Memory, Identity, and Maronite Tradition: Feat. Prof. Mouna Maroun

In this episode of Jerusalem Talks, Avraham (Avrum) Burg sits with Prof. Mouna Maroun, who serves as Rector at the University of Haifa and is a professor of neurobiology. They talk about the interplay of identity, memory, and the role of faith and tradition in shaping her Maronite heritage. Professor Maroun reflects on the emotional and communal aspects of her identity, emphasizing how shared experiences, family rituals, and oral history preserve traditions within her community.  Their conversation also delves into Moana’s expertise on memory and discusses her perspective on how memory could contribute to resolving conflicts in the Middle East.

With gratitude to the production team - Daniel Schwake, Gabriel Mitchell, and Avrum Burg - as well as Eli Krogmann and David Turjman for making this season of Jerusalem Talks possible.

Transcript

Jerusalem Talks ND

Season 2 Episode 4

Host: Avraham Burg
Featured Guest: Professor Mouna Maroun 

Avraham Burg: Peace on you, Professor Maroun.

Professor Maroun: Good morning. Hi, how are you?

Avraham Burg: I'm fine. Mouna Maroun. If I ask you, show me your ID. What will be written on your ID? A woman? A scientist? A minority?

Professor Maroun:  Why? It's very complicated because I'm everything of that.

Avraham Burg: Give me a little bit. I mean, you are the first ever vice president of a university in Israel coming from the Arab community.

Professor Maroun: The first elector elect.

Avraham Burg: Yeah. But in order to get there, you have to do something in academia. So let's begin with your academic idea.

Professor Maroun: OK. So, academia for me. It was something like a dream because I'm coming from an underprivileged family. My parents, Luis and Nabiha, they never finished elementary school because in my village there were no schools. However, my father believed that in order to succeed in Israeli society, we need to acquire higher education. So since we were little, he started to educate us by reading books every night. And we had to summarize for him what we read that day.

 Avraham Burg: In what language?

Professor Maroun: In Arabic, of course. Because my father, though living in Israel, mastered only the Arabic language and he didn't know Hebrew. Of course, not English or any other language. So we were supposed to read and to summarize for him and to show him that every week we go to the library in our village and we change books. OK, so it's like continuous reading. And my father, since now he's 99 years old, he reads every day. OK, so we started by knowing that higher education is something that we have to acquire and it is something it is a privilege that is only for people that probably that come from better society than we do.

Avraham Burg: Books.

Professor Maroun: Yes.

Avraham Burg: Tell me one book from your childhood that your father made you read and you said that's my book that's the one I remember.

Professor Maroun: It's very easy. It's very easy. I remember the first Christmas gift that he gave to me. It was the biography of Marie Curie.

Avraham Burg: Oh, the famous scientist who discovered the X-ray.

Professor Maroun: Yeah, of course and the radium. And she had two Nobel Prizes. And you know, I read this book twice a day, twice a day until the age of 18. OK? So I had it just before going to sleep and just before going to school.

Avraham Burg:  So you have old, you have the Old Testament, the New Testament and Madam Curie biography.

Professor Maroun: Yeah, I mean, yes, that was exactly. It was my Bible. And at that time I didn't understand because there was something written that when she was in her school and because of the Russian regime. And they were forced to hide the fact that they were studying history of Poland.

Avraham Burg: She was a Polish, I think born from a Jewish minority, later escaped to Paris, right? So when you say underprivileged minority, et cetera, you fit into the idea.

Professor Maroun: I fit into the idea and the idea that they were, they were forced to hide. The history of their country and then to exchange it with sewing equipment. So it was like, come on, why studying is not something that is normal? What is something that is it's OK and you can do it. So I didn't understand in terms of a child, I didn't understand why they had to hide. So I thought that they forbid them from studying and for me it was like, OK then I need to study.

Avraham Burg: Stop there. I mean, I want to continue the trek, but let's stay there for a second.

You said my village, we sit at the 21st floor of the most at the time was the highest tower in the Middle East. I don't know how is it today in Haifa. And you are in a position of influence, position of power. And the village is 5 minutes drive from here, which is like a different world order.

You were born in Isfiya, Which is a majority of Druze village and a tiny minority of Christians, right?

Professor Maroun: Yes.

Avraham Burg: So how is it there when you go to school. The kids from various communities are the same getting the same attitude as your father gave you?

Professor Maroun: Wow, as a minority. You are a minority. I don't know if I always say I don't know how does it feel to be majority. I mean now I'm the highly ranked in the highly ranked position in the academia everywhere means not only at Haifa University but in Israel. I still feel that I'm not a majority even though that I do the decision, I'm the decision maker. Still, I don't understand what does it feel to be majority. And at that time we were different. It's like, uh, you are Maronite. Uh, OK, what does it mean I'm Maronite? Uh, you pray in a different way because we use Aramaic in our,yes, in our churches. So it was like people, kids, mainly kids, they were, uh, you are a Maronite. And every time that there was a conflict, you know, in the neighborhood between kids. So they were saying, uh, you Maronite, go away. OK? So it was like, this to be a Maronite and a minority. As a minority, you know, you need to adapt to the majority. You need to keep your identity, but yet to adapt to the majority because otherwise you cannot survive. And this is a huge advantage for me because. Because in Israel, I'm an Arab. In Arab, I'm a Christian. In Christians, I'm a Maronite. And then, you know, even in Maronite communities, 

Avraham Burg: and in Isfiya im a Minority within…

Professor Maroun: I'm a minority within a minority. And also I'm a girl, you know, So it was like human being underprivileged in every way you can think about it.

Avraham Burg: A second. I remember many years ago I visited friends in Isfiya, in your village, and there was a huge discussion at home about the wife of my friend that her father-in-law was unhappy that she wants to drive and to issue a driving license. You are now 17 years old in Isfiya, 18 years old. No problem for a Maronite girl to drive, right?

Professor Maroun: Of course not.

Avraham Burg:  But there is a problem for the majority of the Druze girls to drive.

Professor Maroun: You know, even that is changing here nowadays.

Avraham Burg: Then 

Professor Maroun: Then yes, then.

Avraham Burg: So how does it work? You and your girlfriends, I'm driving. You're not allowed to drive.

Professor Maroun: It's not that. It's even extreme than that because I was the first girl to leave the village. And to travel to France for a postdoc. I mean, imagine the mentality, the revolution vision that my father had in order to accept and to deny and not to listen to the neighbors, to the other parts of family. I mean, how can you permit your girl to go abroad and be in France?

Avraham Burg: What about the reputation of yours?

Professor Maroun: The reputation, of course, you know, it was a conflict because he because my parents truly believed that you need to break this, you know, this shell in order to go outside and to succeed. And they  never questioned.

Avraham Burg: But it's interesting. I asked you about you and your majority Druze girlfriends and you answered me about your father, mother.

Professor Maroun: No, you know, you're OK. But you know, it is, it is It was completely different, you know, at that age. Yes.

Avraham Burg: Were they envy?

Professor Maroun: You know, they had their decisions in life.

Avraham Burg: You don't answer. OK, let's move.

Professor Maroun: They got married at early age. So it was for me like, you know, it was like, OK, so let's admit I was bizarre. For them, I was bizarre. So on one hand, yes, I had the freedom to go and to drive and to go to Paris and to live three years almost in Paris. But for them, I think it was like, you know, in order to protect yourself. So you look at the other and you say, oh, I'm OK, but he's bizarre. So I was a bizarre one.

Avraham Burg: OK, I see. And now, I mean, when I look at your career, when I read about it, when I follow you for such a long time, I would say that at every milestone in your life, you can put a little flag Mouna the first. OK? You did so many first things. I mean the first girl to go out of the village, the first, the first, the first. But in this first, is it the first Maronite? Is it the first woman? What is the first? I'm back to my ID question within you. What are you first?

Professor Maroun:  To be So as I said, I had, I have different identities. I'm very proud to have these different identities. But if you ask me which identity I prefer from all these identities, then I say I'm Maronite.

Avraham Burg: I'm a Maronite.

Professor Maroun: I'm a Maronite. And I will tell you why. Because being a Maronite, it means being a Christian. Being a Christian, it means that being a Christian, it means that you need to be open minded and you need to be equal and to feel equal and to love each other and to love everyone and to be human. This is what Christ said. Love your enemies because you are not doing any favor if you love your friends or your brothers. So love your enemies. Being Maronite means that we are rooted in the Middle East since the 4th century, so not. There is no one that is doing us a favor that we are here. Being a Maronite means that we are different. We were persecuted through history as Christians, as being a Maronite in Lebanon. And it is a huge privilege for me to be a Maronite. I'm very proud to be a Maronite because it symbolizes everything in the history that I'm very proud of. And so this is my identity.

Avraham Burg: I think I understand what you're telling me. When I map the Maronites in the diverse mosaic of identities and religions and faith and ideologies of the region, that's a very unique one. A group that actually never gave up and never surrendered at a sense that you're so ancient. I mean Phoenicians and Aramaic, and you mentioned that in the churches to speak. I mean the ritual is in Aramaic, though in some Maronite churches they already moved into Arabic because for people to understand. And for so many years you kept this identity not always understood by your neighbors, be it in Lebanon or be it wherever it is. But by the end of the day, because you kept your own, I would say preserved identity, there is a pride, there is a backbone, there is a resilience. And I see how you take all of these components of yours into the track of the other identities of yours.

Professor Maroun: We are resilient, you know, it's not…

Avraham Burg:  it's not stubborn, resilient.

Professor Maroun: We are, you know, you know, it's always, it's very complicated because you know, for I think the fact that we kept, you know, I don't know if you know that Maronite is the only church, Oriental church that was not divided into Orthodox and Catholic. We are Catholic.

Avraham Burg: Since the 4th, 

Professor Maroun: Since the 4th century

Avraham Burg: , I thought that you. OK

Professor Maroun:  Since the 4th century we never changed. We started at the 4th century and since then we are Catholic. We are very Catholic. Meaning that if you look at around us, so you have the Greek Catholic and the OrthodoxCatholic and you have the Copt Catholic and the Orthodox Copt and you have the Armenian Catholic and the Orthodox. So we kept our relationship with the Catholic Church, with the Roman Catholic Church. So for people here around us, they look at us as OK, so you have the same identity and you don't change identity. So I think this is something that is. That first of all shows as a minority, it shows that we are resilient to changes. We don't change, we don't want to change. We keep the history. And we struggle, of course, to be in coexistence with everyone, but still keeping our identity and trying to avoid division. And this is something that I think other churches in here do not, do not really understand. So they always name us as stubborn. We think it's not being stubborn, it's being we want to preserve our origins and to keep our nation Because I think the Maronites are nation, are not only a church, it is a nation. It is a church rooted and strong. And I think the number of Maronites is increasing. And we are getting closer to our churches and to our identity.

Avraham Burg: Are you in touch with Maronites in Lebanon? Not necessarily you personally, but you as a community.

Professor Maroun: As a community, of course, because our patriarch is in Lebanon, located in Lebanon.

Avraham Burg: But how you preserve it? Here is a tension. You're an Israeli citizen. Lebanon is an enemy country. So how you preserve the undercurrent relationship? How does it work?

Professor Maroun: First of all, our Bishop is Lebanese, so he goes and he comes frequently to Lebanon. But. A second thing, it's like, you know, it's like Israel for Jewish. OK, so it's like Lebanon for us is like Jerusalem for Jewish.

Avraham Burg: No, this I understand, but tell me practically, you have family in Lebanon.

Professor Maroun: We have Family in Lebanon

Avraham Burg: So how you keep in touch in a third country?

Professor Maroun: My family originates from Lebanon. OK, so my grandfather came to Palestine at that time from Lebanon. We have family. We have our community. And we look all the time for what's happening in Lebanon because we pray for that one day they can live in peace and they can Lebanon can really flourish and get back to be the Swiss of the Middle East. So we have connections. You know, today's a few years ago it was like we need a third party in order to communicate. But today with the WhatsApp and with the technology, I think it's making things easier. Yet,  It should be noted that sometimes they are frightened because of the security services of both sides.

Avraham Burg: People marry? I mean it's a small community and of course there will be the tendency to marry with like us people. So I know that the Armenians community for example looking for people in Armenia for for to marry couple. Do Israeli Maronites and Lebanese Maronite marry?

Professor Maroun: No, I think it is. I mean maybe years ago when the borders were open at the beginning of 80s.

Avraham Burg: Yeah.

Professor Maroun: Yeah So it was. ..So I think many people from Jish, 

Avraham Burg: Jish is is one of the largest villages in the north with with a huge Maronite and Aramaic community.

Professor Maroun: Yeah, exactly. So I think it was because of the Being close to each other, the borders Lebanon and Jish so they got married one from each other. However, no for us, no. I think people get married here with the other Christians because we don't we want also like other religions, we want to keep our identity. So people get married with Christian with Christians, Muslim with Muslims, Jewish with Jewish.

Avraham Burg:  But when a maronite wants to marry a greek orthodox?

Professor Maroun: That's OK. It's a perfect

Avraham Burg: I mean, the parents do not look at you and say mmm? 

Avraham Burg: Go for a Catholic one.

Professor Maroun: Go for a Catholic. It's better. But if not, it's OK because we dream of one church. Christians dream for one unity, the unity, the unity of the church and faith and being together and not and not having these divisions, because it's crazy that some of us celebrated Christmas on 25th of December and others on the 7th of January and sometimes…

Avraham Burg:  Most of my friends celebrate both and happy to have a double.

Professor Maroun: Of course it's always here. It's always at the level of social life. However, when it comes to religious life, I think we need to be united and one church, one Christ, one church. 

Avraham Burg: Built for me another bridge. You spoke about the devotion to the heritage, legacy, community, Christianity in you. You express it in a very eloquent way. Religion mainly is about certainty. Science is about doubts. It's about maybe this axiom is wrong, maybe this research I can look at it differently. Now you are a scientist to begin with. I mean, career-wise, you deal with you're a psychologist by training. You deal with the brain neurobiology. I mean, you go places in which doubts are a working tool. Build a bridge between religion and science.  How does it work?

Professor Maroun: Wow. For me, it's not a conflict. There is no contradiction of being a scientist and asking all these questions and question everything and having this faith of someone that is from above surveying on us, creating us, and making this world sometimes function. And sometimes when he when …

Avraham Burg: He or she? 

Professor Maroun: …When he closes, he closes, he closes his eye, closes his eye. So it is a huge, you know, it's a huge mess. I think that the world, when you look at the universe, you don't believe that it was created by some by someone who doesn't didn't know what he's doing or she is doing or it is doing. It's God. So no identity. I feel that there is no contradiction between this believing, for example, in, let's say in Santa Maria, that she was pregnant because of the Holy Ghost, Holy Spirit, and that Jesus was not was not born because he was not born because of a relationship between a man and a woman. I believe that this is indeed the Holy ghost’s deeds. And so maybe some people from Europe or from the States think that I'm very naive. But I always look in Israel and I always gave the example of the Jewish community and I say in the biggest and the most prestigious Weissman Institute in Research in Rehovot in Israel. There are many, many, many scientists well known internationally that they combine these two identities of being Jewish religious and being great scientist. It is a bizarre. It is bizarre for me because when I did my postdoc in Paris. People looked at me, how come you have your cross? Because I have cross around my my neck, a sign of Christianity, of identity,

Avraham Burg:  Across and the crucified. 

Professor Maroun: And the crucified, yes,   the crucified. So people say that this cross is typically for Orthodox because the Catholic Church is not is not with the crucified, you know, so it's not Jesus because Jesus was resurrected. So this is a gift from my family. So since I finished when I finished high school and since then I have it. So people ask how come you, as you ask,  how come you are a scientist and you ask questions and on the other hand it's like you have all the answers because of being having your faith and you have you have your strong faith. For me it's very simple. I don't see any contradiction.

Avraham Burg:  You mean, I mean if I understand what you say, let's say on the abstract level, you say there is a creator and through my science I try to understand or to expose or to reveal more and more layers of the re of the enigmas of the creation. It's not that I'm going against the creation. I'm going with the creation.

Professor Maroun:  I'm going with the creation. And I'm trying to understand the mystery of the brain that he created, that God created

Avraham Burg:   And how you reconcile, if it's possible. Let's say that in the Old Testament we speak about the six days of creation. And now in the United States of America, not now for so many years, there is a conflict whether evolution or creation. OK, how does it work? How did the world, the world developed, created, evolved? Where do you stand with that? Because it's not a scientific question, it's a question of personal morality, so to say. Where are you?

Professor Maroun: You know, sometimes I question that, to be honest, whether. Indeed, God created in 7 days. The history of Adam and Eve 6th day,

Avraham Burg:   The 7th day he took a vacation, a sabbatical..

Professor Maroun: Yeah, of course. I mean, of course we question these things. But I try, let's say I try to ignore the the old testimony. I focus on the New Testimony. I try. Though that Christ said that I didn't come to change, I came to..I didn't come to cancel. I come to continue. So yeah, you know, of course we question the story of Adam and Eve and we question the story of creation, but I don't question the story of Jesus, of Jesus Christ, resurrection. And so it's like, OK, being a scientist on the one side, which is this is being a scientist, so some questions and some facts you question, the other facts it's very easy not to question. So for me faith it is the basis of my life. But the faith in Jesus Christ.

Avraham Burg:   Born in your village, climbed to the top of the tower in Haifa University, but in between you went. To places and one of them, your high school was not in the village. Your high school was the Orthodox, the Arab Orthodox school in Haifa, which is a very one of the best private schools in Israel. Talk to me a second about the Christian education system in Israel. It produces brilliant, brilliant scientists, public figures, artists. What do you do right?

Professor Maroun: So the Christian schools, it's like a diamond in the education system. Unfortunately, they don't have equal rights like other public schools in Israel, and that's why there's even a risk that we are going to lose these Christian schools because of the budget given from the government.

Avraham Burg:  Budget not given by the government.

Professor Maroun: Budget not given. OK, the lack of budget given by the government. And this is going to be a pity because and it's going to be tragic event for the Arab community because as you said, most of us professors, doctors, all people that succeeded in being educated and acquired higher education. In being integrated in the Israeli market, in the Israeli society, directors of hospitals, chief of departments in hospitals, most of them were educated in these Christian schools. I should emphasize that these Christian schools are open to Muslims and to Jews, so there is no discrimination in acceptance, so everyone can go inside into these schools. But you need to know that for example for Jewish they cannot, they cannot enter because the language that of teaching is in Arabic. So these schools started even before the independence of Israel and Europe brought the most amazing priests and nuns from abroad, from Europe and they establish these schools. And these schools are rooted on or are based on Christian values and Christian values meaning open-minded, asking questions and disciplines and also being tolerant for others. And the system of education of course it's on the one hand it's selective because only good people, good students they can go inside. And on the other hand, the system is amazing because the teaching is they take the best, they take the best teachers. So they combine everything, they combine, they pave the way for higher education and they pave the way for the integration of the Arab society into the Israeli society.

Avraham Burg:  So we have your parents as those who launched you into the realm of curiosity. We have your educators in school and later on you took on your own career. Want to go back to a place which is maybe prior to this all. You said that we pray in Aramaic, we speak Arabic. Hebrew might be a barrier, though it's the language of the majority, but we live in our own community. But comes another question. How do you learn to be a Maronite? Where do you study the history? Where do you study the emotions, the sentiment, the recipes? Home only.?

Professor Maroun: You know, my I always say that I work on memory. I study memory, but I don't have memory, OK?

Avraham Burg:   Explain to me, 

Professor Maroun: OK, I work on the mechanism neural memory. You said I'm a neurobiologist. I work on the mechanisms of memory, but I forget everything easily. So I always joke on myself and these others that I have. I work on memory, but I don't have actual memory. However, I do have emotional memory and emotional memory since I was a kid, as I said, I always believed that I'm unique. Of being Maronite is being unique. It's not something that it was like, wow, I'm privileged because they tease me for being Maronite. They joke on me of being Maronite. So I exchange this idea. I transform this these experiences of a kid that feels OK, they are rejected OK for something sometimes. So either they go into them, they isolate themselves or they think that maybe I'm unique. So I think I took this pathway of thinking that I'm unique.

Avraham Burg:  No, I will be the first one to give you a testimony that you are unique. But Mouna, if I go to the generic Mouna, not my friend Mouna, but the generic one. I'm a Maronite kid in Jish. I'm a Merronite kid in Haifa. How do i learn it ?

Professor Maroun: So I said, so I said OK, so I said that I started saying. That I have emotional memories and these are my emotional memories. So first of all they include that I'm unique because I'm Maronite. And the second one, I remember that when we were little, we used to pray every night for Lebanon, for the safety of Lebanon, for the safety of Christians and Maronite, for the safety, for the peace in Lebanon, because when I was little. The civil war started in Lebanon 

Avraham Burg:  75?

Professor Maroun: 75. Yeah, So as a kid, as a kid, I was small kid. So we used to pray every night to kneel and with my parents and to pray for Lebanon and for Maronites. So it was started at home. And then our family started construction of a church, of our Community Church, in Isfiya..

Avraham Burg:   Which is beautiful one.

Professor Maroun: Yeah. So my, thank you. So my memories as a child, they were at that church that we are helping, that we are constructing, that it is our home. You cannot with these things being kids looking at me and saying, uh, you're Maronite at home, praying for Maronite and praying for peace in Lebanon at our church, building something from scratch. So these memories, these memories,

Avraham Burg:   But you have something like formal history, education, like the Jewish kids have it.

Professor Maroun: No, we don't have, we don't have. 

Avraham Burg:  So it's a kind of an oral tradition within the community.

Professor Maroun: Yes, but I think this is the most emotional thing that is stamped in your brain emotions. And not and not, you know, education like. But later on of course at the church we start, we start with the education about Maronites, about our origins, about our uniqueness, about our relation to the Roman Catholic, about our relationship to the Druze Because it's not by coincidence that we come.. My grandfather came from Lebanon, OK, and he come to Isfah. Isfah where Druze and Maronite coexist.

Avraham Burg:  The Mount of Carmel in Israel. That has the two maybe largest Druze community in Israel, Osri and Dalit El Carmel is in a way a Lebanese model that succeeds.

Professor Maroun: Yes, OK.

Avraham Burg:  If the same way Lebanon is a failed country with all the miseries they have there, most of the time in your villages and communities the coexistence works.

Professor Maroun: Yes, and I always say that where there are Maronites, there are Druze, and where there are Druze, there are Maronites. And this is an example.

Avraham Burg:  Interesting.  I'm not at all sure. I'll tell you why. Because I think that demographically speaking, there are more Maronites in exile than Maronites at home, whatever home is. I'm not at all sure there are so many Druze in order to cover all the Maronite communities around the globe.

Professor Maroun: Yeah, exactly. But let's say I'm in we hopefully this is what I say about the Mount Carmel. But I do hope that Christians in the Holy Land, they will remain in the Holy Land because and that the story or the history of Lebanon is not going to be replicated.

Avraham Burg:  The Holy Land is a real place. It's not a virtual place.

Professor Maroun: It is a place. But I do hope that Christians will remain in the Holy Land, equal Israel, Palestine and not immigrate as it happened in Lebanon that Maronites, Maronites, specifically Christians in general. They immigrated from Lebanon.

Avraham Burg:  I understand exactly what you are mourning the loss of the historic holding of the historic homeland. But at the same time I look how the Maronite exiles of people in exile enriched world culture. Jubran Khalil Jubran, Ralph Nader And in Lebanon, but all over the Middle East, Firouz, the famous singer of the morning. OK, I say famous singer of the morning because there is a term in Arabic which says Firouz, (Speaks arabic) which is Firouz to wake up in the morning, Um Kalthoum to fall asleep with. So I mean, yes, many people leave the region, but never stop to enrich as unique Individual's world culture.

Professor Maroun: I told you we are very unique. Let's start with this. But I think again, if you now go for Lebanon, I hope that one day we can all go to Lebanon. But if you will go to Lebanon and ask these classical singers about the origin of their poems, the origin of their songs, you know what they will say. The chants or the songs, the prayers of the Maronite Church.

Avraham Burg:  Really.

Professor Maroun: Yes.

Avraham Burg:  So I have to listen differently to Fayrouz and to look for the liturgy layer there. Promise I’ll do it.

Professor Maroun: You need to do it because the Maronite Mass liturgy is something that is amazing. You cry with, you laugh with, you feel it, you it touches your heart. And I think most Fayrouz, it is based on the brothers of Rahbani that compose the music, the Fayrouz music. It is based on their education and they admit it on their education into the Maronite Church.

Avraham Burg:  Let me be a tourist to your life. Which mass should I come? Not every Sunday. Which?  I want to come and cry with your community. Which one should I come to?

Professor Maroun: So you need to come to 22.  Every month we hold a mass.

Avraham Burg:  The 22nd of each month?

Professor Maroun: Yes, 22nd of each month in our church, in our very small. It's not a small church, it's a community church.

Avraham Burg:   Why 22nd?

Professor Maroun:  Because it coincides with in Lebanon. It is the feast of  our patron of church, San Charbel. He is, he was a Lebanese monk and I think he's doing miracles every everywhere. And Muslims, Jews and you have testimony from all of these different religion members. They come to Lebanon. And they put their witness regarding a testimony regarding the miracles that 

Avraham Burg:  So is it a morning or evening mass?

Professor Maroun: So it is evening. So many people from outside this sphere because our community, it's like 120 the Maronite community and we host every month 500-400 people that come.

Avraham Burg:  So when I come, I will come. I promise you to come to cry together. Give me a special recipe which is a Maronite recipe that is yours only.

Professor Maroun:  Recipe in terms of…

Avraham Burg:  Eating 

Professor Maroun: Of eating. 

Avraham Burg:  Of real life. I mean, we spoke about spirituality and psychology.

Professor Maroun: Maronite? I'm not sure that we have something that is typical for Maronite

Avraham Burg:  You don't have a kitchen? 

Professor Maroun: You know, we are. I'll tell you why. We are mostly spiritual. We are mostly identity. So for us,

Avraham Burg:  Thats a knock out 

Professor Maroun: Stomach is not counted..

Avraham Burg:   The Lebanese kitchen is maybe it's the best one in the region for sure.

Professor Maroun: Yes, Yes  it's not typical for Maronites,  but it is of course they created Lebanese cuisine.

Avraham Burg:  I hope that you are unique there as well. But OK, there is one quarter in life in which you are normal. Good. Go back to your research. You spoke about memory. I for many years I used the AD/BC calendar. OK, before Christ after. Now I think it's different. It's BG and AG before Google and after Google in the sense that with Google you don't have to remember a thing, but you cannot forget anything. It's something is happening to the mechanism of memory. But what you did in your study, which is very, very interesting, you explore the possibilities, at least at the laboratory level, to erase memories of fear.

Professor Maroun: Yep.

Avraham Burg:  Talk to me a little bit about it.

Professor Maroun: So first of all, let's go to Google. Before Google and after Google, I can tell you that when we were kids, they always said repeat, repeat, repeat, even.

Avraham Burg:  So learn by heart,

Professor Maroun:  Learn by heart, learn by heart. And you and you saw we always questioned this, the efficacy of learning by heart. Of course now there are other dogmas for education and you know you need something emotional and you need something exciting. However, learning by heart, which means repeating and repeating and repeating, there is a normal mechanism that works for that. Because when you repeat, when you repeat the same information again and again and again and again. So there is a change in the system, in the neural system because the strength between cells, neuronal cells, we call them neurons. It becomes stronger and it eases the memory. So I'll tell you for example, something OK regarding Waze. We always use the GPS. We now we use the Waze even to go home. OK.? But you know before that we used to activate a certain region in our brain in order to get from one point to another point by driving or by walking. Now we use the GPS or the Waze or the Google Maps. And you know what does it mean that this brain is not activated and this is the region that is the first to be affected by Alzheimer's disease and the dementia. So Google. Of course, we don't need all the time to study what is the height of the Eiffel, what is the number of residents and inhabitants in Israel, or where is Israel located, the capital of Israel. We don't need to learn that by heart. However, we need to activate our memory, our brain. And this technology is not helping our brain

Avraham Burg:  I’ll tell you why I laughed twice to read your beautiful narrative. The 1st is when I was a little boy, the punishment in class was to learn by heart a chapter from the Old Testament. And since I was punished a lot, I learned a lot. And up until today I remember huge chunks of the Old Testament because of this Punishment. And then you spoke about the GPS coming here at a certain point, right after your village Isfuya , you lose the GPS and all of the sudden the map, Google map shows you that you are in Beirut. And maybe that's because of your Maronites. OK, so the whole conversation we had about the mountain of Lebanon.

Professor Maroun: So I can tell you for that ways and GPS and all this.. 

Avraham Burg:  This not good for me.

Professor Maroun: They are not.. They are very good for me because my dream is to go to Lebanon. So suddenly I'm in Beirut all the day.

Avraham Burg:  At home

Professor Maroun: But to be honest, the most harmful thing for our brain is the GPS because now we don't rely on our brain, we rely on Google. We rely on maps.

Avraham Burg:  So, so let's go…

Professor Maroun:  The to the memory of fear,

Avraham Burg:  To the deleting of memory.

Professor Maroun: Yeah, but it was an introduction for the memory of fear because in order to study something that is neutral, OK, for example, what is the height of the Eiffel Tower? OK, so need to repeat it. You need to repeat it many times. However, when it comes to fear and traumatic memory, you don't need to repeat. It's enough that one sufficient that one memory, one event can create a very long-term memory that can last for lifetime. Meaning if we're talking about for I used when I used to give talks for general audience, I used to ask them, do you remember where you have been on the 11th of September? Because everyone remembers now in Israel, unfortunately I will ask the 7th of October because everyone of us remember. Where he or she was on the 7th of October, what he was doing on the 7th of October. Because when it comes to a traumatic event, we remember, we have memory that can last for a lifetime. Now people can develop so fear. It is a normal reaction when you have a danger and you are frightened. It's a normal reaction because you have all the system working in order to avoid and to survive in order to avoid fear and danger. However, when the danger is disappearing and you keep the memory of fear and you are frightened, then you develop anxiety. OK, so when there is no danger and still you are anxious, it's anxiety. And the anxiety can develop to post-traumatic stress disorder that can really harm the routine and the daily life. And these people avoid doing basic things like going out of their houses, OK?

Avraham Burg:  Sure

Professor Maroun:  And we need to understand what happens in the brain in order to understand what goes wrong and if something goes wrong, then how we can treat it. So we in a rat model in the lab, we found that there is something that we can inhibit in the brain, into a specific region of the brain, which is the region of fear, memory of the emotional memory and the center of fear responses. So when we inhibit this region by a certain drug, then we can erase the fear memory. However, this is something that we cannot really apply in humans because it is something that is very invasive. It's something that is very invasive.

Avraham Burg:   Let's say you could invade the memory of the collective of the region. What kind of fears would you delete in order to enable everybody to be Maronite like?

Professor Maroun: I would promote what is called contact theory. Contact theory means that when you know each other, then you are not frightened from each other. I would start to construct or to reconstruct a community, including Jews, Muslims, Arabs, Christians, Jews, to talk together.

Avraham Burg:  And it's possible?

Professor Maroun: It is possible if you start by early age. Why early age? Because early age the brain is stopped.

Avraham Burg:  So you didn't lose hope of the region.

Professor Maroun: I don't.  I never lost hope of the region. And I think that we need to change here in the Holy Land around us. And we think, of course, I also think that people need justice. People need a country. We need a country in Israel. The Palestinians need a country in their homeland. And one day we can go to Lebanon together, maybe, and we can get to know my homeland, let's say my origin, the origin of the land of my grandparents and my legacy and heritage. Because I dream of that day that I can go to Lebanon and be on the top of the valley of Kadisha, the Valley of Saints in Lebanon.

Avraham Burg: Mouna, you are unique. It was a privilege this conversation. I really want to meet you in one of the very near coming 22nd. the 22nd of the month in order to celebrate together.

Professor Maroun: You are most welcome.

Avraham Burg:  I push myself in.

Professor Maroun: Of course, of course.

Avraham Burg:  And I do hope that not necessarily to delete memories, but to base on the trauma and no hope in order to say, let's not repeat it. Enough is enough.

Professor Maroun: Enough is enough. And I share with you this dream. And as a Christian, I believe that we need to find something that make us unite with our differences, with our different identities, yet to come together, sit together, eat together, talk with each other and grow together.

Avraham Burg:  Inshallah.

Professor Maroun:  Inshallah.

Avraham Burg:  So help us God. Thank you very much Professor Maroun.

Professor Maroun: Thank you very much.