ANNOTATED NAKBA LEARNING RESOURCES

April 1, 2023
Rabbi Brian Walt

Movies

The recent Israeli documentary referred to above is now available on several sites.

1948 Creation and Catastrophe https://www.1948movie.com

It includes interviews with many Israelis and Palestinians who participated in the 1948 war, many historians including Israeli new historians and Palestinian scholars.

On the Other Side of the Road https://vimeo.com/117772052

A movie by Lia Tcharansky, a Jewish immigrant from the Soviet Union, who became interested in the Israeli denial of the Nakba. The movie describes her personal journey wrestling with the reality that exists on “the other side of the road” or that is covered over by trees planted by the Jewish National Fund. She interviews some Israelis who participated in the 1948 war carrying out expulsions of Palestinians and also a few brave Israelis like Eitan Bronshtein, one of the founders of Zochrot, the only Israeli organization devoted to challenging Nakba Denial.

The Blue Box Not currently available for streaming.

Another significant recent Israeli documentary on the Nakba by Michal Weitz, the great granddaughter of Yosef Weitz, who was the head of the Jewish National Fund who was also known as “Av Hatransfer,” the father of the idea of “Transfer.” Weitz was responsible for buying massive tracts of land and dispossessing Palestinian tenant farmers who lived on the land. He also directed the massive reforestation of Palestine, facilitated by the donations of Jews worldwide for planting trees in Israel. The forests hide the remains of many of the destroyed villages that were depopulated in the 1948 war. Unfortunately, it is not currently available for streaming. Check the internet for updates.

Oral Testimonies by Palestinians: Short oral testimonies by Palestinian survivors of the Nakba can be found on the Zochrot website and also on the website of The Institute for Middle East Understanding.

Historical Context of Israeli Palestinian Conflict. A powerful video about the origins of Israel/Palestine conflict.

BOOKS

Nur Masalha. Expulsion of The Palestinians: The Concept of “Transfer” in Zionist Political Thought 1882-1948. Institute for Palestine Studies, 1992.

Benny Morris. The Birth of the Palestinian Refugee Problem 1947-1949 and The Birth of the Palestinian Refugee Problem Revisited. Cambridge University Press, 1988.

Ilan Pappe. The Ethnic Cleansing of Palestine. A very challenging read especially for Jews, like me, who grew up with the Zionist narrative. Personally I am deeply moved by his argument that the expulsion of the Palestinians was an organized military action. Ilan Pappe and Benny Morris are the most prominent and well-known of the Israeli new historians, and they fiercely disagree about whether the Nakba was intentional and planned. Pappe also recently (2020) published an article with the text of official Israeli documents that were declassified in the 1980s and have been reclassified since. These official Israeli documents point to the intentionality of the assault on Palestinian villages and document several massacres and other atrocities.

You can find the article here: Ilan Pappé “An Indicative Archive: Salvaging Nakba Documents.” Journal of Palestine Studies 1 May 2020; 49 (3): 22–40. It is accessible online here.

Noga Kadman. Erased From Space And Consciousness: Israel And The Depopulated Palestinian Villages Of 1948. Indiana University Press, 2015

As a Jew who grew up as a Zionist and has spent a lot of time in Israel, I found this book by Noga Kadman to be fascinating. Kadman documents what exists below the surface of the reality of Israel. She describes the process by which the reality of the Palestinians that lies below the surface–their homes, their land, their names–has been deliberately hidden, and she also reports on how some progressive Israelis have grappled with this reality.