This is not a normal edition of G&P in that all of the articles are responses to the same question – a no-holds barred discussion of how you view the world and your place in it – from the perspective of North America, Israel, and Europe. The salon fodder also reflects the unique nature of this volume. Our advice is simple. Pick the two or three articles that engage you most and frame the conversation around what you know about a particular situation, where that information comes from, and what if anything you should be doing as a result.

If you want to group the articles into regional perspectives, the following combinations may, or may not, be useful:

The View From North America:

Shalom Auslander; Mahmoud, Mom; Mom, Mahmoud...

David Bezmogis; Requiem for My Grandfather

Aaron Hamburger; The Fair and Unbalanced Truth

European Perspectives:

Jonathan Freedland; The Von Trapps Strike Back

Stacy Perman; Vergangenheitsbewaltigung!

Jamie Glassman; A Funny Thing Happened on the Way to the Punch Line

Samuel Blumenfeld; Notes From the Asylum

Middle Eastern Takes:

Salar Abdoh; In the Land of the Aryans

Roya Hakakian; Enemy Next Door

Irshad Manji; Paradise Lost

Israeli Opinions:

Gershom Gorenberg; Why Things Blow Up

Etgar Keret; Television Without Pity

Micha Odenheimer; Jerusalem  Still Burning 

Noga Tanopolsky; Death in Jerusalem