We argued…argued

arguments wanting to be civil.

Take breaks, smoke a cigarette together afraid

illuding time trying to fall it apart

unconflicted now more conflicted -

still very stuck

attempting to make duality make a

lock for us to stick to,

People know. People don’t know. Do I – surely something but not enough, never enough. There has been an abundance of question, since becoming a Jew apart from the Jew I used to think I was, in between Israel, a country that after living through the Arava Institute of Environmental Studies (AIES) I cannot even call by its name – Israel – with out guilt assuming a place among the crevices of those questions, comes the word Palestine now, in between that place and the United States…

My first experience of the Palestinian occupation was in the fifth or sixth grade. I grew up in Dubai, in the United Arab Emirates, where politics wasn’t such a huge part of everyday life. My parents, though incredibly active politically in their youth, did everything possible to shield me and my brother from politics as children. I would always want to watch the news with them but they wouldn’t let me…

I am a child of unknown descent.

Innocent

of the condescending fashion

that you be asking me

questioning me

wondering ’bout my ethnicity,

making me aware…

There are many terrible answers to the question “where do you stand,” and the worst I can ever remember giving was “in Jerusalem.” Jerusalem? I’ve heard of that place before. An imaginary place. It lies directly between the edge of reality and the end of time. It lies at the centre of the universe. How strange to end up so far away. I’d just gotten off the bus from somewhere that seemed a lot closer.