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So go and get some books. Hello, and welcome to Humanities Matter, brought to you by Brill. I'm Lee Jung-Grechko, and this week, we'll be looking at key issues in the field of humanities. Today, we're speaking with Dr.
Daniel Vyshet, a lecturer at Hadassa Academic College and a therapist in private practice. His book is Intercultural Friendship, the case of a Palestinian Bedouin and a Dutch Israeli Jew. Welcome, Dr. Vyshet.
Thank you so much for having us. And we're also speaking with his friend, Ahmad Abugalia. Ahmad, welcome. So Dr.
Vyshet, first of all, what can we learn from the study of friendship between a Palestinian Bedouin and a Dutch Israeli Jew? And why would there be interest in that study? In this era, there's more contact than ever between people of different cultures because of migration, refugees, intercultural work teams, and at this fight, COVID-19. Now, these cultural differences cause misunderstanding and possibly tension.
I believe that cultural differences, sorry, cultural contact and friendship in specific is the way to reduce prejudice and stigma. Ahad and I come from cultural diverse backgrounds and we live on different sides of the divide caused by the Israeli person in conflict. And we would like to show that it's possible to be friends and learn from each other across this divide. And although this is a research based on 26 stories of our friendship, except amplifying cultural differences, it is also a form of social activism to try to make a change.
So before we dig into some of the questions that you posed in the study introduce us to Ahmad. Please introduce yourself and tell us who you are. Yeah, okay. Ahmad from Jerusalem.
I was born in the Jerusalem, in Jerusalem. And it's, the big one is all cultural. I mean, as people, they have a different way in the life. We live in the tents and we go from area to area with our animals.
And then we are living in the village and we go into the schools. It's like to watch the life in a different way. And I think we have a different way. And speaking Arabic, it's all the accent.
And when I see Daniel alone, when I meet Daniel, I start to learn a different way in the life. And I think Daniel gives so much to know like how I killed him. And I think as a European people, different than us, how they look into the things. Ahmad is a Palestinian bad win.
He was born in the Judean desert and he comes from a Muslim family and he now lives close to Jerusalem. And tell us a little bit about how you both met initially. We actually met in a taxi. It was many years ago, I stopped a taxi on my way home.
I look inside and there was someone in there and I said to the taxi driver, wait, there's someone in there already. And he said, don't worry, I'll take you both. And I thought what the heck and got in a taxi? We started to talk and after this ride, I invited him in, which is something quite unusual for a Jew to invite a Palestinian into his home.
And from that moment, we became friends. And how long were you friends? And then how did you decide to sort of look at this from an academic perspective? We were friends for, I believe, for five years, for six years until I thought it was so interesting what's going on between us that I am going to do or research about it.
And so tell us a little bit about some of the challenges of a cross-cultural friendship like this. So the challenges that I investigated were challenges according to the cultural dimensions of the psychologist Hofstede, who has a theory on cultural dimensions and he mentions four different dimensions, individualism for his collectivism, and uncertainty avoidance, masculinity for his femininity and power distance. And I can give you an example of each of these dimensions. Just one of the things, let's say, for individualism collectivism, Ahmad is used to live in a community.
And when I would like to make an appointment with him, I used to think that I'd meet him on his own. And we would set a time and I said, I'll come to meet you. And then I would meet a whole family or a bunch of friends or whoever. That's just a small difference about how we live life, whether you're living in a more individual way or you live your life in a more collective way.
So second dimension, uncertainty avoidance, the idea of needing certainty. Now, I come from a Western background and I like to plan things. I like to know things I have. He doesn't.
Things will happen when they happen. And I would go crazy over this, not planning. And he would go crazy over my needing to plan anything. So that's a second challenge, just an example of where things would get difficult between the two of us.
On the third dimension of masculinity versus femininity, the issue of appearing masculine. I mean, if you are a man, you're supposed to appear in a masculine way. And he would tell me that I would not look masculine enough or I would not show strong enough because in his culture, then it's very important to be tough, to be macho. And where is in the culture I come from?
It is very different. And there's not so much of an emphasis on being masculine when you're a man. And the last dimension that I investigated is the power distance. A simple example in his culture, if you have power, you use it.
In my culture, he decided on things by consensus. The doctor very much known for just trying to come to a consensus, everyone agrees about something. Well, the environment where he comes from, if you're the strongest, you decide for the others. And it would be in things like what to eat or where to go.
If we were in his environment, he would just decide without caring to ask me what I wanted to do. And he thought it was the most appropriate way to do because he was the one who powered. I was just going to say, I find that so interesting that you highlight those challenges, given the fact that you met in part because you challenge your own cultural norms. You got into the taxi, you invited him into your home, which is something you said is not normal for someone like you to do or someone from your culture to do.
Do you think that helped foster a friendship between the two of you because you were acting outside of what's expected? Yes, I would say it's even stronger. If I would not have done so, and there was no way to get into this friendship, it would have broken up in a much earlier stage. And both of us had to be very, very flexible and very accepting of the other way of thinking.
Because otherwise, things wouldn't have worked out. They are very, everything is in plan and everything is exactly, and Daniel, he's not just a European, he's a Jew, and we are part of Palestinian Muslim people as we are living together in Jerusalem and there are situations in the African-Americans that are difficult because we're looking to Israel, how we're looking to have a wish prank, like the creation of something like this, how the people looking, and the political difficulties and they're not accepting our friendship is good. It's take time to my family and my friends Daniel, that's he's a good man. And yeah, I think your culture is different than our culture, that way in good way.
And we can accept a lot of the things and we can make our culture rich. And I think the European, they need a lot of our culture and it's something different. I think we need each other. And that seems like a good lesson for friendships even with and cultures is just be flexible.
Right, I would say a little bit more about that because it's not just challenges, it's opportunities as well. Intercultural friendship is a major opportunity for personal growth. As most people stick to one culture and this culture develops our thinking and we create in our head a kind of mental prison. And this intercultural friendship is like a kind of tune to escape from this prison and through the appreciation of the other culture and their way, people in their culture and their way to deal with day to day things, you widen your horizon, just learn to look at the world in a different way.
And that's what we did, that's what I did and that's what my friend did. And that's also I think the main lesson that we want to show with this book. The study is obviously focused on two people, you and Ahmad, you didn't do a huge sample size or study an entire population. I was wondering reading this if it's fair to use the two of you as stand-ins for these two cultures.
We actually not stand-ins. We are not saying that everyone is like us. All people are unique, all friendships are unique. We are an example.
One way of overcoming intercultural challenges. And I do think though that many of the challenges and that discuss in the book will be recognizable for many people and not just for Jews and Palestinians, but also for many other people and because the dimensions are similar. I think I think all of the people, like me and Daniel, have great, they should think each other, they can make a good piece. And we need to accept the other and if he is different, that's meaning he's not bad, that's meaning he's more good than us, because he gave us, I think.
And I respect this friendship, I like it. Dr. Fyshitzbuk is intercultural friendship, the case of a Palestinian Bedouin and a Dutch Israeli Jew. You are listening to the Humanities Matter podcast.
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