Two Days of Travel, 2 Days of Occupation

Day 1.

We decided to accompany Huda and her two sisters to Lod, a town near Tel Aviv, where there was a large Greek Orthodox celebration of the Feast of St. George (1). We thought we would go along to film Huda as we are thinking of her as a potential character in a small film we would like to make. As it turns out, she has great camera presence, as she really seems to not even notice it is there, or doesn’t care. So we met up with Huda, Julia and Ofa at 6:45am and walked over to the church in Old Ramallah where we waited for the tour bus to pick us up for the day. The bus as it turned out was half empty because not all who wanted to attend got their visitor’s permits. As Huda explained, Palestinians must apply for a permit to enter Israel. In fact, they also have to apply for a permit to simply leave the West Bank, regardless of whether they are going to Israel or trying to get to any other country. Young Palestinian men are often denied these permits, but as it turns out, so are elderly Palestinian women.

So off we went, everyone clutching their precious permits as we neared Qalandia (2). The bus driver got out to talk to the border guard, got back in and drove through the checkpoint. Everyone cheered. It seemed a little too easy and sure enough, he circled around and back in we went. Apparently they weren’t interested in checking the permits on the bus and everyone was made to walk through the checkpoint on foot, through a metal shed housing a system of automated turnstiles and holding pens which shuttle you periodically by virtue of a green light and loud buzzer into another area of turnstiles and holding pens. I had been through this once before on a previous visit but this time, waiting in line for over an hour with all of these of the little old ladies felt extra humiliating. Despite the sign saying ‘Welcome to the Atarot Crossing’, it didn’t feel all that welcoming. Part of the dehumanizing experience was that all of the guards were behind glass, shouting periodically through loudspeakers at us. When we got through, Elle decided to film the checkpoint, which the guard in the watchtower was not too happy about. He started through the loudspeaker ‘NO CAMERA - NO CAMERA’ (imagine thick Israeli accent) but seemed too lazy to get down from the tower and Elle pretended she didn’t hear him.

So back on the bus we went, off to Lod, with the priest entertaining everyone with his singing and theological jokes (3). Once we got there, everyone made a beeline for the church, which was way too small for the crowd pushing to get in to see the bones, light their candles and do whatever else it is they do at the Feast of St. George. I’ve never been a fan of the mosh-pit experience, and I think this was worse. Yet the three sisters weren’t bothered at all, making their way into the thick of it. “Come on, Huda shouted, you haven’t seen the tomb!” We politely declined; happy to stay in the small corner we found where we could breathe.

Our next stop was Jaffa, where we had lunch at an amazing fish restaurant by the sea. We were then let loose around the beach just to wander around for a while. The afternoon felt more than a little melancholy in Jaffa, as the group didn’t really seem comfortable anymore — they were now foreigners there. Yet as we walked along the newly constructed boardwalk, Huda said something a bit surprising. She told us of how she used to visit Jaffa freely as a child before ’48 and then on occasion between ‘67 and ’86 (after Oslo, before Intifada). But then she said, “It’s true they took it all: they didn’t just take the meat and leave us the bones, but they took the bones too! But I’ll tell you one thing, if the Arabs were here, this place would be full of garbage, the Jews are much more organized”.

There were a few young people who looked like they had come just to get out of Ramallah for the day, and tagged along on the religious trip to get the permit. For some reason, we ended up at a park in a semi-industrial area of Tel Aviv, at dusk. The kids asked for 2 hours at this park for some unknown reason, and so when it turned dark, we sat at a picnic table at the end of parking lot, just waiting to get back on the bus. All the old ladies just wanted to go home at this point, but it was the kid’s day out, and they were going to take advantage of it. I was still thinking about the checkpoint, but everyone else was way past it. After some more shopping in Jaffa, we eventually drove back to Ramallah.

Day 2.

Today we went with our friend Neta to help her document the intricate system of roads in the West Bank. We knew this before, but there are basically two tiers of roads: those driven with yellow license plates (ISR) and those of the green (PAL). Yellow plates can pretty much travel anywhere, although Israelis are not allowed into Area A (4). Green plates are only allowed on a more third class road system, usually not in good shape, nor do they necessarily connect Palestinian areas. Finding an up-to-date map of the West Bank is difficult because the roads are constantly changing and are often blocked by either checkpoints or piles of dirt and rubble, sometimes accompanied by the Israeli army. Having our yellow plates, we could drive anywhere, and having our Canadian passports, we can go anywhere. We went to Jericho for lunch, speeding by all the green license plates in line waiting at the checkpoints. We felt like assholes cutting the line but that sense of entitlement is almost essential in these checkpoint situations (often, Elle doesn’t even look at the guards as we drive through, barely slowing the car). Jericho is known as the oldest continuously inhabited place on earth but felt like a ghost town. Once a thriving tourist destination, it is now nearly shut down, with most of the incoming roads blocked (5). The restaurant we sat in was huge and completely empty, the manager completely attentive and eager to make himself useful. After eating we left Jericho, driving past the manager waving to his only customers of the day, past the closed gift stores of Hebron blown glass, past Bananaland (7), and past the checkpoint. We had a whole story prepared on how to get out, because Neta was actually not supposed to be in Area A, but it was unnecessary. White faces and yellow plates were all we needed.

Footnotes

1) Dragon-slaying St. George who is the patron saint of England, and apparently, of syphilis (so says The Guardian). Lod is a town near Tel Aviv, known largely as the home of Ben Gurion airport. Lod (formerly Lid) is known as a bit of a pit, a poor area with a large mixed community of Palestinians and Israelis. When I say ‘Palestinians’ in this instance, they are often referred to as ‘Arab-Israelis’ as they have citizenship in Israel but are coming to identify more as Palestinians.
2) Qalandia is the checkpoint in and out of Ramallah.
3) Something about a priest who didn’t know Jesus was killed 2000 years ago. The humour got a little lost in the translation I think….
4) Areas within the West Bank are designated either A, B or C. Area A is Palestinian controlled and administered (no Israelis allowed). Area B is Israeli controlled and Palestinian administered. Area C is Israeli controlled and administered.
5) Jericho was punished with restricted access due to an incident in March 2006. Israeli Defense Forces held the Jericho prison under siege and captured six inmates, rumored to be released, who were accused of assassinating the Israeli Minister of Tourism. 2 were killed and 35 injured in this incident.
6) No idea….

First Days in Ramallah: hangin' with Huda

So we’ve been in Ramallah for about a week now, in our new home. We found an apartment through an acquaintance, a friend of Yael’s, named Reem, who is Palestinian but lived in Hamilton for many years. Reem called up Huda, an elderly friend of her mother’s who rents out apartments. The place was a bit of a mess but Huda promised to paint it and have it cleaned, which she did. Being the fussy-pants’ that we are however, we needed to do a bit more work on it, like trying to air out the mattress of stale cigarette smoke and covering the kitchen cupboards in peel and stick plastic. I’ve never used that stuff in my life, but for some reason we decided it needed to go everywhere. I have become an expert in laying it perfectly – must be all those years of model-making.

I think Huda was so excited to see tenants who actually removed garbage that she decided to spring for a new fridge for us. Well, we did encourage her a little, pointing out the puddle trailing out from the rusting refrigerator door and telling her all the food we just bought was about to go bad. So the next day, off we went to the appliance store and shopping, showing us where the bakery was, where to buy the best fish, vegetables and kitchen supplies. We followed her through the streets, trailing behind her as she zigzagged through Al Manara (1), more comfortable walking in the middle of the road than on the sidewalk.

We decided she was our new Palestinian grandmother, as she was constantly inviting us in for coffee, tea, lunch and dinner, bringing us apples from the market and fresh towels. For the first 3 days, she pretty much insisted we eat every meal at her place and we did. She seemed to be feeding everyone: the painter, the cleaning lady, the man and his 3 little boys who came to put hooks up and take away the garbage. But as she explained to us, while we uselessly protested yet another helping of fish and rice, it was their culture.

While not a great listener (although this comes in handy for avoiding certain subjects), Huda told us a lot about her life as one of Ramallah’s original residents, how she was one of 12 children, 6 boys and 6 girls, how her parents were married for 75 years and died on the same day. Her husband was a high school principal who died of emphysema and all of her children and grandchildren now live abroad, in the US and UK. When she visits them, even with her American passport, she can’t travel through Israel, she must go through Amman. She owns 4 houses in Ramallah: living in one, selling another, renting one and leaving one vacant. She explained that she only rents to foreigners, not to Arabs. I thought this was a type of grandmotherly racism that I am familiar with, but directed at Muslims, as she is Christian. Then she explained that there are old Jordanian tenancy laws (left over from Ottoman days) still in effect in Palestine, which rule that rent cannot be increased. Ever. These families pay approximately 15-25 Jordanian dollars, the equivalent of 25-45 dollars per month because their rent has never changed. The socialist principles behind this are not bad, it is a kind of rent-to–own rule, except that property values in Ramallah have increased, as has the cost of living, property taxes etc. and there is no way to adjust to the new economy. This is why she is leaving one of her houses vacant (2).

Other than hanging out with Huda, we’ve been easing ourselves into our new life in Ramallah, venturing out in the morning for walks, trying to get around in a city built on the side of a mountain, inevitably climbing steps and steep hills only to head straight back down again. Being from Winnipeg, where the only topography was the garbage hill where we went tobogganing, I feel constantly winded. We come home tired at 10am, ready for a nap.

Elle and I are happy in what we call our little ‘cave’ (3) and would be content to sit around playing with our computers all day, but we are here to make a film so we have been making an effort to get out and take in some culture. Yesterday we went to the opening of the Al-Kasaba (the movie theatre in Ramallah) Film Festival for the opening of ‘Salt of this Sea’, the new film by Palestinian-American Annemarie Jacir. We knew to expect a few speeches, having just been to Shashat (4), but we didn’t expect to have to sit through an hour of speeches, letters, musical numbers and finally a piped-in instrumental version of what I assume was the Palestinian National Anthem that we were all instructed to stand to. Having just been to yoga, we were a bit tired and hungry and just wanted to see the film. At least it was good.

Speaking of yoga, we found a yoga school one day while we were with Huda at the post office so we decided to try it. The class was of course in Arabic but we figured as long we followed along we should be okay. Little did we know that the room is kept really dark (5), so it is hard to see what he is doing. The class was called Hatha yoga but it is actually more martial arts style. Our ‘Sensei’ makes us do all the poses with a kind of militaristic flourish; high leg kicks and the like. I’m not sure it is a good or bad thing that we don’t understand a word he is saying, because he has a lot to say at the end during meditation, which I understood to be a quiet time but apparently not. We like it though, and come home exhausted and sore from climbing the hills, tai-kwon-do yoga ready for Huda to invite us in for tea and cookies. Not exactly home, but we like it so far.

Footnotes

1. Al Manara is the radial center of downtown Ramallah. I have posted a video on my Facebook page.
2. Also, tenants cannot be evicted from their home, unless the landlord is willing to give them key money, which is equivalent to the price of an apartment of the same size. The house that we live in has 5 apartments, 2 of which are rented to foreigners, 3 locked into tenancies with families who have been living there anywhere from 30-50 years as children and grandchildren have assumed the house. Despite an apparent housing shortage in Ramallah, many houses are being left vacant because it is too risky to take on a tenant you can’t ever get rid of.
3. It seems everyone else in Ramallah has beautiful views of the valley from their apartment but us.
4. Shashat is the Women’s Film Festival in Palestine going on right now.
5. We think this for modesty but it also could just be his style…

Jerusalem: getting unorthodox with the orthodox

We left Jerusalem 2 days ago, just as we were actually getting used to it, or perhaps I should say, I was getting used to it. Elle had lived here, so she knew her way around, and where everything was. I was happy to be toured around as drove through the city, Elle noting important sites such as where she went to high school, her various apartments and where her grandmother bought fruits and vegetables from Yom Tov the ganif (1). I had the inside track on Jerusalem and it made me feel less like the obvious tourist that I was. Yet despite all of this familiarity, Elle was useless when it came to dealing with our kosher kitchen in the apartment we had rented. Everything was marked with either blue tape for dairy, or red tape for meat. I felt perfectly entitled to holding up a tomato and asking what plate I should be using, but my Jewish wife? She was as hopeless as I was! I tried not to show my disappointment in her, but after the second time we had to bury the dishes, we started to be more careful. All I can say is that we really improved, and by the end of our stay, even our little Palestinian kitten knew out of which bowl he could drink milk or eat kibble.

Since we had done so much touring with Dad, we decided to dial down the tourist stuff. We did go to the Israel Museum but most of it was closed because they were renovating. I had heard so much about it from Elle so I was kind of bummed, but the Sculpture Garden was mostly open so we decided to go anyway. The garden was fantastic and worth the trip alone, and I was especially happy to see the James Turrell piece. They also have a great 1:50 model of the old city of Jerusalem, which is also pretty fun and then of course the Dead Sea Scrolls. The building that houses the scrolls is great, you’ve all see the photos, but I have to tell you, there is a lot of build-up to getting to those scrolls (the cave-like passageway, the dim lighting, the little bits of pottery) and then to find out they are not actually the scrolls, but replicas, I felt a bit ripped-off. It’s not as if I can read them anyway, but I thought the whole point is so see the actual, real scrolls, not a scan of it. To be fair, they had a few bits and pieces of the real scrolls here and there, but not in the large cylindrical display case on the pedestal. Oh well, for whatever reason, perhaps her interest in archeology, Elle found these photocopies fascinating and was in there for hours.(2)

We also decided to take advantage of still having a rental car and continue our work photographing villages for the What Isn’t There project (3). On our maps, we found two that were essentially within Jerusalem so we set out to find them. The first one, Al Malicha, was basically in Jerusalem and once we spotted the minaret, we knew we were there. The residents were none to pleased to have us taking photos in their hood and told us that were ‘weren’t allowed’ to take pictures which we pretty much ignored. The next village, Al Jura, was in a valley, mostly evidenced by the plantings (almond trees and sabras) with just one building left. The next day however, was much more exciting. We set out for Al Walaja, a village close to Al Jura, which we found fairly easily. It was alongside two hills facing each other and as we surveyed the landscape, a young orthodox man hurried by us. “Are you looking for the spring?” he said. We didn’t actually know there was a spring, but before we could answer, he said that if we didn’t mind, he would like to bathe first. He was very friendly, told us how to get there and then sped off to have his dip. We saw him make his way over to what looked like a pool across the valley and strip down. We decided to hang back on our side of the valley until he had finished his bath, but before he had come back we saw another guy make his way over to the pool. After the third bather, Elle decided that we weren’t going to wait to get to the other side any longer, naked Hasid or not. So we walked over to take our photos from the other side, snapping our photos while a seemingly endless stream of bathers carried on behind us. It was only after one invited us to join, that we decided that perhaps we had taken enough photos. I didn’t think orthodox men were exactly so free and easy with nudity, considering our experience in Mea’Sharim (4), where the man who instructed us to leave wouldn’t even look us in the eye. Yet these guys were either more focused on their ritual, or just not that shy.

We had hoped to shoot four villages that day but were a little behind now and hoped to make it next village which on the map didn’t seem far away but it was across a valley and through a national forest. We decided to take a ‘shortcut’ which turned out to be a very bad idea as we drove in circles, scraping the bottom of our rental car on gravel roads meant more for an ATV than our little Mazda. We finally found our way to the village, after a pit stop at the JFK memorial (5). As we arrived we realized our experience with the Hasidim for the day was not over. As we got out of the car, we saw a man standing in the forest, seeming be in conversation with the trees. Fools that we were, he was actually in conversation with God. Our light was fading fast, so we ran around trying to photograph quickly, not noticing there was another man standing in an open field, also in conversation with God, or the tree stump, we weren’t quite sure. They started bellowing, almost as if they were in competition with each other as to who could speak to God the loudest. Elle later asked Mike, our new friend who adopted little kitty (now called Ishmael) who is studying to be a rabbi, what this all meant. Mike said it could have been a ritual of atonement for sins which could have happened during Sukkot, that it might have something to do with rain (that seems to be a Monday, Wednesday prayer post-sukkot), or, they were just plain crazy.

Footnotes

1. meaning ‘thief’ in Yiddish ( I know most of you know that…..)
2. She also completely disagrees with my take on this.
3. What Isn’t There: Elle has been photographing the 418 Palestinian Villages within 1948 borders of Israel and I have now joined her on the project. We only have about 400 left to do.
4. Mea’Sharim: ultra-orthodox neighborhood in Jerusalem
5. JFK memorial: once a tourist hot-spot, now closed, no-more eternal flame.

The Tour - Part 3

Back to the tour....

After Masada, we decided to avoid the tourists and spend the afternoon on a ‘nature walk’ in an area called Wadi Arugot. Elle had been there as a child and remembered hiking through a dry river bed which ended at a waterfall, where you could swim. It all sounded very idyllic, and it would have been, had not the rest of Israel decided it was a great activity for them as well that afternoon. If possible, there were more people on this nature walk than there were at Masada, and, considering we were walking along cliff edges and trying to negotiate through teeny tiny rocky passageways it wasn’t exactly communing with nature. Somehow, this walk felt more like a race, as everyone shoved past and pushed forward. I made the grave mistake of waiting to let someone pass. 10 minutes later I found an opportunity to get ‘back in line’ and that may be the last time I do that in Israel. I was pretty cranky by the time we got to the waterfall, it was really hot, and the swimming hole was full of kids. Elle convinced me nonetheless to jump in, and, being to wilted to argue, did. It was actually a really great idea, completely refreshing even though I felt ridiculous with all my clothes on (even my runners). The walk back was much more pleasant, cool and less crowded. A group of ibexes (1) crossed our path and we snapped a few hundred photos. Well worth it.

The next day we had planned an actual tour, with a real tour guide, to take us to Nazareth. Ghada (2) was a friend of a friend, a Palestinian Christian living in Haifa who toured groups through Israel, Turkey and soon Berlin. She was smart and lovely, and apparently still excited about the things she showed us that day. She suggested that we first go to Mount Tabor, near Nazareth, where there was a beautiful basilica at the site of Christ’s ‘transfiguration’. I mistakenly thought this was the place of the ‘ascension’, where Jesus was teleported to heaven, but the ‘transfiguration’ was more of a glowing and hovering event, where Jesus is kind of outed by God as his Son, with Moses and Elijah on either side. A ‘transfiguration’ is no ‘ascension’, but I tried not to let my disappointment show and just enjoyed the beautiful church and scenery. The cooler church however, was the little one halfway up the mountain within a Greek Orthodox monastery. Luckily Ghada sweet-talked her way past a very stern nun who only allowed us in for one minute. Apparently the frescoes inside had just been cleaned and they covered the entire interior of the church. We tried to stay and listen to a group of pilgrims singing, but our time was up and the nun basically kicked us out (after our 10 shekel ‘donation’).

Nazareth was Ghada’s hometown, and she told us people were always surprised that she led tours through the city. This was the city where Jesus grew up and somehow they thought there was really nothing to see here. It was sad, because even beyond all the Jesus stuff, Nazareth is really quite beautiful in many of the older areas. The market feels very much like the Old City in Jerusalem, but without the active retail. According to Ghada, since the building of Nazareth Illit, the newer Jewish side of town with shopping malls, the market really can’t sustain itself anymore. However, despite that, there were many little gems she showed us, such as old painted ceilings in people’s houses and the way you enter an Arab domicile (3). Before we broke for lunch, she took us to a gift store, which doubled as an archeological exhibit as the owner had basically found what seemed to be a ancient bathhouse while he was renovating his store. The owner was a tall pony-tailed Palestinian man in his 50s who seemed to have a pretty big chip on his shoulder that his found bathhouse had not received the recognition it deserved. After he had uncovered part of it and alerted the authorities (4), he had been told that it was a Turkish bath and he could carry on with his renovations. Well, not only was it not Turkish, it was not only Roman, but probably pre-Roman. He explained all of this to us as we sat underneath his gift store, in what would have been the heated crawlspace, full of massive arches that supported the floor. We made the mistake of telling him we had just seen the ruins of Herod’s bathhouse at Masada, at which point he nearly spit on the floor and basically said that was a bathhouse for babies compared to Masada. I felt kind of bad for him, as he was obviously obsessed with his bathhouse and frustrated that few people seemed to appreciate it. Thankfully Dad bought quite an expensive necklace at their gift store and it was time to go.

As I said, Nazareth is a big Jesus town and we hit a few of the major sites. I won’t get into all of it, but the final stop was the Church of the Annunciation, that being, the place where Mary was given the great news that she was to be the mother of God (I think at this must be at least equal to the 'Ascension'). Apparently they know that this is the place because they found some ancient graffiti on the site with Mary’s name on it. Well, who am I to argue, but could there not have been more than one ‘Mary’ in Nazareth? Any way, it turned out to be a very cool church. Of course, built upon Byzantine and Crusader churches as per usual, but this church was built in the 60s anticipating 70s Brutalism. Massive beautifully formed complex concrete. Fantastic. It was worth going to Nazareth just to see this church. Along the interior, it seemed every nation of the world had been encouraged to supply a mosaic on the virgin-mary-and-child theme. My favourite was the Japanese.

Afterwards we stood outside and Ghada sang for us in Latin, reading the inscription on the side of the chuch in the courtyard. It was all a bit much after a long day and Elle and I nearly burst into tears. Our tour was over.


Footnotes

1. Ibex. Gazelle like creature – see photo.
2. Ghada: pronounced Rada.
3. Long procedure involving coughing, announcing and pretending your husband is home or not home that has everything to do with men and women staying separate.
4. If you come across what might be something ancient while renovating or excavating, you must alert the Department of Antiquities. Instead, most people apparently phone for a large load of concrete.