Found in Translation: How a Writer Discovered the Bible Anew at the University of Iowa

In August 2002, Aviya Kushner left Jerusalem, where she had been a correspondent for the Jerusalem Post, returned to her parents’ home in Monsey, New York, and then drove a thousand miles west to Iowa City to begin an MFA program in nonfiction writing. A native Hebrew speaker with an expressive face, Kushner would prompt her professor to stop and ask what it was that she found so surprising in the class discussions of the text. At first, Kushner thought that explaining the differences would be easy, but slowly it dawned on her that the gaps in understanding were not so easily bridged. Kushner came to realize that the experience of studying Bible in English with her classmates began with her needing to know what they brought to the text as they read. “I found that my classmates believed all sorts of things that I did not think were possible,” she said, but eventually “I understood where they were coming from, and I had a lot of empathy for them.” Read complete article at -- http://www.tabletmag.com/jewish-life-and-religion/193339/aviya-kushner-translation

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