JL;DR SUMMARY Tamir Sorek, a professor of history at Penn State University, shares insights from his book "The Optimist: A social biography of Tawfiq Zayyad", which explores the life of Tawfiq Zayyad, a prominent Palestinian politician and intellectual in Israel during the 1970s, 1980s, and 1990s. A way out west there was a fella, fella I want to tell you about, fella by the name of Jeff Lebowski.