Thursday, April 26, 2018

The Birthright Trip I Wish I Had




A multi-talented woman, Sarah Glidden, inspired by her Birthright trip to Israel, both wrote and
illustrated the graphic novel,How to Understand Israel in 60 Days or Less. A tremendous feat in of
itself, but it falls flat in several areas.

The art is one positive, since the artwork added to the memories of the story. Before each chapter,
Glidden inserts a watercolor map explaining exactly where she is traveling, allowing for readers to
gain a stronger understanding of the area. Readers are able to visualize and visit the attractions of
Israel through the detail of the watercolor painting that Glidden puts into each panel. She puts readers
right into the situations, and the realism of the art makes the trip feel more personal. However, the art is
the only positive, and isn’t executed well enough to fulfil its purpose of explaining the
Israeli-Palestinian conflict.

In Glidden’s self-reflective autobiography, we see her struggle with finding her own opinion because
of the complexity of the conflict in Israel and also because of her own ignorance on the subject.
However, her conflicting emotions and constant re-evaluations tend to lean towards repetitiveness and
are frustrating to read because of her inability to keep an open mind about the topic. Coming to the
trip, she had a set opinion and believed it to be absolutely right but quickly learns there is a lot more
gray in this conflict than black and white as she had assumed.


Putting aside our frustration about her closed-mindedness, her book portrays a powerful
explanation of why people have a hard time understanding the struggles Israel went through
and also how to help a nation that is profoundly and irrevocably racist and hated, but also
beautiful and representative of several cultures.

Honestly, if we wrote a memoir about our lives as Asian/Mexican/Indian Americans,
it would probably have similar struggles. Perhaps the only difference would be less crying.
She does a lot of crying in her book, in fact, too much. Her incessant crying over the
smallest of issues shows that she can’t handle the small discomforts she inflicts on herself,
which makes it hard for us, as a reader, to empathize with her. @Glidden this might help


Here, Glidden is at the wall in Jerusalem, places a prayer in the wall, and immediately starts crying. For what reason? Who knows, we were also confused.

Before the trip, we see Glidden having a progressive perspective. Her opinion about the conflict tends to be pessimistic as she predicts much-if not all-of the birthright trip will be a piece of propaganda to brainwash young Jewish adults. Thus, she builds walls up to keep herself from succumbing to the charms and emotional resonance of the trip.

Glidden finds it easy to guard herself against the blatant propaganda (as seen in the museum),
but has a difficulty setting keeping her walls up against the emotional encounters with other people.
Gil, her tour guide, is disgusted by the poor treatment of the Palestinians; the young Israeli soldier
she meets who finds how the Arabs are treated by Israelis racist; ultimately all these Israelis she meets
that do not fall under the picture Glidden was expecting. But the manner in which Glidden manages
this threat, often by crying and arguing with people, proves to be not only frustrating but also annoying
to read.

She sticks with her pro-Palestinian beliefs for awhile until after she watches a play.

She’s watching a play in a language she doesn’t understand, but it magically changes her. It seems
weird that for so long she held strongly to her beliefs, but after just one play, one she doesn’t even
understand, her views take a complete 180 turn.

After leaving Israel, Glidden stays in Istanbul but leaves readers with a cliffhanger, resulting in a
rather anticlimactic ending. Throughout the story, she brings up the conflict with her Arab boyfriend
who believes the trip will make her a “brainwashed, raging Zionist.” However, the problem is
never addressed, and the ending of the book leaves readers with no resolution. No closure. No nothing.
If she would have addressed this issue in the ending, there would be a full circle as she started
the story with her boyfriend. Ultimately, the ending, and book, left us unsatisfied.
A second book explaining the aftermath would make a grand contribution and who knows,
maybe change our opinion about Glidden's crying self.

- Katherine Lopez, Astha Patel, James Stuedemann, and Robert Luo

1 comment:

Michael Hancock said...

Your review emphatically states your issues with Glidden's approach to the conflict. Contextualize what you see as Glidden's excessive emotionalism so your readers can better judge it for themselves. As far as the closure issue goes, explain how Glidden concludes the comic so, again, readers can evaluate the fairness of your critique. For instance, does Glidden become the "brainwashed, raging Zionist" her boyfriend feared she would?