Mya Guarnieri Jaradat's Critical Reads

Mya Guarnieri Jaradat is a journalist and writer who spent nearly a decade covering Israel and the occupied Palestinian Territories. Her work has been published in a number of literary and media outlets, including The Nation, Al Jazeera English, Foreign Policy, The Guardian, Narrative, Kenyon Review, and Boston Review. Jaradat discusses The Unchosen: Non-Jews in the Jewish State, in conversation with Orit Bashkinon, on Sat. 5/20 3pm at the Co-op. RSVP and details here.

In general, I believe in reading on the margins. Just like the health of a democracy can be checked by looking at the status of minority groups, I think that to truly understand a topic or a place in a deep way, you need to see what’s happening to the marginalized communities and to understand them within the larger context. It’s also important to follow the work of writers with marginalized views—that is, those who are taking a different angle than the mainstream view, which is usually dominated by upper middle class white men.

To that end, there are two books I recommend that will push readers to a different, broader understanding of Israeli-Palestinian conflict that challenges the conventional view.

Jerusalem 1913: The Origins of the Arab-Israeli Conflict by Amy Dockser Marcus

Not the Enemy: Israel’s Jews from Arab Lands by Rachel Shabi

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I’m working on a memoir now, so I’m looking a lot at that genre. Memoirs are often maligned as self-indulgent and navel-gazing but the act of reading and engaging with a memoir is all about intersubjectivity. The best memoirs function as micro for macro. The writer offers up something intensely personal that helps readers better understand themselves—and then, of course, that feeling of shared experience reminds us that we’re part of something larger: humanity.

To that end, I cannot recommend more highly An Abbreviated Life by Ariel Leve. It chronicles her relationship with her abusive mother. For readers who haven’t experienced this particular type of trauma, Leve’s book offers a striking example of how our personal histories often grab hold of us and pull us out of the present. Her use of form is incredible—it perfectly captures the way the past rises up and intrudes on the moment.

On the surface, Leve’s book might seem totally unrelated to the Israeli-Palestinian conflict. But her book mirrors the way collective trauma influences the current political situation on both sides of the Green Line.