Half a Century through Personal Stories: Palestinian and Israelis in 1967 and Onward
Final Report Abstract
The war of 1967 changed the lives of Israelis and Palestinians profoundly. The trilateral project „Half a Century through Personal Stories: Palestinians and Israelis in 1967 and onward“ rested on the conviction that an interview project focused on how individuals of all walks of lives, ethnic and/or national affiliation, gender, and political conviction, could contribute in important ways to much needed conversations in present day Israel/Palestine: There is little to no knowledge between the two main groups on the perception of the events of 1967, and there are many solidified assumptions about each other which such a project could bring into common discourse. Occupation and settlements, wars and uprising over the past decades all have as a backdrop the new territorial situation brought about by 1967. Asking approximately 400 individuals “How did this war impact your everyday life?” the project built an archive of recorded, transcribed and in part translated interviews in Arabic and Hebrew that allow one to grasp the very diversity of biographical experiences among women and men of different walks of life. Given the indeed enormous and differential impact of 1967 on Israelis and Palestinians respectively, conducting the research in a joint manner proved beyond complex and not all of the ambitious goals could be reached. But with the publication of June 1967 in Personal Stories of Palestinians and Israelis (Bendix, Haidar and Salamon, 2020, available as a print book and as free download: https://univerlag.unigoettingen.de/handle/3/isbn-978-3-86395-529-8) a joint presentation of analyses of some of the materials was achieved. The book offers eleven chapters ranging from Israeli recollections of their first approach to the wailing wall within days of the war’s end to Palestinians accounts of how they accommodated to dashed hopes, and struggled to reunite families. Religion, social and occupational standing, as well as gender all contributed to how those (not even) six days were integrated in the unfolding of subsequent biographies. Eight interviews, included in slightly curated form, offer the reader a glimpse into the diverse voices.
Publications
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Generation and Narration in Research and Experience: Impressions from the Trilateral Research Project “1967 and after.” Palestine-Israel Journal 24(3&4)(2019):163-168
Bendix, Regina F.
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Generation und Erzählung in Forschung und Erfahrung: Impressionen aus dem trilateralen Forschungsprojekt .1967 und danach‘. Palestina-Israel Journal I-III (2019), pp. 183-190
Bendix, Regina F.
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Israeli Political Humor. What was there to Laugh About in 1967? In: S. Bronner and W. Mieder, eds.: Contexts of Folklore. New York: Peter Lang, 2019, pp. 72-86
Bendix, Regina F. and Galit Hasan-Rokem
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Remembering June 1967. The Rhetoric of Sincerity in a Twice-Told Story. Narrative Culture 7(2020):24-59
Salamon, Hagar and Regina F. Bendix
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June 1967 in Personal Stories of Palestinians and Israelis. Göttingen: Göttingen University Press, 2022 (print and online)
Bendix, Regina F., Aziz Haidar and Hagar Salamon, eds.
