I Sound My Ecstatic AWP Over The Roofs Of The World

Children Of Israel Are Never Alone

Hey, beloved tribe.

I hope you all had a great weekend. After so many weeks and months of distress on too many levels to count, I can honestly say that my own weekend was phenomenal. I’m torn between wanting to tell you all about the AWP conference (which I will) and also wanting to talk about the protests in Gaza.

As of now, I’m hoping to make the Gaza protests the topic of Wednesday’s column. For now, I’ll just briefly say that, while it’s no surprise, I find it maddening that the left-leaning media outlets are barely willing to touch on the topic (even though the uprisings could hardly be more newsworthy) and they’re all but dead silent on Hamas’ murderous response to them — specifically the fact that they’ve been reported (by foreign and right-leaning venues) as having executed at least six protestors, leaving one bludgeoned corpse on his family’s doorstep.

As Dara Horn wrote in an incredulous note to me:

“The people of Gaza, unlike people in the US, are finally protesting against tyranny instead of endorsing it. Also, none of the protestors in Gaza are wearing keffiyehs covering their faces, and few are even wearing keffiyehs at all — because those are associated with the tyrants of Hamas! Why are the people who care about #ownvoices ignoring actual Gazans RIGHT NOW?”

It’s a great question, and again, I plan to say much more about all that on Wednesday.

But before the glow of AWP wears off, and while my emotion is still high, I want to report on the conference.

First, I need to say that — though I had a lot of fear going in, due to all the reports of how hostile the atmosphere was to Jews last year — it was an absolutely wonderful experience from beginning to end.

The first indication that last year’s hostilities would not be repeated with the same intensity was a missive from AWP to all conference participants. This notice said that attendees were more than welcome to exercise their right to free speech — within the conference zones designated for protests. They could set up tables, display signs and posters, stage demonstrations and otherwise register their political opinions in said areas, but they would not be permitted to disrupt other people’s panels, shout into megaphones in the middle of the book fair, or otherwise sabotage the conference experience for other participants.

The notice went on to say that anyone who refused to abide by these conference rules would be escorted off the premises and barred from returning. No refunds would be issued in such cases, and anyone who re-entered the convention center after being ousted would be subject to arrest.

Needless to say, this was very welcome news to me and I felt the AWP staff found just the right balance between respecting some attendees’ rights to register their anger and protecting the experience of other attendees who’d paid admission, traveled vast distances in many cases, and invested time and effort in their presentations.

The next indication that this year would be better than last year was this update landing in my inbox:

I don’t know why the most explicitly anti-Zionist Jewish event at the conference was cancelled by its own panelists, but I was not at all sorry to see it go.

The third indication that this year would be better: it included all the Jewish panels that the Jewish Book Council managed to place (which had not been accepted prior to their intervention).

I went to as many of these as I possibly could and every single one of them was extraordinary.

I took notes throughout the conference, jotting down remarks I found striking. Here are just a few:

“I didn’t find out I was Jewish until I was eleven or twelve. It took the fall of the Soviet Union for parents to be able to tell their child such a thing.”

“I teach at a liberal university, but I think we’ve all had the experience of a place being liberal until you’re Jewish, and then they’re not so liberal.”

“Basically Warsaw is a raised city, constructed on bodies and rubble it would have taken too long to clear away after the war. They built on top of it. You buy an apartment and it’s nice and fancy, but you hear stories of haunting and ghosts… strange things happen when you buy an apartment on top of the old Jewish ghetto.”

“English is not a Jewish language. And as a Jewish writer, I consider it a profound tragedy that I think and write in a non-indigenous language.”

“Go and look at a page of Talmud and use that filter for your own life.”

“My grandparents were lucky to leave their country before the trouble that’s just starting for us.”

The panel I was on convened during the late afternoon of the first day. More people came than I’d expected — our moderator told me she counted around 60 attendees.

Two people who turned out to be protestors were among them, and I could tell right away that they were hostile audience members. They came in late, letting the door bang shut behind them. One wore oversized black shades (though of course we were inside). She carried a takeout box which she proceeded to open on her lap, and then she began eating as loudly as possible without raising her gaze from the food.

Strangely I felt no alarm at all. Even when I was speaking, identifying myself as a Zionist again and again with unapologetic intensity, I felt only a kind of faint gratification in response to the idea that, while she was presumably hating me, she was also listening to me. Whether she wanted to hear my story or not, she was in the room with it, by choice, and on some level she was absorbing it even if it had to yet to — or might never — reach her.

That in itself seemed to me like more emotional proximity than most political adversaries ever get.

About halfway through the panel, her companion came up to the table and dropped pro-Palestinian decals all over it and then both of them walked to the door, popping off about genocide as they exited.

As disruptions go, it was brief and easy to move beyond, and from that moment on, there was no more tension in the room.

Every other aspect of the conference was glorious. I met a poet I’ve ardently admired for decades. She asked whether I ever came through her hometown, and when I told her I came often for my daughter’s climbing events, she said, “Well, I have a big empty house.” I seriously had to ask myself if I was dreaming.

I also connected with countless other tribe members from every walk of literary life. It was like being in a candy store. The days were filled end to end, from early breakfast reunions to a wonderful Shabbat dinner and sleepover at the home of a friend in the Pico Robertson district.

Because I attended up to 5 panels a day between breakfast and dinner, there was truly no time to read the news. And I can’t even express what a relief this was, even though turning away from the news is not something I would ordinarily do for any reason.

Finally, most of the panels weren’t explicitly political, but more than once I had the experience of listening to anti-Israel sentiment I hadn’t knowingly signed on for.

And yet, even this felt less fraught than usual within the context of this event.

One panel, for instance, was centered around Jewish eco-poetry, and one poet in particular seemed to express much more sympathy for Palestine than for Israel in the pieces she read.

And yet, she was so appealing and compelling and brilliant that I just let myself remain open to her. And I found it impossible to think of her as my enemy or even my adversary. “Self-hating Jew” is a common label for Jews protesting Israel — and many of them undoubtedly are — but there was no denying the obvious fact that this woman was deeply, passionately Jewish. She was going straight from that panel to present on another I’d resolved to avoid for its clearly anti-Israel bent, but as I was listening to her read, I changed my mind on the spot.

If this is the caliber of the poets on the next panel, I thought, then I’m going to at least listen to them.

And I did. And I was glad I’d made that decision. They said plenty I didn’t agree with, even some things I thought were wildly reductive and intellectually dishonest, but I was still glad I listened. Like her, all the poets on the next panel were passionate Jews. One had learned Yiddish as an adult. All were deeply engaged with Jewish texts and Jewish communities.

During the Q&A, I told them I’d deeply appreciated their readings. I copped to a last-minute decision to follow the poet on the previous panel to this one. I confessed that this one was outside my comfort zone but that I’d found it inexpressibly worthwhile. And I said it brought me a striking insight: that I was able to listen far less defensively to the language of poetry than to the rhetoric of activism.

Truthfully, if I’d gotten nothing else out of this conference, dayenu: this realization would have been worth the price of admission. I felt it was important to remain mindful of it in the course of my own activism going forward. The pain and vulnerability and humanity of a poem holds so much more power than a shouted political slogan.

To me, the moral of this story isn’t to back away from political action, but to infuse it with something more potent than sanctimony.

I left LA feeling more renewed and restored than I’ve felt in forever. For the first time in a while, I could imagine a bridge to some of the Jews from whom I’ve felt most estranged. I really want to build on this bedrock of goodwill I experienced and find a better way forward for our community.

Okay, fam. I’ll be back with you on Wednesday to talk about the Gaza protests and the new Shin Bet director Bibi just appointed (and whom he might replace in very short order if we can believe the buzz around it).

In the meantime, I hope your week is going well. Much love to you all. Chazak chazak.

Am Yisrael Chai.