Global Brandeis Profile: Shay Rabineau, PhD. ’15

Shay Rabineau, PhD. ’15

Program: Near Eastern and Judaic Studies, Graduate School of Arts and Sciences
Graduation: May 2015
Hometown: Butler, Indiana
Previous Education: University of Oklahoma ’03 (B.A. in Creative Writing, B.M. in Middle East History)
Awards: Schusterman Scholar, National Merit Scholar, Student Press Association Gold Circle Winner, Honorable Mention from the Oklahoma Society of Professional Journalists

“Maybe I could learn about myself in some way from this country even though I didn’t profess to be Jewish. I think everyone is interested in their roots in some way.”

From Indiana, to Oklahoma, to Israel and now Boston, Shay Rabineau’s life has taken an unconventional path to say the least. As a Ph.D. candidate in the Near Eastern and Judaic Studies department, Shay’s expertise in Israel goes far deeper than what one can read in a textbook. Shay has experienced Israel, not only from what he has studied as a graduate student at Brandeis, but from his many hikes throughout Israel on the Israel National Trail.

Shay grew up in a small town in Indiana. His father is a Protestant minister. He grew up reading the Bible, and he says that that indirectly led to his becoming interested in Israel and the Middle East.

Shay’s attachment to Israel rests on many levels. However, he was not always interested in the region. As an undergraduate, his interests lay in the Arab world and not in Israel. He studied Arabic and aspired to be a news correspondent and travel in the Middle East. As he explains, “the only background I had of Israel specifically was what I knew from Israel’s ancient history, what I knew from the Bible.” While he was in Israel during college, he traveled with a friend who was operating tours and became interested in the country. It was on this trip that he found out his last name was Jewish. He says, “that seems obvious to people here at Brandeis but coming from where I was in Indiana it was kind of a revelation to me. My dad had basically converted from a non-religious background to Christianity when he was a young man, so our family had no religious heritage that we knew of. I thought, maybe I could learn something about myself in some way from this country even though I didn’t profess to be Jewish. I think everyone is interested in their roots in some way.”

After this trip, Israel gradually became the main focus of his interests.  “As an academic, it’s hard to be connected to Israel and not think about what Israel represents to different people. We talk so much about the significance of Jerusalem to the three major religions, it’s almost a cliché. And the problems that arise out of this, that’s almost a cliché too. I get so tired of hearing story after story on the Palestinian-Israeli conflict. But having said that, those are such relevant issues. And people can debate whether these are issues that involve all humankind, or should involve humankind. Maybe we’re putting way too much significance on one little place on the globe. But the fact is, it does have significance in the hearts and minds of people of all different backgrounds.”

After doing some research, Shay discovered the existence of hiking trails throughout Israel. These trails are largely unknown to non-Israelis and there is essentially no English-language information on the trails. It was after a series of life-altering personal and work-related events, including a very difficult decision to decline a position with the CIA, that led Shay to hike a long section of the Israel National Trail for the first time in 2006.

Shay decided to undertake this endeavor with his best friend and his younger brother. The hike took six weeks to complete. Shay noted the vast differences between hiking in Israel and hiking in the U.S.: “as Americans we think of backpacking as going out west, or going on the Appalachian Trail when you’re in the forest most of the time. Backpacking is very different in Israel. There are these long encounters with nature, but there are also these encounters with small town life, with urban life. So it’s a much more social experience than you could get in other places.” Shay goes on to describe that he and his travel companions “would sleep in public parks, basketball courts, and people’s backyards. One night we were at this town, we walked in and there was a public pool. We made friends with the lifeguard and he showed us where there was a hole in the fence and we could go in and swim after hours if we wanted. He showed us the grassy park next door where we could sleep. There was one night where we slept on the soccer field of a Moshav, a communal settlement in the northern Galilee”.

As Shay explains, “This experience I had in 2006 walking the trail, was for me kind of like a nexus of all these dimensions and aspects of Israel that I’d never encountered. You’re walking through fields, the fields you go through with drainage ditches and tunnels; it’s not the holy land you see from a bus. You’re meeting the people, you’re going through towns, you’re seeing the good sides and the bad sides and you get a glimpse of what it’s really about. I walked away from that experience loving the country even more, feeling like this isn’t the idealized, golden, shining vision that you’re sold on a tour. It’s the real thing. But in a way, you can fall in love with a place all the more when you get to know it on that level.”

After this trip, Shay created the Israel National Trail Data Project to raise awareness to English speakers interested in hiking the trail. The website he created has extended information on the trail as well as a forum for people to post questions, and an English-language guidebook on the trail is in the works.

In 2009, Shay began his post-doctorate studies at Brandeis.  Shay is very passionate about the focus of his studies, which is on “the history of the development of Israel’s hiking trails. This network of hiking trails is unique because Israel is the only country in the world where everything has been marked in this uniform way. Every other country does it in a less uniform way, but Israel has a single set of maps that covers all the trails and stretches across the whole country. So to study the history of that touches on all kinds of other things: it touches on the political history of the country, how the trails were affected by the wars that Israel has fought, by the peace agreements that Israel has made by the continuing conflicts that it’s embroiled in. It also touches on architecture, monuments, commemoration, and collective memory. You’re dealing with something that is close to the land, and the land means so much to so many people. The trails are going through forests that were planted in memory of holocaust victims. They’re going close to the green line of the Palestinian territories, so you come close to Jewish settlements, you go through Arab villages.”

As Shay’s studies in Israel have progressed, he has discovered contradictions about this place that he cares so much about. “I realize that I care about it on different levels or in different ways than someone from Israel cares about it, or how a Jewish person feels about it as a close connection to their homeland, or how a Palestinian person feels about it. I can’t connect on those levels. But Israel does resonate with me on my own symbolic and religious levels.”

What is the next step in Shay’s life? This coming year, he along with his wife and children will move to Jerusalem so he can start researching and writing his dissertation. “I hope that my scholarship can contribute towards doing something good in the world. I’m also a religious person. My background growing up with my dad being a religious person, a believing Christian – it’s hard to not get really jaded to things the longer you study a place and the big issues that are a part of it. But there’s also a part of me that hasn’t given up on the hope of what Jerusalem and Israel represent to people. Maybe one day, Jerusalem will be a city of peace and all the hopes and dreams that people have of that place will one day become real. I think that as an academic you’re encouraged to approach things from a detached, secular viewpoint, which I think you have to do. But I think I have to remind myself that maybe there are higher goals we can aim for.”

Upon graduating, Shay hopes to find a job in the academic world. As he explains, “I want to stay connected to Israel, I’d like to keep traveling and use this dissertation as an opportunity to keep hiking, keep trekking through Israel. Because I think that’s the kind of thing that a person could spend their life doing.”

To learn more about the Israel National Trail Data Project, go to http://www.israelnationaltrail.com/.