, as one member described, for workmen coming from Ein Rafa to Mevaseret, and for the folk of Mevaseret to go and eat at the excellent Palestinian restaurants in Abu Ghosh and, lately, Ein Rafa.

Suzi and Pnina took a group of us to Ein RAFA where we could not have been more warmly welcomed. The mayor, Rayid, outlined the village’s historical background and led us on a short tour including to a recently renovated spring. Alla, Head of Council, related recent developments including a new school, emerging from his leadership, unusual because of his youth and secular education. A magnificent lunch in the sun was provided by Salim’s family.

This citizens’ group was established to support Alla and the village’s plans to promote coexistence.

This is a brief summary of a full and lovingly planned day. Wikipedia is not informative about Ein Rafa but I found this account of another tour a while ago :

https://en.urbanclinic.huji.ac.il/book/april-2018-ein-rafa-local-village-association

Despite my questions, I am still puzzled about why some Arabs stayed in 1948 while so many fled and why the ruins of Arab houses are left in place, tragic reminders of the Naqba.

As for the workshop itself, my take-away – apart from the hospitality, meeting colleagues again and anew, moving workshops, fluent lectures, therapeutic small group – is the perennial question: what does it mean to be a Jew?

The election results will begin to emerge in ten minutes……

Joan

Dear Joan,

Your walking sounds really lovely especially these last days with the sunshine and fresh wild flowers. This afternoon, I go back to London after spending time in Jerusalem with friends.

To answer your question, which I am sure others can do better than me, it might be important to read some of the new history which explains why some villages remained in 1948 and others were abandoned and destroyed. It was a mixture of either being intimidated by the Jewish Israeli forces, being encouraged to leave by the Muslim hierarchy and others making deals with the Hagenah. As for Abu Gosh and several of the surrounding Arab villages, such as Ein Rafa, it appears that many of the people living there originated in Chechnya and are not Arab although Muslim.  These villages are all in West Jerusalem, which is a different situation to those in East Jerusalem beyond the Green Line but still part of the metropolitan area of greater Jerusalem. Incidentally, I am told that about 30,000 people climb the wall every day to go to work in West Jerusalem.

One of the issues that I picked up and is problematic, is that many Israeli Arabs, or Palestinians, refuse to vote in elections as a protest to the Israeli system.  They see voting as an acceptance of the status quo. This stance was strongly opposed by one prominent Palestinian, a rapper, who encouraged all Israeli Arabs to vote pointing out that not voting could lead to Bibi and an extreme right wing coalition winning the election and putting in motion a further erosion of their rights including deportation.

The possibility to vote only applies to those living within Israel. Many in the occupied territories of East Jerusalem are only able to vote in the metropolitan elections but not the national elections as they are not passport carrying Israeli citizens.

It Is not an easy place to be, not surprisingly so much fear.  What I leant this morning was that bombings are closely associated with the left.  Since the right have been in power, people have felt much safer.  It’s true what you say Joan fewer army and police about and fewer searches than in previous visits.

Teresa

14 April 2019

Dear All,

I am glad to have been able to attend the  IIGA workshop, Roots and Wings.  It was carefully structured  and well-organised with good teamwork between Liat, Smadar and Marit –  It’s amazing what women working together can achieve!

Teresa, Joan and Fiona have written about the Workshop; each touched on their favourite talks.  Rachel Elior gave the keynote lecture, talking about the self-perception of jews as slaves and exiles. In the median group I learned that whether Jews were ever enslaved by Egypt is now questioned by scholars but Professor Elior talked about the perceived truth in a long tradition of “a community of memory with a covenant of freedom”.

So far no one has mentioned the talk that I was most excited about: Catherine Mela talking from Greece, using an unsteady Skype connection, about psychological, neurological and epigenetic aspects of trauma resulting from exclusion, racism, violence, forced migration.  She was careful not to describe whole populations as suffering from PTSD which would have medicalised their experience.  But it is reasonable to talk of collective trauma and ongoing states of hyperarousal and fear.

In the large group, some participants talked about the fear they and their families experience under the threat of bombardment and frequently – unpredictably – having only seconds to seek safety.  This bears on the discussion in the forum of why Israelis may feel safer with Netanyahu’s coalition.

Constant fear and hyperarousal, as Mela showed us, break some pathways in the brain and reinforce others, causing long-lasting changes.  In the median group I came to a new understanding of what many Israelis had said to me in discussions about Israel today, “You don’t understand”.  It’s not that all Israelis are stressed and anxious nor that those who feel that way can never relax.  But 70 years of living constantly on the edge of warfare — interspersed with actual fighting — has shaped the collective mind and culture of the country.  This must be true of the ‘Arab’/‘Palestinian’ population (both descriptors are dog whistles; there is no neutral term that can be used) too, though in a different manner§1 because the enemy is not the same.

Coming from a culture with a collectively traumatised mindset, it is very difficult to establish dialogue with the other.  Neutral enquires are treated with suspicion as a Palestinian participant, Hind, illustrated in a sub-workshop about their emerging friendships that she and two Israelis presented.   I took part in one of the Pre-Conference workshops, Jerusalem, a uni-divided city.  (Uni-divided was misprinted in the programme as “undivided”, an achingly poignant slip).  This was organised by an NGO that gathers information and presents it to the Knesset and the Jerusalem authorities about the detailed experience of living in Jewish and Arab/Palestinian neighbourhoods and has pressed for legal action over planning and services in the poorer, Arab/Palestinian neighbourhoods.  There was a tour in the morning which introduced us to the complexities of the city’s cultural and religious divisions and allowed us to see for ourselves the difference between Jewish and Arab/Palestinian areas.  Then, after lunch, we talked in small groups and then in a plenary session about what we had seen.  Apart from the workshop organisers, we were all non-Israelis.

It was only later, as the main conference got underway, that I understood that merely attending the “Uni-divided city” workshop was taken by some as a statement of political allegiance and a failure to understand the lived experience of Israelis.  We would have benefitted in our discussion groups from the voices of those who felt so misunderstood.   It is hard to hear each other over the divide caused by fear and trauma.  The Conference programme was planned to maximise the possibilities of discussion, with a terrifying account of a child’s flight from Ethiopia — walking to Khartoum — set beautifully in dance; a workshop on the terror and conflict Israeli parents feel sending their children into the army; one on whether friendship between Palestinian and Jew is a possibility; and themes of encountering the other and identifying difficult feelings running through several other workshops.

I have returned home with a new understanding of some of the recurring difficulties on this Forum.  It is possible only with some difficulty to establish face to face dialogue between the collectively traumatised and those who do not live under daily threat.  How much harder, then, to try to “talk” to each other (in English!) on this Forum.

Sally

15 April 2019

Hi Dick,

I see Sally has written more from her perspective.  As I would expect there will be as many perspectives as there were participants in Ye’arim.  There were 170.  Of that only a very small number came on the pre-workshop tours. There were about 11 on the tour Erased from Space and Consciousness and 20 on the Uni-divided City tour  – but I would say these did have an impact on the main workshop.  I did not go any of the paper sessions or small workshops apart from one on language which was a precursor to a discussion about the group analytic dictionary. There were several that directly related to the theme of which the one about the impact of sending one’s son to the army, which Sally reported on. I did participate in a social dreaming session each morning before breakfast and five small groups and the three large groups.  Also a night bird at !0.30pm that used drawing and collage in which I tried to represent my feelings after the two tours, which had  a huge impact on me.  There is nothing like seeing the physical reality on the ground.

There were two people who identified as Palestinians, one from the occupied territories and the other from inside Israel. They were both very present in the large group. I would say the pre-congress tours had an impact as did the upcoming election, which was viewed with much dread. Also the role of the religious in Israel was discussed, also with frustration.  Some of these themes were talked about directly, some not. At one point on the last day, there was an image of a monster in a labyrinth, which pretty much summed up the situation for people there, most of whom I think did not vote for Bibi.  On the first day, one member was provoked into explaining the miracle of Israel.  1948, with all its  shame, confusion, competing histories, the Naquba was there alright but I do think seeing East Jerusalem in the reality of today and hearing the Palestinian from that side of the Green Line tell us that she could not tell anybody in her family where she was going on these days, was salutary.

Teresa

Teresa von Sommaruga Howard 
Teresa@justdialogue.com

Joan Fogel
joan@fogel.co.uk

Sally Mitchison
mitchison@blueyonder.co.uk