פנים Face:Faces

פנים ("pa-nim") is Hebrew for "face." When the word “face” is translated into Hebrew, something amazing happens: it sheds itself of its singularity, and adopts the conjugation of most plural nouns in Hebrew ("im," the equivalent of "s" in "faces"). Through the little tubular tunnel of translation connecting the municipal of English with the archaeological dig of Hebrew, one no longer holds a "face," but "faces" -- layers of complexities, contradictions, and, in Walt Whitman's words, multitudes.

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I write from Jerusalem. This city -- and Israel as a whole -- put complexity and existential turmoil on another level. And yet, amid its chaos is where I am most at peace, amid its confusion most clear-headed. Why?

 

Sometimes, Israel’s identity crisis makes me feel better about my own identity. I’ve imagined myself pitted against Israel in a dark boxing ring (nerdy, I know), wondering which one of us competing bodies will deal with all of their existential shit first. And then I remember Israel can’t compete. Because Israel bears the double challenge of being both a nation like all other nations and a nation unique to the Jewish religion and historical experience; because it’s in the painful position where those in power and those without it are oppressed; because The Law of Return finds the Jews’ claim to the land from thousands of years ago relevant, but Arab claims to the same right from two or three generations ago irrelevant; because defense here is also offense; because attempting to solely obliterate terrorism exacerbates the problems it is rooted in; because Jewish tradition has splintered, and both opposes and embraces modernity; because of the entanglement of synagogue and state, of the mixing between politics and religion, of sovereignty and servanthood; because it was built by the rugged and secular chalutzim and is now believed to be held in G-d’s own soft hands; because it, the world’s minority of minorities, tries to, and forgets to, and other times, no longer can empathize with its own minorities; because it’s difficult for it -- and the world -- to separate what’s personal from what’s political; because many sects within Judaism don’t recognize other Jews as Jews; because the animosity between Jew and Jew (the screaming, the protesting, the hostility towards discussion) mimics that between Arab and Israeli, or Jew and Muslim; because it is a refuge for world Jewry, but also the one democracy in the entire western world where the Jew is least free to practice Judaism however he pleases; because it is ancient (see Bible) and nascent (see 1948 Declaration of Independence) and adolescent (despite its rampant growth in technological and urban development, who are its citizens?) all at once; because it is both triumph and tragedy, miracle and mess; the meeting point of east and west, socialism and capitalism, past history and future history. Because of all of this, Israel can make anyone feel like they have it all together.

 

Other times, these problems hit close. And it’s not just because I care deeply about Israel. The problems plaguing Israel’s conscience, its growing pains and the difficulty it faces in learning how to accept various realities remind me of my own growing up, of the complexities that I am beginning to recognise in my own identity and world, albeit on a much smaller scale.

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I am a firm believer that our collective experience as human beings exists at least in dualities, if not multitudes. And I was moved to create Panim/פנים as a means to help me recognize these multitudes. I want to share the stories of the many faces I meet in and outside of Israel, and to explore the many faces existing within each person.

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If we dare to learn about and explore others' stories, to meet their many faces, my hope is that then maybe I, too, will be able to better confront and/or embrace complexity, big or small, political or personal, face to face. And maybe others will too.

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- Kayla

 

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PANIM's logo and other sketches were made by my talented and very dear friend, Gabrielle Amar.