This is a fantastic interview with Dr. Dajani. She’s absolutely heroic and indispensable as an educator and practitioner. Thank you! I’m donating to her cause.
I believe that we need to reach out more to the American Jewish community so I gave talks to Rabbi Sharon Kleinbaum’s synagogue in NYC last April. This congregation is stellar and deserves support.
She graduated from Barnard in ‘81 and served as a rabbi for 32 years at this synagogue. She urges a ceasefire and works with peace groups in Israel to achieve it. The point is that there are prominent Jewish leaders here striving for peace. DD
I want this epigenetic conversation to happen in every space around the world . Not because I imagine it will immediately bring about change but that change based on understanding deeply how deeply war harms children everywhere. Eventually humans might remember childhood so they demand other means to make change in our humanity , living and breathing in harm or health each day.
I don't think anyone fails to realize that the traumas of war affect millions of children or that the effects of trauma may be life-long and tend to influence subsequent generations. This may be why it is not a particular focus of conversation in every room.
I know many people are traumatized by the way children are explicitly exploited in wars in addition to those who are part of the death and casualty lists along with their parents.
Maybe I am completely naive, but I believe practically everyone would like to see every war end now, along with commitments not to seek to exterminate each other.
Thank you, such an interesting interview. I’m always glad to learn a new way to resist binary thinking and I love “There is no excuse for anyone not to try.”
Courtney, I again take exception to your use of the word genocide. I imagine the families of those kidnapped, killed, raped and mutilated on October 7, might have a problem with it, too. Forget that the population of Gaza has DOUBLED since all Jews moved out in 2005, and have not thus ‘occupied’ it since. Forget that the IDF is trying to prevent the next massacre of Israeli children and grandparents, the next rape and mutilation of Israeli women, and the incessant raining down of rockets that has been going on for years. Forget that the ratio of civilians to combatants killed is the lowest in modern war history because of the great care the IDF takes to avoid ‘collateral damage’. Forget that Hamas deliberately builds rocket launchers and stores munitions on and under schools and hospitals, because the more Palestinians killed, the sooner the Iranians can get the rest of the world to collude in the death of all Jews and the destruction of the State of Israel, which goal is stated in Hamas’s charter.
Speaking of “harm to children”, where is your concern for the Israeli children who have been rushing to bomb shelters every time a siren sounds, who spend most nights there because the shelling has been incessant instead of just sporadic, as it was in the years before October 7th, who lost parents, grandparents and siblings that day?
As a pacifist, a mother and an involved grandmother, I grieve for the suffering of all non-combatants. However, I RAGE regarding the teaching of hatred to generations of Palestinian children, and I challenge you to find proof that anything like it happens in the Jewish community. I challenge you and your readers to read Noa Tishby’s accessible book, Israel: A Simple Guide to the Most Misunderstood Country on Earth, or better yet, to visit the miracle that is Israel.
Are you okay with the fact that, among the murdered on October 7th were the most peace-loving citizens of Israel, those who befriended, employed and provided health care to their neighbors from Gaza? Do you care that all the billions of aid dollars funneled into Gaza over the last few decades have been spent, not to build a strong, functional country, but to build tunnels under neighborhoods and to buy arms?
Look at the American response to 9/11. When someone wants you dead, you root them out and prevent your own destruction. You refuse calls for ceasefire until you have managed to prevent their next inevitable attack. You protect those you love. What is happening in Gaza and may soon happen in Lebanon is not genocide, it is war. War is heartbreaking, but backing down is not an option for Israel. Iran and their proxies want me, my family and my Jewish communities, in Israel and here in peaceful Vancouver, Canada, to be destroyed. They have openly stated it as their intention.
Four times since 1948, the Palestinians were offered peace and a homeland. Their leaders always refused rather than recognize as sovereign the tiny part of formerly Arab- and British-controlled land that Israel claimed as a safe haven for the Jews. Are you able to imagine a ‘story’ without the oppressor/oppressed scenario extolled by the media and the uneducated? I sure hope so, because there is way more to the story than what I see in this blog.
Amy, I appreciate you offering your passion and your ideas here, and I have read them and will continue to reflect on what you've shared. Lovingly, I would like you to know that this reads as very binary and accusatory rather than coming from a place of genuine empathy and respect for the complexity and multi-dimensionality of all religions and cultures. I'm sorry you're feeling so misunderstood and vulnerable. Sending love to you.
This is a fantastic interview with Dr. Dajani. She’s absolutely heroic and indispensable as an educator and practitioner. Thank you! I’m donating to her cause.
I believe that we need to reach out more to the American Jewish community so I gave talks to Rabbi Sharon Kleinbaum’s synagogue in NYC last April. This congregation is stellar and deserves support.
She graduated from Barnard in ‘81 and served as a rabbi for 32 years at this synagogue. She urges a ceasefire and works with peace groups in Israel to achieve it. The point is that there are prominent Jewish leaders here striving for peace. DD
Yes, absolutely. Thanks for pointing this out DD.
I want this epigenetic conversation to happen in every space around the world . Not because I imagine it will immediately bring about change but that change based on understanding deeply how deeply war harms children everywhere. Eventually humans might remember childhood so they demand other means to make change in our humanity , living and breathing in harm or health each day.
I don't think anyone fails to realize that the traumas of war affect millions of children or that the effects of trauma may be life-long and tend to influence subsequent generations. This may be why it is not a particular focus of conversation in every room.
I know many people are traumatized by the way children are explicitly exploited in wars in addition to those who are part of the death and casualty lists along with their parents.
Maybe I am completely naive, but I believe practically everyone would like to see every war end now, along with commitments not to seek to exterminate each other.
Epigenetics / generational trauma is fascinating and I hope to learn more - thanks for sharing
Thank you, such an interesting interview. I’m always glad to learn a new way to resist binary thinking and I love “There is no excuse for anyone not to try.”
Courtney, I again take exception to your use of the word genocide. I imagine the families of those kidnapped, killed, raped and mutilated on October 7, might have a problem with it, too. Forget that the population of Gaza has DOUBLED since all Jews moved out in 2005, and have not thus ‘occupied’ it since. Forget that the IDF is trying to prevent the next massacre of Israeli children and grandparents, the next rape and mutilation of Israeli women, and the incessant raining down of rockets that has been going on for years. Forget that the ratio of civilians to combatants killed is the lowest in modern war history because of the great care the IDF takes to avoid ‘collateral damage’. Forget that Hamas deliberately builds rocket launchers and stores munitions on and under schools and hospitals, because the more Palestinians killed, the sooner the Iranians can get the rest of the world to collude in the death of all Jews and the destruction of the State of Israel, which goal is stated in Hamas’s charter.
Speaking of “harm to children”, where is your concern for the Israeli children who have been rushing to bomb shelters every time a siren sounds, who spend most nights there because the shelling has been incessant instead of just sporadic, as it was in the years before October 7th, who lost parents, grandparents and siblings that day?
As a pacifist, a mother and an involved grandmother, I grieve for the suffering of all non-combatants. However, I RAGE regarding the teaching of hatred to generations of Palestinian children, and I challenge you to find proof that anything like it happens in the Jewish community. I challenge you and your readers to read Noa Tishby’s accessible book, Israel: A Simple Guide to the Most Misunderstood Country on Earth, or better yet, to visit the miracle that is Israel.
Are you okay with the fact that, among the murdered on October 7th were the most peace-loving citizens of Israel, those who befriended, employed and provided health care to their neighbors from Gaza? Do you care that all the billions of aid dollars funneled into Gaza over the last few decades have been spent, not to build a strong, functional country, but to build tunnels under neighborhoods and to buy arms?
Look at the American response to 9/11. When someone wants you dead, you root them out and prevent your own destruction. You refuse calls for ceasefire until you have managed to prevent their next inevitable attack. You protect those you love. What is happening in Gaza and may soon happen in Lebanon is not genocide, it is war. War is heartbreaking, but backing down is not an option for Israel. Iran and their proxies want me, my family and my Jewish communities, in Israel and here in peaceful Vancouver, Canada, to be destroyed. They have openly stated it as their intention.
Four times since 1948, the Palestinians were offered peace and a homeland. Their leaders always refused rather than recognize as sovereign the tiny part of formerly Arab- and British-controlled land that Israel claimed as a safe haven for the Jews. Are you able to imagine a ‘story’ without the oppressor/oppressed scenario extolled by the media and the uneducated? I sure hope so, because there is way more to the story than what I see in this blog.
Amy, I appreciate you offering your passion and your ideas here, and I have read them and will continue to reflect on what you've shared. Lovingly, I would like you to know that this reads as very binary and accusatory rather than coming from a place of genuine empathy and respect for the complexity and multi-dimensionality of all religions and cultures. I'm sorry you're feeling so misunderstood and vulnerable. Sending love to you.