Professor's Travels to Middle East Enrich Classroom Experience

During the summer of 2006, Leonard Orr, professor of English and director of liberal arts at Washington State University (WSU) Tri-Cities, traveled to Israel. He made the trip at the invitation of the International School for Holocaust Studies at Yad Vashem, Israel's Holocaust memorial, museum, and research center. Orr and 300 others from twenty-two countries participated in a conference on "Teaching the Holocaust to Future Generations." Orr's invitation came in part because he created and teaches Representations of the Holocaust, a course, which uses literature, film, historical documents and documentaries, art, museums, and memorials. The course will be a graduate-level English offering on the WSU Pullman campus during the spring 2007 semester.

Orr was in Israel from June 20 to July 20. From June 26-29 he led a workshop for thirty-five people on "The Value of Using Experimental Fiction to Teach the Holocaust."

"From July 2 to July 19, I participated in an intensive seminar on 'Teaching about the Shoah and Anti-Semitism.' That class," said Orr, "was attended by thirty-eight people from eleven countries and faculty from many Israeli universities."

During the month he was in Israel Orr traveled widely. "I visited every area except for the Negev," Orr said. "I was at the border with Lebanon before the war started, visited Haifa, Tel Aviv, Caesarea, Akko, Masada, the Dead Sea, Qumran, and elsewhere. Mainly," said Orr, "I was in Jerusalem, and of course away from the war zones."

We were curious to know more.

Q - As you reflect back on the time you invested, what stands out most from the trip?
A - There are three things that come to mind at once in answer to this question. First, of course, was the intellectual experiences of the conference and seminar, the chance to discuss issues, texts, and current matters-such as war and genocide-with people from countries ranging from Rwanda to Serbia, from New Zealand to Russia, in the contexts of Israel, Yad Vashem-with its focus on 1933 to 1945-and the beginning of the war with Lebanon. All the members of the seminar stayed in the same hotel, had meals together, went on trips around the country together, and so the discussions went on almost constantly.

Second, I was able to meet many Israelis and get their perspectives on many matters-politics, religion, literature-and to learn about their very complex society and history. I had prepared myself for the trip with considerable reading, including the Jerusalem Post, the Jerusalem Report, and online news from the English Ha-aretz, for all of the previous year, ever since I was first invited to Yad Vashem, but being there while events were unfolding was very involving. I also had a chance to spend time with literature professors from Israeli universities, such as Alan Rosen of Bar-Ilan University in Tel Aviv, and we exchanged many ideas and recommendations about reading and teaching.

Third, as a Jewish person from New York, I had a certain limited notion of other Jewish people: from German and Eastern European, Ashkenazic, Yiddish backgrounds, with just four major denominations. It was fascinating to see the much greater variety of Jews in Israel: Jews from Arab countries, Jews from India, many black Jews from Ethiopia, hundreds of thousands of Jews from Russia since 1989, Jews from France. There were many nuances of ultra-Orthodox and secular Jews, each with different political parties in the complicated parliamentary system that makes up the Knesset. Then this complicated mix of peoples resides so closely with other religions and complex groups and politics: Muslims, Christians, Druze, Armenians, etc. The most dramatic sign of this is that when one is at the Western Wall, one sees the golden dome of the large mosque that is the third holiest place for Islam and one hears the call of the muezzin over loudspeakers.

Q - What did you learn or re-learn during this visit?
A - I had read many books about Israel, particularly of the Second Temple period and the exile to Babylon. But during this month, since Israel is such a very small country, I was able to travel to almost every section-all but the Negev and the extreme southern desert. I was fascinated by visiting these places that were key icons in the history, such as Masada, the Old City in Jerusalem, the caves at Qumran, the Dead Sea, and so on. So many sites, so many particular buildings were successively occupied by the entire history of conquerors and showed signs in the ruins of Greece, Rome, Jews, Byzantine, Islam, France, the Ottoman Empire, the British, whatever. That was something that could only be appreciated on the spot.

Prayer notes placed in the Western Wall

Q - Describe a typical student reaction to the class. Are there commonalities in the student experience?
A - The students were deeply engaged in the material, often emotionally charged and deeply moved. It seems to be very powerful, not the least because they were never exposed to it before-beyond a sanitized week or two devoted to the Holocaust and perhaps reading The Diary of Anne Frank. Some are shaken and angered, and often they make connections to current genocides, the debates on torture, war crimes trials, crimes against humanity, and other issues that are, unfortunately, in the news every day in some form.

Q - What is the demographic of the typical student taking the class?
A - Since most of our students are part-time and nontraditional, they range in age from 21 to their 60s, about equally men and women. Since this is a Tier III Humanities course, the students came from every major and field of study. Some of the students from the sciences were particularly swept away by the course material.

Q - Is there a diversity lesson available to students in your Humanities 450 class?
A - Obviously the entire course is related to diversity since it is about racism and the cultural construction of racial categories and hierarchies. It includes the issues of euthanasia of social undesirables, the collaboration of intellectuals through such pseudo-sciences as eugenics or in the designs of the camps and techniques of killing and disposal of bodies. It is about how different groups may be singled out for deportation or extermination and the roles of perpetrators and bystanders to such events.

Sea of Galilee

Worthy of note -

Professor Orr taught Humanities 450, Representations of the Holocaust, in the Tri-Cities in the fall of 2005 with forty-four students enrolled. He plans to offer it next in the fall of 2007.

Previously Professor Orr participated in Holocaust seminars for university faculty at Northwestern University/Holocaust Education Foundation and at the Center for Advanced Holocaust Studies, United States Holocaust Memorial Museum, Washington, D.C.