We sat around the table drenched in dueling biases. How else could it be for members of the Juneau People for Peace and Justice (JPPJ) and Sukkat Shalom congregation? We were discussing the Israeli-Palestinian conflict just after the 51-day war in Gaza. One side ran a paid ad in the Empire condemning the Israeli government\u2019s action. The other supported its right to defend itself.<\/p>\n
Who in their right mind would want to be in the middle of that controversy?<\/p>\n
Amazingly, \u201cWrestling Jerusalem\u201d found its way to Juneau by bridging this entrenched political divide. <\/p>\n
Together with Perseverance Theater and Northern Light United Church, Sukkat Shalom and JPPJ are sponsoring four performances of this play next week. We\u2019re following San Francisco, Washington, D.C. and Minneapolis in encouraging a different kind of local conversation about the century-long conflict in the birthplace of Judaism, Christianity and Islam.<\/p>\n
\u201cWrestling Jerusalem\u201d is a solo performance by playwright\/actor Aaron Davidman in which he gives voice to over a dozen different characters. It\u2019s billed as a \u201cpersonal story that grapples with the complexities of identity, history, and social justice\u201d to shed \u201clight on one of the most entrenched conflicts of our time.\u201d <\/p>\n
I don\u2019t know how the play accomplishes this because I haven\u2019t read the script. I chose to avoid examining it for bias before deciding if I\u2019d support the project. To do that would have made my bias a priority over the community-building spirit and trust offered to members of Sukkat Shalom after those first meetings. <\/p>\n
Davidman readily admits his play is biased. When I spoke with him last week he said it\u2019s nothing more than \u201cthis particular American-Jewish man\u2019s perspective and journey into Israel and Palestine\u201d after \u201cmeeting a whole range of different people and trying to understand where they\u2019re coming from.\u201d In other words, their individual stories are interpreted through his bias.<\/p>\n
But it has to be that way. All personal experience is, by its very nature, a subjective understanding of reality. It\u2019s not our religious belief or allegiance to political party that makes us biased. Those symptomatic outcomes originate in our individual, unscripted journey through life. <\/p>\n
The challenge of all biases is to see through the eyes of other people. Not their philosophies which ground them to any institution. Nor their interpretation of history or current affairs. We have to drill down to that same level of humanity without our prejudicial chatter blocking the path.<\/p>\n
\u201cWrestling Jerusalem\u201d isn\u2019t Davidman\u2019s first attempt to tackle this highly contentious topic through personal stories. He co-wrote \u201cBlood Relative\u201d which premiered in San Francisco in 2005. Jewish-Israeli theater artist Meirav Kupperberg collaborated on that and said Davidman always worried about representing all sides correctly. <\/p>\n
Such dedication to everyone else\u2019s story is likely to produce disappointment for the strident defender on either side. Anyone looking for solutions to the conflict won\u2019t be satisfied either.<\/p>\n
But \u201cthe role of art isn\u2019t to smooth out the issues so everyone feels good,\u201d Davidman explained. It\u2019s \u201cto turn over the compost heap and let the fumes out … to move us from our fixed positions back into the unknown, which is really where we are, because we don\u2019t know how to solve the problem.\u201d<\/p>\n
That\u2019s exactly where Sukkat Shalom and JPPJ were when we first met in the fall of 2014. Of course we still can\u2019t solve the problem. But to begin a meaningful conversation, we had to hear each other\u2019s personal stories over the misunderstandings, mistrust and bitterness which had grown out of our publicly shared biases. <\/p>\n
Davidman told me that \u201cWrestling Jerusalem\u201d might be thought of as a play that protests the polemic by inviting nuance and complexity into the discussion. \u201cIt gives people from all over the political, religious, and cultural spectrum different points of entry\u201d he said, adding that a prime objective is cultivating empathy.<\/p>\n
Empathy is something we grant to people, not to points of view or beliefs. It has to come from our true self which is much deeper than our political, religious or cultural biases could ever reveal. That\u2019s why the after-performance discussions are such an integral part of the play. <\/p>\n
From this perspective, Davidman says, the play speaks to gun control, race relations, gay marriage and anywhere else that political polarization has infected the public dialogue. <\/p>\n
Bringing both sides of any of these controversies into the same forum might seem like a risky work of art. But it may be that only after wrestling with our biases as Davidman has that we\u2019ll be able to recognize the generous potential in each other\u2019s humanity. <\/p>\n
\u2022 Rich Moniak is a Juneau resident and retired civil engineer with more than 25 years of experience working in the public sector.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"
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