Tense and Tenser

I've had a lot of adventures in the few weeks since the holidays! Here is a summary in photos...

Topics!

-Around Jerusalem and Tel Aviv
-Hebron

Around Jerusalem and Tel Aviv:

Jerusalem is a tense place these days.  Most Fridays these people gather in Paris square to protest.  You may also have heard that a Palestinian drove his car through a light-rail station, injuring several people and killing a new immigrant and a tiny baby girl :(. And you may also have heard that a right-wing activist was recently shot outside the Menachem Begin center, which is really alarming because that center is in a normally very peaceful area, and it's a place I've been several times myself.

Ilona, my friend from Harvard, just moved to Israel to do a fellowship of her own! On her first night in Jerusalem I took her to my favorite sushi place. It's my favorite because there's a waitress there, Naama, that I love and always teaches me Hebrew. And it was a chilly night so Naama came and wrapped us in blankets <3

Graffiti on a night run. If only!

Sam and Louisa enjoying the delicious spicy tofu salad at Baccio, one of our favorite Tel Aviv haunts.

Matat invited me to a "hackathon" that her brother Gilad was in. They spent several days (and months leading up, really) programming, and then in culminated in a big rooftop party in Shapira. Food, drinks, fascinating people, and a great view! 

The program they made is a collection of people's memories and experiences on different streets in Tel Aviv, so you can look it up on google maps and get life stories and not just info, and they're going to turn it into a coffee table book as well. I think it's a fantastic idea! Can you guess which one is mine? ;)

I joined Sam and Leonora for a late night schnitzel dinner, and it was delicious.

This is my favorite place to write in Tel Aviv, a little cafe/bookstore called The Little Prince.

Hebron:

Hebron is one of the most controversial cities/topics in Israel. It is primarily an Arab Palestinian city, the most economically important Palestinian city, but it has religious and historical significance for Judaism, Christianity, and Islam, as it is where Abraham purchased land to bury his wife and eventually their descendants. The supposed site of this grave is the Cave of the Patriarchs:

As with all things, you should really look this up if you're interested in accurate historical information. I'm just going to summarize what I learned from our guides and some preliminary research so you can get the gist of things.

The story goes that Abraham bought this plot of land, Abraham, Sarah, Isaac, Rebecca, Leah, and Jacob are buried in the cave. Jews then built a synagogue on top of the cave.  The city was conquered over and over by crusaders and then by Saladin. Saladin added the Muslim minarets to the building and converted it from a synagogue into a Mosque, and barred all non-Muslims from entry. If you're new to Muslim narrative, then they believe they descend from Isaac's brother, Ishmael, which means that Abraham is their patriarch as well.

Israel re-conquered Hebron in 1967 (who started that war and how you want to contextualize it again, I'll leave up to you to read about), and Moshe Dayan left the Waqf (Jordanian authority over Muslim sites in Israel) in charge of administering it. So now the interior is divided - part for Jews, and part for Muslims. The waqf also held that the cave itself was sacred and off limits... but Moshe Dayan snuck someone down there to take photos, and then a few decades ago some Jewish settlers snuck down there and found human remains and candles/items of worship dating from the time of Abraham, which is pretty cool. Or violating. Depending on your point of view. (Wiki doesn't mention this find, but our guide was pretty adamant. Archaeology is REALLY political here.)

So today, in order to grant access to the entire site to members of each religion, on 10 days out of the year only Muslims can enter the site, and 10 days out of the year only Jews can enter, and the rest of the year it's divided.  We just happened to be visiting on one of the days Jews cannot enter, which was really too bad. And it also made me really mad. But I'll just leave it at that.

We were allowed up to the "7th step" which was as close as Jews could get for centuries until Israel recaptured the city.

This guy was getting really emotional and wailing a lot.

As for the rest of Hebron...

There are about 500 Jewish settlers who passionately believe that Hebron is so important to the Jews that Jews must live there, that they must live there. Hebron is not a city where Jews and Palestinians get along so well though, so there was violence against these settlers, and the Israeli response was to basically delineate a section of the city for the settlers and ban Palestinians from entering that part of the city. It's several blocks around the Cave of the Patriarchs (Palestinians enter the site basically from another direction). This area and the settlers are guarded by about 1500 Israeli soldiers, who stood around looking really bored as far as I could see.  This division has obviously caused a lot of hardship for the Palestinians, as it disrupted an important commercial sector of the city and essentially forced people to move. Although the properties mostly still belong to Palestinians, they're not allowed to walk on the street so they really can't live there.  As in, they literally need to exit their homes via their roofs because they can't set foot on the street.  1500 soldiers hanging around a civilian area has also led to many human rights abuses, as you might imagine.

And at the same time, 85% or so of the city is only for Palestinians, and Isrealis are not allowed. As an American Jew, I think I can enter, and I might try to before I consider applying for Israeli citizenship and lose that mobility.

Empty street that used to be the Old City market

Outpost 

According to Shev, the Palestinian woman living here housed protesters, and in retaliation, the Israeli government welded her front door shut.

Even the graffiti is conflicted

A gap in the wall through which you can see...

The rest of Palestinian Hebron.

We met with some Jewish settlers who basically argue that they also have a right to be in Hebron, and without the protection of the soldiers they wouldn't be safe, as demonstrated by the murder of many Jews in the city.

I think it's obvious the current system isn't really working for anybody... but for me the only real compelling point for the status quo is that when previous holy sites have been turned over they've been desecrated and Jews banned entry. There just really hasn't been any precedent set by the Palestinian Authority that turning over land will result in consideration of Jewish holy interests or fair entry to Jews. So we're stuck in this ridiculous limbo.

We also met with a Palestinian activist who basically told us how much it sucks to live in the Jewish part of Hebron and how disruptive the division of the city is.  As compelling as he was, I really found his rhetoric distasteful. "Look," he said, "I know you Jews had a hard time of things in Europe, but that doesn't mean you can behave this way here."  I gave him a chance to modify his wording, and said, "Really? A hard time of things in Europe?" "Yeah," he replied. "I'm sorry you had a hard time, but..."

*face palm*

The biggest thing I learned from the day is that both sides need a PR lesson.  No, of course the deeper lesson is that both sides seem to have about 0 understanding of the other.

Doroters in empty Hebron

Even the artwork in Hebron depicts the military presence

The feeling of the day was just pretty icky over all. There was a fair amount of gun fire throughout the day, and groups of kids throwing rocks, and just a really uncomfortable tension. Jerusalem felt comparatively light!

I'll talk about homelessness next time :)