The Similarities And Differences In Jeffery Goldberg's The Lemon Tree

Jeffery Goldberg, an American Jew, traveled to Israel in the late 1980s. Like many other Jews, Goldberg came to Israel with the belief in zionism. Zionism is extraordinary important to his life, because it leads his path to Israel, his decision to join the IDF, and his mindset towards the Arabs. The way that Goldberg shares his story is through snippets of time; the setting changes periodically from from his early experience in Israel, his childhood, and times he spend in the prison talking to Rafiq. Rafiq is a dynamic character to the story because he clashes his Arab opinion with Goldberg’s Jewish opinion. Nonetheless, there is a sense of communion with each other and friendship emerges. The three areas I find most important about analyzing Goldberg’s story is his personal experiences and how that transformed his understanding of zionism, his connection with Rafiq, and the book’s similarities and differences from The Lemon
Tree.
Goldberg grew up in Long Island, NY.
His family was not a religious family, but participated in jewish traditions. From a young age he experienced bullying from his peers, because he was a Jew. He found refuge in libraries just to get away from anti-semitic bullying. Goldberg recalled a very significant moment one day in middle school. A bully named Harrington confronted Goldberg in the locker room. Like most bullies, Harrington pushed him against a wall to intimidate him. A bystander named Chuckie Greer saw the dispute and urged Goldberg to hit him (Prisoners 49). Everything in his body compelled him not to swing, but after repeated approval he did (Prisoners 49). Immediately the others fled. That day Goldberg learned that there is power through
strength. Goldberg looked up to Chuckie Greer, activist like Malcom X, and Meir Kahane. All three promoted self preservation and self defense through violence, if necessary. Unlike Martin Luther King, Malcom X promoted violence against the oppressors. Goldberg understood the feeling that African Americans felt in America, because Jews felt like outcast as well. He was intrigued by the Black Panthers, and their call to violent resistance. The violent resistance reminded him dreadfully of the holocaust, because of the absents of resistance against the enemy that came to steal, pillage, and destroy. Goldberg’s discovery of Meir Kahane impacted his understanding of the “street-fighting Jew” and zionism. Meir Kahane was a rabbi and founded the Jewish Defense League (Prisoners 48). The JDL is important in changing the Jewish identity. The stereotypical jew has always been a Jew who exclude themselves from the rest of society, and in doing so they did not stick up for themselves. However, after the atrocities of the holocaust, there was a new sense of defensiveness. Jews began to rally behind the zionist movement. Goldberg agreed with the idea of zionism, and believed it was the right to protect the jewish nation. When Goldberg went college he became consumed by his socialism and zionism ideology. He surrounded himself with friends who were eager to protest like he was. They protested against political figures, anti-semitics, and even animal rights. He was trapped by the two things he found liberation through. No longer was the focus on fighting for zionism and Jewish liberation, but instead it was on unimportant causes. Many of his friends drifted away from the idea of aliyah and zionism itself. For Goldberg the fire grew only bigger.