What James Baldwin can teach us about Israel, and ourselves : Code Switch : NPR

An illustrated portrait of the scholar James Baldwin next to an image of Israel, a country that he wrote and thought deeply about.

Jackie Lay

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Jackie Lay

An illustrated portrait of the scholar James Baldwin next to an image of Israel, a country that he wrote and thought deeply about.

Jackie Lay

It’s been more than ten months since devastating violence began unfolding in Israel and Gaza. And in the midst of all the death, so many people are trying to better understand what’s going on in that region, and how the United States is implicated in it. Discussions have been messy and difficult, and in many cases, utterly unproductive.

So on this episode of the show, we’re looking back to the writing of James Baldwin. Some might be surprised to hear that Baldwin thought a lot about what was happening in Israel. That’s because for him, the country came to embody some issues he cared about deeply – self-determination, oppression, the contradictions of nationalism and the stories we tell ourselves about who we are.

And while Baldwin’s views on the country transformed significantly over the course of his life, his evolving thoughts offer some ideas about how to grapple with trauma, how to approach conversations with empathy, and how to bridge the gap between places and ideas that, on their surface, might seem oceans apart.

This episode was hosted by Gene Demby, reported by Neda Ulaby, produced by Jess Kung and edited by Leah Donnella and Courtney Stein. Our engineer was Gilly Moon.