Just Chicks

I said to Hubby as I was walking with him after work - Next time we're at the flower store, let's ask for plants with a lifespan like Arafat - you can throw them out of a plane, they can get sick and sick and sicker and never every die and live 300 years.

I was laughing at Hubby's kid complaints - "Did you see the Oldest daughter on the couch yesterday. Just picking away at her nose. What the fuck is she digging up there? And the other one grabbing her crotch all the time." I explained the Nasty crotch grabber is a fan of rappers and that's what they do so she's just imitating art.

I made arrangements with a friend from work to see the movie Shall We Dance. Hubby said he'd go with me last night but this is a chick flick and it's no fun grabbing ahold of his arm when you're watching Richard Gere. It's far better to see it with girlfriends and squeal away. So, another friend from work and her mother (who is my age) decided to join us as well. Just no men, puleeese.

Sabbath Guests and more

Last night's meal went off pretty well without a hitch. Of course the Complainer daughter piped up a few hours beforehand - How can you invite people when we have a disgusting salon? Aren't you embarrassed? Are they Arabs? Why do they live in Arab villages? I told her if she sticks around when they come, they can answer all her questions. My Good Daughter helped me loads and by the time the guests arrived, our place- including ourselves - looked orderly. Guests that come in three's seem sorta mystical to me. There were the 3 wise men. Before that the 3 angels that came to visit Abraham in his tent. Here I had 2 Swedes and 1 South African whose wife is a member of parliament there. I cannot tell you how high I felt having lively and intelligent discussions and how wonderful it was that Hubby came out of his cave and particpated in the discussions. He had walked through the supermarket Thursday evening embarrassing me to no end, belching twice really loud. I really hoped and prayed that everything would look normal to our guests. My kids behaved well and only eldest daughter slipped a bit when the dog was bothering her and she quipped a quick - What the fuck are you doing - at the dog, before a glance from me, stopped her in her tracks.

She told me a funny story this morning. Natan Sharansky, I think he is still a knesset member or minister of something but maybe he isn't anymore - ate dinner at the restaurant where she works. Her boss who is the manager of the place is a Palestinian. Sharansky came with a bodyguard who sat 3 tables away. Her manager was talking on the phone animatedly, in Arabic, pacing inside and outside where the outside tables were and where Sharansky was seated. The bodyguard, hearing Arabic, gets up and walks towards the Boss - slowly. The Boss notices the bodyguard walking towards him and walks back inside the restaurant, keeping well away from Sharansky with a "oh fuck - he probably thinks I'm going to kill Sharansky" attitude. And the employees inside were laughing their heads off.

The News

I walked into the grocery store this morning to buy the Jerusalem Post, which has an article about my interfaith activities in it. Raed the Palestinian worker there greets me. "Arafat is dead! Arafat is dead! Hallo, how are you!" He's smiling from ear to ear as if all his problems will now disappear. I thought maybe I missed something in the news this morning, last I heard the PA chief was being brought to France for treatment. I figured Raed was just being overzealous. For this kind of news Hubby would have woken me up at 3:00 am. I watched Suha Arafat last night visiting her man for the first time in 4 years, wearing an ugly grey suit. She gets a fortune every month from the PA, she can't wear nicer colors?

I got a call on my cell phone at 5:00 am. All my kids were home so who could it have been. At 7:00 I listened to the voice mail. Someone from "shomrei mishpat". It took me a while to figure it out. Mishpat - means a sentence, in legal terms, something to do with a courthouse. I thought what did my ex-Criminal daughter do now? Then it sunk in after a few minutes that it was a wake up call from Rabbis from Human Rights, for their Friday olive picking session. I decided not to go with them this morning. Instead I am hosting some international peace workers who work in Palestinian villages for a Shabbat meal. I needed to be close to home this weekend and I felt I've been lacking company for a while. My kids have not seen any guests since Sukkot and I missed engaging in lively conversation. We usually race through the meal and make sure we finish in time for the program "Queer Eye for the Straight Guy" on channel 3. We upped our grocery bill last night by $50 - beer, extra chicken, sodas, cake - but thank God Hubby is now working and we have that extra $ to do this at this time.

Newsletters

Two newsletters I've seen recently disturbed me. One was Ideas in Action - Keeping the work of Rabbi Kahane Alive. Every article was that transfer of the Arab population is the only option for keeping Jews safe. So I wonder if there weren't any terrorist attacks - what would they write about? I feel it's akin to watching Fox News - with it's "terror alert - elevated" sign flashing in the background every day. These people thrive on the fear.

The other was Gush Shalom newsletter - boycott settlement products. Why? Jew against Jew drives me nuts. It makes my stomach sink. Because they think if there weren't any settlements there wouldn't be any conflict? That's also untrue. The conflict has been there ever since we stepped back onto this country.

Perhaps getting to learn, understand and respect the local Arab culture and people, and for them to learn, understand and respect our culture and history and getting them to understand why we are here, might just do the trick. A harder road to travel indeed, but one which might just make this peace thing happen.

I got an e-mail via my Interfaith group from a German woman who read about me in a newsletter (Gush Shalom - yes that newsletter). "Dear unknown peace activist from Ma'aleh Adumim". Like the unknown soldier.

Send me to the Moon

Amoun, my Gypsy friend, picked me up in her car, an old BMW, but a BMW nevertheless. She was complaining - "People look at my car and think we don't need any money. It's only worth $5,000 now. It's nothing. I think everyone would be happier if we were just riding on camels or donkeys." She always puts me in stitches that woman. We could not find a parking space in her lot so she blocked someone and just handed the keys to the parking lot attendant. It was almost like a second home for me along the via Dolorosa where she lives. I saw Sheikh Bukhari dressed in Western clothing for a change, with a pelephone tucked into his pants. Everyone was running home to break the fast of Ramadan. I heard the voice from the mosque saying "Allahu Akbar" 3 times as we were running up the alley to her house, and then a loud cannon-like noise marked the end of the fast. A second later we were at her home where the men in her family had already lunged for the food in another room and the women, her sisters and sisters-in-law had prepared food for us -loads of stuff I've never seen before. Technina with roast potatoes, a spinach dip for the rice, techina with some spice in it, home-made humous, ful (fava beans) with chickpeas, majadra, kebabs, stuffed grape leaves - a feast indeed. In walks her new friend, an African-American whom I had met at Ibrahim's house a few weeks ago with 2 people from Taiwan. The man was wearing a tie. Why? Other than lawyers, no one wears ties here. Bobby is a Unification Church member and so were these other two. They seem to have made Jerusalem their base these days. But Moonies should have travel guidelines to the Holy Land that say - wear no ties, it scares the natives. Bobby is only 25 years old with a maturity beyond his years. I grilled him about Moon.

We all sat around after dinner watching Candid Camera in Arabic. We laughed as we watched something like looked like an Arabic version of the Jerry Springer show. Bobby asked for soup, tea, and desert and I saw a familiarity there - the food obsession. "Are you sure you are not Jewish" I asked him.

While walking down the side street onto the Via Dolorosa, 2 teenagers tried to engage us in conversation. They kept on saying "hello" to us in English trying to get our attention. They asked us where we were all from. When Bobby said he was from the US - I heard something I never thought I'd hear from a Palestinian young woman. "I love America." "Excuse me", I had to hear this again. I did. "I love America. I want to visit and learn Karate there. I love Sylvester Stallone." Her friend piped in "I love Van Damme". Hmmmm - so action flicks are popular here. I tried out a few sentences and phrases in Arabic and they clung to each other excitedly "SHE SPEAKS ARABIC! SHE SPEAKS ARABIC!" Rare for a Westerner I guess. But I certainly loved the reaction it sparked. I can't wait for my second class!

My moonie friends drove me home in their rented car because Bobby offered to and because I figured oh what the hell - it's on Rev. Moon's account and he certainly could afford it. These people were staying at 5 star hotels! So getting down to the nitty gritty as we were talking and walking, they look up to the Rev. as Jews looked to Moses when they received the Torah at Mt. Sinai. They believe he has the message direct from God. They want everyone to break down the barriers of their religions, and if everyone believed in the same thing (i.e. that Rev Moon is the Messiah) then there would be peace in this world. But that's really far fetched for me. I asked this guy - why can't people be different, believe in different things, and be respected for them. Sure it's harder but so what. I watched the Old City by the Lion's Gate come alive with vendors and people and the entire mood was festive. "Why should they give up Ramadan? Why should I have to give up my beliefs, Passover and Sukkot? Why can't we just stay different but with respect for one another?" I felt his long-term aims or the church's long term aims were as futile as the beliefs of the guy from my interfaith group who tries in vain for us to learn - Esperanto - believing that a single, universal language will bring peace to the world. I did find one thing where the Moonie's message was similar to the Jewish message I heard from the late and great Lubavitcher Rebbe - Moon told his followers that they are all messiahs. The Rebbe had told us that we have to live each day as if the messiah is already here - this in order to bring about the redemption. After listening to the news today and fearing the worst in the Jew vs Jew battle regarding disengagement from Gaza - a redemption is surely what we can use.

Arabic Lessons, Gypsies and Pastors

I stuck around work yesterday instead of trekking home. My Arabic class began 8:30 at night - a bit late for me but the other alternative was having it in another place on Fridays, which means screwing up my day off. So this was the lesser of two evils. The teacher was astounded at the amount of students piling into the small classroom at the bilingual school - the only one in Jerusalem. I think we needed a mini-auditorium. "This is history!" he told us rather excitedly. In all the years he has been teaching he'd never had such an enormous class of at least 40. He needed to separate us into two classes, because it was just too huge. I was thrilled for him, thrilled for Palestinians who had no idea that 40 more Jews in Jerusalem were interested in their language and thrilled for the class who were eager to learn. The teacher taught fast. Too fast for me. I'm getting on in years and won't pick it up like I would have 20 years ago. But I bought my book and I'm going to plus through it. I didn't learn too many words, just things like "my house, your house, I'm sorry, Hello, thank you, please, their office, our office, etc." But those are useful. I can't make too many sentences out of any of this yet.

Today the reporter called me and read me what she wrote. That was nice of her. Some of it sounded so rough and I had to correct her on a few things. I hope she goes along with it. Then she wanted a photo. Shit. Good thing I carry around my digital with me. I had 2 co-workers take various shots of me - outside by the garden (too sweet and kitchy), by my computer, on the phone. They took about 40 shots and I didn't like any of them except for one. The reporter also interviewed Ibrahim at his home at my request, and of course, he plied her with lots of food.

This evening I attended the Jerusalem Gypsy board meeting. yes, I'm on that board. A pastor who is also a donor, came in from the States. He wanted to see what the non-profit org of the Gypsies is all about and to know where his money is going to. He's part of the Calvary ministries. I took the Board notes, since I'm doomed to type up these things probably until my dying day. It's tough for my Gypsy Queen Amoun because with my full-time job and family and other assorted activities, I find little time left for the Gypsy community in Jerusalem. I need to find her an intern who can write grant proposals for her. Without that, it's difficult and there will be just less than a handful of donors for this tiny organization. The pastor and I engaged in religious conversation. He kept on talking about the mysterious Daniel, Chapter 9 which got him to be a Christian and the books he read and how the Messiah is coming real soon. I admired his faith. He seemed so sure of his faith. It was enviable. There was no room for any doubts in his mind. The Jews at the Board meeting were all going to a protest for Sharon to implement the Gaza disengagement plan. He looked at me and I knew he disapproved of this protest. He didn't say anything other than - if you believe the Bible is true, then you know who this land belongs to. And that there'll be alot of turmoil yet to come in this region. What a soothing thought.

Amoun invited me to break the Ramadam fast at her home tomorrow. I hope nice chocolates is a good gift for her family.

The army patrol watches us curiously - they were cool here

Dangerous weapon used for clipping olive branches

The FENCE - Zeita village

Olive Harvest - part II

It's Saturday. I had to weigh my choices for the Day of Rest. They were to spend it with my cranky complaining family or go olive harvesting with Palestinian. Which would be more day-of-rest-like. I opted for leaving 7:30 to go olive picking. What a surprise. It was a sign from God anyway, I thought, if I woke up at 6:30 am on my day off. Had I not woken up that early, like at a normal hour for a day off like 8:00, I would have taken it as a sign from God not to go. We were a full bus from the start. At mid-point all the people gathered together from Haifa and Tel Aviv at Kfar Qasem and it seemed were we were about 150 people. There were a change of plans as the villages near Nablus/Shechem were berefit of olives. It was useless to go and now we had to find alternative places. We ended up at a place called Zeita - just over the green line. Their fields are over the green line and they had to finish by 2:00 pm today. They had permits to cross over, but the curfew back wasn't good. They needed help. We got off the main road and some began to harvet at a field. I thought how boring this is. I like a village, I like to see the people, I like action, etc. Soon, Hasoun asked for people to help another family. Young people. I went over there to see if I could pass for "young." He didn't throw me out of the line. We were 20 people that I thought would help a family nearby. No. We went off for a 45 minute walk through fields, ravines, saw the barbed wire fence and at one point we overlooked a beautiful valley. We kept on walking and I wondered where the olive groves went. I looked down. Way down the cliff. That's where we were going. No wonder he asked for young people. This was tedious, although the Palestinian woman who wasn't eating or drinking in the heat because of Ramadan made it there without a problem. Don't know how they do it. With helping hands, I, too, made it down the cliff. The whole atmosphere was different. Soldiers watched us from the cliff, but later on they were smiling and chatting with the harvesting villagers, even shaking hands. Apparently they don't have the stress that the other village I went to on Sunday has with the Jewish settlement nearby. Their neighboring Jewish village has good relations with them. so at least that. When we got there to help, the men got on the phone with either friends or relatives and as I understood a bit of Arabic, I understood what they were saying - "Jews had come to help them! From Tel Aviv and even from Jerusalem!" He said "from Jerusalem"
like he was astounded people would come from there to help. Perhaps he thought the Jews in Jerusalem were all religious fanatics who hated Arabs. Who knows. But at least we made them all happy. The women sat with me at one point and said had they known we were coming, they would have brought us food and drink.I'm sure they were embarrassed that they hadn't. "It's ok. It's Ramadan. We brought our own drinks." I told her in a mixture of Hebrew, Arabic and English. But I got through. One of the Palestinian women was holding a very sharp cutting tool. I thought how many Jews would like to see that picture? They'd be scared shitless. It looked like a murder weapon and if she were a wild, Taliban-Jew-hating person, she could have easily hacked away at the 20 of us. But she was just fulfilling the biblical prophecy - and they will beat their swords into plowshares. All the time while she was hackig away at thick branches - very close to me - I thought of that verse. While picking and climbing the olive trees, some of the Israelis were singing a cool mixture of Americana songs - Brother Can You Spare a Dime. And they knew all the words. I was totally impressed. When we were done harvesting we were driven back to the main road by a tractor instead of walking up that monstrous cliff, and I felt like I was on a kibbutz work camp, with everyone laughing and singing. What were they singing? Ukelele Girl. Never heard of the song, but it was cool. We stopped off to pick wild figs and ate them immediately. I was pleased at myself for coming better equipped this time. I wore my hiking boots, brought 2 liters of water, put an ice pack in my thermal bag and wore sunglasses. OK, the shiny socks and makeup were a bit out of place, but I didn't care.

Rainbow gatherings

There was a rainbow gathering beginning this week for 3 weeks. This gathering happens all over the world - for older hippies, new age types, transients, gypsies and the middle east is having it's very own gathering as it does every Fall now. Where? It's not publicized to keep out the riff raff that play electronic music loud, that bring paper plates and dogs to the gathering, that drink vodka and use LSD. So it seems that only the seasoned go-ers know where it is being held this year - deep in the Israeli Negev desert. I wrote my friend - an older hippie - a note asking him where the gathering was. Surely he'll tell me, good friend that he is. He answered me.

"Hi!
how many hours do you help haul stuff for the gypsies??
don't be a gyp at the rainbow (pardon the racist pun)
why wait till next weekend..if you want we can go together either tonite (thurs) or tomorrow..(friday early)
it will do wonders for you and help you cope with your bereavement
we also can make some PHENOMENAL onions in the fire..
lets go now!!!
let me know"

Needless to say, Hubby read all my e-mails and read his e-mail first thing this morning and was not too pleased at this hippie upstart trying to whisk away his wife to barbecue phenomenal onions. I don't think he wants me to make phenomenal anything with this guy and he was quite sore about it all day long. Not that it was my fault. I just asked him where the friggin' place was!! If I go places, I go with women. Yay women!!

My real problem is that I'm two months behind in rent and hope I won't be thrown on the street these days. So what does one do when one is in a despondent situation? Why have breakfast out of course with a good friend. The Friday breakfasts here are phenomenal brunches and one doesn't need to eat the entire day afterwards.

Yesterday I was interviewed by one of the two English-language newspapers in the country. The woman who interviewed me is hoping for a front page magazine thing about Arab-Jewish Co-existence in Jerusalem. I am too. The more these things are publicized and put on the front pages, maybe they'll eventually wipe out all the horrible photos of the conflict off the front pages. So before the interview I said the Serenity Prayer to not sound like a total imbecile, to try and convince others that what I am doing is sane, and what the result would be if we all tried harder to get to know the other. And we shouldn't be waiting for a miracle-working Prime Minister. That ain't gonna happen. And neither Jews or Arabs will disappear from these horizons. So it's only us - people - that can make it happen. I hope she gets it right in print. Because this place really should be a Paradise - with real rainbows.

Just another Wednesday

I decided after a thankfully non-eventful day to go to my macrobiotic support group. I noticed a few much younger people there than the usual pensioners. These were daughters of regular macro-goers. I put out my dish that I made at 6:00 am with the recipe so people could see the ingredients. It was a miso stew. What can be more macro than that! Then people saw it had garlic in it and I think that is taboo in strict diets. I heard shrieks of "This dish has GARLIC in it". Some didn't touch my dish, others dared to go garlicky. The host, a Frenchman called Pascale, said garlic makes one fire-y. I said we could all use a little bit of fire in our life. We discussed stuff for 1 1/2 hours - stuff like the head of the macrobiotic institute falling ill - seemed like people wanted to shove this kind of news under the carpet - people on this diet aren't supposed to get sick! But then they said he smoked cigarettes and drank (horrors) coffee!!! Not the barley/fake coffee kind either. They wanted to think of next week's agenda. Let's talk about death said one member. Death? That's not a very positive subject, is it. It can be, piped in another - a transition from one life to the other place. Sounds too spooky for me. I think I'll go to my Debtor's anonymous meeting next week instead. People brought in organic greens that are rare to find in this country. We don't have kale and collard greens here or watercress. You know those dark leafy greens that are supposed to carry all those minerals/vitamins. It's not easy to find them. In fact they're practically non-existent here. So people who live in rural areas are growing these greens on their land and selling them - purely organic. I bought a batch of daikon greens. I don't know what I'm going to do with them yet. They look so wonderful. Someone asked me about my blog. She was an older woman living in a senior citizen's residence. I explained that I write my journal on-line on the web, hoping she'd know what a web was.

"You can write about anything?"she asked
"Anything you want!"
"Can you use dirty words?" she asked with a giant smile on her face
"Of course you can. As much as you'd like. I use them sparingly - some "f" words and some "s" words. It gives spice to my writing."

I thought the woman would jump out of her seat and beg me to offer her some computer lessons so she could start blogging right away. I'd love to see her journal, this 80-something year old woman, peppering her daily blog with "f" words galore. It must be tough in that senior's residence. The place is probably fucked and the food absolutely shitty. She could always blog about that. Next week, the meeting is at her place.

Cheaper than falafel

I was shopping in the shuk today - things are so much cheaper today than they are on Fridays before the Sabbath. My daughter's boyfriend's family owns an equivalent of a dollar store (the only one in the shuk) and today their merchandise was selling like hotcakes or falafel or whatever. The younger brother was standing outside the store in the middle of the thoroughfare yelling - Slippers for 5 shekels ($1.25) SLIPPERS FOR 5 SHEKELS. THEY'RE CHEAPER THAN FALAFEL. THEY'RE CHEAPER THAN FALAFEL. Every pensioner headed in their direction and people were grabbing them by the dozens. I thought they were ugly and would rather go barefoot than buy something that would make me depressed.

I was supposed to be interviewed today by a Jerusalem paper interested in my interfaith work, but we pushed it off until Thursday. Got all dressed up for nothing. What a drag. Meanwhile, this guy I went olive picking with sent out a newsletter to peace groups talking about me in the newsletter. Apparently they don't get too many volunteers who live over the "green line" harvesting olives with Palestinians and mentioned that they were quite surprised by my revelation. But he wrote that I'm Australian. Usually Australians in Israel get taken for Americans, as do most English speakers from anywhere. I remember my South African friends having a run-in with neighbors who called them "You Americans." They tried to explain that although they speak English they've never even been to America. Didn't matter. They were Americans as far as the Israeli family was concerned.

Woman with no boundaries

I called up my girlfriend who lives in that "tough" settlement right next to the village where I picked olives yesterday and told her I thought of her as we were so close, but unfortunately could not meet. When I told her where I'd been she was like "ARE YOU CRAZY!!! WHAT ARE YOU DOING HELPING THOSE PEOPLE??!" I thought I'd have a morning of compassionate listening. I told her we were helping them pick olives because the groves were too close to the settlement fence. She said her adopted son was ambushed recently and beaten up by those villagers and that they come waay too close to the fence not only to pick olives but to wreak havoc on their community.

"But you guys burnt a part of their olive grove last week." Wondering what came first the beating of the kid or the burning of the olive groves. I think they each were a result of the other.

She continued "They used to come into our place and steal all the toys in the kindergarten. All the kids in that Palestinian village are playing with FISHER PRICE toys." I laughed. It did sound funny. But she was appalled at my actions.

"How can you help those people. They want to destroy us. They don't want us here. Any chance they get they'd kill us." I told her the police and army were there yesterday to protect both her place and their place.

What about the shepherd I saw yesterday who was able to go freely into their territory.
"That's because we don't kill people and ambush them and blow them up to bits. Don't you remember the lynching in Ramallah?"
Yes, I do. I told her all this hate was because they don't understand Jews.
"Terrorists in Gaza and suicide bombers do it because they don't understand Jews?" she asked incredulously.
"That's surely part of the reason."
"You are so misguided lady. By helping them you're giving them more of a reason to attack us!!!! They get strengthened by that."
"Don't you think it will change their minds about some Jews at least" I said, thinking about the 3 orthodox-looking Jews with "kippot" on their heads who were with us yesterday.
"No, don't you read the Koran where it says they should kill us?"
"I don't read the Koran but I do have some of it read to me, where it talks about peace."
"Why don't you help Jewish people who are victims of their terror?"
"I think I am helping prevent more terror by doing what I'm doing."

I told her I would love to see the head of her community meet up with the head of their community for a peace pow wow. I told her about the beautiful fresh spring and how nice it would be if they could go there just to see it. Now they couldn't. Anyone looking like they come from that community would be a target for at least a good beating. There's just too much bad blood right now between them.

I thought - why did I have to start with the toughest settlement in the West Bank and even bring up the idea of peace?? I must be totally certifiably nuts. But I figured if anything ever comes of this, the rest will be a piece of cake.

My friend continued - "My husband won't believe it when I tell him what you did yesterday. Do you want to come up to our place for this Sabbath and be our guests?"

This is a good sign folks. She did not want to excommunicate me from the Jewish people!!! She and the rest of the townsfolk will definitely want to talk me out of my "evil" ways of consorting with who she considers the devil, but I have to see if I have the strength and guts to deal with that too.

She went on about what she knew about me and sewed it all together. "You have no boundaries. This is the way you are with your husband and this is the way you are with your kids. You think if you continue on the same way, it'll all fall into place and everything will be ok, if you don't put boundaries. But you're only fooling yourself. Without boundaries it won't get any better. And this is the way you think with the Arabs."

What she was saying about boundaries is very perceptive of her. I have it tougher than most because I don't put boundaries around other people. I don't want to impose boundaries on others. I want everyone to feel free, I guess. I don't like borders and I don't like boundaries. She was certain correct with that.

Child in Yasouf

The view from the village

Fresh water spring from these rocks

Olives dropped onto the sack

Gathering the olives

The olive sacks