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From The Participants
Because by Rabbi Andrea Cohen-Kiener
Reflections on Identity, by Suzanne Sukkar
West Bank Settlement: Friday Afternoon, by Dorothy Field
Feasting in the Ba'ka, by Dorothy Field
Numbering Souls, by Dorothy Field
Rooftop Poems, by Janet Tobacman
Because by Rabbi Andrea Cohen-Kiener
Because I love these hills, this landscape these deer and rivers and vines - I understand why you do.
Because I need to feel at home in this place - I understand why you do.
Because the life stories of my people bring me here, hold me here, I understand that yours do.
Because I remembered this place and felt attached to it even when I wasn't here - I understand that you did too.
Because the vagaries of history have convinced me that I need to be here, with secure borders and a national identity - I understand that you do too.
Because - when I have felt afraid of you - I have imagined that you are a murderous beast, somehow inhuman, I understand that you have imagined me this way too.
Because my fear has brought me to act in ways that were powerful but immoral and cruel, I understand that yours has done so too.
Because I have felt alone, abandoned by the world's nations, I understand the additional burden of feeling alone in your suffering.
Because my ancestors are buried in these hills, I understand why the graves of your people are a sacred magnet for you.
Because I want to move freely in my land and grow and raise my children and my tomatoes and my spirit in freedom and health in this place, I know that you need this too.
My need does not cancel yours. My need helps me know yours.
Reflections on Identity
by Suzanne Sukkar
(Suzanne Sukkar was a member of our April 1999 Compassionate Listening delegation to Israel/West Bank/Gaza. Suzanne is Palestinian American, and this was her first trip to the homeland of both her parents. She was a student at the University of Michigan, Ann Arbor at the time of the trip and will soon enter law school.)
When I was in the 6th grade, a friend of mine asked me, "What nationality are you?" "Palestinian," I said. The next day she came to school and said, "My dad said there is no such thing as Palestine." My mind reeled, if there is no Palestine, where am I from? What is my identity? Her blunt statement tremendously affected what would subsequently spur my interest in the Arab-Israeli conflict. I would frequently sit in my room gazing outside the window while pondering my lineage. I felt that for each moment I missed spending time in my parent's homeland, I was missing an essential part of my history and background. My sentiments were strengthened while I grew up hearing my parents describe the beautiful, lush land that they had to leave behind after being exiled from their homes. I had a strong urge and desire to see the beautiful land and answer my own questions about my lineage.
At age 20, I finally had the opportunity to visit my homeland for the first time. I joined a delegation through the Mid East Citizen Diplomacy hoping to answer my probing questions. However, once I set foot off the plane and before I could even enter the airport, I was almost immediately pulled aside by a security officer. A light went on after a minute and I realized that I was drawn away because of the Arab name on my passport. I looked around me to see if this was happening to any one else, but I was the only one. My entire body was trembling, my blood-level rising and all I could think was "I came to discover my heritage and learn more about the conflict that has destroyed the lives of thousands of people and I am being stopped so close to home." The security officer was trying to verify the very thing I wanted to discover-my heritage. It became quite clear that the conflict was intense. My head was spinning.
Once I left the airport, my search for the true meaning of the Arab-Israeli conflict began. As we drove through the predominantly Israeli cities, I saw green fields, colossal mountains and pleasant homes. On the "Arab side," these scenes were replaced by housing demolitions, poverty and teenage soldiers carrying guns. The transformation was horrible. The discrepancy in life-styles and the standard of living became quite obvious. The true meaning of my journey began, as those heart-wrenching moments passed before my eyes. I was astounded and shocked that this was the country my parents once described as a peaceful and beautiful land.
The delegation I joined focused on compassionate listening for a reconciliatory process between Palestinians and Israelis. As an ambassador, I observed first-hand meetings and took an active role in discussions about issues between Palestinians and Israelis. I met with groups from both extremes of the conflict. I was able to experience a Sabbath, have dinner with a family who lives in a settlement, and meet with leaders such as David Bar Ilan, the Hamas leader and Hadar Abdel Shafi, a leader of the Madrid Peace Conference. Finally, I was working towards the goals I had set long ago.
At last, I visited the houses my parents grew up in and abandoned almost 25 years ago because of war. I saw the remains of a one-room hut with the dirt, dust and weeds growing out of the roof of the abandoned house. My heart opened up to the sight of my father's birthplace and homeland. I sat in the prints my own feet had made in the dust on the worn land wondering if my father ever played in that spot. I began to imagine what my parents were like as children. As I looked over to the next mountaintop and saw the new settlement being built, my thoughts drifted to how I could contribute to resolving the conflict. I wanted to put an end to the pain and suffering of thousands of people. I wanted to help people like my parents who have not returned since the days they fled, to walk freely in the country of their birthplace.
My goal in life is now to work on the Arab-Israeli peace process, to use my education in law to help bring equality. Indeed, I want to help other 6th graders from having to ask the question, "What is my identity?" My homeland may never be the green, lush land my parents once remembered. We have outgrown the olive trees, but we must continue to understand each other and our differences.
West Bank Settlement: Friday Afternoon by Dorothy Field L'shanah haba-ah B'urushalayim Next year in Jerusalem -Passover Haggadah Naomi checks her list: Casserole on the heating tray, her girls have set the table, two loaves of challah ready to be sliced, straightens her skirt, her wig, her scarf. As a child in Brooklyn she read of camps and ovens, was drawn, for safety she thought, to the Promised Land. She keeps kosher, davens at shul, tends her fine stone house with its red tile roof (her girls live in their own Fisher-Price world - stove, refrigerator, table and chairs). Her husband works over the Green Line in Jerusalem. They might still be in Brooklyn - except for the view. From her front balcony, hills covered with olive trees and another red-roofed settlement. At her back an Arab village, trellised in grapes. She's never seen it. An eight foot fence marks the boundaries of her settlement. She doesn't go beyond the gates. At night she startles to rocks crashing through schoolbus windows, the windshield of her husband's new Camaro. Feasting in the Ba'Ka When the army roared up with its wrecking ball to flatten his cinder block house for the second time, Atta held out his worn hands, stained red with the soil of his family's land, and his infant son: You take him. I can't raise him in a tent. They bound him, hauled him to jail. That was last month. The wreckage of the house, a heap of busted concrete, twisted rebar, buried furnniture, clothing, old photo albums, the potted rose that guarded the sink. November winds cut through canvas. The ground in the old army tent is hard. Atta's family huddles for warmth. Except today Jews and Palestinians from Tel Aviv, Jerusalem, and just down the valley, scoop rice and lamb with chunks of Bedouin bread. All day they've been rebuilding, laying one concrete block on another, for a third house. Children draw pictures of houses with glass windows, toilets, sinks, families eating at dining room tables. In the canvas doorway a flat of cabbage seedlings, dusty green sprouts, wait to be dug into fresh - tilled soil. Numbering Souls Let us sing the soul in every name and the name of every soul - Marcia Falk When I was a child we bought shells in Chinatown, small chalky clamshells tight shut. When we dropped them in a glass of water they'd open to unfurl a paper lotus and a red-striped flag. Everyone has a story. If you still yourself to listen they open like Chinese shells. ******************
By Janet Tobacman
I have started writing a series of poems about my recent travels to Israel and Palestine with the Compassionate Listening Project. I am calling them Rooftop Poems…
ABOUT ROOFTOPS
A roof can be thought of as a symbol of home, a means of protection, a thing of security. Yet before we ever left on our journey, Ruth (my partner) got an email from a Palestinian friend saying that her aunt, who lives in Hebron (on the West Bank) was sleeping on the roof because Israelis were shooting through people's windows at night. We do not know if it was soldiers or ideological Jewish settlers acting on their own who were doing this shooting. We do know that what was normally a protective ceiling had quickly become the floor, the bottom line for this woman's sense of safety.
The issue of rooftops emerged as a recurring theme for me as I thought back through our travels. We heard many stories reminiscent of the one above. Since the Israeli war of independence, the roofs of Palestinians have been used for both shelter and as military vantage points by Israeli soldiers. We heard several such stories from Palestinians and Israelis we met. Yet despite Israel's military might, its people do not feel safe. The rooftops provide only a very fragile and temporary sense of security. The history of exile and pain among Jews is so long and the collective pain so deep, we cannot always see the edge of it long enough to recognize when we are safe. So we claim other people's rooftops as our own, create their exile to cure ours. There is, however, a way out of this cycle, as demonstrated by many of the fine people we met on our trip. This is some of what I will try to reflect in these poems.
The other thing about rooftops is that they often provide an amazing perspective. Much of the terrain in Israel and Palestine is hilly, so rooftops can overlook a great deal of the disputed territory which is so incredibly dear to both peoples. In this way the rooftops have become for me not only a symbol of security and insecurity, but also a way out of hopelessness, a way in to fresh thinking.
That is what the poems are all about. I hope they will be a jumping off point for further discussion. Please feel free to pass them along, and to email me with any comments. If you do not wish to receive these in the future, let me know, and I will take you off my distribution list.
Many thanks again for your support of this trip. And special thanks to Mohammed B., Yossi, Batya, Tzvi, Rachel, Eliyahu, Ibrahim, Sister Anne, Sheikh Abdul Aziz Bukhari, Yitzchak, Elisheva, Reb Frouman, Judy, Sara, Darwish, Lydia, Mohammed D., Orit, Abuna Chacour, Jeff, Amit, Zoughbi and his entire family, Yehezkel, Dalia, Lorette, Nicolas, Mary, Alfred and all the others whose names I don't have but who nonetheless have inspired me and who knows how many others. May peace and justice be yours, ours and the legacy of countless generations.
shalom/salaam/peace
Janet Tobacman
____________________________________
Lorette: Bethlehem 2001
In your town where houses
were bombed last month
and helicopters roared nightly
for weeks on end
(where maybe tonight
they’ll come again
they haven’t for days
but, then...)
we sit this evening
in comfortable chairs
though nothing is fancy
you are doing all right
Nicolas is a teacher
at a private school in town
so even now he has work
you are among the lucky ones
your son lost his job
at a tourist shop
there was no tourism
for Christmas 2000
a neighbor can’t get
to Birzeit for school
the roads are blocked
a nephew has nightmares
another wets the bed
another is so disturbed
an American college student
plays with him a few hours
and the seven year old’s ready
to propose marriage
won’t stop crying when she leaves
such improbable light she brings
such impossible lightness
the huge TV
seems out of place
yet all eyes are transfixed
on the news
news from Ramallah
news from Jerusalem
news from Chekhoslovakia
you serve savory pastries
that stretch scarce supplies
they are delicious
we sleep fine this night
no gunshots
no helicopters
the next morning
we stand on your roof
you point to an orphanage
somewhere in the endless hills
it’s seven short miles to Jerusalem
but you can’t get there from here
don’t have the right license plates
and most roads are closed
there is a solar panel
that heats the water pipe
once you didn’t have water
and foreigners who visited
brought you some in barrels
we brought sweets thinking treats
could be a welcome relief now
but your pastries are so fine
ours seem out of place
like the Israeli soldiers on your rooftop
in the last Intifada
not knowing they’d be safer
if they were inside with you
their homes more secure
if they welcomed you there.
-------------------------------------------------
On our travels to Israel and Palestine we met a Sufi Sheikh, Abdul Aziz Al-Bukhari, who touched our souls deeply.
The Sheikh lives in a house in the Old City of Jerusalem. The house has been in his family for many generations. He grows trees on his city roof. Amazing how rooted someone can be, physically and figuratively, even in the midst of the region's uncertainty.
We spent most of an afternoon with him. When we left, the observant Jews among us felt we had been davening (praying), the Catholic felt he had been to Mass and all of us felt profoundly honored to have had this time with him. Like all good spiritual teachers, his messages were simple and universal. I share this one with you.
SHEIKH ABDUL AZIZ AL-BUKHARI
OLD CITY, JERUSALEM
Your spirit lights each of us
like candles in your otherwise
dimly lit salon
what do you do, I ask
when you see a person in anger
stone poised to throw
or rifle aimed
you can do nothing, you say
but witness and hope
your witness is so true
it will stop the false righteousness
a corner of my thoughts
says how can you be holy
if you do not interrupt
these unholy acts
but your eye tears and pulls
my soul to your wisdom
and I breathe it in like air
you are telling me
this is not up to us
on the street later
I giggle uncontrollably
the colors are so brilliant
the sounds of merchant calls so clear
the smells from the cafes so pungent
the clarity of your vision
like the expansive view
from your rooftop garden
has entered me unnoticed
like a prayer that has been answered.
Copyright JT Bacman
2/2001
_______________________________________
This poem is for Father Elias Chacour, a Palestinian priest who runs a school in the village of Iblin. He spent his early years in a town called Biram, from which his family was exiled in 1947 during the Israeli War of Independence.
Iblin is a Palestinian town in northern Israel.
FATHER CHACOUR
That spring the sad frightened soldiers came.
As a boy of seven
you had played gleefully until then
in the fig and olive orchards
of your father’s fields
the roof above your head at night
was for protection from weather
safety was a given
in your beloved village of Biram
it was there you first learned
about peace
it was then you first learned
about war
when the sad and frightened soldiers came
your father explained the unthinkable
-- a man named Hitler
-- a place called Europe
--their families dead
--their villages taken
--their homes destroyed
you would share your home
if need be you’d share your fields
you would sleep on the roof
a treat saved most times for summer
when the stars were so plentiful
they hovered like a protective blanket
over the entire town
your brother asked why the soldiers needed guns
if they meant no harm
when people are frightened, your father said
sometimes they think they need guns
so you fed them a holiday lamb
even though there was no holiday
to nourish their bodies
and enliven their souls
and the soldiers stayed under the roof
while you and your family slept on top
then the soldiers said
they feared danger
for you and your village
so you moved off the roof
and slept in the fields
being told you could return
in a week or two
but when you returned
the rooftop was no longer yours.
Now you sit at the table with us
a robust man of sixty
relentlessly dedicated to peace
even though frightened soldiers
still destroy your people’s homes
you are absolutely magnanimous
unimaginably even-handed
Galilee children of all faiths
learn at your school
a monument outside reminds in Arabic
"remember the Jewish martyrs"
and in Hebrew
"remember the Arab martyrs"
we are humbled by your generosity
of spirit, and the spirit of hospitality
passed to you by your parents
shared now in the form
of this aromatic tea
we ponder the ramifications
how quickly a thing of safety
can become a thing of fear
the simplicity of a rooftop
a symbol of exile
the child’s heart becomes
a way back to Biram.
JT Bacman 1/2001
________________________________________
Our delegation was lucky enough to be able to assist in getting some basic food supplies from the Galilee in northern Israel to Bethlehem in the West Bank. It is very difficult to get food in and out of Palestinian areas because of road closures imposed by the Israeli army.
Palestinians, Israelis, Americans, Christians, Muslims and Jews participated in this tiny effort to alleviate the problem in the Bethlehem area. It is not nearly enough for a people under siege, but it is something.
Again, the rooftop provides an illustration of how difficult it is for the all peoples of the region to feel safe in their homeland. It is also a symbol of ways into fresh thinking.
LESSON IN THE BASICS
The slip of a door
could so easily be missed
at the edge of the schoolyard
between food
and potential starvation
Israel and Palestine
the line is so thin
up north in the Galilee
at another school
the man had said children
collected money
bought food supplies
"please help me get these
to Bethlehem" he had said
we had paid for a truck
everyone else, as it turns out
would do the rest
the usual route in
would be guarded or blocked
road torn up courtesy
of the Israeli army
we would have needed
a hundred volunteers
organized well
to do the job safely there
we had thought it would happen
a different way
more under our deluded
sense of control
honed by years
of comfortable living
instead two drivers on cell phones
a few friends on either end
have led one another here
to the edge of a schooolyard
barbed wire going up
a stone wall going down
to the street below
and there is that narrow
door on one side
a few steps down and the tons
of flour and sugar
are transferred from one
truck to the other
two trucks on either
side of the Green Line
many hands that refuse
to become tethered enemies
supplied with the will
and unwired phones
cut through the barbed wire
and avoid the red tape.
Copyright JT Bacman
2/2001