Letter: Hannah Moushabeck’s Homeland Tells Only One Side of a Complex Story
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I fully support ARPS’s goal to share stories of various backgrounds and cultures, as well as “promoting respect of people of diverse backgrounds and human rights.” My personal background is that of a Jewish parent of an Amherst public school student.
The Homeland book chosen by ARPS and read at Fort River and Wildwood is inclusive of only one perspective of the 1948 Arab-Israeli War. Whether such a complex historical period – with reverberations through to the present – should be taught at the elementary school level is questionable. But if such complex histories are to be taught to elementary school children, then other perspectives should be introduced so as to achieve ARPS’s goal of sharing stories of diverse backgrounds and cultures. For example, approximately 900,000 Jews lived in Arab countries prior to 1948 and only a few thousand remain today, the vast majority of them forcibly expelled.
ARPS appears to be supporting a one-sided view of a very complex history and negating the Jewish historical perspectives, along with historical facts, of the 1948 Arab-Israeli War. If a comprehensive overview sounds far too complex to present to elementary school students, I agree.
I read Hannah Moushabeck’s book Homeland. Her book beautifully recreates her father’s life, memories, and tragedy of leaving his homeland. However, her book offers only one perspective – both personal and historical – of the 1948 Arab-Israeli War via its symbols and language, e.g., Israel is referred to as “occupied” and the refrigerator has a map of Israel with the words “Free Palestine” written in Arabic. A note at the end uses the Arab word for “catastrophe” to refer to the founding of Israel. On November 29, 1947, the United Nations adopted Resolution 181 and divided the land into Jewish and Arab states beginning in May 1948. The author had an interview with The Graphic (student newspaper) in November 2023 where she talks about her historical views of that time period, which are woven into Homeland.
Although I disagree with Homeland’s characterization of Israel’s founding and continued existence, I am glad that I read it, and glad that the Jones Library had it available for me to read. But I am an adult, capable of seeking out different historical and political perspectives on my own. By contrast, elementary school children should not be subjected to the political activism (however skillfully woven into a child’s book) of one person on a controversial historical and political matter.
I do not believe this letter is a good-faith response to Hannah Moushabeck’s children’s memoir. Families of all faiths and cultures, at all ages, have conversations about what it is like to live within a biased world. If children are old enough to experience bias from their peers and communities, then their communities must also be equipped to have age-appropriate conversations about those experiences. I do not believe we must avoid complicated topics and conversations with children merely because they are complicated. Children are intelligent and capable of learning and engaging with proper support.
Homeland is a memoir. A memoir is a form of nonfiction writing that focuses on a specific period or aspect of the author’s life, often with an emphasis on the author’s emotions, experiences, and reflections on those events. The very genre of this book, which is thoughtfully and critically written, means that it will share a particular perspective of the events and themes within. This is not biased, this is lived experience shared in an age-appropriate way. This letter follows a pattern of denying the ongoing, historic violence against Palestinians and under the guise of being concerned with antisemitism.
It’s unbelievable to me how Palestinian Americans are denied our “Coming to America” story. The USA is a settler-colonial state, where the indigenous population was wiped out by 90% with the survivors expelled to reservations. If you are not an indigenous American, your family has a “Coming to America” immigration story. That story that is handed down through oral histories and for the lucky of us, memorialized in books, movies, documentaries, photo essays and shared with our fellow Americans, so we can collectively understand how this country came to be and currently is. The MA Department of Elementary and Secondary Education in fact has standards that mandate teaching immigration stories in elementary school.
Palestinian Americans simply aren’t allowed to share our story of becoming Americans. When we tell our communities what caused our forced migration from our homeland we get punished for not writing a geopolitical history of Palestine’s colonizers. What other ethnicity in the United States has to do this when a person talks about why their father misses where they were born? Most immigration stories start simply with the strife the families face, not a history of their oppressor.
As a Palestinian American resident of Sunderland, who has two Palestinian children in local public schools, I cannot communicate the level of hurt when I read these criticisms of Homeland. When I tell the story of the ethnic cleansing of my parent’s village of Salama, I do not begin with the history of the Irgun and Haganah Zionist militias that terrorized the villagers with violence until their escape to Ramallah and Gaza. I do not recite the biography of Ze’ev Jabotinsky, the founder Revisionist Zionism and progenitor of the Irgun. I start with my mother’s escape in the back of a pickup truck, who left the village in December 1947, the day she was born, umbilical cord still attached to my grandmother.
With tears as I type, I too, a Palestinian father, dreams of Palestine, of the lemon and orange groves I’ve never tasted, of never sitting in my grandfathers coffee shop, of the Mediterranean sea I’ve never touched, and I will never be ashamed of that.
I am saddened and angered that the Indy chose to publish this op-ed, especially in this time when marginalized voices all over this country are being silenced for speaking the truth of their histories. I am a Jewish parent and I own Homeland. It is a beautiful, accessible book that explains the story of the Palestinian people, and illustrates longing for an ancestral home, a theme that resonates for many. Explaining what happened when Israel was founded and Palestinians were expelled from their lands is of critical importance, and I am deeply grateful that this book exists to help illustrate that history.
I find this letter, while polite in tone, hateful and ignorant. As the above commenters state beautifully, children deserve to be exposed to true, historical narratives — of which Homeland is one — and Palestinian stories deserve to be told. Palestinians are part of American culture, and by hiding their stories from our children we sew the seeds for lifelong prejudice. I am a Jew whose grandfather fought in the so called Israeli War of Independence. He quickly came to see it for the Nakba — “catastrophe” — that it was, realizing he perpetuated racist violence onto the native Palestinians. He left Israel and never returned.
We are in a moment in American history where language about “both sides” and “one side of the story” is being used to obscure the objective horrors that marginalized people lived and live through. Are Holocaust narratives, which I at least was exposed to in school at a very young age, inappropriate because they do not show the side of the story where the German people truly thought they were doing the right thing? Are slave narratives one sided because we don’t get the perspective of the slave owner? The current federal administration would say yes, those are one sided stories; we don’t want the children of the perpetrators to feel shame for their ancestors’ actions. This is extremely dangerous. We must teach children the pain that people suffer at the hands of callous violence, whatever the perpetrators of said violence believed about their so called moral right to torture, displace populations, and murder.
As Palestine suffers violence today beyond my wildest imagination, as the two million residents of Gaza of are being starved to death by an Israeli blockade, while our tax dollars send them ever more weapons to bomb the survivors, it is of the utmost importance that our children learn to empathize with Palestinians, as with victims of hatred the world over. As the saying goes, “Those who don’t know history are doomed to repeat it.” While a second Nakba is being inflicted, we refuse to even teach the first! What further atrocities will our culture commit if we can’t acknowledge the wrong we’ve been complicit in thus far?
” For example, approximately 900,000 Jews lived in Arab countries prior to 1948 and only a few thousand remain today, the vast majority of them forcibly expelled.” This is false.
The Jewish exodus from Arab countries in the 20th century was largely due to the creation of Israel AFTER 1948. Jewish people were certainly violently oppressed in Europe and Russia, but did not experience the same level of vitriol in the Middle East until the Zionist project began its violence in earnest.
It’s easier to live in a bubble than to work to learn the truth.
Andrea Newman’s arguments and statements regarding the “one sided view” of Hannah
Moushabek’s amazing storybook is another example of Americans not knowing the truth.
Nobody wants to learn; they just stay with their narrative even when it’s been debunked. Sad,
but true.
Americans and others have been exposed and confused by the decades of Israeli propaganda
which is full of lies and deceptively rewritten histories of what really occurred with the
establishment of Israel as a state. It is hard for us to fathom the amount of falsehoods we have
assumed as truth but don’t blame yourself. Just start to relearn the real history. It has nothing
to do with religious beliefs. That’s a pretext for the Israeli’s barbarity. The reason it is so
ingrained in us to see Arabs as terrorists is due to an amazing century of lies designed by Israel
so the west would see Arabs as ‘less than human”. The truth is practically the opposite. Israel
actually did more than urge Jews to leave the Arab states. Read this scholarly and clearly
explained article to help open your eyes to the real truth.
“Free Palestine” ,says this Jew.
And Hannah’s book is a gift to the world.
https://www.middleeasteye.net/big-story/truth-behind-israeli-propaganda-expulsion-arab-jews
After reading Anna Newman’s op ed I sat down to reread Hannah Moushabeck’s Homeland. It tells a beautiful story of a young boy’s walk through the streets of East Jerusalem with his father and grandfather on a single day in 1948. It beautifully recreates a world of street vendors, cafes, and markets. There is no mention of geopolitics – the words “Arab-Israeli War ,” “Israel” and “Jews” do not appear. At the end we are only told that this was “the last day my father saw his grandfather, the last time he saw Palestine” and later “at night we dream of our homeland.” This is a single family’s story of loss, beautifully illustrated, enchanting, and original. Only the “Author’s Note” at the end provides a bit more context in a single, final paragraph that introduces the word “Nakba.”
To claim that by using this book the Amherst schools are promoting a “one-sided view” and “negating the Jewish historical perspectives, along with historical facts” is rather far-fetched. Given that nearly all Palestinians and Palestinian Americans living in the U.S. today are refugees or their descendants, many of whose families had to flee in 1948, does Newman suggest that their experiences can not be addressed at an elementary school level? Must every family’s story that references the Nakba, even one that does not name the event in its main text, be suppressed and labeled biased and one-sided? Why are other refugee and immigration stories celebrated and welcomed into the curriculum, many of which also portray families who have fled violence and persecution (and which often name the perpetrators.)
As someone who grew up proud of my Jewish heritage, which was validated in my schools and American society in general (where the Jewish story of suffering and victimization is constantly affirmed), denying this same opportunity for children to learn about the Palestinian experience is deeply disturbing.
I am a Jewish American whose grandmother, Clara O. Jackson dedicated her life to Children’s Literature and Library Science. Although she passed away before I was born, I got a chance to get to know her through what she loved and left behind: hundreds of children’s books from around the world. A trauma survivor herself, she sought out narratives of wonder, resilience and meaning-making across cultures on her own healing journey as a Jew in the 20th century. If she were alive today, I believe that she would keep a copy of Hannah Moushabeck’s Homeland in her personal library.
Homeland is both a historically grounded and emotionally honest portrayal of the intergenerational experience of trauma, an experience which inevitably impacts the children portrayed in the book and invites the reader into empathy with the broader Palestinian experience of displacement. The author of the commentary above portrays the book as tacit “political activism.” Don’t get me wrong: I stand by the urgent need for political activism in its myriad forms, and think we would all be better off to “subject” our families and communities earlier on to its most prescient words and actions; however, in employing this term here, the commentator attempts to re-enact in real time what Homelands so gracefully challenges- namely, cultural erasure.
The nature of colonial violence and erasure is to politicize and racialize its victims, seeking to forever mark their identities and stories with a narrative they did not ask for, while simultaneously denying them the right to share from their lived experiences in public spaces. Such suppression of public storytelling, as we are witnessing in this moment, seeks to deny Palestinians the right to exist at all. The expectation that people of certain identities (aka survivors of cultural trauma and racialized violence) should bare the responsibility of “telling both sides of the story,” while other lived experiences are assumed to be politically neutral, is harmful and egregious. The idea that any story, of any genre, and for any audience, can be politically neutral is itself an implicit normalization of white supremacy and the narratives of empire. Dominate narratives hold such power that we must consciously, rigorously and empathetically seek out the most silenced stories among us if we are to engage in good faith, culturally competent and life-affirming dialogues within our communities. Please read Homeland again, and retract the commentary above.
As a person of Jewish heritage, I don’t feel threatened by books like “Homeland”…and if I did, that would be MY problem. Everyone has the right to tell their story, even when the historical truth makes people uncomfortable. The Moushabeck family and their literary press, Interlink, are a valuable part of Northampton’s culture-making community. Let’s trust our children to handle diverse viewpoints.
I fully expected my letter to prompt a lively discussion. However, I did not expect demands to silence me, whether in the form of “anger” towards the Indy for publishing my letter or a request that I “retract” my commentary. Such demands to silence my perspective was all the more unexpected since the main point of my letter was, “But if such complex histories are to be taught to elementary school children, then other perspectives should be introduced so as to achieve ARPS’s goal of sharing stories of diverse backgrounds and cultures.” Perhaps I should have also expected accusations of being hateful, ignorant, and racist, despite how my letter includes praise for the book at issue and that it should be in the library for people to read. For anyone reading all of this who has not already reached a conclusion in advance, I urge you to read what I actually wrote, not what others have claimed what I wrote.
Thank you Andrea for your letter. People either don’t remember or don’t know that Jews have been in that part of the world for centuries. (My family has been there since the late 1400’s.) We need to present a more nuanced and balanced narrative. Where is the children’s book with a Palestinian Jewish perspective?
Thank you Hannah Moushabeck for opening a path for our children for a greater understanding of their world.
As the lesbian mother of 2 now adult children, this discussion and others I have read is reminiscent of the one surrounding the distribution of Heather Has Two Mommies.
I come to this thread/tragic history from having been born in one of the worst settler-colonial empires (the UK) and I grew up with émigré Jews from Nazi Germany in an artistic, progressive household (1960s). We’ve been in a Kairos moment for a while now and just now, in the news, there is a new round of bombings in Gaza, financed by our government. Here I am in Amherst now, having never lived in the part of the world described in Hannah Moushabeck’s book, but I can’t turn away. As an immigrant to this country I do understand the power of “heimat” and what supports anyone’s sense of belonging. “Homeland” has arrived on my doorstep and before I open the book, I have been listening to an On Being program that relates to the perceptions, insights and feelings in this thread so I am adding it here. Thank you, editors of the Amherst Indy, for persisting keeping the original letter “up” and continuing to publish comments and responses. There needs to be a place for the fullest expression to take place. Adding the link here: https://podcasts.apple.com/us/podcast/yochi-fisher-and-loaay-wattad-on-seeing-the/id150892556?i=1000708639018
“But if such complex histories are to be taught to elementary school children, then other perspectives should be introduced … ARPS appears to be supporting a one-sided view of a very complex history … If a comprehensive overview sounds far too complex to present to elementary school students, I agree.”
This phrasing from Andrea Newman’s letter (like other recent challenges to Hannah Moushabeck’s picture book, Homeland) perpetuates the decades-long, systematic silencing of Palestinian-Americans and contributes to the erasure of Palestinian culture and history. This kind of language is intended to make us consider that the mere mention Palestinian refugees, even in the vaguest terms, is too complex and one-sided for our community’s children. Never mind that some of those children are Palestinian.
And here’s the thing: the forced displacement of more than half of the population (ethnic cleansing) of Palestine in 1948—the Nakba—is a well-documented and globally recognized historical fact, as is the Israeli government’s refusal to honor the right of return of refugees and their descendants.
The United Nations, in its description of the Nakba published two years ago wrote:
“As early as December 1948, the UN General Assembly called for refugee return, property restitution and compensation. However, 75 years later, despite countless UN resolutions, the rights of the Palestinians continue to be denied.” And annually since November 29, 1978, “Recognizing the need for the greatest possible dissemination of information on the inalienable rights of the Palestinian people and on the efforts of the United Nations to promote the attainment of those rights” the UN has observed an International Day of Solidarity with the Palestinian People.
Among those expelled Palestinians were local author Hannah Moushabeck’s family; Homeland is a piece of their story. Homeland shares with us an inaccessible home that has nevertheless been passed down to new generations by storytelling. It is a book that the children of refugees and immigrants from all over the world can relate to. This is not a story of war, and so it requires no complex history lesson. Nor does it require balance from contrasting perspectives; the forced displacement of a people is never acceptable, and we should never even imply otherwise to our children.
At this time, when our government is terrorizing and forcing out immigrant families right here in our state, and while the United States and Israel are carrying out a new Nakba, more books like Homeland are needed, and I thank the teachers of ARPS for sharing them with students.
May I add my voice to those both praising Hannah’s beautiful book and decrying efforts to silence Palestinian voices. A children’s book telling of a family leaving their homeland and coming to a new country is not an effort to slant people’s view of what has happened in Palestine since 1948. It is simply what it is. Could there be a children’s book telling of a family leaving their homeland and journeying to Israel? Perhaps there is one. Finding fault with the telling of this story perhaps speaks to the hidden sadness one might be feeling but must be suppressed in the name of Zionism. As the killing and starving of Palestinians continues, I imagine that it is becoming increasingly difficult to defend the indefensible. In my experience, telling the truth about Palestine most often results in attacks, some of them vicious, without any real substance. Those attacks do not say “you are wrong”, they just say “I’m angry”, as when people yell “F*ck You” when I hold a “Free Palestine” sign.
I am an author currently earning my MFA in Lesley University’s writing for young people track and a former Jewish early childhood educator of many years who has completed coursework at the master’s level in Jewish early childhood education.
Hannah Moushabeck’s beautiful book, “Homeland: My Father Dreams of Palestine,” is a rich and heartwarming story that is appropriate, helpful, and loving for children and adults of all ages and backgrounds, including Jewish little ones. I recommend the book to my colleagues who teach early childhood education and have bought it for the children in my life. Hannah Moushabeck is an outstanding author, and I highly recommend her work.
This is the time to uplift and support the Palestinian authors in our community, not silence them.
This is the time to read Palestinian books, not ban them.
I am greatly saddened and upset that the Indy has chosen to publish this op-ed at a time when the genocide against Palestinians is ongoing, intensifying, and inflicting unimaginable pain and suffering, especially on children. To quote one of the most trusted human rights groups, “Amnesty International’s report demonstrates that Israel has carried out acts prohibited under the Genocide Convention, with the specific intent to destroy Palestinians in Gaza. These acts include killings, causing serious bodily or mental harm and deliberately inflicting on Palestinians in Gaza conditions of life calculated to bring about their physical destruction (https://www.amnesty.org/en/latest/news/2024/12/amnesty-international-concludes-israel-is-committing-genocide-against-palestinians-in-gaza/).” To call attention away from the real, actual, horrific harm that is happening to Palestinians in Gaza right at this very moment and instead attempt to silence a Palestinian children’s book author is shameful.
“Homeland” is a genuine and beautiful historical narrative. It is also Hannah and her family’s personal lived experience, a memoir, making it even more absurd that this op-ed is trying to silence it. Books like “Homeland” are needed now more than ever. I’m glad that the teachers at ARPS are sharing the book. I hope that some good might come out of this harmful op-ed, namely, that more parents and teachers will become aware of the book “Homeland” and share it with more children.
I have no problem with The Indy publishing Ms. Newman’s letter. Let’s not ourselves try to silence anyone’s opinion. I believe the Indy does a good job of publishing diverse opinions as long as they are not filled with falsehoods. However, Andrea, let us look at just one phrase of yours: “political activism (however skillfully woven into a child’s book) of one person on a controversial historical and political matter”, I do take exception to your characterization of this book being a skillful act of political activism. You describe her book as “… inclusive of only one perspective of the 1948 Arab-Israeli War. ” Should all books about the Palestinian or Israeli experience paint a complete and picture of what happened in 1948? We would then only be able to read Benny Morris and Rashid Khalidi; hardly suitable for grade school aged children. Methinks thou dost protest too much.