Chayei Sarah

16/6/2012

2 Comments

Hebron - June 8, 2012

Reading the Life of Sarah on the grass with other people

It’s really about what happens when someone dies

Out of all of the so-called cities out there, I have never felt so much like an outlaw in a space world

Hevron exists today, but post-apocalypse

Hebron - June 8, 2012

Upon arrival I find Abed and ask for water. He hands me a bottle as I realize that I have no money in my wallet. He offers me the water for free. I refuse, but I must look thirsty. How can I take the water for free? I can’t take it.

The 3 shekel sum is the basis of all life in this moment.

I need to earn my water.

I walk briskly back to the group and ask Karen for change.
I return with the money and he gives me 2 bottles of water for the price of 2 bottles of water.
Abed’s wrinkled skin and enormous brown eyes shine.
A soldier is staring at me through the bulletproof glass of the booth. Beyond that is the The tomb of the atriarchs.

Soldiers are sitting, standing, breaking silence, laughing, and waiting.

I wish this were some fictional place. It might be that 70’s rock is blasting from the Jewish community centre across the road.
That reminds me

it's real.

As we walk through the vibrant market (not the dead and gone market) old men offer us magnets of Arafat and old keys to old houses. We smile awkwardly, thinking out loud that they shouldn’t sell them.

I paid for that water. There are so many fresh parts all over the place, but the rot is tunneling around. I paid for that water.

Tel Aviv - June 8, 2012

Here, I always feel like a stranger in a familiar land.

2 Comments

Tristan link

2/7/2012 10:57:33 am

"old men offer us magnets of Arafat and old keys to old houses."

I doubt very much that the old men called them simply "keys to old houses", but rather, "keys to houses stolen by Israelis in the Nakba". At least that's what they claimed to be selling last year when I visited the market.

I thought out loud too that day, that I could only hope that they were lying, and that the keys were imported from somewhere else to sell to unwitting and less than culturally sensitive tourists.

Tristan

17/7/2012 08:04:35 am

Hey Dan, visited Khalil this week and since have had some of my own thoughts about the history of this place.

http://northernsong.wordpress.com/2012/07/17/the-power-of-appropriating-history-thoughts-on-the-settlers-in-al-khalil/

Basically, what happened in Hebron is symbolic of the post-apocalyptic nightmare that is Zionism, and is another example of how persecution of Jews allowed the Zionists to speak for all the Jews and marginalize anti-Zionist voices. I think that today, challenging the historical narrative that insists Palestinian hatred is the cause of the conflict in Palestine is important peace-work regardless of whether you take a pro or anti-Zionist perspective. It also represents a quintessential missed opportunity of the Palestinian Revolution (although to be fair, 1929 was a long time before the launch of the Palestinian Revolution), part of its continual inability to live up to its own ideal of supporting Jews who face discrimination. If the Palestinians don't stand and support anti-Zionist Jews, what can they expect but the continual dominance of ZIonism within Jewish communities?

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Chayei Sarah

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