In Chapter 6, we present examples from the four different kinds of personal narratives that we conceptualized that connect to genocide and war, with this chapter focusing on the Holocaust. Our four types of personal narratives are termed: distancing, victimhood, ambivalence/paradoxes, and embracing the other while remaining in one’s pain. In this chapter, we present and analyze long quotes from narratives of Jews and (non-Jewish) Germans who are descendants of Holocaust survivors and Nazi perpetrators. Our examples come from a variety of sources – interviews that we undertook over the years with members of the first, second, and third generations, internet sources, YouTube, research books that present narrative interviews, and memoirs and autobiographies that exemplify the different kinds of narratives. This chapter, then, presents concrete examples of the different kinds of personal stories that we find in the context of speaking and/or writing about the Holocaust, mainly among the second and third generations, the children and grandchildren of the war generation.

In Chapter 7, we present examples of the four different kinds of personal narratives – distancing, victimhood, ambivalence/paradoxes, and embracing the other while remaining in one’s pain – connected to the Jewish–Arab/Israeli–Palestinian conflicts that appear to have the potential either to promote peacebuilding or to obstruct peace. We address these two connected, yet not identical, conflicts together for two main reasons. While the conflicts have differences (Arabs in Israel have citizenship and Palestinians in the Palestinian Authority/Gaza Strip do not, leading to different conflictual aspects), the dilemma is the same: should Israel be a Jewish State or a state of all of its citizens? Furthermore, when people share narratives about these conflicts, they often combine the two contexts. Thus, it would be artificial to separate them. Our examples come from different sources – interviews that we undertook over the years with Jewish-Israelis and Arabs, and Israelis and Palestinians, internet sources, research books that present narrative interviews, and memoirs and autobiographies that exemplify the different kinds of narratives. This chapter, then, presents concrete examples of the different kinds of personal stories that we find in the context of speaking and/or writing about the Israeli–Palestinian conflict.

In Chapter 8, through the presentation and analysis of our four conceptualized kinds of personal narratives of intractable war – distancing, victimhood, ambivalence/paradoxes, and embracing the other while remaining in one’s pain – we address a major issue, which has always divided Jewish-Israeli society: Arab–Jewish/Israeli–Palestinian relations. This issue tends to divide the left wing from the right wing and the secular from the religious Jewish citizens. This schism exploded in late 2022, when a very right-wing coalition was formed in the Israeli Knesset and government, which led to numerous legislative proposals that have been perceived by many as endangering Israel’s fragile democracy. This political upheaval further led to massive demonstrations and strikes that threw the country into turmoil. While this specific ideological/religious divide is mainly between Jews and Jews, it ties into the Jewish–Arab/Israeli–Palestinian conflict, as its roots connect to the question of the desired nature of the state and to the often-hostile intergroup relationships that characterize Israeli society. In this chapter, we present personal narratives connected to Jewish–Jewish relations, a very “hot” topic in Israeli society today.