WRITING for REAL:
Writing in the Service-Learning Contact Zone

Whenever somebody asked me the question, I always felt a certain sense of security. I never felt awkward or uncomfortable, because I was sure of my answer&emdash;it was always the same. "What are you?" somebody would ask. Smiling, I would reply, "I'm Jewish."

I must make one thing clear, however. I am not a "good" Jew. I don't keep Kosher, I don't light candles on the Sabbath, and I have never been able to fast the entire day on Yom Kippur&emdash;I don't think I've actually made it past breakfast. I am a reformed Jew, which is the least strict of any of the Jewish denominations. Orthodox Jews (the strictest group) do not even recognize the Reform Movement as a part of the Jewish culture, but even among reformists I lean towards the more secular side. I went to Hebrew school for most of my childhood, but that was only because my parents made me, and thus, of course, I did not enjoy it.

Even so, I would not hesitate to declare proudly that I am Jewish. The main reason is that the alternative seems so much worse: to say I am merely white. To assert that I am as white as the next (white) guy means that I must join the "oppressors": straight, white males. To be a member of this group arouses only suspicion and resentment in people who feel they have been oppressed by this group. However, acknowledging that my people too have suffered&emdash;that I am personally a victim of prejudice and extreme persecution&emdash;arouses a feeling of brotherhood between me and those others who have felt the same suffering.

A year ago, during my last year as a high school student, I had an experience that would change my outlook of my culture and myself. This experience occurred in a figurative place that Mary Louise Pratt refers to as the "contact zone" in her essay entitled "Arts of the Contact Zone." According to Pratt, contact zones are "social spaces where cultures meet, clash, and grapple with each other, often in contexts of highly asymmetrical relations of power"( 607). This type of situation where two cultures vie for supremacy can never remain static and its ending can either be beneficial to both groups or brutal for the loser. In the end, either one element completely overcomes the other, or the two sides synthesize into a common ground of mutual understanding.

Living in a wealthy suburb of West Los Angeles, one would not expect that I could have much firsthand experience with the "contact zone." With the exception of busboys and workers in the service industry, my town was homogeneously white. However, I attended an extremely diverse public high school where students were bused in from all parts of Los Angeles. Even though most students of different cultures tried to segregate themselves into distinct groups during nutrition and lunch, it was during my government class that all cultures came face to face when my teacher began each class period with a political debate.

Most of the time, I found that the debates were a time for humor and playfulness. I would take the most extreme side of the argument during each discussion, simply to test my debating skills by playing "devil's advocate." However, during a debate about the crisis in the Middle East, I found myself defending my side of the argument with true passion for once. I was the only Jewish student in the room, and there also happened to be only one Arab student in the room. Obviously, the debate seemed to focus on the opinions of the two of us. Being Jewish, it was important for me to fight righteously in favor of the state of Israel because not only was I representing my own views during this debate, but in the eyes of my classmates, I was also representing millions of Jews around the world. Although many Jews would cringe to know that they were being defending by the likes of me, I took my job seriously and with a keen awareness of purpose. Yet, to my astonishment, the majority of the class was in support of the Arab student who claimed that Israel was in the wrong and that the Arab people were all innocent victims of an oppressive Israeli government. He had convinced the class by telling a poignant story of how his distant Palestinian relatives were brutalized by the Israeli police.

Not only was this Arab student challenging my people, he was also challenging my seminal reason for claiming these people as my own in the first place. He asserted that I was no victim at all, that I was as bad as any other oppressor with white skin, blond hair and blue eyes. My Judaism, which until that point I had worn with pride as a medallion upon my chest, was now tarnished. I am a sufferer as well. Why couldn't the Arab student see that we are so similar? I needed to find a defense for not just myself but my people, my family, and my ancestors.

In a blind grope for something to say to support myself, I shifted my verbal defense to rest upon history. The argument between the Arab student and me escalated into a shouting match, in which we each catalogued various historical abuses and wrongdoing of Israel and Palestine. The whole class shrunk into silence, as nobody wanted to get stuck in the middle of our near-violent debate. Most of the time, neither of us knew anything about the other's version of history. For instance, when I related how the Arab countries attacked Israel on Yom Kippur, the holiest day in Judaism, the Arab student admitted, "Oh well, I didn't know thatŠbut did you know how Ariel Sharon helped carry out several civilian massacres in Lebanon under the pretext of self-defense?" It was like each of us only knew half the history, and as the argument grew out longer we each discovered how little we truly knew about the conflict as a whole. By the time the bell rang, we had covered everything from Iraq to Zionism to Abraham in our impassioned discussion.

In a sense, the contact zone created within my classroom was only a simulation. After the bell rang and the period was over, my role as Maccabi and defender of Israel was discarded like a mask that I had just put on for a stage performance. Even so, there was something very real about this occurrence. The ideas were real. The history was real. The emotions were definitely real. This contact zone was not imagined, yet it was not the same as the more physical contact zone that is still perceivable today in Israel. The contact zone we created was one borne out of a search for identity&emdash;a struggle not just against each other but within ourselves. It was the first time I had ever felt such a clear and present need to defend my identity, and I was exhausted from the effort.

When the Arab student challenged my self-designated victim status, he challenged the central, albeit shallow, reason for my Jewish pride. Faced with such a challenge, the cloud of cultural certainty and security on which I had so often rested had disintegrated, and all of a sudden I was left to grapple with a sudden sense of emptiness. What did it mean anyway to be Jewish, now that it wasn't just a pathetically ungracious, "Get-out-of-Whiteness card"?

Thus, as I drew upon my many years of Hebrew schooling for my discussion, I was not only doing it for the sake of proving a point to the class, but also to prove a point to myself&emdash;that my Judaism did in fact mean something real, something tangible. The search for an identity is inherently linked to the search for purpose and selfhood. By trying to discover more about my culture, I was at the same time discovering more about myself.

What it meant exactly to be a Jew I was uncertain, but as the discussion had drawn on longer it became clearer and clearer that Judaism was a part of me. I began to feel truly proud of my history. I remembered looking back at pictures of my great-great grandparents and seeing their weatherworn and hopeful expressions. I remembered learning how they traveled to this country to flee from persecution. I remembered my grandfather telling me how he couldn't compete in the Olympics because he was Jewish. I remembered learning how we were God's chosen people. I remembered the Holocaust. As all these memories filled my mind, a certain pride began to well up within me, I realized that Judaism meant so much to my ancestors. If it helped bring me to where I am today, what right do I have to refuse to let it help shape who I will become? Until the discussion, I had refused to accept Judaism as being a part of me because I thought it was a sign of maturity to reject my parents' history. My debate with the Arab student was thus not just a debate linked to racism or stereotypes, but also a search for myself and my identity. In this manner, not only did the Arab student and I learn much more about each other&emdash;we learned about ourselves as well.

Thus, we had entered the contact zone much in the same way as Pratt described. Ironically, it vexed me that I was on the side with the highly asymmetric power, which in the eyes of my classmates was Israel. Even so, in the end the Arab student and I both left the classroom much different people than when we had entered.

By the end of the discussion, I had finally embraced the teachings my family had forced upon me when I was young. In a sense I had finally reached a level of cultural maturity. I had made the passage from blind acceptance of my cultures, to rebellious rejection, to finally a sense of reverence and understanding of my past. Richard Rodriguez, in his essay "The Achievement of Desire," describes a similar feeling of coming of age through the rediscovery of his own past. He says that "If, because of my schooling, I had grown culturally separated from my parents, my education had given me ways of speaking and caring about itŠIt would require many more yearsŠbefore I turned unafraid to desire the past"(671). In a similar way, my reversion to the old beliefs my family had instilled upon me was a realization that my past was a part of me that no amount of rebellious "maturity" should inhibit me from embracing. Although the search for autonomy from parents and history is a large part of growing up, an even more integral step towards maturity is that day a person realizes the true importance of his or her own cultural heredity.

Cultural pride is a great empowerment. When I was discussing the history of the Holy Land with my Arab classmate, I felt strong and important for having the whole weight of thousands of years of Jewish history on my shoulders. I felt a sense of belonging, as if all my ancestors were somehow behind me, supporting me. I am extremely glad to have discovered a deeper sense of background and purpose; it has helped me realize that I am part of a community that has affected this world more than a single person ever could. This strong feeling of community has given me pride in my past, which in turn has given me a sense of purpose for the future. I will now always do my best to represent my people with the highest dignity.

Mary Louise Pratt. (1991). "Arts of the Contact Zone" from Profession 91.

Richard Rodriguez. (1981). "The Achievement of Desire" from Hunger of Memory.