J and I went for dinner with some Palestinian friends in Ramallah last weekend. The small city is only10 km from Jerusalem but takes half an hour to drive because of the check points. We left our house at dusk and wound our way upwards towards the hill town which has become the administrative capital of the State of Palestine. It was initially a Christian town, but now has a muslim majority.
As we approached the check point at the edge of the city, we passed a camp of fixed caravans, the white oblong shapes like a negative image against the darkness. An Israeli Defence Forces vehicle was parked alongside the caravans, like a reinforced steel guard dog. The camp houses a group of Israeli settlers. I read in the newspaper that over 25 per cent of illegal settler posts are guarded by IDF soldiers. Passing the caravans you wonder at the techniques of this land grab. Placing a caravan somewhere becomes more about bums on seats, reserving land as someone might plop their towel on a sunbed in a holiday resort. The caravan a temporary sign, like the towel, of someone's 'ownership' of this patch, until this might be questioned. Or with luck, until the ownership can become permanent. I heard that once the caravans are there, the Israeli government are required to install electricity and plumbing etc. until the 'ownership' becomes more permanent and harder to undo.
The soldier at the checkpoint peered through inch thick glass, partially shattered by a rock or a bullet. 'Oh, you're British. I support Liverpool. Stay safe in Ramallah. Sababa (take it easy)'. He said. We drove on through the darkness. The road on the Palestinian side of the check point was full of huge pot holes and there was no road lighting. As we entered Ramallah I had the impression we were driving back into Amman. The architecture and street signs in Arabic make the atmosphere entirely different from Jerusalem. You get the feeling there's a lot of money in the place - there are 5 star hotels, fancy restaurants and the streets are buzzing with Arab customers in Arab shops.
We arrived at our friends' house, who'd prepared a table full of food including the Jordanian speciality, 'Mansaf' which is definitely man's food - hunks of lamb resting on a pile of rice with a spiced yoghurt sauce. We chatted in Arabic and English and drank fizzy apple drinks. They are an impressive pair and he not only speaks fluent Hebrew but has completed a masters in Israeli studies. He explained that many Palestinians have left East Jerusalem to set up businesses in Ramallah as there you pay less tax and find more customers. The streets here have more of a buzz than those in East Jerusalem. And I was reminded of Palestinians' reactions in Jordan when we explained we were moving to Jerusalem. 'You'll find that you have much more fun in Ramallah,' they said.
Back in Jerusalem this week I had more opportunity to walk around as I found a computer specialist who fixed my hard drive problem. As I walked down King George Street I gazed through shop windows crammed with extraordinary fashions. Almost like going back in time the colours and cuts are as anachronistic as clothes from the 40s - yet people are walking around in them here, today. A dark pumpkin coloured low brim ladies hat with black flowers on it perched on a manequin, with a purple fitted jacket and brown boots. Many of the shops sold rolls of fabric, and I wondered at how hard it is to find material in the shops in the UK right now - home economics the casualty of our consumer culture. But here people must sew their own clothes a lot more.
On the tram I noticed many Jewish men wear a little hair clip to fix their capel to their head, and I wondered what Dad would do in this situation. No sooner had a mused about this than I spotted the wind whisk a capel from the head of a bald man, who fumbled around trying to catch it, then settled it back on his pate again. At the road crossing, an orthodox family waited alongside a muslim woman with a black head covering without any eye holes (our Syrian friend told me they call them 'kamikazes' in Damascus); a group of Arab shabaab (lads), hung about with droopy trousers, joking with Israeli soldiers their own age sporting the ubiquitous enormous machine gun and crew cut.
And as I looked at this pavement cocktail I remembered conversations this week with our muslim friend in Ramallah, who's trying to understand the Israeli psyche with his university studies; and with the editor who's secular yet wants to bring his children up in this highly religious place, so they have a chance to see many different ways of living from a young age. The Jewish family who funded a little park we went to with the dwarves, 'for all the people of Jerusalem with love and hope and humility.'
Before coming here, and from Jordan it was easy to polarise - to make decisions about black and about white. But on these very pavements, and in these homes and work places we're invited into, the multiple shades of grey in these societies begin to weave a complex tapestry which forces you to lay aside your preconceptions and challenge yourself with every sight and sound.
Although it's important to know what you believe in, and what you'd like to work towards, nothing is how you'd imagined before coming, and perhaps nothing on the outside will ever look the same again.
As we approached the check point at the edge of the city, we passed a camp of fixed caravans, the white oblong shapes like a negative image against the darkness. An Israeli Defence Forces vehicle was parked alongside the caravans, like a reinforced steel guard dog. The camp houses a group of Israeli settlers. I read in the newspaper that over 25 per cent of illegal settler posts are guarded by IDF soldiers. Passing the caravans you wonder at the techniques of this land grab. Placing a caravan somewhere becomes more about bums on seats, reserving land as someone might plop their towel on a sunbed in a holiday resort. The caravan a temporary sign, like the towel, of someone's 'ownership' of this patch, until this might be questioned. Or with luck, until the ownership can become permanent. I heard that once the caravans are there, the Israeli government are required to install electricity and plumbing etc. until the 'ownership' becomes more permanent and harder to undo.
The soldier at the checkpoint peered through inch thick glass, partially shattered by a rock or a bullet. 'Oh, you're British. I support Liverpool. Stay safe in Ramallah. Sababa (take it easy)'. He said. We drove on through the darkness. The road on the Palestinian side of the check point was full of huge pot holes and there was no road lighting. As we entered Ramallah I had the impression we were driving back into Amman. The architecture and street signs in Arabic make the atmosphere entirely different from Jerusalem. You get the feeling there's a lot of money in the place - there are 5 star hotels, fancy restaurants and the streets are buzzing with Arab customers in Arab shops.
We arrived at our friends' house, who'd prepared a table full of food including the Jordanian speciality, 'Mansaf' which is definitely man's food - hunks of lamb resting on a pile of rice with a spiced yoghurt sauce. We chatted in Arabic and English and drank fizzy apple drinks. They are an impressive pair and he not only speaks fluent Hebrew but has completed a masters in Israeli studies. He explained that many Palestinians have left East Jerusalem to set up businesses in Ramallah as there you pay less tax and find more customers. The streets here have more of a buzz than those in East Jerusalem. And I was reminded of Palestinians' reactions in Jordan when we explained we were moving to Jerusalem. 'You'll find that you have much more fun in Ramallah,' they said.
Back in Jerusalem this week I had more opportunity to walk around as I found a computer specialist who fixed my hard drive problem. As I walked down King George Street I gazed through shop windows crammed with extraordinary fashions. Almost like going back in time the colours and cuts are as anachronistic as clothes from the 40s - yet people are walking around in them here, today. A dark pumpkin coloured low brim ladies hat with black flowers on it perched on a manequin, with a purple fitted jacket and brown boots. Many of the shops sold rolls of fabric, and I wondered at how hard it is to find material in the shops in the UK right now - home economics the casualty of our consumer culture. But here people must sew their own clothes a lot more.
On the tram I noticed many Jewish men wear a little hair clip to fix their capel to their head, and I wondered what Dad would do in this situation. No sooner had a mused about this than I spotted the wind whisk a capel from the head of a bald man, who fumbled around trying to catch it, then settled it back on his pate again. At the road crossing, an orthodox family waited alongside a muslim woman with a black head covering without any eye holes (our Syrian friend told me they call them 'kamikazes' in Damascus); a group of Arab shabaab (lads), hung about with droopy trousers, joking with Israeli soldiers their own age sporting the ubiquitous enormous machine gun and crew cut.
And as I looked at this pavement cocktail I remembered conversations this week with our muslim friend in Ramallah, who's trying to understand the Israeli psyche with his university studies; and with the editor who's secular yet wants to bring his children up in this highly religious place, so they have a chance to see many different ways of living from a young age. The Jewish family who funded a little park we went to with the dwarves, 'for all the people of Jerusalem with love and hope and humility.'
Before coming here, and from Jordan it was easy to polarise - to make decisions about black and about white. But on these very pavements, and in these homes and work places we're invited into, the multiple shades of grey in these societies begin to weave a complex tapestry which forces you to lay aside your preconceptions and challenge yourself with every sight and sound.
Although it's important to know what you believe in, and what you'd like to work towards, nothing is how you'd imagined before coming, and perhaps nothing on the outside will ever look the same again.
Just a general context:
ReplyDeleteJerusalem does not reflect Israeli mainstream. Israeli mainstream is what is referred to by Israelis as the center of the country - Tel Aviv and the coastal towns like Kfar Saba, Herzlia, Ra'anana, Rishon Le Zion, Rehovot, Nataniya etc. etc.
That's where the Zionist, secular Israeli mainly population lives - the population which founded Israel.
The 1970's and 1980's were the golden years of secular, Zioinist population in Jerusalem. Jerusalem was then the center of the Israeli media, culture, art. The secular Zionist population was the majority in it.
These were the years when Teddy Kolek was Jerusalem mayor when many of Jerusalem cultural institutes were established - the Israel museum. the Jerusalem theatre, the new biblical zoo (the Jerusalem zoo), the Jerusalem cinimatheque, the many parks and gardens - Sakher part, Bell Garden, independence park etc etc.
The hebrew university was a big attraction for secular Israelis from all over the country.
When Ehud Olmert was elected a gradual decline in Jerusalem's status began. Some say that he "sold" the city to the Haredim (ultra-orthodox Jews).
Gradually and then like a snowball the "strong" secular Israeli population started to flee Jerusalem like a plague. University teachers, journalists, artists, etc. etc. They all left to Tel Aviv and the area.
Their children left before them. Wanted to run away from the process that began in Jerusalem of the Heredim taking over the city.
They wanted free, modern and bustling Tel Aviv.
At the same time the ultra-orthodox Jews, whose birthrate is much higher than that of the secular population began to move to more and more neighborhoods that used to be secular.
For instance, neighborhoods like Rehavia, Beit Hakerm, the German Colony which were once a stronghold of the Israeli secular elite and bohemia - Supreme court judges, university teacher, authors, artists, journalists etc. etc., today have a majority of rich Haredim or national religious Jews from the US, France, UK etc (who can afford to buy houses there).
Today there is no one population in Jerusalem which has the hegemony. That's the complexity of the city. Some find beauty in it, some find that it's too tense because of it - because of the many different populations which have to live together although they have little in common - about a third secular Zionist Jews, a third Haredim, a third Arab population and of course many tourists.
But again, the mainstream of the Israeli population mainly live in the center of the country. These are the people whose parents and grandparents founded Israel and are still the ones who keep it going economically, militatily etc.
Jerusalem is considered one of the poorest cities in Israel because many of its residents are of low socioeconomical status.
The fact that it doesn't look so poor is thanks to the large amount of money the Israeli government gives the Jerusalem municipality - because its status as Israel's capital. This money is coming from Israel's strong economy which is centered in the center of the country, not in Jerusalem.
In addition many rich Jews donate money to institutes in Jerusalem - take for instance the 2 Hadassah hospitals who were and still are funded by rich Jews mainly from the US and which neverthelless provide an excellent daily madical services to the hundred thousands of Arabs living in east Jerusalem.
In the last four years that Nir Barkat has been mayor there's definetly an improvement in Jerusalem. He is part of Israel mainstream - secular, Zionist, full of vision and plans and actions.
But the way things are going demographically in Jerusalem, he maybe the last secular Zionist Israeli to be voted as mayor. Who knows, the way things are progressing, the next mayor of Jerusalem might be an Arab (we already had a Haredi mayor before Barkat).