An American Feminist in Palestine: The Intifada Years

Not many middle-aged Jewish college professors spend their vacations in occupied Palestine, dodging tear-gas canisters hurled by Israeli soldiers, and visiting-and occasionally staying with-Arab families in overcrowded refugee camps or tiny houses with no central heating. But while Gluck deserves an ``A'' for her efforts at learning firsthand about the Palestinian struggle, she gets lower marks for organization and style. She could have used a better editor, one to convince her to weed out the extraneous, to show more than tell, and above all, to either fully explore issues or leave them out altogether. ``I began to form some clearer ideas about the women's movement,'' goes one typical entry, but instead of explaining those ideas, she writes a few sentences about a lunch date and ends the chapter. An oral historian who teaches at California State University, Long Beach, Gluck's style tends to the trite, as when she describes one Arab acquaintance who dressed in several layers of clothing to ward off the winter chill as being ``hardly a fashion plate'' while a pro-Palestinian rabbi was ``sweet and gentle, a demeanor emphasized further by his fluffy, completely white beard.'' For those itching to learn how families and feminists coped in the West Bank, Gluck's experiences are worth reading, others might want to wait for a more eloquent account. (Sept.)