The writing by Dr. Salim Tamari were extremely interesting to me because they were from a new point of view (a first-hand perspective) of more modern day Israel. This is always the information that I find the most interesting in our class discussions and I was intrigued to hear more from such an esteemed scholar. The two articles I chose to read were "Lepers, Lunatics, and Saints" and "A Musician's Lot" (being a musician myself I thought this article would have a lot of impact, and it did). In these articles a lot of controversial points were brought up-initially, the issue of health and human rights. When talking about human rights in the past we've discussed genocides, wars, terrorists actions, but nothing regarding health and medical services. With the health system as controversial as it is here in the United States I was surprised this wasn't brought up earlier, especially since diseases brought upon by unsanitary living conditions is an international issue facing many countries in times of conflict. I was shocked to hear that Arabs and Jews were separated in the leper communities. This got me to wondering whether it was those in charge who preferred the separation, or if those involved would be uncomfortable living in a mixed religion community. Would it not be more efficient to have medical professionals from both sides of the conflict working together to find a cure for this mass of people? Just an idea...
In the article regarding music, the memoirs or Wasif Jawhariyyeh, I was extremely interested for the opposite reason. He says on page 77 "Sakakini was a pioneer in introducing two disciplines unique to his school at the time: physical education and Qur'anic studies for Christians". He mentions multiple times that this education helped his musical studies immensely throughout life and he wouldn't be the musician he ended up being without such teachings. This thought was confirmed with more comments like, "...it suggests that there was no clear correspondence between neighborhood and religion, and instead that there was a substantial intermixing of religious groups in each quarter. (82)" and "This was not merely the tolerant cohabitation of protected dhimmi minorities, but rather a positive engagement in the affairs of neighbors whose religion was coincidental to their wider urban heritage. (83)" Overall, the dichotomy in these two articles lead me to multiple questions to ask Dr. Tamari.
1) Does this multi-religious teaching still occur? If so, to what extent? And if not, do you think it would help with the differing and biased perceptions of each side?
2) Do you notice a difference in the media coverage here in the United States and in the Middle East itself? Do we have a slant in either direction or are we just mis-informed all around?
3) Do you think we are on the way to peace in the Middle East? If so, what solution do you think best enables us to reach this peace?
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