--The conservative American Jewish stance on crtiticism of Israel is fast becoming a totalitarian mindset. A university disinviting Bishop Desmond Tutu because a group of reactionary rabbis said they should? Since when do university heads go to religious leaders to get permission for campus debates? A friend hearing about my blog says, "she better be careful, she's going to get hate mail." Professors being fired because they do not toe the Derkowitz line on Israel's actions in the world, the need for a Jewish internet cite, Muzzlewatch, because so many who want to raise the vision of other roads to take in Palestine and Israel are being refused speaking platforms and loosing jobs, the refusal to allow the word "intifada" to be used with respect in a New York school, Jews telling other Jews do not speak, do not question, do not infuse new information, do not give Palestinians name and faces, do not honor another people's need for self respect in the face of decades and daily restrictions and humiliations. As dissenting American Jews, we cannot use words like racism or apartheid--we cannot assert that a police state that isolates and constricts one group of people is akin to other police states we have known in history--while in Israel itself these conversations are publically possible. This is all meshugah--this is Bush's America where some of us think being righter then right will make us safe--while the Christian right solidifies its behind-the- scenes hold on power, its control over mercenary soldiers and electoral politics. Oh how sad, how stupid, how familiar--historical shame lusts after military might, we will be the best soldiers in the world, we will be famous because of our toughness, governments will court our expertise on interrogations, torture, no nonsense, no sentimental respect for the humanity of our opponents, we will run Bush's military errands for him into Syria, into Lebanon, men like Sharon and Dayan will be our national heroes--we have risen from our ashes and now can conduct our own incarcerations, our own killings, our own nationalism swelling with religious permissions--my words must stop--it is the madness I see all around me--million dollar right wing think tanks churning out plans to expand the cleansing of the middle east--the free market economy marries the military and kisses the religous right and all I see are the people of Katrina standing on their roof tops, the people without oil, or powerful geographic positionings--no think tanks for them--not even a decent wall to keep out the flood waters--and my queer self, this sex writer self--what is she doing swimming in these waters of international concern--this Bronx Jew who is part of the generation romanticized in public interest stories of now famous men who grew up playing stick ball in the streets of the Bronx, the little pink ball that bounced so high, who first saw history inscribed on the wrist of Jerry, the delicatessen owner, the blue numbers one by one showing themselves as he reached to wrap our pickles, way back in 1949--this Jew raised by an embezzeling mother who told her Paul Robeson was a great man after a teacher's tirade against this "enemy of America" in PS 94 again back in the old days forbade any mention of his name. There are many American Jews like me, who refuse to non-think, who remember not the centers of power--oh how good it is to live there, says the Harvard woman professor--but the smaller places where people joined hands, all kinds of people and caught each other's sighs in their own breaths and turned their backs on the obscenity of a safety built on the sorrows of others made nameless, made lifeless.
A letter from Alex, Jewish daughter of Holocaust survivors, a tireless advocate for respect for all in Israel, September 19, 2007:
Hi all,
Just a quick note to let you know what I have been up to--yesterday I went with a 75 year old woman and a 60 year old couple to the occupied territories to meet and listen to Palestinian stories.
Dorothy is amazing, she came to live in Israel from America years ago and has raised a family and is not a grandma. She never in her life thought that at the age of 75 shewould begoing to women's demostrations n the occupied territories and getting beaten up and gassed by Israeli soldiers, her story alone is amazaing.
What amazes me most about the women I meet herr is how much of their lives they give toward making this a better place, but I have to say every time I come here things just get worse for everyone--more Israeli Jews who were Zionists are now becoming anti-Zionist--they are realizing that most of the history they learned was at best distorted --for those who are interested read Ilan Papel or Benny Morris.
So off I was to Mas Ha, a Palestinian village not far from Tel Aviv. It took us 20 minutes to get there. Our first stop was to speak with Honey, a man that owns some land and a well with water, is house is 100% surrounded by the wall and barbed wire fences, the Israelis could have built the wall around his house so that he could still be a part of his village--Honey supplies water to many of the village people but because of the wall and the settlers, it now costs him more money to deliver the water then what he brings in. He tried to set up chicken farm, but soldiers destroyed it, he tried a hot house and they destroyed that too. He is trapped with no way to make a living. What the Israeli government has done is surround Mas Ha with a settlement which ultimately means all of the land has been stolen by the Israeli government for the settlement. In Mas Ha, families grow but there is no way they can expand their village.
Another man, Nizha, has olive trees outside the wall and it can take him from a few hours to a day to get there depending on whether the Israeli soldiers at the check point lets him--a couple of years ago when I visited him, I went from his house to his land, it took us 15 minutes. The policy is not to let them move freely or far, not to let them grow food, to make it difficult to access water, to earn a living or expand their buildings. The wall is more about making their lives difficult and in all of this the settlers harass the Palestinians and never get punished for their violence.
Dorothy was telling me how one settler hit her car once and another one tried to run her off the road.
This was just one village. In the next village, I met a man who was shot in the back and now can not walk. He does not hate, he just wants freedom and an end to violence like all the other Palestinians I have met. The ones I have spoken to have given up hope on a two state solution because when one looks at the maps and all the settlements I srael has built, it is no longer viable, They just want the right to be free to live and work and raise a family like the rest ofus. It is amazing how things have changed for the worst.
The next stop was a house with a family of 8--the Israeli army took over the top floor, the young girl in the family is doing year 12 and wants to study but her books are upstairs and they won't let her get them and they won't bring them down. They even had the chutzpa to stick an Israeli flag out side the window of the top floor-You should all know that I was on my best behaviour. When I leave it is the Palestinians who will pay the price fdor whatever I do or say.
Needless to say, I finished the day by going to visit Lina, who some of you know. She is a 5 year old Palestinian child who had a kidney transplant and need medication. We have been raising money to pay for her medication which keeps her salive. From Farid and Amena and her family, thank you to all those who helped.
I must say, I met the most amazing people yesterday from all sides, people who care enough to do something to make this a better place. I have only told you a little about what I did, there is always a lot more. Hope you are well,
Alex
We cannot say we did not know what was happening--people have names and lives no matter what the military and right wing governments and fanatic religous movements would have us believe-as Jews we know this on our bodies.
W
Monday, October 8, 2007
Friday, October 5, 2007
"Salah's answer summed up to me what we were all doing. We were all struggling to achieve for our children a future without roadblocks, tanks, tear gas, or administrative detention. A future not shadowed by a pervasive sense of our being wronged." Words of Sari Nusseibeh, from his book, Once upon a Country: A Palestinian Life (2007) speaking about his liberation work in 1990
In my head through my days here in West Brunswick, days marked by health worries and now, the death of a dear friend, Joyce Warshow, film maker and lesbian activist, I keep writing letters to Wendy. How cold I must seem to her and perhaps to others when I say, we cannot let our historical and cultural empathies be walled in by the Holocaust horror. In every word I write lives the realization that once almost the whole of the Western world found Jews an expendable people, fit for extermination, and in a clear headed and at times, joyous way, in between eating a cup of fresh summer blue berries with cream, fired up the gas chambers or turned away the ships from their safe harbors. In a recent Nestel family history--my father's family, my father whom I never knew, his sudden death in 1939 six months before I was born taking his voice and body from me forever, I found the names of the women, men and children who died in the Belzec camp--among them Zippora and her husband Henoch and their two children, Aron and Eidel. I also found survivors who now live in Israel. We carry this knowledge of the deadening of the human heart in almost biological places as well as in our food and in our jokes, in our tears and in our life's dreams. But it is because I know how easily the heart can die when it is convinced that another group of people threaten already fragile geographies or how easily it can be convinced that some are so different from us that they must become shadows. And if these people have been reduced by circumstances and our power rises above them like a looming mountain, then we do not even see their diminishment. We just do what we have to and enjoy our morning coffee in a pleasant Haifa cafe.
Haaretz editorial, 03/10/2007
The occupied territories and the Palestinians living there are slowly becoming virtual realities, distant from the eye and the heart. Palestinian workers have disappeared from our streets. Israelis no longer enter Palestinian towns for shopping. There is a new generation on each side that does not know the other. Even the settlers no longer meet the Palestinians because of the different road systems that distinguish between the two populations; one is free and mobile, the other stuck at the roadblocks.
While the politicians argue over dividing the land between two peoples, the public is apathetic. The people feel that the division has already taken place. The disengagement from the Gaza Strip, the evacuation of Gush Katif, the construction of a separation barrier--the problem is solved to our satisfaction. The settlers are conducting a settlement policy of their own., taking over new areas, expanding settlements, anything to prevent a permanent solution. They are also satisfied with the status quo that relies on the Shin Bet secutiry service and the Israel Defense Forces.
The de facto separation is today more similar to political apartheid than an occupation regime because of its constancy. One side--determined by national, not geographic association--included people who have the right to choose and the freedom to move, and a growing economy. On the other side are people closed behind walls surrounding their community, who have no right to vote, lack freedom of movement and have no chance to plan their future. The economic gap is only getting wider and the Palestinians are wistfully watching as Israel imports laborers from China and Romania. Fear of terroist attacks has transformed the Palestinian laborer into an undesirable.
There have recenly been reports of a further "upgrading" of the occupation. Sixteen crossing points between the West Bank and Israel are now being controlled by civilians instead of soldiers. On the face of it, this is an act of normalization, similar to the situation at international border crossings. But in this case a country exists on one side. In the absence of an agreed border, there is only a security border that Israel has unilateraaly established. The frustrated and frightened soldiers checking every Palestinian have now been replaced by contractors hired by the Defense Ministry.
Their job is check people holding permits; in other words, people the civil adminstration, under the Shin Bet's quidance, has allowed to enter Israel. The checks are being carried out, in reinforced, blast-proof structures. The new method has removed a burden from IDF soldiers but has created a distancing. The contact between the soldiers and the Palestinians at the crossings, precisely because it is so traumatic, has driven the Israelis and Palestinians to seek a political solution. The stories the soldiers brought home fueled public debate. Now the soldiers are stationed only at roadblocks in the West Bank, and there is less friction. So the discourse is minimized.
Can this situation continue indefinitely? The more Israelis see less of the occupation, the easier it becomes to ignore. In September, 33 Palestinians and one soldier were killed in operations against terror and Qassam rockets. Only in the next intfada, or after missiles are fired at Israel from the West Bank, will we once again be reminded of the occupation.
From Sari Nusseibeh's book: "'Baba,' said my youngest boy, Buraq, from the back seat of the car as I drove him to school one morning. (He couldn't have been more then seven at the time.'I'd like to know something. Was there ever life before the intifada?' The question cut through my heart like a knife."
In my head through my days here in West Brunswick, days marked by health worries and now, the death of a dear friend, Joyce Warshow, film maker and lesbian activist, I keep writing letters to Wendy. How cold I must seem to her and perhaps to others when I say, we cannot let our historical and cultural empathies be walled in by the Holocaust horror. In every word I write lives the realization that once almost the whole of the Western world found Jews an expendable people, fit for extermination, and in a clear headed and at times, joyous way, in between eating a cup of fresh summer blue berries with cream, fired up the gas chambers or turned away the ships from their safe harbors. In a recent Nestel family history--my father's family, my father whom I never knew, his sudden death in 1939 six months before I was born taking his voice and body from me forever, I found the names of the women, men and children who died in the Belzec camp--among them Zippora and her husband Henoch and their two children, Aron and Eidel. I also found survivors who now live in Israel. We carry this knowledge of the deadening of the human heart in almost biological places as well as in our food and in our jokes, in our tears and in our life's dreams. But it is because I know how easily the heart can die when it is convinced that another group of people threaten already fragile geographies or how easily it can be convinced that some are so different from us that they must become shadows. And if these people have been reduced by circumstances and our power rises above them like a looming mountain, then we do not even see their diminishment. We just do what we have to and enjoy our morning coffee in a pleasant Haifa cafe.
Haaretz editorial, 03/10/2007
The occupied territories and the Palestinians living there are slowly becoming virtual realities, distant from the eye and the heart. Palestinian workers have disappeared from our streets. Israelis no longer enter Palestinian towns for shopping. There is a new generation on each side that does not know the other. Even the settlers no longer meet the Palestinians because of the different road systems that distinguish between the two populations; one is free and mobile, the other stuck at the roadblocks.
While the politicians argue over dividing the land between two peoples, the public is apathetic. The people feel that the division has already taken place. The disengagement from the Gaza Strip, the evacuation of Gush Katif, the construction of a separation barrier--the problem is solved to our satisfaction. The settlers are conducting a settlement policy of their own., taking over new areas, expanding settlements, anything to prevent a permanent solution. They are also satisfied with the status quo that relies on the Shin Bet secutiry service and the Israel Defense Forces.
The de facto separation is today more similar to political apartheid than an occupation regime because of its constancy. One side--determined by national, not geographic association--included people who have the right to choose and the freedom to move, and a growing economy. On the other side are people closed behind walls surrounding their community, who have no right to vote, lack freedom of movement and have no chance to plan their future. The economic gap is only getting wider and the Palestinians are wistfully watching as Israel imports laborers from China and Romania. Fear of terroist attacks has transformed the Palestinian laborer into an undesirable.
There have recenly been reports of a further "upgrading" of the occupation. Sixteen crossing points between the West Bank and Israel are now being controlled by civilians instead of soldiers. On the face of it, this is an act of normalization, similar to the situation at international border crossings. But in this case a country exists on one side. In the absence of an agreed border, there is only a security border that Israel has unilateraaly established. The frustrated and frightened soldiers checking every Palestinian have now been replaced by contractors hired by the Defense Ministry.
Their job is check people holding permits; in other words, people the civil adminstration, under the Shin Bet's quidance, has allowed to enter Israel. The checks are being carried out, in reinforced, blast-proof structures. The new method has removed a burden from IDF soldiers but has created a distancing. The contact between the soldiers and the Palestinians at the crossings, precisely because it is so traumatic, has driven the Israelis and Palestinians to seek a political solution. The stories the soldiers brought home fueled public debate. Now the soldiers are stationed only at roadblocks in the West Bank, and there is less friction. So the discourse is minimized.
Can this situation continue indefinitely? The more Israelis see less of the occupation, the easier it becomes to ignore. In September, 33 Palestinians and one soldier were killed in operations against terror and Qassam rockets. Only in the next intfada, or after missiles are fired at Israel from the West Bank, will we once again be reminded of the occupation.
From Sari Nusseibeh's book: "'Baba,' said my youngest boy, Buraq, from the back seat of the car as I drove him to school one morning. (He couldn't have been more then seven at the time.'I'd like to know something. Was there ever life before the intifada?' The question cut through my heart like a knife."
Tuesday, October 2, 2007
Dear Wendy--Yes, I remember our visit together to the Holocaust museum and the silver necklace of my name in Hebrew letters that you and M. gave me--I remember it very deeply--and that is why I must write these words--how do we honor such a history, how do we hold each other accountable for such catastrophic failures of the human heart? For such cynical politics that uses the tragic displacement of one people to create another kind of homelessness for another--there is so much I want to say--and I will later in other entries--but this is a letter to a friend--a lanceman--perhaps the most important moment of discussion--Israel while it is a home to Jews is an occupying force to the Palestinians--it is a colonzing power in that strip of land---all the Arab Israelis I met and many Palestinians all spoke Hebrew--the language of those, now, with power, but seldom did I hear Israelis speaking Arabic--and when even the 10 year old Palestinian seller of corn beside highway along the Jordan valley neogotiated with us in Hebrew, I saw the cultural displacement that colonization always brings--I thought of the words of Albert Memmi, the Tunesian Jewish writer, describing the one way cultural street colonial power creates. We can melt in our hearts, Wendy, about the sorrow of our people--but this is a different time, and Israel is a nation-state that calls itself a Jewish state and it must be looked at with the same eyes we look at all nation states--the fear you speak about that your relatives live with--is a fear encouraged by the military men we both rail against, just as Bush and Cheney use fear here to allow the unthinkable to happen. It is the same fear that keeps Israelis and Palestinians, every day people, from living in each other's lives--shopping in each other's markets, working for each other, speaking each other's language.
You speak of the time we can have falafel on King David street in Tel Aviv--and I know the comfort of sitting in a Haifa cafe in the late morning, having a breakfast of chopped cucumber and tomatoes with humus lining the plates and then I look behind our comfort and I wonder who will own the falafel shop and who will work in it and who will have the money to buy the wonders of King David street--and then will we walk over the green line into the West Bank and see the same affluence, share the same good food, ordered in another language--or will we stand looking up at the gray wall with its barbed wire forcing us each back into a history constructed of the most terrible suffering for both peoples. How do we say no, Wendy, a Jewish no to cruelty in the same of "safety"-- we will loose dear connections in this discussion, I have no doubt--but this is how I honor those who did not have the chance to live in the fullness of their humanity.
You speak of the time we can have falafel on King David street in Tel Aviv--and I know the comfort of sitting in a Haifa cafe in the late morning, having a breakfast of chopped cucumber and tomatoes with humus lining the plates and then I look behind our comfort and I wonder who will own the falafel shop and who will work in it and who will have the money to buy the wonders of King David street--and then will we walk over the green line into the West Bank and see the same affluence, share the same good food, ordered in another language--or will we stand looking up at the gray wall with its barbed wire forcing us each back into a history constructed of the most terrible suffering for both peoples. How do we say no, Wendy, a Jewish no to cruelty in the same of "safety"-- we will loose dear connections in this discussion, I have no doubt--but this is how I honor those who did not have the chance to live in the fullness of their humanity.
Saturday, September 29, 2007
Dear Wendy,
First I want to thank you for taking the time to read my words and for writing to me. I am not sure that this is the way one conducts a conversation on a blog--but it is how I will do it.
I`will take your last point first--this is not the time for anyone to think the "middle" is a place of wisdom when people are dying and the groundwork is being layed for more tragic histories. I did take a closer look when I was in Israel, into the eyes of the people, both those who saw Israel as their always dreamed of homeland and the those who see Israel as the symbol of their dispossession from both their past and their future, into the eyes of the Israeli peace activists and the Israeli border police, into the eyes of Sol, the neighborhood optician who welcomed us to Haifa by saying, "we are not like the rest of Israel, here Jew, Arabs, Christians all live together" and into the eyes of a teenage daugther of settlers hitchhiking with us to get back to her family--the messiah has given us this land, she said. I looked into the eyes of a feminist, single mother in Haifa whose home had been destroyed by a rocket from Lebanon in the war. Every day I walked by a Hebrew sign at a bus stop listing the 18 young people who had been killed in a suicide bombing several years ago. Wendy, you can't take a "step back" and look more closely--to look closely means to focus in, to cross borders, to come against walls.
I am not biased, I would say, I am just getting more and more educated. I read "Once Upon a Country" by Sari Nusseibeh, I read "The Question of Zion" by Jacqueline Rose, I watch through the marvels of this little laptop screen the 1952 film, "Sands of Sorrow," depicting the sorrows of the 700,000 Palestinians who were displaced in the 1948 war--living in a tent city in the Sinai desert--the images are grainy but you can hear the children crying and the pleading of the refugees for the world to help them--Dorothy Day, the narrator, saying so many years ago, all this hopelessness, this abandonment, will harden over the years into fury. And so it has.
I am learning the questions I did not ask--and now at 67 I am peering into my own ignorance--where did all the Palestinians go as the new world order of Israel came into being in 1948--you ask about the suicide bombings, the rockets--I say a nation that imprisons hundreds of thousands of people as a political or security solution--and Gaza is a prison now--a nation that uses religious fanatics, mostly from America, to walk in market places with machine guns hanging from their shoulders, a nation that takes pleasure in the daily suffering of another people--I have seen the check points--there is little civility there--I have heard the stories of Jewish Israelis who spend days trying to get ill Palestinian children past checkpoints os they can get the medical care they so desperately need--no, I do not think I am biased--when I hear an elderly Palestinian living in a refugee camp in Lebanon that is being used for bombing practice both by all sides, say, in a desperate quandry, "why does every one want us dead--are we a human virus?" I hear the voice of my people, Jews who were also seen as a disease--the challenge to all of us and particularly American Jews because our government is pouring more and more military killing power into Israel--is to find a way that begins to cut into the years of pain hardened into suicide bombings--if I may so, a Jewish way that uses all we have learned about political and social violence against the person--there can never be safety in the brutalization of whole populations--not unless you really believe that a Jewish live is worth more then anyone else's. Social justice cannot come from massive social inequities--the means Wendy, the means, threats to withhold water or food or electricity from a whole population cannot lead to any other end then a disgraced nation-state. I think of the monks of Burma, almost naked, walking against military ugliness--no step back--but always questioning, seeing ,reading, talking, thinking, imagining, demanding.
First I want to thank you for taking the time to read my words and for writing to me. I am not sure that this is the way one conducts a conversation on a blog--but it is how I will do it.
I`will take your last point first--this is not the time for anyone to think the "middle" is a place of wisdom when people are dying and the groundwork is being layed for more tragic histories. I did take a closer look when I was in Israel, into the eyes of the people, both those who saw Israel as their always dreamed of homeland and the those who see Israel as the symbol of their dispossession from both their past and their future, into the eyes of the Israeli peace activists and the Israeli border police, into the eyes of Sol, the neighborhood optician who welcomed us to Haifa by saying, "we are not like the rest of Israel, here Jew, Arabs, Christians all live together" and into the eyes of a teenage daugther of settlers hitchhiking with us to get back to her family--the messiah has given us this land, she said. I looked into the eyes of a feminist, single mother in Haifa whose home had been destroyed by a rocket from Lebanon in the war. Every day I walked by a Hebrew sign at a bus stop listing the 18 young people who had been killed in a suicide bombing several years ago. Wendy, you can't take a "step back" and look more closely--to look closely means to focus in, to cross borders, to come against walls.
I am not biased, I would say, I am just getting more and more educated. I read "Once Upon a Country" by Sari Nusseibeh, I read "The Question of Zion" by Jacqueline Rose, I watch through the marvels of this little laptop screen the 1952 film, "Sands of Sorrow," depicting the sorrows of the 700,000 Palestinians who were displaced in the 1948 war--living in a tent city in the Sinai desert--the images are grainy but you can hear the children crying and the pleading of the refugees for the world to help them--Dorothy Day, the narrator, saying so many years ago, all this hopelessness, this abandonment, will harden over the years into fury. And so it has.
I am learning the questions I did not ask--and now at 67 I am peering into my own ignorance--where did all the Palestinians go as the new world order of Israel came into being in 1948--you ask about the suicide bombings, the rockets--I say a nation that imprisons hundreds of thousands of people as a political or security solution--and Gaza is a prison now--a nation that uses religious fanatics, mostly from America, to walk in market places with machine guns hanging from their shoulders, a nation that takes pleasure in the daily suffering of another people--I have seen the check points--there is little civility there--I have heard the stories of Jewish Israelis who spend days trying to get ill Palestinian children past checkpoints os they can get the medical care they so desperately need--no, I do not think I am biased--when I hear an elderly Palestinian living in a refugee camp in Lebanon that is being used for bombing practice both by all sides, say, in a desperate quandry, "why does every one want us dead--are we a human virus?" I hear the voice of my people, Jews who were also seen as a disease--the challenge to all of us and particularly American Jews because our government is pouring more and more military killing power into Israel--is to find a way that begins to cut into the years of pain hardened into suicide bombings--if I may so, a Jewish way that uses all we have learned about political and social violence against the person--there can never be safety in the brutalization of whole populations--not unless you really believe that a Jewish live is worth more then anyone else's. Social justice cannot come from massive social inequities--the means Wendy, the means, threats to withhold water or food or electricity from a whole population cannot lead to any other end then a disgraced nation-state. I think of the monks of Burma, almost naked, walking against military ugliness--no step back--but always questioning, seeing ,reading, talking, thinking, imagining, demanding.
Tuesday, August 28, 2007
Friday, August 17, 2007
A Night In Nazareth
“After all this Nabila told them at the end, ‘Despite what you did to us, nothing will budge me from my humanist principles; nothing will change the human side of me, and if you ever find yourself in a similar situation, I will be the first to protect you.’”
We drove from Haifa through the Jordan valley, stopping to buy corn from a young Israeli Palestinian boy who responded cautiously to Hannah’s Arabic—here in this fertile plain, the remaining Palestinian farmers were being squeezed into smaller and smaller land areas with less and less access to the irrigation systems that made all possible while new Jewish Israeli housing was climbing up the hills—of course, he spoke fluent Hebrew as did all the Palestinian Israelis we met—why learn Hebrew, Hannah had said to me in her always turning-the-table vision, so many more people speak Arabic. There is no road taken in Israel, it seemed to me, that does not bring confrontation with loss—if you are willing to see it. We were on our way to meet with Hannah and Dalia’s friend, Nabila, who runs the Nazareth Women’s Center and who with Hannah and the Haifa’s Women’s Center is working to found the first Women’s History Archives in Israel.
Nazareth is a Christian Palestinian city, and I had already come to recognize when we were in a town where Palestinians were in the majority—it was dustier, poorer, lower down on the mountain but Nazareth also has the spirit of an international religious tourist destination; here on a town street was Mary’s Well, a small stone cave with a simple urn. Sitting in our hotel lobby waiting for our rooms, we witnessed bus loads of tourists from Vietnam and India pour through the door, medieval-looking religious banners flying from the handles of their luggage; these were relaxed pilgrims, chatting, sandaled, looking a little worn from their journey but eager for more, it seemed. Nabila would later explain to us that this influx of visitors brought very little money to Nazareth—the tourists were from poorer countries and they traveled in tour groups, bused into the town for one day and night and then right out again in the morning. Our perfectly modest and spare room had a small balcony and we looked out upon the hills of Nazareth and its winding streets. I still sometimes in this old land could not believe where I was, the shock of biblical place names and the reality of the political and social struggles of the people of Nazareth, of Bethlehem, of Jerusalem.
The four us, Hannah and her partner Dalia, and Di and I walked down the main street, past the well of Mary to greet Nabila, who was waiting to welcome us to Nazareth and take us to a newly opened restaurant for dinner. Nabila waved and grinned, a tall large woman comfortably dressed, who clearly was known in her city. No pretenses but powerful in her convictions, in her dedication to her projects, a woman who traveled to Europe frequently to garnish support for her Women’s Center and to speak about human rights and the struggles of Palestinian women. As for so much of this journey, I stood back and tried to understand what I was seeing. The three women friends embraced the embrace of comrades—laughs, kisses—friends of long standing yes, but also workers for a common goal who lived in different worlds. The closest I had come to this kind of intimate coalition was in 1965 in our late night meetings in Selma, Alabama after a long day of voter registration work in the back roads, a group of tired nervous men and women from all over the United States, black and white, drinking beer and talking about what had been survived that day and what lay ahead. But those intimate moments ended when I returned to the lower East Side, a month later. Dalia, Hannah and Nabila were working together for the long haul.
The hugs ended, the circle opened to include Di and me and we continued our walk up the twisting street. Coming out of the restaurant we were headed for was a group of dignified but animated matronly Palestinian women. They stopped to warmly greet Nabila. As they sailed past us, some of the life of the street went with them. I said, “They look like powerful women.” Nabila laughed and said they are the women of the Inner Wheel of the Rotary Club.
The restaurant, set in a beautiful old stone building, church-like, was filling up with diners. Di and I were given the seats that looked out the arched window into night time Nazareth. “My sister, Hala, will be joining us,” Nabila said, as she motioned to the waiter, an old friend too it seemed and in Arabic placed our communal order. The meal that ensued is one I will never forget—so much was going all at the same time and it all seemed so important—the talking, the listening—some of the most intense listening I had ever done—the texture and goodness of the food—the hardness of the stories—the shared laughter between the three old friends—as they mocked their mutual political situations with small games about swapping pieces of land represented by the salt and pepper shakers, but behind it all was Nabila’s intense desire that Di and I understand what was at stake, that we were not mere guests who could leave the table without involving ourselves in the question of how to proceed—not that she fed us answers or bullied us in anyway—this was a woman totally dedicated to her communal and political work—without guns or huge political machines at her disposal.
Shortly after we had stated eating, Hala joined us, dressed in her professional finery. Kisses, hugs across the table and then the return to eating and talking, catching up and introduction of Di and me. The same warmth of response. And then Nabila asked Hala to tell us what had happened to them on their last trip home from Jordan.
E-mail, June 4, 2007 from Hannah Safran:
Dear Joan, so good to know that you have arrived home safely, to be able to make new friends, and such dear friends, at our age and times is a special occurrence…Here you have, as a last course, the story we were told in the restaurant in Nazareth translated into English. Now the rest of the world will be able to read it and know something about the terrible state of affairs in the Israeli state.
Trying to Get Home
(translated from the Hebrew by Dana Ron)
Hello everyone,
I would like to share with you a very difficult experience that we had yesterday in the border crossing with Jordan. Yesterday, upon returning from Jordan, my sister, Nabila Espanioly and I met a person we know, who is responsible for a fundraising organization—Altawun Foundation—and he suggested to take us in his car to Nazareth. Nabila and I were checked, went out, and waited for him outside. He was delayed for a security interrogation. We waited for more than an hour, and then security people came to us and asked why we were waiting. We said our friend was delayed for an interrogation. They then asked us to return and be checked again. First we refused, but then, after pressure from the security people, we returned inside.
We underwent a humiliating security check, annoying and depressing. A very thorough search of our body and of every item we had with us. They left nothing unopened and unsearched. We had closed boxes of cookies that we had brought for our nephew’s wedding and we asked that they won’t be opened since they will spoil. But they were stubborn and opened everything and in particular the cookies got spoiled. This check took about four hours—we left the border at around 10pm. This was one of the worst experiences of my life. Even though we asked that they try and finish more quickly since we had a family gathering and all our family was waiting for us, this simple human request was ignored by them.
During this humiliating process, I asked to talk with the supervisor. I introduced myself and said that I was human rights and civil rights activist, that I am a lecturer in the academia and a board member of the Association for Civil Rights and several other organizations that promote democratic discourse. I asked her to apply some common sense and said if we had anything to hide then we wouldn’t have waited outside after undergoing the security checks, and we wouldn’t have told her truthfully that we are waiting for a friend that is delayed by security. Her answer was that there is no logic in security. She also said that knows that it is a humiliating and unpleasant check and she apologizes but there are the rules.
I wonder how it is possible that a “democratic” country will manage its security on an illogical basis? On humiliating its citizens for no reason only because they spoke the truth? Why is there no grain of humanity in the security people? How do they want to contribute to a common life together?
After all of this Nabila told them at the end, “Despite what you did to us, nothing will budge me from my humanist principles; nothing will change the human side in me, and if you ever find yourself in a similar situation, I will be the first to protect you.”
Dr. Hala Espanioly
I must stop now—I know this is not the way a blog should be, but I am old and work slowly and there is so much pressing at my heart. I can still here Hala’s voice—the word she used was “the sweets,” this elegant woman pantomiming how the guard had dumped the wedding gift on the table, leaving the sweets in pieces. So much warmth was given us that night—and the question of how we keep the sweets alive in this racked country.
“After all this Nabila told them at the end, ‘Despite what you did to us, nothing will budge me from my humanist principles; nothing will change the human side of me, and if you ever find yourself in a similar situation, I will be the first to protect you.’”
We drove from Haifa through the Jordan valley, stopping to buy corn from a young Israeli Palestinian boy who responded cautiously to Hannah’s Arabic—here in this fertile plain, the remaining Palestinian farmers were being squeezed into smaller and smaller land areas with less and less access to the irrigation systems that made all possible while new Jewish Israeli housing was climbing up the hills—of course, he spoke fluent Hebrew as did all the Palestinian Israelis we met—why learn Hebrew, Hannah had said to me in her always turning-the-table vision, so many more people speak Arabic. There is no road taken in Israel, it seemed to me, that does not bring confrontation with loss—if you are willing to see it. We were on our way to meet with Hannah and Dalia’s friend, Nabila, who runs the Nazareth Women’s Center and who with Hannah and the Haifa’s Women’s Center is working to found the first Women’s History Archives in Israel.
Nazareth is a Christian Palestinian city, and I had already come to recognize when we were in a town where Palestinians were in the majority—it was dustier, poorer, lower down on the mountain but Nazareth also has the spirit of an international religious tourist destination; here on a town street was Mary’s Well, a small stone cave with a simple urn. Sitting in our hotel lobby waiting for our rooms, we witnessed bus loads of tourists from Vietnam and India pour through the door, medieval-looking religious banners flying from the handles of their luggage; these were relaxed pilgrims, chatting, sandaled, looking a little worn from their journey but eager for more, it seemed. Nabila would later explain to us that this influx of visitors brought very little money to Nazareth—the tourists were from poorer countries and they traveled in tour groups, bused into the town for one day and night and then right out again in the morning. Our perfectly modest and spare room had a small balcony and we looked out upon the hills of Nazareth and its winding streets. I still sometimes in this old land could not believe where I was, the shock of biblical place names and the reality of the political and social struggles of the people of Nazareth, of Bethlehem, of Jerusalem.
The four us, Hannah and her partner Dalia, and Di and I walked down the main street, past the well of Mary to greet Nabila, who was waiting to welcome us to Nazareth and take us to a newly opened restaurant for dinner. Nabila waved and grinned, a tall large woman comfortably dressed, who clearly was known in her city. No pretenses but powerful in her convictions, in her dedication to her projects, a woman who traveled to Europe frequently to garnish support for her Women’s Center and to speak about human rights and the struggles of Palestinian women. As for so much of this journey, I stood back and tried to understand what I was seeing. The three women friends embraced the embrace of comrades—laughs, kisses—friends of long standing yes, but also workers for a common goal who lived in different worlds. The closest I had come to this kind of intimate coalition was in 1965 in our late night meetings in Selma, Alabama after a long day of voter registration work in the back roads, a group of tired nervous men and women from all over the United States, black and white, drinking beer and talking about what had been survived that day and what lay ahead. But those intimate moments ended when I returned to the lower East Side, a month later. Dalia, Hannah and Nabila were working together for the long haul.
The hugs ended, the circle opened to include Di and me and we continued our walk up the twisting street. Coming out of the restaurant we were headed for was a group of dignified but animated matronly Palestinian women. They stopped to warmly greet Nabila. As they sailed past us, some of the life of the street went with them. I said, “They look like powerful women.” Nabila laughed and said they are the women of the Inner Wheel of the Rotary Club.
The restaurant, set in a beautiful old stone building, church-like, was filling up with diners. Di and I were given the seats that looked out the arched window into night time Nazareth. “My sister, Hala, will be joining us,” Nabila said, as she motioned to the waiter, an old friend too it seemed and in Arabic placed our communal order. The meal that ensued is one I will never forget—so much was going all at the same time and it all seemed so important—the talking, the listening—some of the most intense listening I had ever done—the texture and goodness of the food—the hardness of the stories—the shared laughter between the three old friends—as they mocked their mutual political situations with small games about swapping pieces of land represented by the salt and pepper shakers, but behind it all was Nabila’s intense desire that Di and I understand what was at stake, that we were not mere guests who could leave the table without involving ourselves in the question of how to proceed—not that she fed us answers or bullied us in anyway—this was a woman totally dedicated to her communal and political work—without guns or huge political machines at her disposal.
Shortly after we had stated eating, Hala joined us, dressed in her professional finery. Kisses, hugs across the table and then the return to eating and talking, catching up and introduction of Di and me. The same warmth of response. And then Nabila asked Hala to tell us what had happened to them on their last trip home from Jordan.
E-mail, June 4, 2007 from Hannah Safran:
Dear Joan, so good to know that you have arrived home safely, to be able to make new friends, and such dear friends, at our age and times is a special occurrence…Here you have, as a last course, the story we were told in the restaurant in Nazareth translated into English. Now the rest of the world will be able to read it and know something about the terrible state of affairs in the Israeli state.
Trying to Get Home
(translated from the Hebrew by Dana Ron)
Hello everyone,
I would like to share with you a very difficult experience that we had yesterday in the border crossing with Jordan. Yesterday, upon returning from Jordan, my sister, Nabila Espanioly and I met a person we know, who is responsible for a fundraising organization—Altawun Foundation—and he suggested to take us in his car to Nazareth. Nabila and I were checked, went out, and waited for him outside. He was delayed for a security interrogation. We waited for more than an hour, and then security people came to us and asked why we were waiting. We said our friend was delayed for an interrogation. They then asked us to return and be checked again. First we refused, but then, after pressure from the security people, we returned inside.
We underwent a humiliating security check, annoying and depressing. A very thorough search of our body and of every item we had with us. They left nothing unopened and unsearched. We had closed boxes of cookies that we had brought for our nephew’s wedding and we asked that they won’t be opened since they will spoil. But they were stubborn and opened everything and in particular the cookies got spoiled. This check took about four hours—we left the border at around 10pm. This was one of the worst experiences of my life. Even though we asked that they try and finish more quickly since we had a family gathering and all our family was waiting for us, this simple human request was ignored by them.
During this humiliating process, I asked to talk with the supervisor. I introduced myself and said that I was human rights and civil rights activist, that I am a lecturer in the academia and a board member of the Association for Civil Rights and several other organizations that promote democratic discourse. I asked her to apply some common sense and said if we had anything to hide then we wouldn’t have waited outside after undergoing the security checks, and we wouldn’t have told her truthfully that we are waiting for a friend that is delayed by security. Her answer was that there is no logic in security. She also said that knows that it is a humiliating and unpleasant check and she apologizes but there are the rules.
I wonder how it is possible that a “democratic” country will manage its security on an illogical basis? On humiliating its citizens for no reason only because they spoke the truth? Why is there no grain of humanity in the security people? How do they want to contribute to a common life together?
After all of this Nabila told them at the end, “Despite what you did to us, nothing will budge me from my humanist principles; nothing will change the human side in me, and if you ever find yourself in a similar situation, I will be the first to protect you.”
Dr. Hala Espanioly
I must stop now—I know this is not the way a blog should be, but I am old and work slowly and there is so much pressing at my heart. I can still here Hala’s voice—the word she used was “the sweets,” this elegant woman pantomiming how the guard had dumped the wedding gift on the table, leaving the sweets in pieces. So much warmth was given us that night—and the question of how we keep the sweets alive in this racked country.
Subscribe to:
Posts (Atom)
