Letters from Israel-Palestine

I've gone to two days of ulpan, I've seen my lovely vegan anarchist friends, and I feel a lot more at home in general. And I've skipped in Jerusalem. It was to cross the street quickly, but it counts nonetheless. In fact it may even count extra, because I skipped without even thinking about it.

I'm becoming friends with some of the Arabs in my Ulpan (Hebrew language) class. The class keeps me focused on something concrete, which can be very useful out here! This place can take you so many different directions.

My plan tomorrow is to go to Tel Rumeida (in Hebron) to hear the stories of various families. I'm going with a group called "Bnei Avraham", Israeli activists focusing on Hebron, and the difficult situation there. They'll get me back to Jerusalem before shabbat.

I think Friday was the first day I defied my "agreement" with the Defense Ministry; I went to Hebron with Bnei Avraham. We met up at a park about a twenty minute walk from the place I've been staying. They put the number at around 70; between Bnei Avraham and Ta'ayush, and random internationals, we ended up with maybe 50 Israelis and 20 or so internationals. One bus left from Tel Aviv, and I was with the J'lem crew. Met some lovely folks, including other rad Jews (wait, I forget, am I a rad Jew?), and including other Ulpan-students. People from Germany, Canada, random people from the United States that looked like they would be more at home in Miami Beach, somehow coming on this "alternative tourism" view of Hebron.

Hebron is the 2nd largest Palestinian city clocking in at around 400,000 people. Jews had historically lived there in small numbers until 1929, when several 67 people were killed in that city (The Hebron Massacre). Following the 1967 war, there was a movement to "re-settle" Hebron, and on Passover a group led by Rabbi Levinger checked into the main hotel in Hebron, and then refused to leave. Life really only started getting difficult with respect to the settlers in 1986, according to one of the Palestinians I met in Hebron.

Anyways, I don't know exactly what to tell. Along the main roads, shops that belonged to Arab shopkeepers have been desecrated by Jewish holy symbols. The gates to the shop are welded shut, and just about every gate either has a "magen david" (Star of David) spray-painted on it, or else a Hebrew phrase along the lines of "Death to the Arabs."
The situation there that we were there to witness, and lend our support in their changing their situation for the better.

The main road over by Tel Rumeida is called Shuhada street, and Palestinians haven't been allowed to walk on it since 2000. The issue was caught in legal beaurocracy for 5 1/2 years, before a decision was issued: legally, Palestinians were allowed to walk on the street, they just weren't being allowed to in practice. This is the situation today: the high court has ruled that Palestinians can walk on the road. Unfortunately, the military chief in charge of Hebron is defying the law by continuing to instruct the soldiers to prevent Palestinians from the road.

So anyways, we came and we went, but when we went, we held a few signs and banners, walking down Shuhada street, and as a point of success, we had Palestinians walking with us along the entirety of the street that they have been prevented from. So this is an important, yet symbolic resistance, especially in Hebron where tensions are so thick you can cut them.

Tensions between whom? Soldiers and Palestinians? Nope. The current batch of soldiers administering Hebron are actually decently respectful, as compared with the usual. A large group of them are kibbutzniks who were all part of a socialist Zionist youth movement, which means that they have more "liberal" or feeling, tendencies. The issue is with the Settlers' teenagers, and the unequal treatment by the law enforcement in the area.
The settlers currently live "above" the Palestinians on Tel Rumeida, which is to say that on the hillside there are houses built up from the valley below, and at the very top of the hill are the nice polished settler buildings. There are maybe four different little settlement enclaves throughout Hebron, and they command a strong presence within the city, despite only numbering several hundred. It's amazing the chutzpah that they display, it's an amazingly confusing situation. For scared people, they sure didn't put themselves in a situation to be well liked. They act aggressively towards the Palestinians, who live all around them, which for me was a testament of how quiet the Palestinian population there truly is, despite the wide perception of Palestinians as dangerous. What I'm saying is that 500 Jews are living amongst, on top of, in spite of, tens of thousands of Palestinians. And somehow this works out for them. The Palestinians must be incredibly tolerant, or subjugated, or both.

We watched home videos of the destruction of Palestinian property by settlers living in Hebron. Teenagers, approximately aged 14 to 19 or so, would go out in a big group, dressed like modern orthodox kids on shabbos (kippah, nice clothes, not like the "redneck" settlers I've seen in pictures before). they would go up to Palestinian homes, with Palestinians living in them, and attempt to break what they could.
Windows, gates, doors, flowerpots, whatever. The man holding the camera, a forty year old man, was trembling with fear, while his house was being ransacked. Settler girls would interpose themselves on the path of Palestinian children walking to school with their mothers, and swing their bags at them, and kick their mothers. The videos are incredibly surreal.
These kids look like the good Yeshiva Jews that I know-- acting out all the hatred, anger, and fear that they had been brought up with. I consider it to be a serious crime to raise your children as settlers in Hebron. Their humanity has been buried by the age of 16. We escaped the Holocaust so that we can actively engage in hating the people who live around us? Okay, sure, plenty of Jews in the US are scared of all the goyim around us, but hopefully it plays a relatively minor part in our lives! These children have been traumatized by being put right over the flame.
In order for the law to intervene, Palestinians must produce evidence of who has done what. Our host told a story. After a raid on his home, he took a picture of the youth with his cell phone. He went to the police office. The officer said "do you have evidence?" He showed him the picture on his phone. The police officer copied the picture off of the phone, and onto his computer. Then he deleted the picture from the phone, and from the computer. "Now you don't have evidence. Case closed." What respect I feel for him, that he can withstand this sort of treatment.

The most amazing thing I experienced (as keeps happening when I spend time in Palestine) was the compassion of Palestinians. These mensches who talked about their plight had this to say about their experience living with Jewish settlers. We don't want them to leave; we only want equal treatment under the law. We welcome Jews to live here with us. For the short demo walking down Shuhada street, another Palestinian led chants:

1, 2, 3, 4, Occupation No More.
1, 2, 3, Palestine Must be Free.
And then: 1, 2, 3, Israel Must be Free.
There were audible scoffs and eye-rolling from some Israelis and Internationals.

This is a tricky place: these Palestinians have become wordly enough, aware enough to know that this rhetoric is important and correct in relationship to Israelis. But many Israelis and Internationals have given up hope of working with those Israelis, so for them this becomes an empty exercise, this "solidarity visit." It's a way for them to feel good about themselves and their alignment/involvement, without being able to help these Palestinians build alliances with Israelis.
It's still good that they come, because it's important to these Palestinians that their stories are heard. They just should have their mouths taped shut, because their experience of political frustration is not a tool with which to end the Occupation.

My First Shabbat

Shabbat, friends, shabbat! Immediately upon returning from that "solidarity visit" I returned back to the apartment, that I fondly refer to as "Shapiros" (that's the name on the apartment door, even though there are no Shapiros currently living there). I prepared myself for shabbat. I invited a couple of people I had connected with on on the Hebron trip, and one accepted. A German girl named Maja (pronounced maya), who is here to study Hebrew. Back in Germany she's studying comparitive religion, so I thought she might like to see how we do shabbos around here (plus she's cute).

We went to Shira Chadasha, an amazing modern orthodox congregation (they use a mechitza there), and people sang, boy did they sing. The whole order of the service, right from the beginning to the end. Ever since I went there for the first time three years ago, Shira Chadasha has become my yardstick for how much ruach a service has. I've only been to a couple of shabbats that are as beautiful and fervent as Shira Chadasha. So Maja went and sat on the women's side, my new friend Tzvi stood in the back, and I sat among the men.

Afterwards, we carried a couple of chairs a fifteen minute walk to a friend of Tzvi/Ari's. She prepared an amazing dinner, and I was really happy with the way the evening went. Ari tipped me off that the host's rules were "no politics." Oh well, I thought to myself. A