from group blog April 25

In an hour we will all be videoconferencing with each other. Part of me wants to save my thoughts, feelings and views on the articles for when we meet "face to face", but I will write a little bit now anyways.It is difficult for me to read four politically and emotionally intense articles all one after the other. I know that I could have spread the out during the week, but I didn't. It is even more difficult for me to write about each one. Each article triggered new thoughts and emotions.The two articles that spoke about the way Jerusalem is portrayed in literature were interesting, but to fully understand them I would need to read the literature itself. While reading them I started to think if there is any other city in the world that causes so much emotion. Is there any other city that is portrayed as a person? Living in Jerusalem I feel this intensity that the city itself gives off. Do other people feel that in the cities that they live in or is this something that is unique to Jerusalem?As Andrea wrote, I also was most able to relate to Hassan-Rokem's writing. This understanding is probably due to our similar backgrounds [Jewish –Israeli -women] and beliefs.I felt as if I was having a dialogue with Suad Amiry as I read her dairies, which seemed to me more as memories. For me it was as if she was filling in the other half of a picture for me. I have lived my life in the East Jerusalem Jewish Israeli side, and here she was telling me her side, the West Arab Jerusalem side. As she writes about the soldiers and what seemed to her an absurd experience with Israeli soldiers and gas mask, I was thinking to myself, was I that soldier. Were these people that she kept referring to as "soldiers" were they my friends? I was trying to understand the whole situation and not just see it through her eyes. By writing in Arabic and English I could feel how she wants the reader to connect and feel for her and her story.I felt drawn in as a read it, but each time she wrote sarcastically about the soldiers or Israel, it made take a step back and think the situations through. I have a lot more to say and want to hear from others so I hope we do so now at the videoconference.Have a good day.Rebecca