Abstract
This paper presents the results of a research study entitled “Living in Mandatory Palestine: Personal Narratives of the Galilee from the 1940’s to 1967.” Forty narratives were collected: twenty from Jewish settlers and twenty from Arabs who have lived or where born in the Galilee, prior to the establishment of the State of Israel and thereafter. The study uses a narrative approach to gerontology that explores the lives of older study participants from a life course–ecological perspective, encompassing cultural, historical, and political reminiscence.
Resilience was analyzed through people’s narratives of critical events that occurred at the personal, interpersonal, sociocultural, and societal levels. Personal-level narrative themes spoke about internal feelings. Interpersonal-level narrative themes such as continuity, personal responsibility to each other, coping, modesty and acceptance addressed relationships between people. Sociocultural-level themes express the beliefs and mores of family, tradition, religiosity, Zionism, modesty and leadership of the time. Societal level narrative themes such as relating to belonging to persons, places, and ideologies are indicative of the work of societal institutions. Initial results point to a strong idealistic commitment to family and state regardless of ethnic background.