‘Friendship Across Borders: Writing Lives in the Shadow of Conflict’

The Vera Fine-Grodzinski Programme for Jewish Women’s Voices Seminar

How can life-writing illuminate the human dimensions of political conflict?

In this seminar, Professor Katharina Galor reflects on writing Out of Gaza: A Tale of Love, Exile, and Friendship. Galor’s memoir recounts an unexpected friendship between a Palestinian Muslim woman from Gaza and an Israeli Jewish scholar (the author). Their connection begins with a phone call from a detention centre for undocumented migrants in Belgium and unfolds across several countries and political landscapes.

What does it mean to tell a life story shaped by displacement, borders, and competing historical narratives?

At the centre of the story is the life of a Palestinian woman whose experiences are shaped by the history of Gaza, exile, and migration. Her story is told in conversation with the author’s own family history of displacement as Jews in twentieth-century Europe. Together, these narratives bring into view broader historical memories, including the Holocaust, the Nakba, and the enduring realities of refugees and exile.

How can life-writing hold together Jewish and Muslim perspectives, Israeli and Palestinian histories, and personal memories shaped by conflict?

Galor examines what it means to write another person’s life across political, cultural, and religious divides and what ethical questions arise when narrating lives marked by unequal mobility, borders, and political constraints.

How might a personal story open space for dialogue across deeply divided histories?

By reflecting on the process of writing this memoir, Galor explores how life-writing can connect intimate experience with larger historical forces. Personal narrative, she suggests, offers one way to trace fragile yet meaningful connections across borders, identities, and histories of exile.

Exploring life-writing, memoir, and the ethics of narrating lives across political and cultural divides, this seminar will appeal to anyone interested in how personal stories can illuminate histories of displacement, exile, and conflict. It will also be of interest to students and scholars of Middle Eastern history, migration, and refugee experience, as well as those curious about the methodological challenges of writing across religious, national, and political boundaries. No prior specialist knowledge or preparation is required.

This seminar will be introduced and moderated by Dr Vera Fine-Grodzinski.