Yesterday in the West Bank Bedouin village, Arab al-Jahaleen, a 15-year-old boy named Khaled was killed by a speeding garbage truck. Khaled was on the edge of the road collecting scrap metal and other discarded materials useful in constructing the ramshackle homes his community lives in, when the driver struck and killed him. The road upon which he scrambled for these materials divides his village from the nearby Israeli dump.
Fearing for his life in retaliation for the boy whose brains had been splattered across the road, once the truck stopped the driver got out and started to run. In the moments after the incident took place, the children threw rocks at the truck. As more villagers discovered what happened, the truck was set aflame.
Volunteers from Rabbis for Human Rights were playing with the children of this village, joining a German-NGO sponsored summer camp. "Earlier that morning I had been playing basketball with that boy, and then he was dead," said an eyewitness volunteer to the incident, bewildered by what he had seen.
Israeli police arrived at the scene shortly after the incident. The abandoned Israeli garbage truck remained in the road, burning. Police broke up the enraged group of people. Burial preparations for Khaled began immediately. For at least the next two days, the summer camp will be closed to honor the memory of this young man's death.
Whether or not the driver will be held responsible for this crime is unknown.
Bedouins in Israel suffer the gamut of Israeli occupation casualties. House demolitions, lack of electricity, water, employment, lack of access to health care and education are but a few of the hardships which plague these traditionally nomadic people. Relocated time and again, al-Jahaleen is one example of Israel's ill-treatment of the Bedouins, giving them no other option but to make a life surrounded by garbage.
More Israelis and the international community need to be made aware of the sub par life Bedouins are forced to live under the Israeli government's inhumane policies toward these people. It is impossible to imagine a true negotiated peace in which injustices without recourse occur daily-- against Bedouins, Palestinians and Israelis as well.
Rocks and fire do not subsitute for legal process. Although the life of a fifteen-year-old boy could never be compensated for, it is unacceptable that culpability and the appropriate punishment for this crime will go unmeted. It behooves all members of a society to enforce its government's commitment to democracy. Therefore it is the responsiblity of the people to become aware of these tragic incidents that happen too frequently, and to demand justice.
Wednesday, July 11, 2007
Sunday, July 8, 2007
Yerushalayim Shel Kulam I
Wednesday night before the first day of summer, Eitan came to Jerusalem to visit me and to meet his brother. Waiting in front of the Congress Center at the gates of Jerusalem, I awaited Eitan’s call and looked forward to a few hours of walking the streets with company, streets I usually walk alone.
Walking up and down Ben Yehuda and Jaffa Streets, Eitan remarked at the very English-speaking and touristy West Jerusalem. The streets are filled with Jewish youth from all over the English-speaking world especially. In my opinion, only because this is Israel are there so many teenagers living, studying, working and visiting a country so far from home. Otherwise, I doubt their parents would give permission for travel and stay elsewhere in the Middle East. But this aspect of Jerusalem is only one of many that makes the city a universe of its own. One of the most contested and holiest places on Earth, each neighborhood in West Jerusalem, let’s forget East Jerusalem for now, teems with different Jewish communities and their corresponding lifestyles.
Primarily, I know Jerusalem as far as my feet can take me, and wherever different errands have forced me to explore. The center of West Jerusalem is surrounded by beautiful hotels and obscure hostels, clothing and shoe stores, and the requisite money change stations. There are several apartment buildings interspersed throughout the area although I believe most of them are rented out temporarily to high paying Jewish tourists who opt for a homestead instead of a hotel stay.
At the top of Ben Yehuda heading left, there is a neighborhood called, Rechavia. Here the apartment prices are on par with those of San Francisco and Manhattan, grocery stores sell basic necessities for exorbitant, high-profit yielding prices. Here many units are also vacant most of the year, awaiting their American, Australian or British owners arrival for High Holidays or other chagim (holidays). Or, they are filled with the religious Zionist children of the owners, young people in their twenties who have made aliyah to populate the Jewish State, to study Torah and to raise future Israelis.
Past Rechavia at the bottom of King George Street, if you follow the road past Liberty Park and onto what looks like a country road, eventually you end up in the German Colony, which boasts the popular café and restaurant-laden street, Emek Refaim. Not much,but somewhat more affordable and bohemian than Rehavia, the German Colony hosts natives, ex-pats, and tourists for long or short stays as well.
Moving back up King George Street, towards the gates of Jerusalem, a left on Aleppo Street brings you to a centuries old market, Mahane Yehuda. The open market of open markets. I am not sure how one ever chooses the best fruit vendor, nut seller, fish monger, hummus and cheese manufacturer, butcher, baker, chocolate and candy seller, olive curer or café. Aleppo borders one side of Mahane Yehuda and Jaffa Street on the other.
Jaffa Street in the direction away from Ben Yehuda eventually leads to the Central Bus Station across from which is the Congress building. Near to the bus station, approximately ten to fifteen minutes walk away from the Bus Station, with your back to the center of town, you come to what I discovered to be the administrative part of town. The education ministry, the national security agency, the tax authority, social security, and various banks line the main boulevard of Kanfei Nesharim. On either side of this thoroughfare, neighborhoods with conservatively dressed men and women indicate that the area is more on the religious side of the lifestyle spectrum.
However, the truly religious population of Jerusalem, the community the newspapers describe as the ultra-Orthodox extremists, fill the streets, homes and shops of Mea Shea'rim. Here you find men with long peis (locks of hair-- uncut sideburns), black hats, tzitzit (prayer fringes) hanging from their sides, kippot (head coverings), and women and children dressed from neck to waist, shoulder to wrist, past the knees. Even little girls wear stockings beneath long skirts throughout the year. Here in Mea Shea'rim, the night before the first day of summer I witnessed yet another aspect of Israel wherein one questions the existence of sanity, normalcy, and whether or not in Jerusalem, in fact, one sometimes walks into veritable time warps.
Eitan and I had a few hours together before his brother called to be picked up. Once we got the call we headed to the bus stop where he asked to be fetched and after toward the Old City to drop me off at my hostel before the doors locked at midnight. Further along Jaffa Street leads you to the walls of the Old City, specifically the Arab shouk and the Jewish Quarter, via Jaffa Gate. Earlier when I directed Eitan to the Center, I told him to drive down Jaffa Street, as far as I knew that was the quickest way to get where we needed to go. When Eitan was about to make the turn again to Jaffa Street his brother told him not to -- that route is for buses and taxis only. Sheepishly, I apologized for the earlier mistake, using as my excuse that I don’t drive in Jerusalem, how was I to know? Instead of turning right, Eitan stayed straight on the road.
Trying to wend our way back in the direction of the Old City, we found ourselves in the streets of Mea Shea'rim. Parts of this neighborhood are made up of narrow winding streets with two and three story Jerusalem stone buildings looming above, with balconies creating an almost canopy above head. Twisting and turning, we found we couldn’t get through the neighborhood on this night. The streets were filled with fire. Barricades of trash set aflame formed blockades, dumpsters filled with fire peeking over the rims, tires burning, the stench of rubber and burnt trash filled the air. Those responsible for this sickening mess were crowds of young and some middle-aged men standing around in their black hats and suits, peis and tzizit hanging.
Eitan tried to drive the wrong way down a one-way street, the only option because the road in front of us had white trash bags carefully placed in a flaming line to inhibit traffic from passing through. The road had no outlet and we had to reverse up the narrow street. The nose of the car peeked out from the small junction at the same time a group of young men started running in our direction, followed shortly after by a small explosion.
I didn’t really understand what I was seeing. I think I asked why and at some point, Eitan’s brother Yaakov explained they were protesting. These teenage boys claiming to live by the word of the Merciful and Compassionate God, Creator of the Universe and all beings within, were protesting against the next day’s gay pride parade. Earlier in the week these same groups of men had placed a fake bomb on a Jerusalem bus accompanied with a note that if the pride parade took place, there would be a real explosive as retribution. Disgust, shame,disappointment-- these are some of my immediate feelings in reaction to what was before my eyes.
Also, I found my mind thinking about the Holocaust. How six million Jews were killed but also six million others, including homosexuals, who were persecuted simply for being who they were, just as were the Jews. I thought of the hypocrisy, the hatred, the misplaced energy, the pollution rising into the sky, the ignorance, the arrogance and the plain stupidity of this act of protest. Instead of seeing this community as a symbol of tradition and mystique, all around me I could only see pimply-faced boys who are sex deprived and frustrated because all they do is study Talmud and pray every day. My mind ran through the rumors of outrageous rates of prostitution and domestic violence in this neighborhood. These thoughts clashing with images of the day I spent here ten years ago to shop for tokens of Jewish ritual, tallitot (prayer shawls), where I bought tefillin (leather prayer straps) for my younger brother, and tasted fresh, delicious chocolate-filled rugelach.
I thought to myself, is this what the founders and fighters of Israel wanted to establish? A land in which intolerance and xenophobia plagues the people who claim to be closest to God and keepers of the Jewish covenant with God?
I snapped out of my thoughts when I heard Eitan slam his hand into the steering wheel out of frustration. “I wish I knew what these people are called so I can know who to be mad at,” he exclaimed. Seconds before, young boys threw rocks at the taxi in front of us, the taxi that we followed to get out of this despicable mess.
Reaching the perimeter of Mea She'arim, soldiers and police were stationed with trucks, guns, and riot gear in case the protestors seeped out of their quarters to disturb the peace of the rest of the city. Finally out of the fray, Eitan drove onto the Highway 1. I noticed to my left, the quiet and deserted night streets of East Jerusalem. Barely making curfew, Eitan and Yaakov walked with me into the Old City walls to make sure I arrived at the hostel on time.
Eitan, Yaakov and I were supposed to have a discussion about contentious Jewish issues like who is a Jew and the forced, because it is the only recognized process in Israel, Orthodox conversion process. After a few minutes of scattered shared thoughts, another girl staying at the hostel who was smoking outside went inside, the door slammed shut and locked behind her. Jumping up to get her to open it up, the young woman on duty nearly refused my entrance for breaking curfew by five minutes. I convinced her to let me in explaining the ordeal I had just witnessed, and the delay it caused in getting back in time. She agreed to let me in, held the gate open while I said good night to Eitan and Yaakov, and scolded me for thinking I could disrespect the curfew.
I have to explain this hostel. It’s free, it’s in the Jewish Quarter, it’s called the Heritage House. The Heritage House website advertises the facility as a safe and free alternative to Arab hostels for Jewish travelers in Jerusalem. You can stay for a day, a week, a month or many months for that matter, as long as you are Jewish and there’s an open bed. The hostel opens from eight to nine a.m. and five p.m. until midnight. A 24-year-old religious woman by the name of Chaya oversees the women’s hostel, her two-year-old son, Pinchas, in tow wherever she goes.
At Heritage House, the downstairs common area is filled with books about Judaism -- Orthodox Judaism. Volumes justifying the diversified tasks of men and women as stated in the Torah and interpreted by centuries of rabbis and religious scholars. Chaya and her madrichim are responsible for encouraging guests to attend yeshiva, transportation provided, to learn more about being Jewish. Mention of God finds its way into every conversation. Some girls are there to study. Some, like me, are working on theses or doing research, or simply traveling during the summer.
Part of me finds Heritage House comforting and safe. On Thursday nights, the girls bake challah. It is peaceful behind the Old City Walls. The location allows me to walk to work, strolling by the Kotel (Western Wall) and through the Muslim Quarter each morning, past groups of tourists reenacting the Stations of the Cross on Via Dolorosa. So many worlds colliding within so few square feet. Moreover, for someone trying to make her funds stretch as far and long as possible, the price is right at Heritage House.
The other part of me feels absolutely hypocritical for accepting the kindness and ducking the proselytizing. This part of me also wants to rip my hair out when I find myself on the four nights that I’ve stayed there, explaining to the staff that Arabs are not a homogeneous people who all want the Jewish people to perish. Or, when I mentioned that I was going to Amman for a conference on promoting peace through dialogue and I received a blank look followed by the question, “where is Amman?”
On the flipside, I get insight into one strand of religious community in Jerusalem. From my experience so far, I see that it is a community working to live the word of God but from a place of fear and anxiety in which the rest of the world poses a threat to the Jewish people. It helps me to understand more dynamics of the conflict here. I gather that the leaders of this community, who are also in places of political power and influence, use their sanctimonious authority to keep status quo, putting blockades up to visions of peace where two different yet neighboring societies can work out the details of coexistence. This is the community that takes young people on tours of Hebron to visit settlements, the continuing expansion of which is a major contributing factor to justification for violence on both the Israeli and Palestinian sides. (Not to mention, the International Court of Justice has ruled these settlements illegal according to international law, and Israel's government continues to contradict itself by claiming to stop building settlements as a gesture of peace, when settlements continue to appear within the bounds of greater Jerusalem.) These are the community leaders, not condoning the acts of protest perpetrated by the men and women of Mea Shea'rim, but neither doing anything to teach why damaging public property and air with burning tires and trash disrespects the Earth and therefore the God they believe created it.
In many ways they use the faith and spiritual intentions of their followers to perpetuate, in my view, a very unholy and sacrilege approach to living. They are using Judaism, a mechanism through which one may attempt to satisfy the soul’s yearning for unity with the divine, to conquer and divide.
While spending evenings with young women whom I view as indoctrinated with holy propaganda, not much different than the young boys in the madrasahs of Pakistan and Indonesia, for example, I try to gain their trust and ask them to see through a different lens. And honestly, I’m curious about them too. To know how this very small world in which they choose to exist seems to satisfy their heart’s desires. I try not to sit in judgment. All of the thoughts I’ve shared in the past few paragraphs, I try to put aside in order to have a dialogue about Jews, Palestinians, Israel, God, and our roles in this place called Israel and Palestine.
Walking up and down Ben Yehuda and Jaffa Streets, Eitan remarked at the very English-speaking and touristy West Jerusalem. The streets are filled with Jewish youth from all over the English-speaking world especially. In my opinion, only because this is Israel are there so many teenagers living, studying, working and visiting a country so far from home. Otherwise, I doubt their parents would give permission for travel and stay elsewhere in the Middle East. But this aspect of Jerusalem is only one of many that makes the city a universe of its own. One of the most contested and holiest places on Earth, each neighborhood in West Jerusalem, let’s forget East Jerusalem for now, teems with different Jewish communities and their corresponding lifestyles.
Primarily, I know Jerusalem as far as my feet can take me, and wherever different errands have forced me to explore. The center of West Jerusalem is surrounded by beautiful hotels and obscure hostels, clothing and shoe stores, and the requisite money change stations. There are several apartment buildings interspersed throughout the area although I believe most of them are rented out temporarily to high paying Jewish tourists who opt for a homestead instead of a hotel stay.
At the top of Ben Yehuda heading left, there is a neighborhood called, Rechavia. Here the apartment prices are on par with those of San Francisco and Manhattan, grocery stores sell basic necessities for exorbitant, high-profit yielding prices. Here many units are also vacant most of the year, awaiting their American, Australian or British owners arrival for High Holidays or other chagim (holidays). Or, they are filled with the religious Zionist children of the owners, young people in their twenties who have made aliyah to populate the Jewish State, to study Torah and to raise future Israelis.
Past Rechavia at the bottom of King George Street, if you follow the road past Liberty Park and onto what looks like a country road, eventually you end up in the German Colony, which boasts the popular café and restaurant-laden street, Emek Refaim. Not much,but somewhat more affordable and bohemian than Rehavia, the German Colony hosts natives, ex-pats, and tourists for long or short stays as well.
Moving back up King George Street, towards the gates of Jerusalem, a left on Aleppo Street brings you to a centuries old market, Mahane Yehuda. The open market of open markets. I am not sure how one ever chooses the best fruit vendor, nut seller, fish monger, hummus and cheese manufacturer, butcher, baker, chocolate and candy seller, olive curer or café. Aleppo borders one side of Mahane Yehuda and Jaffa Street on the other.
Jaffa Street in the direction away from Ben Yehuda eventually leads to the Central Bus Station across from which is the Congress building. Near to the bus station, approximately ten to fifteen minutes walk away from the Bus Station, with your back to the center of town, you come to what I discovered to be the administrative part of town. The education ministry, the national security agency, the tax authority, social security, and various banks line the main boulevard of Kanfei Nesharim. On either side of this thoroughfare, neighborhoods with conservatively dressed men and women indicate that the area is more on the religious side of the lifestyle spectrum.
However, the truly religious population of Jerusalem, the community the newspapers describe as the ultra-Orthodox extremists, fill the streets, homes and shops of Mea Shea'rim. Here you find men with long peis (locks of hair-- uncut sideburns), black hats, tzitzit (prayer fringes) hanging from their sides, kippot (head coverings), and women and children dressed from neck to waist, shoulder to wrist, past the knees. Even little girls wear stockings beneath long skirts throughout the year. Here in Mea Shea'rim, the night before the first day of summer I witnessed yet another aspect of Israel wherein one questions the existence of sanity, normalcy, and whether or not in Jerusalem, in fact, one sometimes walks into veritable time warps.
Eitan and I had a few hours together before his brother called to be picked up. Once we got the call we headed to the bus stop where he asked to be fetched and after toward the Old City to drop me off at my hostel before the doors locked at midnight. Further along Jaffa Street leads you to the walls of the Old City, specifically the Arab shouk and the Jewish Quarter, via Jaffa Gate. Earlier when I directed Eitan to the Center, I told him to drive down Jaffa Street, as far as I knew that was the quickest way to get where we needed to go. When Eitan was about to make the turn again to Jaffa Street his brother told him not to -- that route is for buses and taxis only. Sheepishly, I apologized for the earlier mistake, using as my excuse that I don’t drive in Jerusalem, how was I to know? Instead of turning right, Eitan stayed straight on the road.
Trying to wend our way back in the direction of the Old City, we found ourselves in the streets of Mea Shea'rim. Parts of this neighborhood are made up of narrow winding streets with two and three story Jerusalem stone buildings looming above, with balconies creating an almost canopy above head. Twisting and turning, we found we couldn’t get through the neighborhood on this night. The streets were filled with fire. Barricades of trash set aflame formed blockades, dumpsters filled with fire peeking over the rims, tires burning, the stench of rubber and burnt trash filled the air. Those responsible for this sickening mess were crowds of young and some middle-aged men standing around in their black hats and suits, peis and tzizit hanging.
Eitan tried to drive the wrong way down a one-way street, the only option because the road in front of us had white trash bags carefully placed in a flaming line to inhibit traffic from passing through. The road had no outlet and we had to reverse up the narrow street. The nose of the car peeked out from the small junction at the same time a group of young men started running in our direction, followed shortly after by a small explosion.
I didn’t really understand what I was seeing. I think I asked why and at some point, Eitan’s brother Yaakov explained they were protesting. These teenage boys claiming to live by the word of the Merciful and Compassionate God, Creator of the Universe and all beings within, were protesting against the next day’s gay pride parade. Earlier in the week these same groups of men had placed a fake bomb on a Jerusalem bus accompanied with a note that if the pride parade took place, there would be a real explosive as retribution. Disgust, shame,disappointment-- these are some of my immediate feelings in reaction to what was before my eyes.
Also, I found my mind thinking about the Holocaust. How six million Jews were killed but also six million others, including homosexuals, who were persecuted simply for being who they were, just as were the Jews. I thought of the hypocrisy, the hatred, the misplaced energy, the pollution rising into the sky, the ignorance, the arrogance and the plain stupidity of this act of protest. Instead of seeing this community as a symbol of tradition and mystique, all around me I could only see pimply-faced boys who are sex deprived and frustrated because all they do is study Talmud and pray every day. My mind ran through the rumors of outrageous rates of prostitution and domestic violence in this neighborhood. These thoughts clashing with images of the day I spent here ten years ago to shop for tokens of Jewish ritual, tallitot (prayer shawls), where I bought tefillin (leather prayer straps) for my younger brother, and tasted fresh, delicious chocolate-filled rugelach.
I thought to myself, is this what the founders and fighters of Israel wanted to establish? A land in which intolerance and xenophobia plagues the people who claim to be closest to God and keepers of the Jewish covenant with God?
I snapped out of my thoughts when I heard Eitan slam his hand into the steering wheel out of frustration. “I wish I knew what these people are called so I can know who to be mad at,” he exclaimed. Seconds before, young boys threw rocks at the taxi in front of us, the taxi that we followed to get out of this despicable mess.
Reaching the perimeter of Mea She'arim, soldiers and police were stationed with trucks, guns, and riot gear in case the protestors seeped out of their quarters to disturb the peace of the rest of the city. Finally out of the fray, Eitan drove onto the Highway 1. I noticed to my left, the quiet and deserted night streets of East Jerusalem. Barely making curfew, Eitan and Yaakov walked with me into the Old City walls to make sure I arrived at the hostel on time.
Eitan, Yaakov and I were supposed to have a discussion about contentious Jewish issues like who is a Jew and the forced, because it is the only recognized process in Israel, Orthodox conversion process. After a few minutes of scattered shared thoughts, another girl staying at the hostel who was smoking outside went inside, the door slammed shut and locked behind her. Jumping up to get her to open it up, the young woman on duty nearly refused my entrance for breaking curfew by five minutes. I convinced her to let me in explaining the ordeal I had just witnessed, and the delay it caused in getting back in time. She agreed to let me in, held the gate open while I said good night to Eitan and Yaakov, and scolded me for thinking I could disrespect the curfew.
I have to explain this hostel. It’s free, it’s in the Jewish Quarter, it’s called the Heritage House. The Heritage House website advertises the facility as a safe and free alternative to Arab hostels for Jewish travelers in Jerusalem. You can stay for a day, a week, a month or many months for that matter, as long as you are Jewish and there’s an open bed. The hostel opens from eight to nine a.m. and five p.m. until midnight. A 24-year-old religious woman by the name of Chaya oversees the women’s hostel, her two-year-old son, Pinchas, in tow wherever she goes.
At Heritage House, the downstairs common area is filled with books about Judaism -- Orthodox Judaism. Volumes justifying the diversified tasks of men and women as stated in the Torah and interpreted by centuries of rabbis and religious scholars. Chaya and her madrichim are responsible for encouraging guests to attend yeshiva, transportation provided, to learn more about being Jewish. Mention of God finds its way into every conversation. Some girls are there to study. Some, like me, are working on theses or doing research, or simply traveling during the summer.
Part of me finds Heritage House comforting and safe. On Thursday nights, the girls bake challah. It is peaceful behind the Old City Walls. The location allows me to walk to work, strolling by the Kotel (Western Wall) and through the Muslim Quarter each morning, past groups of tourists reenacting the Stations of the Cross on Via Dolorosa. So many worlds colliding within so few square feet. Moreover, for someone trying to make her funds stretch as far and long as possible, the price is right at Heritage House.
The other part of me feels absolutely hypocritical for accepting the kindness and ducking the proselytizing. This part of me also wants to rip my hair out when I find myself on the four nights that I’ve stayed there, explaining to the staff that Arabs are not a homogeneous people who all want the Jewish people to perish. Or, when I mentioned that I was going to Amman for a conference on promoting peace through dialogue and I received a blank look followed by the question, “where is Amman?”
On the flipside, I get insight into one strand of religious community in Jerusalem. From my experience so far, I see that it is a community working to live the word of God but from a place of fear and anxiety in which the rest of the world poses a threat to the Jewish people. It helps me to understand more dynamics of the conflict here. I gather that the leaders of this community, who are also in places of political power and influence, use their sanctimonious authority to keep status quo, putting blockades up to visions of peace where two different yet neighboring societies can work out the details of coexistence. This is the community that takes young people on tours of Hebron to visit settlements, the continuing expansion of which is a major contributing factor to justification for violence on both the Israeli and Palestinian sides. (Not to mention, the International Court of Justice has ruled these settlements illegal according to international law, and Israel's government continues to contradict itself by claiming to stop building settlements as a gesture of peace, when settlements continue to appear within the bounds of greater Jerusalem.) These are the community leaders, not condoning the acts of protest perpetrated by the men and women of Mea Shea'rim, but neither doing anything to teach why damaging public property and air with burning tires and trash disrespects the Earth and therefore the God they believe created it.
In many ways they use the faith and spiritual intentions of their followers to perpetuate, in my view, a very unholy and sacrilege approach to living. They are using Judaism, a mechanism through which one may attempt to satisfy the soul’s yearning for unity with the divine, to conquer and divide.
While spending evenings with young women whom I view as indoctrinated with holy propaganda, not much different than the young boys in the madrasahs of Pakistan and Indonesia, for example, I try to gain their trust and ask them to see through a different lens. And honestly, I’m curious about them too. To know how this very small world in which they choose to exist seems to satisfy their heart’s desires. I try not to sit in judgment. All of the thoughts I’ve shared in the past few paragraphs, I try to put aside in order to have a dialogue about Jews, Palestinians, Israel, God, and our roles in this place called Israel and Palestine.
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