Live & Learn with Ira Weiss: Israeli-Palestinian Narrative

02 Apr @ 10:30 am - 12:00 pm

Parallel Narratives Never Meet

Palestinians and Israelis each have a national narrative in which the Arab-Jewish conflict plays a critical part. These narrative are the histories that are communicated in the history books, media, literature, art, and personal discourse of the two societies. The two narratives are dramatically different in content, yet each is understood to be the whole truth by most people in each society.  In the course we will discuss how events in the long-standing conflict are depicted in Israeli and Palestinian discourse.

This presentation will be in person only.

Ira is a neurophysiologist by profession now retired after 30+ years at Children’s National Medical Center in Washington DC.  He grew up on the lower east side of New York City where he attended an orthodox yeshiva.   He helped found and run an NGO called Projects Encounter which, for four years, brought Palestinian and Israeli high school students to Spain for summer coexistence workshops and now serves on the board of  New Story Leadership  which brings Palestinian and Israeli young potential leaders to Washington for joint summer internships and leadership training.  Ira has been teaching a variety of classes for us in the Live & Learn space since before the pandemic.  His knowledge of Israel (culture, language, people, challenges, complexities) is vast and he’s a popular presenter among our Live & Learn folks.