I think about how in the Jewish community, young children are taught to love and support Israel unconditionally and, throughout their school years, are taught the “facts” about the conflict in Israel (I want to write Israel/Palestine here, but since the God-forsaken “P” word is rarely mentioned during these teachings, I will leave it out for dramatic effect). This, of course, is not considered brainwashing by the community, but is seen as necessary education and vital to the strengthening and survival of the Jewish nation at large.

So, if I understand correctly, a parent teaching his child to support Palestine unconditionally is a form of brainwashing and is considered to be teaching hate, but a community teaching a child to love Israel unconditionally is acceptable and encouraged. (Should either community be teaching this unconditional love in the first place? Well, that’s another topic for another day.). It happens quite often that members of the Jewish community will organize counter-rallies to purposely disrupt pro-Palestinian demonstrations, but when the reverse happens it is labeled as anti-Semitic.

When did this happen? When did it become okay for us to decide whether something is ethically wrong or right depending on who the doer is and who the victim is? Why is it anti-Semitic when we are the victim, but justified when we are the culprit? Last time I checked, prejudice is prejudice, and one form of prejudice does not trump another form. I guess the same day I missed the lesson on deductive reasoning, they must have sent out a memo stating that prejudice is fine as long as we’re the ones doing it.

These problems, however, are not unique to the Jewish community. These kinds of things take place in the Arab communities as well. I know this because of countless conversations I have had with Arab and Palestinian friends (yes, I’m friends with Arabs and Palestinians. Get over it). From what I am told, their community will also justify certain behavior in some situations and condemn it in others. It’s no wonder these two communities can’t stand each other.

There is a saying that goes “put yourself in someone else’s shoes”. It seems to me like these communities are in need of a humungous city wide shoe swapping party. Perhaps then they will realize that their communities are not all that different, and they will see the conditioned hate that exists on both sides. But this would have to involve some sort of public interaction with each other and since that probably won’t happen in this lifetime, I’ll think I’ll be better off with buying myself a new pair of shoes…. and maybe spending less time messing around on Facebook.

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,

between scared actions

AND

open speech;

there is no AND in what is real.

Does the chair they sat on when their feet were catching

fire

feel their scorching hearts on smoke

because when they leave

the room is alone with inanimate form

where everything comes into life.

An ant all the same

still runs around,   appears on a page

looking for food.

Is this fight a bunch of ants thinking they know what they want?

Can’t we only want food and leave god alone?

no….

we know how to love;

make ourselves stupid by it.

You rather leave

stay at doing nothing with everything,

cigarettes flying, faking relief,

inhaling fear guides that which tries to be denied

fails for only “nothing” can actually be.

In existence we run around like trapped bugs in a bowl

eventually learning there is no place else

to go

so smile at your neighbor…

cross our legs

begin again.

I am not trying to soften harshness

yet how does one understand injustice

when our length of life in the world

is shorter than a grain of clay,

that I am left on my knees searching under for

the one that doesn’t ask a thing.

We are too many people

to find equality when equality means wanting less – where less means not wanting.

We can’t think clearly because of this?

because of that?

because of victimized ideals?

Bullshit

We can’t think clearly because we can’t think clearly.

Does something that comes out of a mouth,

futile crap spills out of a glass of what was water now is milk

dictate actions in from fear’s belly…

If I act from calm

of what I do not want to be afraid of,

righteousness

roots.

What we think

does not birth

what is truth

when death is not quiet.

arab land? claim land?          land is claimed?           private?

a circus of logic -

Land belongs to land.

We will leave here on the cloud that brought us in dry

or were we in rain?

Democracy is the obvious fabrication

when the man who writes it still puts his dog on a leash.

good listeners?

Arrogant waste.

Kid soldiers with guns

children with bombs

not holding their eyes in their hands

hands that don’t know what they see

but the moon looks the same on both sides of the cage…

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.  Perhaps guilt was part of the beginning, a seeming socially constructed fallacy of our seemingly innate human inadequacies, or is it more?

I find some version of my self in Santa Fe, New Mexico, appetizing my life with a break from academics to taste the rest of the world, to seek focus.  Lucky as I am, if luck exists, a dear friend from AIES, here in Santa Fe, has given me shelter and love and laughs (oh so many laughs) and a vital inspiration unknowingly to question question question – each the other’s child pieced together in a long string expanding simultaneously towards the sustainability and deconstruction of contemplation, of compassion into action.  It is undoubtedly here where here is happening, where the formulation of new awareness pursues itself into a me that I am now becoming, possible it seems only when detached from the very experiences that brought me here, inevitably, after Israel/Palestine, or why don’t we call it Palerael or Israstine? My Santa Fe friend brings me back there with our nostalgia and frustrations, to inadvertently re-evaluate the moments of abandoned understanding from AIES that had taken refuge in the places of the mind which house forgetfulness. In the College of Santa Fe library computer lab, sheltered from the air of cold sunsets and moon rising across the space of our infinite page we are all floating upon – the blue space we call sky around every thing in some essence, attached, here I ask, almost clichéd – do I know my self – and if it even matters?

Here I listen – attempting at the least – to the part of me that defends Israel as a word, separated from its land’s land, people, history, shouts of perpetuated anger internalized externalized mis-analyzed and therefore unlived by the dominance of conflict. Amman recently blew up. The apocalypse came, as it is born and dies every day, to a wedding where 56 people stopped wearing life. Distant friends from Jordan remarked that we mustn’t have compassion for those terrorists who seek to destroy innocent lives, that our country (Jordan) will be safe. Here I am in a sense, while immersed by nature itself in absolutely every part of existence, as relationships between two or more forms govern all that breaths or simply is, disconnected from anything but the war inside myself, the mind and its many fields, my heart, my mouth as the temple of misrepresentation.   I search inside the caves of my confusions for a well, a deeper context. Here in the United States I defend Israel as a word, not the meaning it implies, in attempt to wholly connect those otherwise troubling misunderstandings of people, history, and so on, that by fact of the world being too big while news can still travel too far, many non-Israelis have difficulty seeing it another way, as we all do, as many Israelis do, the ones I hadn’t been fortunate enough to study with in the Arava Institute.   I look under rocks in these caves. Beneath one is the part of me that defends only certain Jews but identifies with them all, perhaps merely out of empathy for a minority that birthed me, whose stereotypes are found every now and then in my speech, my perceptions, and my nose. But out there, deeper but not enough still, where darkness assumes its greatest metaphor, lies another rock. Underneath it reflects the other parts that defended Palestine when I was in Israel, and Israel when in the states. Arguing with Americans, some who say they don’t know but think the opposite, others who don’t know and say they want to know, some non-Jews who genuinely care, I try to reveal to them a distinction between a people – divided by practice and circumstance but bonded by fear – and a government, to those who see no separation and forget their own place in these United States. It is too easy to forget that people speak of the United States along the same narrow confines of judgment, of referring to a country without distinction between its people and its government. And so I go back to defending my rocks, my Israel, my unknown Palestine, as a word.

Amidst the forefront of my wakeful condition’s meeting with a more imaginative state from which it is inspired, I came across a person by the name of Arn Chorn-pond at the College of Santa Fe, whom by no fault of my own and yet by complete fault of my self and the circumstance that has raised me: parents, society, racists, books, sexists, governments, schools, playgrounds, culture, people who’ve retreated to lacking creativity of thought, people who haven’t but have been too sparse, friends, non-friends, and the big wide world, I immediately idolized Arn.  Arn Chorn-pond survived the killing fields of Cambodia by playing communist propaganda flute music for the Khmer Rouge as a 10 year old boy. It was play flute like we tell you or get shot in the head. When he was forced to pick up an AK 47 rifle and shoot anyone who wasn’t of peasant/farmer class, he retreated into the Cambodian wilderness for 3 months and followed monkeys for food. Arn’s life began anew when a prosperous British fellow found him in a Thai refugee camp, weighing 35 pounds at age 13.  He was the first Cambodian to be adopted into the United States.  The remainder of his life has been lived with a fear of an unresolved past but a means to the future, to love, to appreciate, to hug the thought of war out of people, as he claims war is manifested from the fear of self-expression, seducing the world with his compassionate flute, his eyes the epitome of empathy, while he claims to have never known compassion.  My caves filled with rocks, and my Palestine I do not know and my Israel and my self-absorbed confusions and now Santa Fe brings me Arn Chorn to reveal war as fear of self expression. Now I idolize him and again confine myself.

What purpose does the self-construction of an idolized person form? There were questions, or more honestly a belief in certain answers, we fought over on Kibbutz Ketura at AIES, and danced off when Thursday came around later… but not really.  Now in Santa Fe they confront me by new complexities, where gender implies itself into most of the day, leaving me to again evaluate the separation of humanity by uncharted perspectives.  At the computer beside me, sits a girl reading about Ann Frank.  Ann Frank died a long time ago, and by that I mean to insinuate that we should let times pass, forget without forgetting; an act, almost cosmic, that there is no method or prescription for, that each person must discover through question fused with letting question go, and yes genocide still remains a dominant part of our animal regardless. Now she’s reading about Kurt Cobain, a rock star and pop icon whose suicide has been conspiratorial.  The cons of piracy. Perhaps we can let go of the belief in idolizing people. We idolize Gandhi and we idolize Buddha, while others idolize Saddam Hussein. Anne Frank.  Jesus. Alla. Shiva. Hercules.  Is there a difference? Do we force ourselves unwittingly to be enslaved by what we think is right or better? Then how do two people who know they are right communicate with each other? Perhaps when we idolize people we idolize a self-manifested image of that very idol only to get caught in it and inevitably kill when the idol changes or is changed by us, suck out the creativity which otherwise may bring us closer to honing in, personally, that essence we idolize in another. Malcolm X upon returning from a spiritual awakening in Mecca discovered a new methodology of non-violence intended for reaching civil rights in the Unites States, a methodology contradictory to that which he previously preached. It was then that he was assassinated by his own followers.

Why don’t we try idolizing the part inside of us that comments on love, on suffering, on searching for the relevance of questions?  Of course many have already done that and published their understandings or painted them on walls, but that’s not me, that’s them.  Call it philosophy, poetry, math, science, reading, painting, expression abstractly or not.  Can we simply appreciate and move on, take it all as just a pebble stepped on one’s own way, without killing self-expression, without locking our ability to think for our selves?  Take a person as an inspiration, or as an instrument for deconstructing the barriers of our confusions, without confining them by idolization.

Have you ever thought to understand the inevitability of war when lying naked with a lover, each time a first time, each time a new creation the world has not seen?  Does the beauty of virgin confusion seem at all along the stream of possibility, set beside reason for killing, for war?  My once closest friend – a brother really – is a soldier for the Israeli Defense Force; thinks he has a duty, so do I.  We stopped being the brothers we used to be when due to our opposite circumstance he went that way and I, privileged by an American mother who gave me American citizenship, I went to study environmental peace with Jews and Muslims (and in the second semester of AIES there was a Hebrew-speaking German Christian named Jan whom I will try not to idolize). Nir, my soldiered brother friend showed me what I am afraid of, without conscious mention, when I told him what he was afraid of, what our whole country is afraid of, as we yelled at each other like enemies who once loved one another.  My roommate at AIES, who’d become like a brother too had detested all those who decide to demoralize their existence by agreeing to prescribe to Israel’s mandatory draft. He is a pacifist with war surrounding his heart.  I was afraid of those who are too afraid to look past war, past a prescribed end of life due to an idolization of what we think is right, fixed. People say war is not the answer, but are we too afraid to come up with a better alternative? Competition is natural – they say, but all animate and inanimate relationship in the web of the world, time, space, energy, everything, is governed by mutualism, by two beings in one form or another, be it whale or bacteria or atoms, whose existence rests on the necessity of connection with the other.  Survival of the fittest – they say too.  That got us into a puddle too thick to clean our feet of its stains.  So we are animals in conflict, but don’t want to live like dogs.  Paradox into paradox into paradox makes life more confusing than necessary.  We strive for better, and in doing so usually go too far.

Sometimes the most complex problems seem in a way, to be diminished by remarkably simple methods.  We are too many and too confused to rid our species of conflict – as such a word embraces multitudes of meaning – but if we are only, and this is a substantial only, to befriend an otherwise unrecognized fear, commonly expressed through a person we do not agree with, it is my belief that problems will embark upon new forms, ones that hold a more profound shape assumed anew throughout our minds, our hearts. I re-befriended my brother-friend in the IDF. While we do not connect as the little boys we once were and never will again, both our eyes have been subjected to different experience, and it seems we must shut them together to build a bridge in between.

Last night, before the lover and the bed, we watched the beginning of an awful movie which nevertheless found its place of meaning, remarkably, typically. A question was posed of great relevance to the dissemination of conflict.  Are we so used to our patterns of living that we have conditioned ourselves, walled from the infinite possibility of interaction that exists in the animate world of inter-relationships, of life, that we cannot strive for new modes of being, creative expressions of ourselves in the midst of other creative expressions of other selves? That we instead maintain the relatively similar patterns of our lives, falling into the same relationships, the same conflicts, and the same wars from fear of self-expression, growing tired until an eventual state of laziness (and other like shortcomings of life’s potential) governs our preceding condition and relationships with human and non-human entities. Oh life give me something new and let me take without taking and give without giving and relinquish the blur of destructive mentality.  But yes, this takes great will, simply difficult, difficultly simple.

Who is to read this, our choir; those already interested in a sacrifice for the pursuit of peace, or are not willing to sacrifice enough? I have written here only a few words, and they are of no more relevance than an opportunity to share merely a few footsteps towards discovering a more potent love of life’s offering.  I am privileged, and I am white, and I am American, and I am Israeli, and I am Jewish, and I write, and I photograph, and I talk, and I sing (badly but enjoy it), and I probably love, and I probably hate, and I fear, and I smile, and I write down the way certain smiles feel, and I sleep, and I bleed, and I ask, and I look, and I get stuck, and I try to listen to more than our human voice, and I have not seen war, and I have not seen peace, and I have been born with gifts upon gifts that I have not yet learned to fully embody, but oppression comes in many forms, and this is – although most likely over-simplified – me asking for more and enough.

Everytime I think of that experience I am overcome by complete frustration. Not because I don’t sympathize with Palestinians; indeed, anyone would slap a pro-palestine label on me within a moment’s glance at my views of the conflict. But mostly because it really set the tone for a vast majority of my discussions with others on the topic. There’s even a manner by which I am dismissed of my views depending on whom I’m talking to: the Palestinian camp will react with hostility, annoyance, sometimes yelling, while the Israeli camp will smile condescendingly like I’m some stupid idealist who’s not worth being serious with anyway (this, by the way, i find far less tolerable than the aforementioned yelling). I have friends who come from Jewish families who, despite being opposed to the Israeli occupation, can’t help but view any of my stances against the occupation as being at least a teeny tiny bit anti-semitic. It seems to me that either side you are percieved to be on comes with all this baggage of racism and total hostility. I just want to be able to talk about a real issue that affects people on both sides of the territories.  I want to be able to talk about the issues unfettered by these preconcieved notions. I sympathize tremeandously with both sides on a human level. I want to be able to talk about religious extremism as a driving force that perpetuates violence from both sides. I want to talk about the distorted manner in which the conflict is depicted in the media. And I want to talk about how many on both sides, having already harbored heavily racist attitudes against the other even before the conflict, have been choosing turning a blind eye to, nay: celebrating the other’s suffering. And this has afflicted me profoundly: today, when I see people wearing skullcaps or headscarves, I feel a slight but very real aversion. This simply wasn’t the case when I was a teenager, even after gaining familiarity with the conflict. I’ve lately been catching myself wondering, gosh, will I ever be able to casually approach such people as I once have before? It’s totally fucked for me to have to ask myself this.

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,

making me care

that I don’t know from where

or what is

my heritage.

My mother says Palestine

was the start of the line

it’s the same for all God’s children.

But I want to know what

happened

to my people since then.

And I know

you don’t know

that I don’t know my line.

But don’t tell me yours.

Don’t ask me mine.

It’s a waste of our time.

Anecdote:

I was talking,

chilling

with this kid the other night,

Then dialogue

turned into fight.

Topic of conversation

was the Jews and their flight.

Fleeing persecution

from the Anti-Semites.

Then the next day,

is this casual way,

with no contemplation

and thus no comprehension,

he has the negligence to turn to me and say:

“Where is it that you come from?

“See, I don’t know

from where my people come.

pertaining to our last conversation,

how come you didn’t have the realization

we’ve had to leave every nation

who so ever so graciously

allowed my race in.”

Yes,

I am a child of unknown descent,

don’t know where I been,

but I am going where I’m meant.

Hoping to prove its not my ethnicity,

but my destiny

that matters.

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.

Like only the best of imaginary places, Jerusalem was wondrous to experience.  Oh, I remember Jerusalem.  I remember dancing through the night with the living streets, the stars, the smirking moon, the night breeze.  I remember disappearing through narrow alleys marked by ancient arches, religious hippies with their dreadlocks and their night celebrating the place itself in their private corners of timeless stone.  I remember bars without ceilings or entrances, stepping between the definition of in and out of doors, while the city, delighting in this, presented us everything at once: moonlit food vendors beside kippah stands and accessory shops, an uncountable range of difference among this same people wandering the streets in their respective, identical joy; this particular, infinite night, this tiny thing living and breathing upon the eternal bones of our total history, each of my dancing footsteps upon the invisible imprint of every other child of Israel who had ever seen the night.  The city was with us.

“I’ve got to show you something,” said the accent to my left to the rest of us strangers, to his foreign family convening from different hemispheres of geography and language and religious thought, pulled towards the epicenter through thousand-year-old gravity.  Down, down we went through the gate to the Old City herself, down to nearly the Wall, even.  The rest were too shy to come into the yeshiva with us.  “This way.”

I chased him up those enormous steps, twisted out the window and up to the roof, my eyes suddenly cupped closed by those foreign hands from behind me, as I was pushed farther and farther along the blind rooftop in the universe’s most perfect summer breeze.  “Open them.”  Everything, Jordan.  Everything.  The lights of Jerusalem at night.  The spires of time itself.  Every Passover, every postcard, every desperate prayer I was ever taught.  All of the pain, and hope, and broken promises of Israel, all these things always etched upon my heart, redeemed by this infinite candle at the centre of the world.  It was the most beautiful thing I had ever seen, the deepest gift to the Jewish soul.  Home.  The City herself was glowing.

“Isn’t it amazing?” someone said, when we finally convinced the rest to come up with us, “that full moon, it’s the same moon in Canada and Australia and Mexico, the same moon we all always see, here on this other point of earth.”

Earth? I thought.  Not the place with the Western newspapers?  We’re at the centre of time, man.  That’s not the smirking moon.  I left that at home.

“Why aren’t there any Palestinians in your photographs?”

“What Palestinians?”

“Weren’t you in Jerusalem?”

“Where?”

Like all imaginary places, Jerusalem appears on the tongues of people lamenting their exploded relatives, their old homes, their traditions and their dead.  Like all imaginary places, Jerusalem appears regularly in Western newspapers, photographs of people’s fragmented skulls, and such, scattered as politics and entertainment through curious eyes – mine, for instance – who think the dead are quaint or entertaining.

My unofficial tour began with the bullet holes in the Ottoman wall.  “From the Six Day War,” she explained.  An imaginary war of the ancient history of this ancient town.  “Like Quebec City,” I thought to myself, looking at the costumed young people, dressed like antique soldiers with their enormous assault rifles.

It is a strange city, dripping with history like no place I’d ever been.  Don’t tell me you understand this place; I won’t believe you.  Don’t tell me the museums of the city can be understood by men.  For the city itself is the museum.  Exhibits built into the layers of time and stone, as all around them modernity keeps on building.  How many times has this place been conquered and reconquered?  How many have proclaimed it their rightful gift and home?  Strange that people used to live and die for this city.

I’ve heard of this place called Jerusalem.  Invention of an old textbook, capital of kingdoms, dream of crusaders’ hearts.  I’ve heard of the make-believe cemeteries where real bones are buried, as if such things could be housed upon the earth.  Beside checkpoints and exploded buses, if they are to be believed.

“I truly believe it is the centre of the world,” Eitan said with a smile.  “You’ve seen those olds maps, haven’t you, where it was shown as exactly that?  A holy city of three faiths, the centre of the world’s religious soul.  The meeting place of timelessness with the modern world.”

“Isn’t that weird?” I said, looking at the pavement carved around ancient walls, at a city to which I’ve never been.  “People are looking for parking.  It’s the twenty first century.  They’re not living in history, anymore.”

Eitan is an old friend, someone I knew for years in Canada before his family moved to Israel when he was nine.  Eitan has been to Jerusalem; I’m sure of it.  He taught me not to fear the buses the first time I was there: I ride them every day, Jordan; I have ridden them for years, Jordan; this is my life, Jordan.  We traveled there together, him on the way home from his army base for the weekend, me to spend Shabbat with his family as one more stop on my vacation.  How strange to see him carrying an assault rifle.  It looked a great deal heavier than my bottle of water.

“I could never live anywhere other than Jerusalem,” he said to me.  “It is the best city to live in.”  He paused.  “A complicated city to live in.  But the only city for me.”

“Indeed,” I said, dreamily, “imagine living in Jerusalem.  All those fabulous, endless nights with the wind and the lights, the days with the rebuilt temple.”

“A complicated city to live in.”

“Complicated indeed.  Imagine trying to figure out what year it is, to interpret the eternity of our people.”

“I mean the conflict.”

“Conflict?”

“With the Palestinians.”

“What Palestinians?”

“Weren’t you in Jerusalem?”

“Never heard of them.”

“What?”

“Oh, those Palestinians.  No, I wouldn’t worry about that.  I’m sure if you guys just talked it over no one would be upset anymore.”

“A complicated city to live in.”

“The centre of the world?” I laughed.  “My god, Eitan, you’ve been out of Canada too long!  Get some perspective.  It’s not like everyone on earth cares about this place.  Holy city for three faiths, indeed.  Only three, Eitan, only three.  Nobody even lives here!  No Sikhs, no Hindus, no Buddhists, for example, no Muslims, no Christians, no Jews.  The centre of the world is Toronto, Ontario.  The intersection of two lines in the middle of the Atlantic.”

“This is our stop.”

“Here?”

“Here.”

“I don’t know, man.  This looks like a real place.  I see people looking for parking.  I see your parents waiting with their gas-powered automobile.  I see children trembling with fear.  Let’s try the next one.  I think it’s the end of time.”

“So you hate the Palestinians?”

“What?”

“Isn’t that what you just said?”

“What?” I asked, shocked.

“You said you’re with Jerusalem.”

“Jerusalem?  I thought I told you.  I’ve never been there.”

“So you hate the Israelis.”

“What? I thought I told you.  I’ve never been there.”

There are many ways out of Jerusalem.  Well, only one, if you mean the bus station, but I think you’ll agree that’s not what you mean.  I’ll take you from Jerusalem the way I got to leave, in a taxi with a driver who wasn’t ready for me to go.  “When’s your flight?”

“Eight o’clock tomorrow morning.”

“Then I have to show you something,” he said, turning the wheel with tremendous gravity and duty.  “I have to show you what has happened here.

“A bomb went off there.  And there.  And there.  And,” he said, dutifully, entirely matter-of-fact, “my brother was killed there.

“Come back here.  This is your home, brother.  Promise you’ll come back here.”

“Yup, eight o’clock,” I said.

It reminded me of this concert Eitan took me to.  He wanted to show me Jerusalem at night, knowing and not knowing that I’d already seen it.  There we were, Eitan and me, these old friends, carriers of assault rifles and bottles of water, dancing upon living history and eternity in that same place of the perfect night breezes and endless time, the old, Ottoman train station reverberating electric with modern rock.  They sang of peace in the Holy Land, of not caring which side you were on, and as I heard the words I was overcome with joy that at last the people of this sacred place had matured their way out of history.

I could imagine it then.  An historic way out, the way by the train station.  Don’t get me wrong, it didn’t happen, not even in my imaginary world.  But I was wondering if it could have.  A bomb.  The tearing flesh and lights of this rock concert.  Eitan charred and in pieces.  Not me, of course.  I was safe.  I was in Canada at the time.  I was on vacation in Jerusalem.

Uh, yeah, so in answer to your question, it’s sort of hard to say.  I’d say I’m in Jerusalem, of course, but I know I’ve never seen it, I know I just can’t get it.  I’m in Jerusalem, of course.  If you could be where I have been, I’m sure you would agree.

Biography

Jordan Pelc grew up in Toronto.  He is now in his fourth year of a bachelor in arts and science degree in physics and philosophy at McGill University in Montreal.  He spent part of last summer volunteering for Magen David Adom in Israel.

It was about a year ago that we, both Canadian medical students at the University of Montréal, decided to venture out into the world of the Palestinian-Israeli conflict. One of us, Ramzy W. is a Canadian born Palestinian Christian, and the other, Mahli B. is a French Quebecer. Our vision was simple: spend one summer volunteering in Palestine, give of ourselves what we can and absorb as much as we can about this part of the world. This small step turned into many and on June 7, 2005 we were both in the air on our way to somewhat uncharted territories that left a lasting mark on our lives.

Nous savions, en nous dirigeant vers la Palestine, qu’il serait dur de demeurer objectifs. Déjà, avant le départ, nos sympathies envers la Palestine et les Palestiniens étaient plutôt claires, et nous étions alors conscients que ces sentiments avaient pu influencer non seulement nos sources d’informations, mais également ce que nous voulions croire et interpréter de ce conflit si prompt à déclencher les passions et les rancoeurs. Effectivement il est toujours difficile d’accepter d’écouter des points de vue contraires à ses convictions profondes, et encore plus ardu de les comprendre sans essayer de les modifier. Aussi le but de cet article n’est-il pas un débat politique. Si celui-ci est important et nécessaire, nous laissons à d’autres le soin de s’y perdre. Nous voulons parler de ce que nous avons vu, sans souci de convaincre : il nous est impossible de parler de ce que nous ne connaissons pas. Si nous cherchions à mieux comprendre, nous n’avons pu saisir qu’un seul côté du problème. Nous avons été témoins, pour une si courte période devant une situation si complexe, de la vie de quelques Palestiniens, et ce sont ces quelques histoires que nous voulons présenter. Nous voulons dire ce qui nous a touché, ce qui nous a impressionné et donné de l’espoir, mais cela sans oublier qu’il existe, de l’autre côté d’un certain mur, de nombreuses souffrances comparables.

For the two months or so that we spent in Palestine, we volunteered in various medical clinics and rehabilitation centers in and around Ramallah, Hebron and Bethlehem. Though our work experience was greatly enriching and at times very rewarding, looking back on our trip what impacted us the most was the various people that we met. These ordinary Palestinians, unseen by the world media, are full of life and dreams. We hope to leave you with a snapshot of their lives.

It was our second to last day in Palestine and we were anxious to get back to Ramallah from a full day in Nablus visiting the family of one of Ramzy’s friends. We hopped on a taxi from the center of town and headed to the Howara check point, one of the two Israeli checkpoints controlling all access into and out of Nablus. We passed through a set of metal bars, then a metal detector, had our backpacks searched and then went through Passport control to finally reach the taxi that would take us back to Ramallah. Ten minutes after being on the road we were again stopped at the Zatara checkpoint, just outside of Nablus near the town of Zatara. Our taxi was approximately 20^th in line waiting to be checked so we were about to spend a good amount of time with the driver.

It was an especially hot day, the sun was shining, and the sky was bright blue with no hint of a cloud in sight. There we were sitting in the front seat of a Ford, the bus/taxi that is prominently featured around all Palestinian cities and villages. Making small chat with those in vehicle, the taxi driver became more and more interested in us and was excited at the possibility of sharing some of his experiences with us “westerners and sympathizers”. Looking at the long line of cars in front of him he turned to us and said: “This is nothing, I do this everyday. If they (Israeli army) make me wait, I’ll wait, if they put up a road block, I’ll go around it even if it takes me over the hills and mountains and through the bushes. He looked on with fervor and exclaimed, even if they put up the wall right here, I’ll find a way to get over it.”

This taxi driver’s comments summarized the lives of almost every Palestinian that we met. No matter how hard the situation gets, no matter how many obstacles are put in the way and no matter the humiliation, these people will find a way to flourish despite all the odds against them.

Our volunteering through the West-Bank took us to the Bethlehem Arab Rehabilitation Society (BASR) at the top of the highest hill in a small town called Beit-Jala, just north of Bethlehem. From the many people that we met there, one beautiful young girl stands out in both of our minds. Tahrir, a nine year old girl was placed in full time residence at the children’s department of the BASR.  At first glance she seemed to have partial left facial paralysis, partial left arm and leg paralysis along with contractures on the same side. After spending time with her, and watching her drawing with chalk outside on the pavement and talking with her, we became aware that she also suffered from some cognitive difficulties, had a poor memory and seemed to struggle with simple math. It was only after a discussion with one of the staff nurses that we came to understand what had happened to her. Five years earlier, at the age of four, at the beginning of the second intifada, Tahrir’s house, like many other Palestian homes, was the target of an Israeli army home invasion. The soldiers, 10 or 15 of them, with full gear and guns half their size, stormed her house in the middle of the night. Tahrir became so frightened and scared that she suffered a stroke. Five years later, she still lives with the terrible consequences and will probably live with these debilitating consequences for the rest of her life.

Nous avons pu également nous rendre compte de manière moins théorique des effets de la seconde Intifada et de l’occupation israéliennes de par quatre autres personnes que nous y avons rencontrées. Il s’agit de jeunes hommes entre 20 et 30 ans, patients externes ou résidents à l’hôpital. Enfants pendant la première Intifada, ils ont grandi trop vite et se sont retrouvés adolescents ou jeunes adultes dans la violence décuplée de l’Intifada Al Aqsa[1].

Abed était garde du corps d’Arafat et a un jour reçu une balle au niveau lombaire, résultant en une paralysie et une anesthésie complète de ses membres inférieurs. Il ne se déplace qu’en fauteuil roulant, et a dû maintes fois faire face aux humiliations infligées par des soldats aux check points, qui ne veulent pas, ou font semblant, croire qu’il ne peut pas marcher.

Amjad, étudiant en anesthésie, travaillait dans un hôpital public de la région d’Hébron, et était de garde un jour où des soldats israéliens sont entrés et ont déclenché une fusillade : après avoir reçu une balle dans la cuisse, il recommence à marcher après deux ans de physiothérapie.

Samir souffre d’ostéomyélite chronique, inopérable en Palestine, suite à l’infection d’une plaie résultant elle aussi d’une balle dans la cuisse. Il ne se déplace pas sans béquille, et peut difficilement supporter la vie quotidienne sans médication anti-douleur.

Osama a reçu pareillement une balle dans la cuisse : après plusieurs chirurgies et des mois de physiothérapie et de rééducation, il ne marche toujours pas normalement. Habitant Hébron et devant se faire traiter à l’hôpital de Beit Jala, il ne sait jamais s’il pourra se rendre d’un endroit à un autre, les check points et les soldats déterminant ses déplacements.

À l’exception d’Amjad, aucun d’entre eux ne trouve de travail, et tous rêvent de quitter la Palestine. Ils ont représenté pour nous une génération sacrifiée à la violence, une jeunesse triste et se croyant sans avenir, rêvant d’ailleurs en n’osant pas espérer mieux. Écoutant leurs aînés leur répéter que leur destin et celui de leur peuple est de se battre, il leur est difficile d’imaginer un futur fait de paix et d’entente, dans lequel ils pourraient vivre sans penser à la prochaine balle, la prochaine humiliation ou leur prochain ami emprisonné sans jugement pour durée indéterminée.

From the many stories that we heard and the many changed lives that we saw, it is the stories and experiences of the Palestinian children that were the most difficult to bear. In every conflict, children always face the hardest consequences. So innocent and unprotected, many of them grow up much faster than necessary and end up with a lost childhood.

As we finish this article, there is one picture that we would like to leave with you. It is a picture of two Palestinian boys from the small village of Wadi-Fukin. Wadi-Fukin, is a small Palestinian village surrounded by the Gush Etzion Israeli colonies bloc, a concentrated area of colonization that includes 12 separate colonies, Betar Illit and Hadar Betar being the most prominent. There in Wadi-Fukin stands five clear springs of natural water sources. The two boys were standing on the side of the spring, waiting for us to snap the picture. The first boy jumped and flipped in the air landing awkwardly in the water. Reaching for air he screams out “let me see let me see…did you get me in the picture”.  The second looks around, takes a deep breath, reaches down then springs himself upwards as far as he can go. Soaring freely in the air, he clasps his hands in front of his head just in time to make the dive. Reaching the ledge he is breathing heavily but smiling from ear to ear.

Coming back from our trip, we were on many occasions confronted with the question. Is there any hope… can there ever be a bright future in this troubles land? It is through the eyes of these young, resilient and innocent boys, who stood proudly brimming with excitement on the side of that spring, that we attempt to search for a light in this troubled land.

To me, the point of our prayers

is that they may reach Israel

through sound waves

like a wave, a wave of energy

blessing it thoroughly

and as I walked out from the subway

and through the door

I thought I heard praying

the kind that would seep out of holy windows

in the old city of Jerusalem

and then I thought that it was just the wind

the wind that carries our messages

the wind that is mute, silenced, and yet howling, pushing

the unspeakable to far off distances

from our perched lips

the wind, filling us with all of those unutterable words

like a mediator

but then I realized that the sound was artificial

like everything else on our manmade earth

the vacuum was blowing, sucking and inhaling our souls

into a brown paper bag that is choking us

what of the prayers, you ask?

what of?

it looks as though the prayers aren’t moving

they just aren’t circulating, just aren’t churning

Biography

Lindsay Soberano, 27, holds a Bachelor of Arts degree in English and Creative Writing from Concordia University and a Masters degree in English from the University of Toronto. She has had numerous articles and poems published in Canadian publications, such as The Jewish Tribune, Quills Canadian Poetry Magazine, Canadian Woman Studies Journal, and most recently, Yalla Journal, which is a compilation of writing by Jewish and Arab writers that promotes dialogue on the Israeli-Palestinian conflict. She continues to pursue a career in writing, while also pursuing a career as a high school English and Drama teacher.

By Lindsay Soberano

This is my third visit to Israel, but this time is different. This time I want to get down to the bottom of things and to understand the political situation to the best of my ability. I am seeking the truth, but as I seek truth in a country that constantly shifts and is run by people with opposing ideologies, I find that my perspective changes on a daily basis. I have a deep love for Israel, but I know she is imperfect. Therefore, I am striving to make peace with that contradiction. I want to know how to defend her. Not just how to, but I want to believe in all that I have to say. Not just because I am a Jew, but because I have reached this conclusion through education. Not simply an education that develops through textbooks, but an education that arises from firsthand experience.

Kaleidoscopic Viewpoints of Israel

My relationship with Israel is like no other country; its rich culture, history and landscape is like a mysterious, complex, wise person who I want to keep on getting to know, but who I will never be able to fully grasp. The first time I came to Israel, I was 18 and on a one-month Canada Israel Experience tour, which was organized by the United Jewish Appeal Federation (UJA). Though the trip was life changing, as I began to identify with my Jewish identity, that fact that I was on a tour meant that I viewed Israel through a limited perspective.

In other words, I did not even know about Palestinian refugees. I did not know about Zionism. I did not know about the British Mandate. I did not know the full extent of the Jewish refugee problem following WWII. I did not know who Theodor Herzl was. I could go on and on. I was only briefly introduced to some of these issues at that time. Hence, that trip could not mentally take me to where I am now. At the time I only saw Israel with my eyes and my heart. I soaked up her landscapes and people, her monuments and historical sites. I saw her shell. I played the tourist.

Don’t get me wrong, the trip was very effective, from a Zionist’s point of view. Those philanthropists who subsidized the program got their money’s worth. I was a

textbook example of what seeing Israel could do for a young Jewish girl. I went home

dreaming of returning to my homeland, of somehow contributing to Israel. I had stood at the Westerm Wall and felt moved. I actually had a religious awakening. It’s hard to describe now; it was seven years ago, but I began to feel as though I belonged to something larger than myself. I began to understand what it was to feel Jewish. I was remembering where it was I came from. My new experience had changed me, inside and out, so much that I eventually broke up with my non-Jewish boyfriend.

I returned to Israel two years later on another program sponsored through the UJA to teach English to children at Kibbutz Amiad. At that time I began to see Israel in more of an authentic light, because I remained on the kibbutz for a month and had an adopted family. I also spent a few weeks in Jerusalem taking seminars at Aish Hatorah. I finally felt as though I had begun to delve beyond Israel’s surface. I was now a traveler. I even felt as though I had a taste of what it was like to be a resident.

That was four years ago. It took me four years to come back. This was partly because of the rise of the Intifada. Though the more I thought about it, the more I refused to be kept from enjoying Israel and exploring my Jewish heritage. I found myself admiring others who went to Israel regardless of the situation and finally committed to following their lead. I researched various programs in Israel and discovered the World Union of Jewish Students (WUJS) in Arad. WUJS offers three tracks for university graduates that each include ulpan (Hebrew classes): 1) Arts 2) Peace and Social Justice 3) and Israel and Jewish studies. WUJS also offers assistance to those interested in making Aliyah. I enrolled in WUJS in the Israel and Jewish studies track, where I took classes in Talmud, Israeli Politics, Israeli Film and Literature, and the Media. Every Wednesday we went on a one-day seminar outside of Arad. I experienced seminars on a wealth of topics, such as the Bedouins, Israel’s Independence, Israel and Foreign Affairs, Arts and Culture, and the history of Jerusalem.

I began the semester with a hike through the Negev, but I soon found myself in ulpan amazed at the fact that I was reading and writing in Hebrew, even if it was only at the aleph (beginners) level. Suddenly, Hebrew was no longer esoteric to me. When I walked the streets of Israel I could actually understand some of the words that flew out of the mouths of the passer-byes. Living in a small town allowed me to feel more like a resident than a tourist. The fact that I experienced Israel on a more intimate level was not the only thing that granted me a great sense of satisfaction — other people were now following my lead. Both my mother and my boyfriend made trips to Israel to be with me. It was my mother’s first time and my boyfriend had been on a 10-day birthright trip.

At times I cannot believe how enmeshed I felt, but of course there were those moments of isolation that came with the territory. Though the small town of Arad lent to peace and quiet and inner reflection, sometimes the shear size of it made the city girl in me feel trapped. Once and a while I would get a pang of cabin fever and go for a long walk to the viewpoint, which overlooked the Negev Desert and the Dead Sea. The view was so special and I savoured it every time, reminding myself that I did not have this majestic landscape in Toronto. On clear days, I could see the Dead Sea and the crevices of each mountain. From where I stood the sea was shaped like a peanut and even from this aerial view I could see the hot mist hovering over the water. The desert was still. The silence was sublime. It was as though sound was filtered through cotton balls, so that each sound—the sound of my footsteps, the sound of the wind, the sound of the birds—

was intense and raw. The sun would reflect off of the water in beams of starry light.

But other days the desert changed right before my eyes, with the setting sun, or the reflection of the drifting clouds. On cloudy days, the Dead Sea was barely visible, and the mountains would change colour. The clouds passed over the mountains so effortlessly, almost painting or sculpting the way the peaks appeared. When I went for evening walks, as the sun set, it was as though a curtain fell over the Dead Sea, waiting to be lifted at the dawn of a new day. However, the desert changed as swiftly as Israel’s political situation. The desert also changed as swiftly as my viewpoint of Israel changed. It transformed from ugly to beautiful and from beautiful to ugly right before my eyes.

The lack of entertainment in Arad was not the only thing that made those difficult days hard to contend with. There were those days when I would have to wait in a long line at the bank, only to be told I could not cash my cheque because the computers were down. (This happened endless amounts of times, but eventually I learned that if I went for a short stroll, then by the time I returned the computers would be up again.) I swear they always saw me coming. Being in Israel was not always a bowl of cherries. I mean I was in a different culture. I was susceptible to culture shock, especially when people practically breathed down my neck while I was in line—if there even was a line.

I will never forget the time I ordered a Caesar Salad. In all honesty, I think Caesar would have had a conniption. The salad was a shame to its namesake. The dish consisted of lettuce, tomatoes, carrots and almond shavings, topped with a thousand island dressing. Do not get me wrong, it was fresh and tasty, but it just wasn’t a Caesar salad; it was an impostor. It was an orange Caesar salad without bite. There wasn’t a single crouton, or even anything that looked remotely like it. I eventually learned how to go with the tide. I had to learn how to be extremely flexible. Things are not planned in Israel the way they are planned in North America. Things are more fluid here.

Most days I would take in my surroundings and be thankful for being here. I felt safer just knowing that I was in a small town rather than living in Jerusalem or Tel Aviv. Some days I thought Arad was the most beautiful place. Where else can you wake up in the morning and say that you are in the middle of the desert? The view from my window was endless desert mountains. I learned to love the desert, or so I thought. Other days I looked at her in disgust. Other days the desert was such a hindrance. The wind would howl and make my windows shake. Some days I couldn’t even have the pleasure of fresh air, because if I opened my windows the hot air and the mucky desert dust would blow in. The desert did not only change as fast as Israel’s political landscape, but it was as volatile as Israel’s political situation.

I would also look at all of Arad’s immigrants and wonder if I was even in Israel. I sometimes felt as though I was in Russia or America (the Hebrews spoke mostly in American English accents). There were those days when I felt as though I was on the outside looking in. All I wanted was to be with someone who truly knew me. There were days when I was forced to live in a sort of solitude. Then again, whenever I felt isolated someone extended a hand, and though I came to expect talkativeness from Israelis, sometimes it still came as a surprise. Sometimes I still had to work on peeling off all those layers that came from living in a big city and from bundling up in the cold winters.

While I was in Israel I could not help but realize that even the views I hold of her were surely destined to change in the future. Because when I looked back at the limited perspectives I had on Israel, I knew that this time was not any different. There was still a lot of discovering to do. However, what I did know was that for a 25-year-old Jewish Canadian woman, I had discovered a lot about Israel. I know that nothing is black and white. I just hope that others can adopt this technique when passing judgement on Israel, because too many people have a skewed image about who she is. Too many people judge her, before trying to get to know her. I feel bad for Israel. She deserves more friends after all that she has been through. She should not have to be the outcast. She should not have to be ganged up on. Maybe I can help those people see her as a human. Maybe I can show people her beauty and courage and magic.

Last night, a fellow WUJS student told me a story by Rav Kook’s son. It was about a young beautiful woman arranged to be married to a rich but vile man. She did not agree to marriage but she agreed to meet him. When he saw her, however, he was rather displeased and walked out before even talking to her. Did he fail to see her beauty or did she decide that he was unworthy of seeing her beauty? Similarly, do those who fail to see Israel’s beauty reject her, or does she reject them

Biography

Lindsay Soberano, 27, holds a Bachelor of Arts degree in English and Creative Writing from Concordia University and a Masters degree in English from the University of Toronto. She has had numerous articles and poems published in Canadian publications, such as The Jewish Tribune, Quills Canadian Poetry Magazine, Canadian Woman Studies Journal, and most recently, Yalla Journal, which is a compilation of writing by Jewish and Arab writers that promotes dialogue on the Israeli-Palestinian conflict. She continues to pursue a career in writing, while also pursuing a career as a high school English and Drama teacher.