As 2023 draws to a close, Worldcrunch has asked its writers to reflect on the past year — and look ahead to 2024.
–Essay-
PARIS — It was in the mid-1970s that I began to understand that my last name was, well, special. Between the Yom Kippur War and a string of airplane hijackings, my father had the news playing on the radio all the time.
There was a faraway country (and its citizens) in the middle of it all with that same name. Must be a special country?
The American edition of the family name had been registered upon my Latvian grandfather’s arrival to Ellis Island, where officials would transcribe Azriely — that ended up as “Israel” and “Israeli” for some other relatives. We got it with the “y.”
My father never sat me down for a talk, per se, about our name — I’d figure it out.
Over the years, instead, he’d have more to say about our religion, our tribe. I didn’t always want to hear it, and we never quite felt the same. It may have been a generational thing: he came of age after World War II and the Holocaust; I grew up in the glow of the post-Civil Rights movement. He believed in the uniqueness of the Jewish experience, and a responsibility to preserve it. I worried about the slippery slope from tribe to tribalism — and ultimately only really ever cared about the rights of human beings as human beings.
Something different
Still, I couldn’t deny that being Jewish was somehow different. One clue was how many people (Jews and non-Jews alike) wanted to know who was and who wasn’t… A few might ask directly; others believe they can tell from how someone looks or acts. Maybe. Names often offer a better clue, and the Rosenbergs and Cohens and Levys of the world share with me an instant identifier.
Still, as I said, my name is special.
Fast forward to the mid-2000s in Rome, where I was working for an American news magazine. That meant that my name had also become my “byline,” at the top of the articles I wrote. (An open secret of the profession: seeing your byline is at least a part of why everyone does it, even if most readers never notice. Most, not all…)
One day, during a short-lived U.S. attempt to revive stalled Palestinian-Israeli peace talks, I was invited to an Italian news program as a would-be expert commentator. I hesitated, having no particular expertise on the topic, before concluding that this was part of my local responsibilities as an American foreign correspondent. Allora: Go!
There was one other guest in the studio, a Palestinian journalist, who was both more knowledgeable and more passionate than me about the topic. And spoke better Italian. He would eloquently make the case for the Palestinian cause, criticize Israeli and U.S. negotiators and provide a piercing review of recent and not-so-recent history.
My TV appearance was bound to end badly
Maintaining my American journalist neutrality and trying to keep my history straight — and properly conjugate my verbs — I kept the focus on the current context of the White House position and the shuttle diplomacy of Secretary of State Colin Powell.
But my TV appearance that day was bound to end badly: in his concluding remarks, my Palestinian colleague gestured over to me before declaring: “For my colleague and me, this isn’t just a news story. This is our lives, our peoples at stake.”
I had neither the opportunity nor desire to somehow respond, push back, to declare that I am Israely not Israeli, that I was born and raised in the U.S., have neither family or friends living in Israel or Palestine, that, yes, I may be Jewish, but …
Taking a vow
After that experience, I vowed that I would do my best to avoid any professional endeavor directly related to Israel or Palestine. It was just too complicated, with this name, to navigate a topic that was already complicated enough.
I’d spend 10 years covering the Vatican, becoming something of a minor expert in the machinations of the Catholic hierarchy. I’d write occasional stories about Jewish topics, and plenty about other religions too. Working in the wake of 9/11, there was also a fair share of coverage of Islamic terrorism, and the occasional Italian post-Fascist leader to interview.
On certain subjects, I might give a passing thought before introducing myself on the phone with a potential interviewee, or wonder if readers noticed my particular byline. But I had long since learned to negotiate my lifelong relationship with my name — and there was always the next story to write.
The editor doesn’t have a byline.
The past decade-plus, I’ve worked as editor of this international news website, where I am in charge of selecting and shaping which stories we choose to write and translate, including plenty about the Middle East. But the editor doesn’t have a byline — and a reader wondering about our stance on this or that issue would have to go searching to find out that a guy named Israely is deciding which stories and headlines are being published.
Until October 7, I’d never felt the need to talk publicly about my name. And yet even if I trust most readers understand what we do — that we’re not in the business of having “a stance” — here I am … writing this piece that for so many reasons I wish I didn’t have to write.
What’s in a name? That famous rhetorical question comes from William Shakespeare, who put it on the lips of Juliet, declaring to Romeo that their names (from rival clans) in fact meant nothing in the face of their love.
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pin_description=”” caption=”A man walks past shops closed due to a strike in support of Palestinian people in Gaza, in Jerusalem’s Old City.” photo_credit=”Muammar Awad/Xinhua/ZUMA” photo_credit_src=”http://www.zuma24.com”]
A man walks past shops closed due to a strike in support of Palestinian people in Gaza, in Jerusalem’s Old City. Muammar Awad/Xinhua/ZUMA
Plenty to remember
Taken at its most elemental, this intimate declaration can work as a stand-in for any feud that has ever existed between enemies, whether divided by historical grievances, land, money, religion or that special category of those who can’t quite remember the source of the hatred.
In Israel and Palestine, there is of course plenty to remember. And names, for better or worse, do matter. So what can a guy named Israely say right now?
Let me try with what Ezra Klein — another American journalist with a Jewish name — calls “holding multiple thoughts at the same time:” Here are some thoughts that I’ve been trying to hold (juggle?) over the past couple of months:
*Tribal attachments will always be a part of the story of the human race. Failing to move past them may be the death of us all.
*Whether or not you identify with this or that tribe, the history of the Jewish people is worthy of all our attention: as the quintessential victim (template) of ethnic hatred, going back 3,000 years, and right up to and including today.
*Modern Israel’s status as a Jewish homeland is largely a response to that history — and for the past two-and-a-half months (and longer), that nation’s leaders have been defiling the memory of Jewish suffering through a war driven by vengeance and their own ethnic hatred of Palestinians.
*The big geopolitical risk? This conflict over a tiny piece of land could spread, and spark a new world war. An even bigger risk? The “mother-of-all” ethnic conflicts definitively convinces humanity that differences over identity and historical grievances can simply not be overcome.
*When a big story breaks, an editor’s job is to make space for what others are seeing and saying. And then the day may arrive for you to say yours, byline and all.
Most, not all, of what I’ve written here will make sense to my father. Same with my kids. I speak neither in their name nor mine.
️ MORE FROM THE AUTHOR
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