Conversation with a Former Hostage
Conversation with a Former Hostage
by Nicola Ranson
To be clear, Mimi Nichter was not a hostage in the recent crisis in Gaza. Her hijacking and hostage experience took place in 1970 during the first incident of international terrorism and one of the most significant events in aviation history. I will be hosting a conversation with Mimi Nichter about her newly launched memoir (3/1) describing her harrowing experience.
Hostage: A Memoir of Terrorism, Trauma and Resilience, is a compelling and enlightening book in which Mimi tells her story with honesty and clarity. The topic of violence and unrest in the Middle East can be charged with pain and fervor. Instead, I found Hostage illuminating and refreshing as it took me into the heart of the Palestinian/Israeli conflict through the observant eyes of a cultural anthropologist.
In 1970, Mimi Nichter was a 20-year-old American who'd followed the well-trodden path of spending a summer in Israel to explore her Jewish roots. She had dressed in a hurry to catch her flight home, and was mid-air on Trans World Airlines flight 741 when her plane was hijacked and redirected to Jordan. Her life, the lives of the other hostages on her flight and on the other flights hijacked that day were changed forever. As were all of our lives as this incident led to the airport security protocols practiced today. Flying would never be the same again.
Mimi, in her skimpy green mini dress, sat on a plane for six days in stifling heat, no running water and overflowing toilets. Her detailed descriptions bring to life the gruesome reality of being stuck on a plane indefinitely in fear of one’s life. She is then moved to Amman where a violent civil war is taking place. What follows is a vivid plunge into a young woman’s experience as she faces terror, discovers her resilience, and, with the curiosity of an observer destined to become an anthropologist, explores the meaning of her relationship to Judaism and history. One overarching theme is Mimi’s drive to answer the question: What motivated the Popular Front for the Liberation of Palestine to take people hostage?
Hostage takes the reader into this complex and contemporary question through the eyes of a naïve young woman who dearly wishes she had chosen to wear jeans that fateful day.
Mimi Nichter, Ph.D. is professor emerita of cultural anthropology at the University of Arizona. Her previous books have focused on key issues in American culture such as body image and social media use. This is her first memoir.
Nicola Ranson is a writer and psychotherapist/social worker living in Encinitas, CA. Her memoir, A Slice of Orange: loving and leaving the Osho/Rajneesh cult will be published by Unsolicited Press 12/8/26.