Sunday, February 19 2012|Yuval Ben-Ami

Khader Adnan poem

Palestinian prisoner Khader Adnan, held for over 2 months by Israel without being accused of any crime, entered his 65th day of hunger strike Monday. 

Cy Twombly: "Min-Oe", 1951

 

O to go with a bang,

And not be made to stab you to death with toothpicks,

Year after year, a 168 hour work week.

 

In our minds the television sets are always on

In our skulls, always our childhood kitchens, parents conversing

About grownup stuff (do grownups exist?)

And in the paper: the cross-section of a rubber bullet, not made entirely of rubber.

So yes,

The radio in his town played different tunes,

Allah is merciful, we are not, and august is not. The gravel, he knows the gravel.

I know the gravel.

Allah is merciful. Is Khader Adnan?

February isn’t, February is a ribcage.

 

When I betray by caring, I betray,

And he, the suicide, betrays well.

To make them murder is to make the murder seen.

Here is what they never told:

Anything.

 

Then, the gravel was outside, but the kitchen was clean, now the enemy plate

Is full of the most fluid mud,

And in the paper: the picture of the burning tire, made entirely of rubber,

And of the explosive belt, made of murder,

And of the gun, made of murder

And of Syria and Itamar and every wall and the gravel and mud and the blur, the blur

Of hunger

And of the judges and the doctors, made of murder

And of the silence

In place of justice (do grownups exist?)

And of his chained hands, changing hue, growing slender, made of murder

And of my typing hands, made of murder.

 

I yield, I extend them. Mother, if you want me to withdraw them, tell me what

This man has done. Then tell me what you have done

Tell me what I have done, for once, rubber bullet mother, tell me,

Because I’m fading too, so much more slowly, and choking

On on the paper, pictures and all.

And biting my cheeks

hard

With blood

On what you cook for us.

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Saturday, February 18 2012|Yuval Ben-Ami

Images of snowy Hebron

Photos by Fayez Imad Hashlamon

The forecast promised snow on the highlands today, and many were excited. Jerusalem is gorgeous in the snow, which falls there about once every two years. Coastal Israelis flock there when this happens, causing traffic jams that often render the white city inaccesible.

No such jams were created today. The snow in Jerusalem did not accumulate on the ground, nor did it even fall prettily: All the holy city recieved was a shower of sleet. Having woken up to such anticlimatic news, I cancelled my own plans for traveling in that direction.

It was only a few hours later that my Hebronite friend Fayez Imad Hashlamon reminded me which is truly the loftiest town around.  While Jerusalem soars on avarage 630 meters (2066 feet) above sea level,  Hebron’s downtown is 930 meters (3061 feet) high. Its residents were greeted by 5-10 centimeters of snow on the ground at day break.

Hebron's University campus in the snow.

A Hebronite snow-woman, wearing a snow-hijab

Hebron intermingles beautifully with the farmland surrounding it.

The Hussein stadium on Ein Sara St.

A green and white Canaanite winter.

Fayez’s photos give us a oppurtunity to show Hebron for once not through the bitter perspective of the occupation, but as a winter wonderland. While the city’s traditional main drag, Shuhada Street, is kept deadened by Israel, its Palestinian-controlled H1 sector is a wonderful place to experience Palestinian urban bustle, to shop inexpensively, eat heartily, and meet lovely individuals like Fayez himself. A visit there is highly recommended also on warmer, less romantic days.

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Tuesday, January 10 2012|Yuval Ben-Ami

Israel terrifies me

Vincent Van Gogh, "Field with Crows"

The vendor at the Subway sandwich shop on King George Street was the kindest kid I’ve met in years. He kept cracking jokes with Ruthie and me while fixing my sub, praised my choice of meat, and expressed curiosity over the guitar I was carrying. “So do you play music?”

“Yup. We’re coming back from a cafe where I played a gig.”

“What kind of tunes?”

“Tonight I sang mostly political songs.”

“Political, you mean, right? Left?”

“Left-leaning,” I admitted, having internalized that it’s not okay to say “left” in Israel anymore. Still, I was surprised at Ruthie’s further reservation: “Social left,” she said.

The boy’s face turned blank. He didn’t smile any longer, nor crack any more jokes. He handed us the sandwich blankly, collected the pay blankly and handed the change blankly. My attempt at breaking the instantly formed ice failed. We left the cold shop and walked into the cold street.

My appetite was gone. The sandwich maker was 17 or 18 years old, evidently from the Tel Aviv area, probably on his way to three years of compulsory military service. His humor showed him to be educated and open, yet openness has its limits. When one meets a monster, one’s defences are activated, and a leftist, in mainstream Israeli society today, is a monster. To the majority of Israelis, “leftist” is no longer a designation of views or a position on life and politics. I may have just as well told that kid that I am a professional back-stabber and just came back from stabbing his family. This is what Gideon Saar’s education system makes us out to be. This is the fruit of Netanyahu’s gradual takeover of the media.

The boy’s reaction reminded me of something, a short story by Hebrew author Gershon Shufman, who lived in Austria for part of his life. In this story he describes walking down a path that cuts through a field of wheat, near his small town, and meeting the town’s schoolteacher. The teacher stopped for a small chat and complained about the kids cutting through the field and harming the grain.

Several months later, following the Anschluss that incorporated Austria into the Third Reich, the two met again along the same path. This time the teacher did not stop to chat. Rather, he walked off the path and into the field, doing anything to avoid the Jew, the monster.

There are many things about my country that scare me these days. The fact that the state arrests 3-year-old children, then holds them in custody, starves them and deports them, as in the case of Kimberly and Gerladine (links in Hebrew). The fact that it builds a concrete wall to surround a community of “unwanted” people 360 degrees. The fact it decreed that asylum seekers will be held for three years without trial in a special camp to be built in the south for this purpose. Still, nothing penetrates my calm more severely than being made to feel like a monster for caring about these people. There’s just something about it that evokes a bad memory, a really bad memory.

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Saturday, December 31 2011|Yuval Ben-Ami

Pogue mahone, Lieberman! An anthem for the new year

Avigdor Lieberman (Sivan Hurvitz)

This is the story of a song. It was first composed by John Maguire of Cork city, in the days preceding Ronald Ragean’s 1984 visit to Ireland. “I remember literally lying on the bed,” Maguire later told, “and listening to someone from the U.S. State Depatment on Gay Byrne’s show telling the people of Ireland how to behave, and I remember literally standing up and saying: “Hey Ronnie Reagan, I’m black and I’m pagan!” and sometimes songs write themselves in a phrase.”

The song Maguire composed became more familiar in the rendition of Ireland’s best loved troubadour: Christy Moore. “Hey Ronnie Reagan,” sang Moore, “I’m black and I’m pagan / I’m gay and I’m left and I’m free / I’m a non-fundamentalist / environmentalist / Please don’t bother me.” Both Moore and Maguire regarded the U.S. President’s visit as an attempt to “buy” an Irish NATO membership. The said membership never materialized–could the song have had anything to do with that?

Believing as we do that songs can and do change the course of history, my girlfriend Ruthie and myself composed a Hebrew version, directed at our Foreign Minister Avigdor Lieberman, whose original Russian name is Evet. We posted the song on Youtube on Thursday, and the view count 48 hours later stands at 3500, which means it’s gone viral by local standards. All the responses so far are positive.

This is surprising, considering how accusatory the song is. Besides accusing Lieberman of fearmongering, isolating Israel in the world and killing our democracy, it mentions the mysterious multi-million company run by his daughter, for which he has been under investigation for years and years now, with no legal implications to date.

The number of Lieberman apologists somewhat decreased in recent weeks, since he popped up in Moscow and endorsed Putin following the obviously rigged elections there. The Russian community is upset with him, but we were expecting non-Russian Israelis to jump to the defense of this champion of right-wing politics. The blow will doubtlessly arrive. Meanwhile, we’re enjoying the song’s positive impact and the sense of empowerment we receive from people who liked it. We need more protest songs, and an Irish import can only be of value.

In honor of the year 2012, which brings with it a new, precious sense of hope. I’m proud to share “Kiss my (arse) Evet” with the kind readers of +972, and provide an honest attempt at a translation. Maguire’s own version of the song appears further down. If anyone has any idea how to reach this guy or Moore, and let them know their song is being rekindled in the middle east, please let us know, otherwise – share it with friends. Translating a song is a job for two, but it takes a village to actually get Evet into a kissing position.

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In different days, two decades ago
We spoke here gladly of equality
Threats have borne fruit, and now remains lonely
Only one bleeding heart in Kfar Saba

Kiss my (arse) Evet. I too am a refusenik
I’m gay and I’m left and I’m free
I help Sudanese asylum seekers, try to recycle
Please don’t bother me.

You’ve been playing chess for a while now
With a future I’d almost believed in
Stroking your beard with a vacant gaze
The strong, romantic leader

You whitewash Putin, enrich daughter,
A trail of corruption follows you,
Racism and fearmongering, myths about traitors
I will never buy into your lies.

Kiss my (arse) Evet. I too am a refusenik
I’m gay and I’m left and I’m free
I help Sudanese asylum seekers, try to recycle
Please don’t bother me.

The economy’s in crisis, general pessimism abounds
Multitudes can’t make ends meet
Look here – to the side! There’s Ahemdinijad
With the gasoline of threats you ignite more flames.

Inside the bomb shelter we’ll cover up in idiocy
Because you prefer us obedient
No need for social justice, we’ll give it up for you
And be ever so loyal

Kiss my (arse) Evet. I too am a refusenik
I’m gay and I’m left and I’m free
I help Sudanese asylum seekers, try to recycle
Please don’t bother me.

Such a Froeign Minister you are, with not a trace of regret,
Each day you make us a new enemy
A stumbling democracy, our country is trembling
beginning to see what’s emerging within it.

Silencing NGOs, belive me, that’s peanuts,
Compared with your entire body of work.
There’s no way to express what little would remain
Should we sell our freedom to you.

 

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Friday, December 23 2011|Yuval Ben-Ami

A Christmas journey part 12: Own personal Jesus

Jaffa – Yad Hashmona – Jerusalem, one last cup of eggnog

Click here to read the Christmas Journey in its entirety

There’s this place, a very nice place, on the promenade that runs along the Tel Aviv- Jaffa shoreline. If you look to the north, there’s Tel Aviv.

Then, if you look to the south, there’s Jaffa.

It would take millions and millions of posts like this one in order to explain what Tel Aviv is, what Jaffa is, and what it means to live in a country where different worlds coexist, squeezed together like passengers on a downtown morning bus. Suffice it to say that any step I make as a Jewish Israeli towards Jaffa leads to a discovery. This is still true today, years after I began exploring other societies in my native country. It’s still true, though, I have lived in the heart of Jaffa for three years, among Christian and Muslim Palestinians.

On this last day of the journey, I decided to track down my own experience with Christmas: to go to places where, over the years, I have made steps towards that red and green other world, which was unknown to me as a child. This experience began here in Jaffa, at St. Peter’s Roman Catholic church.

I must have been 18 when I decided to attend midnight mass here, only to see what it was like. To my surprise, the mass was held in Spanish, accompanied by an Andean pan-pipe band. The congregation was made up of Latin American migrant workers. Once they left, another group of people, speaking another language, gathered to pray.

Most Latin Americans have been deported since, along with the Chinese, the Romanians, the Turks, and more. Our Immigration authorities do their damnest to kill this city’s diversity, so I didn’t expect any pan pipes going into the church that morning. Nor, however, did I expect a piñata.

There wasn’t one hanging there, but there was light in the eyes of brother Donaciano when he said the word: piñata! He just helped fix the Christmas decorations and paused to chat with me about holiday traditions of his native Mexico.

Donaciano confirmed that the multilingual nights of Christmases past are gone. This coming Saturday night, mass will be held in two languages: English and Polish.

I would have loved to stay longer, but a friend was waiting for me. Libby is in fact a friend of the entire +972 crew. She’s the director of International Relations at the Association for Civil Rights in Israel, and being wise in the ways of NGOs, advises us sometimes on matters such as fundraising for Christmas journeys. A few days ago she posted on Facebook that she wishes she could join me for one day on the road. I couldn’t think of a better idea.

Libby herself grew up in an observant Jewish environment in Philadelphia. “I only met non-Jews in my ballet class,” she told me on our Jerusalem-bound sherut. Her experience with Christmas, however, was far less Alice-in-Wonderlandish than my own: “Living in the States, the sense of the holiday was prevalent everywhere. I kind of miss it, actually.”

“It’s prevalent here as well,” I argued. Eleven days of traveling among decorated trees and fake Santa beards must count for something.

“Yes, but only if you scratch beneath the surface. You can go to work here and not even realize it’s happening. You can’t do that in the States.”

We got off by the side of the hilly highway, about three quarters of the way to Jerusalem and headed to my next personal Christmas station. Though I have never celebrated Christmas at “Yad Hashmona,” a small community founded here in 1971 by Christian Finns, Finland itself is an important chapter in my travels. I fell in love with it while traveling in Europe, working as a musician. I adored everything about it: the sauna, the salty candy, the manner of its people, the peculiar language.

Ironically, love for an actual Finn was what carried me away from Finland – since that Finn lived in London at the time. Love for the open road, still too strong in my heart, broke up that affair in turn, but both Ullariikka and her country remain strongly in my heart. Over the years I’ve published two books about Finland, one a Hebrew retelling of its Mythology, the other a novel in which she figures as a major character. As Libby and I advanced towards Yad Hashmona, we spoke about love stories that spark and are extinguished and ones that don’t.

Then I told her about Finnish Christmas, about Maksalaatiko – a wonderful dish of liver and raisins (it really is wonderful, I swear), about the New Years traditions of reading the future in molten lead horseshoes, about candles and songs and a goat made of straw on the mantle: a reminder of a pagan winter festival that far preceeded Christianity.

Walking and chatting, we passed by the monument for Israeli sodiers who fought to brek the siege of Jerusalem’s Jewish communities in 1948.

It reminded me of something. The image below is what one gets when Googling “Sibelius monument, Helsinki”:

Trying to get from the monument to the moshav itself, we got tangled in a dense JNF-planted forest that reminded me very much of the outskirts of Jyväskylä:

But how Finnish is Yad Hashmona itself, over four decades following its establishment? It does feature a log-cabin hotel, and in its lobby hang Finnish flags along with a clock shaped like the map of Finland:

But the gift shop was all about local Judaica and no Christmas decorations were visible. Anja, a lady in her 70s who came in with the original settlers, told us that traditions are fading and that Christmas is barely celebrated. “It’s tiring, living in between cultures,” said Anja, “after a while you let go.”

“So no Christmas at all?” I asked.

“The kids are staging a play. That’s about it.”

Walking down the main road, we noticed three boys carrying toy guns and joked that they were they the three heavily armed wise men. To our delight. Turns out this is exactly what they were. Oz, Eitan and Gideon play various roles in the Christmas play. They pointed out preteen Mary, who crossed the road not far from where we stood.

The Christmas story was adjusted to post-modern Israeli realities, or at least fantasies. Gideon, the only member of the threesome to claim full Finnish roots, will play a shepard who uses an iPad to manage his sheep. When we asked him to reherse a line from the play, he waved the imaginary gizmo and exclaimed: “Direct from China!”

“That’s really something!” replied Oz in the role of another Bethlehmite, then kissed his squeezed fingers in the appreciative gesture common around the Mediterranean. Libby and I burst out laughing.

As we headed out of town, laughter gave way to concern. The State of Israel in the 70s was open to receive foreign Christians, so long as they expressed support for Zionism. We assumed that today the creation of a similar community would be impossible. Not only migrant workers are unwelcome, even progressive Jews like Libby and I are outcast in the current Liebermanian climate.

The diversity revealed in this Christmas journey is very much threatened, in a land where the government only favors one type of people: Jewish Zionists who obediently accept both the occupation and the sick economic order. We stopped at a nearby roadside gas station’s eatery for a comfoting hamburger. It was the famous “Elvis in Jerusalem” diner, established by true fan Uri Yoelli.

Sitting in the bizarre interior decorated with Elvis murals, Elvis statues and Elvis coffee mugs, we called up my next Christmas station: The Jerusalem Center for Near Eastern Studies of Brigham Young University. Another love story relates me to that place: One that lasted seven years.

Linsey was a Mormon when I met her, then left the Church. It would take millions and millions of posts like this one to explain who she was at the time, who I was at the time and what it meant to be close to someone going through a process such as this. So we’ll let it go and stick with Christmas. She was the one who truly let me know what it means. We’ve gone through various misunderstandings, until I learned that it is not a one-day holiday, that it begins in November, and ends only once the soul truly feels forced to let go. I had to overcome the sense of threat instilled in me, I had to learn to buy gifts (or rather make them, as that was Linsey’s spirit), to enjoy the foods and the family time, to see Christmas the way she saw and loved the Jewish holidays. After all, we were married.

There is nothing very unusual about Mormon Christian traditions, and Linsey remained non-Mormon after our divorce, but considering the magnitude of the relationship, I felt a need to visit Jerusalem’s Utah embassy, where she still attended services on her first visit to the country. This turned out not to be a simple task. Since students and faculty are on Christmas break, no tours are given on the center’s grounds, and strangers, we were told, are admitted only on tours. We finagled the number of one of the center’s managers. Libby called her, as we hoped her native American accent would instill trust in us. The lady, though sweet, was reluctant to help, not for lack of hospitality, but for fear of the authorities.

In order to open a branch of its university in East Jerusalem, the LDS Church had to commit to the Israeli government that no proselytizing at all will take place. Any talk about Mormon traditions, not to mention beliefs, is out of the question. This hit Libby, who lives and breaths civil rights, the wrong way. “It’s a freedom of speech issue.” she noted, and forgot all about the food on her plate, considering an outcry over the issue.

Defiant, we went on to Jerusalem and reached the top of Mount Scopus, where the center is located. Before its locked gates we finally accepted that it is impenetrable, so we had a picnic instead.

BYU Jerusalem is located in an extremely attractive spot. This is, coincidentally, the same slope from which I took the final photo of the September Journey.

And we had with us the one compensation for not enjoying an evening with the Mormons: beer! Which they don’t drink! In fact, we had with us some of that same St. Bernardus Christmas Ale that uncorked this journey, when I noticed someone drinking it next to me at the Norma Jean. Here’s Libby holding the treasure, with BYU Jerusalem in the background.

With so many neat allusions to ends and beginnings, you’d think this would be a good place to finish, but there was still one more place to go, and especially on the day dedicated to my own personal Christmas: my dearest Jerusalemite friends – a bunch of Jewish Israelis and one Palestinian of Muslim upbringing – were throwing a Christmas and Hannukah party, complete with eggnog, sufganiot, bamba, vodka and the Grover doll pictured earlier.

And as the evening heated up I felt what I always do at the end of a good trip: that the best parts of it are the ones not traveled alone, and that none of it was traveled alone. You, my dear readers, were party to every step. You deserve the best holiday season ever, and regardless of what you choose to celebrate. Celebrate this life, and celebrate this country and its unbelievable richness.


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About the Christmas Journey:

This December, Yuval Ben-Ami embarks on a 10-day journey across Israel and Palestine – to tell the stories of Christmas as it’s celebrated today, in the holy land.

As a volunteer-based media organization with a small budget, +972 Magazine must look externally to cover basic travel expenses needed for special projects like these. Please support the Christmas Journey by making a contribution here, and spreading the word to friends and family!

Read all posts in Yuval’s Christmas Journey | Sign up for email updates from the Christmas Journey.


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Wednesday, December 21 2011|Yuval Ben-Ami

A Christmas journey part 11: Granpa Frost & Snowflake

<< The Christmas Journey Home

Petah Tikva – Ben Gurion airport – Ashdod – Givatayim, Merry Rashdistvo!

I was hungry, walking at dusk into the city of Petah Tikvah from the Baptist Village. I took a peek into a a small Russian tavern. The looks of it didn’t really work my appetite, but something in there did catch my eye.

The convenience store next door had a proper display of Christmas candy.

The bigger grocery store around the corner was all about Christmas, from chocolate Santas to green and silver stretched along the counter.

Then, at the very heart of this city revered in Zionist history, I met up with Christmas hysteria face to face. A gift shop named “Energy” offered every possible Christmas commodity dreamable. In its window stood a fir that showered itself with little Styrofoam balls.

For the most part, these stores serve the Russian speaking community and are operated and owned by Russians. Following the fall of the Soviet Union, nearly a million Russian immigrants came to Israel. Every seventh Israeli citizen has either come here as part of that wave of immigration or was born to parents who did.

This community’s relationship with Christmas confuses many Israelis. I, too, found myself wondering over the years: If the Russians celebrate Christmas, how can they be Jewish? and if they are not Jewish, how did they get to make Aliyah and repatriate here? What kind of tricks and bribe did they use?

I bought myself some salami and a pickle at one of the Russian delis and went home. Then, the following morning, called up my friend Yanna, a Russian-born magazine journalist, and referred the question to her. What she told me made some sense of the tale told by born again David, in the previous post, and a lot of sense of a country that grows greener and redder every year for two decades now.

It turns out that while Christmas proper (“Rashdistvo” in Russian) was not sanctioned by Soviet authority, New Years (“Novy God”) was. Citizens of the Soviet Union infused Novy God with the traditional symbols of Russian Christmas: the figures of Grandpa frost (“Diedmoroz”) and his helper or granddaughter Snowflake (“Sniguruchka”), trees and gifts, carols and lights. The national, officially secular holiday was celebrated by all, including Jews.

“God was nonexistent, and anything Soviet was repulsive, “Yanna explained, “so ‘New Years’ was the single most important day of the year, at least as important as one’s birthday. It was a ‘pure’ holiday, clean of religion, of politics and of brainwash.

“For us,” she continued, “this was in fact the only holiday. We were a Jewish family and conscious of our Jewishness, but lacking the most basic knowledge of the history of its people or its traditions. I remember one Passover when we got Matzos from a friend who traveled in from St. Petersburg. We sat on the table full of bread and pork and we ate them without really knowing what they meant. All we knew is that they were Jewish, and they tasted heavenly.”

“When we got to Israel, our lives became completely un-festive. For two years we lived in an ugly apartment in Ashdod. We made one or two attempts to recreate ‘New Years’ – there was some tiny, artificial tree that my mother decorated with her jewelry. There were no gifts under it and in general it looked kind of gloomy. What reason did we have to celebrate this holiday? It became meaningless in a country where everyone was Jewish and it didn’t snow.

“On the other hand, the Jewish holidays were not relevant to us. It would be artificial to celebrate holidays that we never celebrated before, that we didn’t even know existed, almost as artificial as that miserable Christmas tree in that apartment in Ashdod. We were left holiday-orphaned.”

I was speaking to Yanna on the way to the train station, on my way to visit Ashdod, home of that jewelry-laden tree and of a one of the country’s biggest Russian population. Her story intrigued me so much that I ended up boarding the wrong train and only noticed this when ‘Ben-Gurion Airport” was announced on the PA.

I spent a few minutes walking around the terminal. This is the gateway which thousands of pilgrims use at this time of year to reach Bethlehem, Jerusalem and Nazareth, yet only one holiday is mentioned in the greeting posted at the arrivals hall. Like the old Kremlin regime, our government sanctions holidays and chooses what we should celebrate, though thankfully the restrictions are not as severe.

Since returning to Tel Aviv would be too time consuming, I took a cab to Lud, a town near the airport, which has rail service to Ashdod. One hour later I disembarked at Ashdod station, but wasn’t yet in Ashdod. Israel’s railways were not necessarily designed to correspond with its urban centers. Ashdod’s center is far from the station and only accessible by taxi.

Having already spent my day’s emergency cab budget, I made my way into town over the dunes. This is probably the place to point out that generous donors have helped me cover about half of this journey’s travel and food expenses. That leaves another half that you – kind reader – if you haven’t yet donated, can help cover. Many thanks and in the spirit of this post – spasibo!

Anyway, Ashdod soon emerged from among the dunes. I’ve heard critics of Zionism say that they find the presence of Russians in landscapes such as this disturbing. I personally love Russians, I love their Shuba salad, their Chekhov, their Cheburashka. I think this land is blessed to have them. I don’t like too much the politicians they brought with them, but then, native Israeli-grown MKs aren’t any more impressive.

Ashdod, which was founded in the 50s and where I spent an entire day on the September Journey, is divided into a number of square quarters. I navigated through the dunes directly into quarter 13, which Yanna described as the “Russian Ghetto.” Indeed, upon entering the neighborhood, I noticed an ad in Cyrillic posted to a bus stop. My Russian hardly matches Pushkin’s, but I did extract that it advertizes a Hannukah bus tour to Jewish religious sites, to be accompanied by a rabbi.

While I took this photo, an elderly gentleman emerged from the bus stop. I turned to him in Hebrew. He asked whether I could speak Yiddish.

Felix, a veteran photographer, claimed that he never celebrated Christmas, not here ,nor back in Kyiv. I was reminded that many Jewish families in the former Soviet Union did know their history and heritage and that some brave individuals even taught it – though it was illegal. Hanukkah was celebrated illegally, often with the aid of Zionist activists, who smuggled candles and dreidels. Jews caught performing such actions served years in prisons for engaging in “subversive activity.”

What was I to make of the tour ad and of my meeting with Felix? Was Quarter 13 the stronghold of Russian Jews who shun Christmas after all? Not really. It’s shopping area proved to be rather Christmassy. Three kids stood by a plastic tree with only Hebrew on its price tag. I asked them whether they celebrate Christmas, two said yes, one didn’t quite know what it was. I asked the two who said yes whether they were Jewish. They said: “We’re Russian.”

Since the two Russians wouldn’t have their photo taken with the tree, so I took one of their friend.

A bus then carried me to quarter 1, to enjoy the best experience Russian Ashdod offers: lunch at “Nash Miesto,” the same bar I visited on the September Journey, and where the owner Ilya, accidentally shot me with a BB gun.

Ilya was in a fine mood when I arrived, and added to my order of pork chops and beer a long succession of free whisky shots. Within an hour I was trashed. My attempt at interviewing Ilya about Christmas was pathetic. I did learn the following: 1. He prefers to celebrate Hanukkah. 2. There’s some unnamed holiday on Sunday, so I am invited to come and enjoy a proper Russian-holiday-Dacha-sauna experience in the sauna attached to the bar, with Ilya and his whisky-guzzling friends.

I slept on the bus going back to the Tel Aviv, woke up confused and had a completely unnecessary jelly-filled donut at the central bus station. It was crucial that I recover, because the day’s most important station was still ahead of me: Talia’s house.

Talia is the daughter of my dear friends Masha and Yonatan. Masha, who was home with her when I arrived, is critic, filmmaker, bibliophile and expert on all things Russian and non0Russian. She and her husband, who is a great guy despite not being Russian, produced a fine documentary on old Soviet cartoons, named “Magia Russika.” They are among the first to have awakened my deep love for Russian culture.

In Talia’s house, both Christmas and Hanukkah are present. “I feel that both of them are holidays that celebrate the triumph of a spiritual authority over a more formal political authority,” Masha said, “and both of course express our yearning for light in winter. In this sense they are both ‘pagan’ holidays, and I’m in favor Pagan holidays. Theologists may sit in universities and invent holidays without heart and soul, but people want color to believe in and to hold on to.”

It seemed unfair to ask Talia which holiday she likes better. You wouldn’t ask a child whether they liked mom or dad better, either. So I decided to simply flow with the spirit of the evening. We read a few pages of an Asterix comic book (appropriate for Hanukkah), then watched an old Soviet cartoon. It showed Grandpa Frost and a wood goblin competing in magic. The goblin’s magic tricks were old fashioned, while Grandpa Frost’s included Soviet technological achievements such as the metro and the television set. In the end was a dance of mushrooms, ripped off from Disney’s Fantasia, and then the image of a red star.

In the cartoon, Little Snowflake could turn on a TV set, but little Talia in real life can light a menorah, and that’s a much bigger deal. I’ll leave you for now with this image. Tomorrow will be the last day of this journey and the most significant for me personally. See you all when the last, 12th post is published and meanwhile – до свидания!

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About the Christmas Journey:

This December, Yuval Ben-Ami embarks on a 10-day journey across Israel and Palestine – to tell the stories of Christmas as it’s celebrated today, in the holy land.

As a volunteer-based media organization with a small budget, +972 Magazine must look externally to cover basic travel expenses needed for special projects like these. Please support the Christmas Journey by making a contribution here, and spreading the word to friends and family!

Read all posts in Yuval’s Christmas Journey | Sign up for email updates from the Christmas Journey.


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Tuesday, December 20 2011|Yuval Ben-Ami

A Christmas journey part 10: Two Jews

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Jaffa – Kfar Habaptistim – Petah Tikva, conversing with the converted.

As a new day dawned, I decided to go out looking for Protestants. If there’s anything the Holy Land hasn’t much of, it’s Protestants. They’re here, to be sure, but in small numbers. Palestinian Protestants are rare, and while store-front churches that cater to African immigrants abound in South Tel Aviv, more mainstream churches tend to be modest to the point of invisibility.

My one clue was the steeple sticking out of Jaffa’s “American Colony.” It is a neighborhood with a story behind it: In the mid 1800s, an American named George J. Adams was excommunicated from the Church of Jesus Christ of Latter Day Saints. He accepted the leadership of another estranged Mormon: James D. Strang, then was excommunicated also from the Strangite church, where he was accused of adultery, embezzlement and drunkenness.

What was left for Adams to do but to declare himself prophet, form his own LDS-inspired church and bring it to God-forsaken Palestine, where not even the German Templers had settled yet. Adams established “Church of the Messiah” and fairly quickly ruined it. The only reminder of its existance is a tiny Americaneseqe enclave, tucked in the midst of the undeveloped and often derelict “twilight zone” between Tel Aviv and Jaffa.

The church in its midst is the “Emmanuel Church,” serving today a diverse crowd of Protestants in the Tel Aviv area. Its pastor is a Danish and the grounds are managed by a Finnish volunteer. Nonetheless, the first person I met when entering the yard was a native Israeli like myself.

Her name is Dina, and she described herself as “one of the faithful.”

“I dislike the word “Messianic” because it sounds indirect and tricky,” Dina explained, “I’m Jewish, because my parents are Jewish, but my faith is entirely Christian. This is a Lutheran Church, so I’m a Lutheran. Messianic Jews say: ‘I’m Jewish, so I don’t go to church, I don’t celebrate Christmas, I just sit home and read about Yeshua.’ I’m not like that. Let’s be clear about it. There are three big monotheistic religions: Christianity, Judaism and Islam, and here is a place of Christianity.”

How did a native Tel Avivian woman end up being baptized Lutheran? Dina got to know the church through her father, who played organ here for several years before passing away tragically in an accident. She was 11 when orphaned and eventually found her way to the church that never attracted the father himself.

“Christmas for us is not about the gifts,” Dina said, “It’s not about all the shopping and flashiness. The meaning of Christmas is that we sin, we admit that we sin and that God himself came down as flesh and blood to atone for our sins. We do have a tree. This is because Jesus is the tree of life, and there is a verse somewhere that says: ‘For if they do these things in a green tree, what shall be done in the dry?’ I’m not sure where it’s from. Probably Luke.”

The Emmanuel’s tree will only be decorated on Thursday, but the foyer on the morning of my visit was full of six-pointed stars, mostly in holiday-relevant colors, likely the work of kids who hover between worlds.

Outside the church I passed an Israeli girl, possibly a photography student, who took snapshots of the building. The chance that someone like her would step in, pick up a free copy of the New Testament and follow Dina’s path, is minuscule. For Jewish Israelis that would mean betrayal of everything our parents and society ingrained in us. The Messianic Jews provide different context and terminology that do appeal to Israelis, It would take an organist father to make one a Lutheran, and even then – perhaps only after his death. 11 years in solitary confinement would turn one of us into an Anglican.

I didn’t approach the girl to ask her how she experienced the church besides as an aesthetic structure. I was worried that she would mistake me for a missionary. To quote a wise stranger I once overheard: “an Israeli Jew hears the word missionary in the same way that a believing Christian would hear the word ‘Satanist.’”

Being scared neither of missionaries nor of Satanists, I got on a train and traveled on to my next destination: the Baptist Village.

It was in 1953 that a group of American Baptists founded a community, near the source of the Yarkon stream. Since then the neighoring town of Petah Tikva became a suburb of Tel-Aviv and grew uncontrollably. Today the Baptist’s Village is located in the middle of strip mall hell on the very outskirts of the Metropolis.

Having never been here before, I was fondly surprised to find that the village itself is isolated both from the noise of the highway and from the overall ugliness of the region. A road of cracked asphalt led me through pleasant fields on to the first baseball diamond I have ever seen in Israel.

Inside the village I met Richard. Originally from Denver, he volunteers in the village but lives elsewhere. It turns out that only two people reside here year round: David, who cares for the grounds, and his mother. The rest of the village’s structures accommodate camps and programs for different groups, namely the Messianic Jews. If in Tel-Aviv I feared being taken for a missionary, here I felt a need to assure Richard and David that I will not paint them as such.

David grew up in Georgia. His secular family acknowledged its Jewish roots, yet celebrated Georgian Christmas, complete with the traditional foods: Lobio (a bean dish) and Pkhali (an indescribable but tasty muck). Like Dina, David lost his father, who was murdered in Tbilisi in a bout of political violence in 1993. This tragedy, and the consequent move to Israel, led to the parallel discovery of his Jewish roots and of the gospel.

David’s Christmas is somber, perhaps even more so than Dina’s. “You will not see any Messianic community that celebrates the way they did in the Soviet Union of the United States,” he told me. “To begin with, the date is insignificant, because it is far more probable that Yeshua was born in October, and the tree… You must know that it is a pagan tradition. Pagans would put their idols on trees and this symbol was adopted in Christianity.”

David told me that a visiting American pastor is to arrive on Friday and give a talk on the relationship between Christmas and Hanukkah. Other than that, Christmas appeared to be not much of an issue at the Baptist Village. Richard did decorate a tree, but it is kept in his home in Herzliyah. I took a photo of the only reminder of Christmas in the village’s office: an olive wood nativity set, put out for sale,

took one of the beautiful orange grove outside.

and one of the unique chapel, carved out of an old British army warehouse.

Then I headed for the urban Godzilla known as Petah Tikva, deep in thought. How is it that my search for Protestant Christmas led me to two individuals who identify in some way as Jewish? What does it mean that both of them made a point of rejecting mainstream Christmas traditions?

Were they trying to show that it was pure faith that attracted them to Christianity, rather than the temptation of the ornaments and gifts? Is this part of the reason that Protestantism, with its modest aesthetics, attracts converting Jews more so than the older churches, or is it simply the lesser historical baggage?

Upon entering Petah Tikva, I passed a good example of modest Jewish aesthetics. It was a lit Menorah, placed on a window sill to “tell of the miracle,” as tradition dictates.

I felt the questions quieting down inside me, and despite how pleasant the day has been, a precious sense of home filled me. I respect those who see the light elsewhere, but personally have no need for anything beyond this, not even for a saviour, only perhaps for more people to understand that all candle flames share something, and that unless cult dynamics or hateful teachings are involved, people should never be criticized for their religious choices. All holidays belong to whoever cares to celebrate them, even missionaries, even Satanists. Happy Hanukkah to all.

___________________________

About the Christmas Journey:

This December, Yuval Ben-Ami embarks on a 10-day journey across Israel and Palestine – to tell the stories of Christmas as it’s celebrated today, in the holy land.

As a volunteer-based media organization with a small budget, +972 Magazine must look externally to cover basic travel expenses needed for special projects like these. Please support the Christmas Journey by making a contribution here, and spreading the word to friends and family!

Read all posts in Yuval’s Christmas Journey | Sign up for email updates from the Christmas Journey.


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Monday, December 19 2011|Yuval Ben-Ami

A Christmas journey part 9: O little town

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Jerusalem – Bethlehem – Hebron, the very heart

The time has come to follow the star to Bethlehem. I’m planning to be there for the grand finale, of course, but knowing just how uber-overcrowded the city becomes on Christmas Eve, I figured a pre-holiday visit would offer more insight.

Besides, there was a guest to show around. Matt, a Glaswegian, arrived here with his friend John two days ago. Since John has a recorded history of activism in the West Bank, he was instantly deported by the Israeli authorities: dragged handcuffed and ankle-cuffed to the plane, which took off. There is an international rule whereby a pilot may not take off with an unwilling passenger on board. That rule was not observed.

Matt, being a first-time visitor, did make it through, and a mutual friend matched us up. Here I was then, traveling to Jerusalem to meet a stranger from the rainy lands across the channel. That being the case. I spent the ride reading Dylan Thomas’ unmatched prose wonder “A Child’s Christmas in Wales.”

It’s striking how distant this literature is from our reality – and also how undistant. I changed only five words in the following passage, and it turned into something from a Palestinian memoir:

Years and years ago, when I was a boy, when there were wolves in Palestine, and birds the color of red headscarves whisked past the harp-shaped hills, when we sang and wallowed all night and day in caves that smelt like Sunday afternoons in dry front farmhouse parlors, and we chased, with the jawbones of deacons, the Israelis and the bears, before the motor car, before the wheel, before the duchess-faced horse, when we rode the daft and happy hills bareback.

Matt was waiting for me by the walls of old Jerusalem.

He instantly struck me as precisely the kind of guy with whom I’d enjoy spending a day on the road: easy-going, down to earth, knowledgeable yet curious. I hastened to ask him about Scottish Christmas traditions, and learned that they involve a certain amount of drinking.

“Mulled wine? Egg nog?”

“Whisky.”

Should have known. His family’s Christmas, however, features other traditions. Matt’s mother is Irish. His father rears from the Catholic community of Basra, Iraq. At Christmas dinners, the family listens to the songs of the inimitable Ilham Al-Madfai.

We took Palestinian bus #21 to Beit Jala, a suburb of Bethlehem. This route uses the “Tunnel Road,” paved to allow Jewish settlers a quick, Bethlehem-less passage into the southern West Bank.

Before we turned off to a Palestinian road, Matt noticed a strange wall, the top of which is bent over the road. He knew it not to be the notorious Separation Wall, and wondered whether it is meant to deter stone throwers.

“Precisely,” I said, and thought back to another passage of Dylan Thomas, the one describing the delight of a snowball fight, so easily transformed when a dozen words are altered:

All the demonstrations roll down toward the two-tongued wall, like a cold and headlong moon bundling down the sky that was our street; and they stop at the rim of the barbed wire-edged, blood freezing concrete panels, and I plunge my hands in the gravel and bring out whatever I can find. In goes my hand into that earth-tinted bell-tongued ball of protest resting at the rim of the gunshot-singing wall, and out comes Mr. Arafat.

In Beit Jala. The other wall made an appearance, forming a fjord that keeps Rachel’s tomb on the Israeli side. I took Matt’s portrait with a corner of it , the foot of a watchtower, the arm of a Disney-esque mural, the rooftops of Aida refugee camp and the top of Beit Jala’s hill.

Then we went on searching for Christmas. This is one place in the world where Christmas decorations are naturally permanent.

And the one in which impermanent Christmas decorations have no choice but to be splendid. Upon reaching Bethlehem proper, we were greeted by this spectacular tree. Behind it is the Church of the Nativity, and around it is the square that in five days is to be invisible under the feet of thousands.

The photo above was taken thanks to the courtesy of a gentleman working at Bethlehem’s City Hall, who let us shoot out of his office. One floor below, we met city council member Khalil Shokeh, of the Fatah party.

Shokeh is delighted with the state of the city on this holiday season. The tree outside was donated by Nicola Kanawati, local businessman and owner of a gift emporium. It is far grander than any that Bethlehem has seen in the past.

“The lighting of the tree is usually more local, but this time we tried to make it regional,” Shokeh said, “We try to use this event to raise the morale of all the people, because as you know the situation around us is a little bit frustrating.”

I asked Shokeh, a Muslim, how Palestinian Muslims regard the holiday.

“It is a national day,” he said, “especially for the real Bethlehamian Muslim. This is a national day for everybody. On Christmas Eve, when Chairman Abu Mazen arrives, leading a procession of boy scouts and marching bands, that is the peak of the festivities.

Christmas is the national holiday of a nation that is losing its Christians. Great numbers of them immigrated abroad during the second Intifada. The Christian community, more affluent and better connected around the world, was more equipped to leave.

What remains is a primarily Muslim city, which derives its prosperity as well as its pride from a Christian treasure. The Church of the Nativity is a striking symphony composed over many centuries and featuring elegant variations on the theme of Christian aesthetics. On the day of our visit, The Catholic compound’s cloister featured a life-sized nativity scene.

While the main chapel, reserved for the Orthodox church, abounded as usual with chandeliers and containers of incense.

The site of the world’s most famous barn is a subterranean grotto with a narrow entrance.

Inside, the faithful kneel down and kiss a star of silver, placed over the presumed site of the birth itself.

I wanted to ask those around me how they experienced a pilgrimage to a place as significant as this, but no one present shared any language with me. Most were Russian nuns.

Russian nuns travel past concrete walls secured by Israeli soldiers to visit the city of my friend Hussam. Who wouldn’t? A five-minute cab ride from the church, at “The Tent” restaurant in the suburb of Beit Sahour, waited one of the people I love most in this world: a basketball trainer, conflict resolution adviser and tour-guide extraordinaire.

The Tent was certainly decorated for Christmas.

It didn’t always look so good. A few months after the restaurant’s initial opening, in 2001, it was hit by an Israeli shell and burned to the ground, just like Mrs. Prothero’s kitchen, on the outskirts of Swansea.

And we ran down the street, with the stones in our arms, toward the house; and smoke, indeed, was pouring out of the dining room and the gong was bombilating, and Mr Arafat was announcing ruin like a town crier in Pompeii. This was better than all the cats in Palestine standing on the wall in a row. We bounded into the house, laden with stones, and stopped at the open door of the smoke-filled room.

Hussam himself was a child of the first Intifada. He spent a year in Israeli prisons for stone-throwing. I can’t even fathom what a childhood under the occupation look like. Perhaps full of gifts such as

pictureless books in which small boys, though warned with quotations not to, would go throw stones at the armored cars and did and were caught; and books that told me everything about the wasp, except why.

That wasp line was unaltered.

Today he is involved in different activities, such as guiding dual narrative-tours with yours truly (we are both active with MEJDI, which offers such tours), and consulting his friend Imad on organizing a Santa Claus extravaganza.

Imad’s idea was to get 14,001 people to dress up as Santa in Bethlehem this Christmas. This would break the previous Guiness record, which stands at 14,000. He appealed to several big companies for sponsership, but no one would pay for the suits and the project plunged right down the chimney.

Matt and Hussam share a love of sports – Matt is an avid fan of the Glasgow Celtics and holds season tickets to the stadium. Through sports, another connection is made – a political one. The Palestinian cause has been adopted by Celtics fans and Palestinian flags are often flown during matches. In short, we have a lot to chat about on this pleasant afternoon.

With our stomachs filled and our coffee cups emptied, it was time to move on to the day’s final destination: Hebron. I didn’t expect many traces of Christmas to be found in a city with no significant Christian community, but seeking them is all the fun of the Christmas journey.

Soon we caught a “service” minibus into the hills studded with villages and settlements, refugee camps and watchtowers. They were beautiful like a biblical story and awful like organized religion, beautiful like the spirit of Bethlehem and awful like walls and bad memories, beautiful like “A Child Christmas in Wales” and awful like the drunk death that came to take its author. “After all of this,” said Matt, “I’m going to sleep like a rock.”

Hebron’s main street offered a single holiday-kissed shop window.

But in the midst of the city was an enormous example of something millions around the world identify with Christmas: A shopping mall. With your permission, I will conclude this portion of the journey with Dylan Thomas’ memory of the “unuseful gifts” he received as a child – fully unaltered, and accompanied with images of “Hebron Center” mall. Is the tale of a visit to the birthplace of Jesus not compatible with such mundane sights? That is for you to decide. For now, here’s a toy laptop that can read aloud the entire Koran.

Bags of moist and many-colored jelly babies and a folded flag and a false nose and a tram-conductor’s cap and a machine that punched tickets and rang a bell; never a catapult; once, by mistake that no one could explain, a little hatchet; and a celluloid duck that made, when you pressed it, a most unducklike sound, a mewing moo that an ambitious cat might make who wished to be a cow;

and a painting book in which I could make the grass, the trees, the sea and the animals any colour I pleased, and still the dazzling sky-blue sheep are grazing in the red field under the rainbow-billed and pea-green birds. Hardboileds, toffee, fudge and allsorts, crunches, cracknels, humbugs, glaciers, marzipan, and butterwelsh for the Welsh. And troops of bright tin soldiers who, if they could not fight, could always run. And Snakes-and-Families and Happy Ladders. And Easy Hobbi-Games for Little Engineers, complete with instructions. Oh, easy for Leonardo!

And a whistle to make the dogs bark to wake up the old man next door to make him beat on the wall with his stick to shake our picture off the wall. And a packet of cigarettes: you put one in your mouth and you stood at the corner of the street and you waited for hours, in vain, for an old lady to scold you for smoking a cigarette, and then with a smirk you ate it. And then it was breakfast under the balloons.

___________________________

About the Christmas Journey:

This December, Yuval Ben-Ami embarks on a 10-day journey across Israel and Palestine – to tell the stories of Christmas as it’s celebrated today, in the holy land.

As a volunteer-based media organization with a small budget, +972 Magazine must look externally to cover basic travel expenses needed for special projects like these. Please support the Christmas Journey by making a contribution here, and spreading the word to friends and family!

Read all posts in Yuval’s Christmas Journey | Sign up for email updates from the Christmas Journey.


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Sunday, December 18 2011|Yuval Ben-Ami

A Christmas journey part 8: Where the lovelight gleams

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Harashim – Tel-Aviv central bus station – Hatikva, Home for Christmas

At sundown on Friday I arrived at my favorite place in the entire country: The tiny community of Harashim. It was founded in the 70s as part of Ariel Sharon’s plan to Judaize the Galilee. Scores of small towns known as “lookouts” (“Mitzpim”) were established on mountaintops. Since Palestinian communities developed around springs in lower altitudes, the lookouts overlook them as Kafka’s castle overlooks the town below it, and could easily be used for military purposes if neccesary.

The people who came to live in such places, however, were precisely the kind of people prone to make friends with the Palestinian villagers. Those were nature lovers, new-age-y types, and peaceful souls of many creeds. Harashim’s population is mainstream as compared to that of other lookouts, but its layout is unique and betrays a deep respect for man and nature. The village is hidden. Its original modest stone houses don’t peek over the natural brush, so that to someone walking along main street they are literally invisible.

Suspended hundreds of meters above the Beit Hakerem valley, Harashim’s unpaved clifftop walk offers an astonishing view that extends from the sea of Galilee to Haifa’s bay. It is the rainiest spot in Israel, and thus the greenest. I would never have known of this place if not for an extraordinary young woman named Tal, who got word of my music and invited me a few months ago to perform at the local pub.

Tal’s family should have a special Christmas connection. Her father, Ariel, was raised near Bern in Switzerland. He met an Israeli girl named Anat on the island of Crete, converted to Judaism and married her. Over a first cup of Harashim coffee I asked him whether he longed for the White Christmasses of his childhood. Arial said yes, but didn’t seem too sentimental. He’s here now, Jewish and content.

Later in the night the family’s cozy, wood-heated living room was visited by Yaniv, who does celebrate Christmas. His mother, Maria, is a non-Jewish Argentianian, and since Jewish identity is inherited from the mother, Yaniv too is considered a gentile.

Yaniv isn’t the only caroller in Harashim’s choir. Another neighbor, Seija, has already left to her native Finland to celebrate the holiday with her family. One of Tal’s sisters is helping her grandparents put up Christmas lights in the valley of Emmental. Another, Daphna, already has them up in her room. There was talk about asking a member of the community to pose as Santa for a certain party, and a friend from Tel Aviv just arrived on a Christmas journey and filmed himself singing “Santa is Bankrupt” in front of the fireplace. This community, supposedly strictly Jewish Israeli, is hardly untouched by Christmas.

I looked at Daphna’s lights, wondering whether Bing Crosby referred to Harashim when he sang: “Christmas eve will find me / where the lovelight gleams.” He promised to be home for Christmas, if only in his dream, but home is such an elusive concept, almost as elusive as Christmas. I felt at home in Harashim, about as far from my home as Israel allows, I felt Yuletide in this house where Yuletide isn’t celebrated.

Daphna’s lights are rather easy to find. “Judaizing” the Galilee meant bringing Jewish Israeli families away from the coast to live among the Christians, Muslims and Druze. Though endowed with a pub, Harashim hasn’t so much as a shop where one can buy a carton of milk. The nearest shops are in Peki’in, where chocolate Santas are also on sale.

We made some use of this fine neighborhood, driving down to the pub at the Christian town of Tarshikha on Friday night. On Sunday we strolled through the green brush, met friends and ate plenty. Then on Saturday night the promise of a very special Christmas party justified leaving all this wonderfulness behind and heading traveling south into the most rugged area of Tel-Aviv, the area surrounding the central bus terminal.

I reunited with Ruthie and both of us headed into the monsterous terminal building itself. There, inside a small bar, we met our friend Yonatan. All around him were platters full of noodles and sushi, bottles of soft drinks and balloons. Yonatan was wearing a Santa hat and every one else in the room was dressed in red. They were all Filipinos, well, mostly Filipinas.

People from the Philippines arrive in Israel mostly as nurses, to care for the elderly and the handicapped. They are a community of some size and over the years many of them have put down roots here. Yonatan is an activist for the organization “Israeli Children,” which fights to prevent the deportation of children born in Israel to migrant worker parents, and to assure their well being.

He’s well-versed in the ways of Filipino Christmas parties. “First everyone waits for an hour and a half,” he said, “Everything always begins an hour and a half late. Then they share greetings, good wishes and prayers. Then they eat. Then they celebrate the birthday of anyone whose birthday is approaching, and then the party begins, with performances and there’s a raffle with a laptop as first prize.”

Yonatan added that we can move on whenever we wish. “There are other parties on tonight. People can hop from one bash to the next, like at the Mimouna.” Mimouna is the feast North African Jews observe in honor of Maimonides following passover.

Before hopping on, we watched kids perform a dance to Justin Bieber’s “Baby,” had our photos taken with the revelers countless times and tasted sweet, fluorescent colored Puto pastries, seen at the opening of this post.

Over the puto tray I had the honor of meeting my first Filipino priest. Father Rick Fernando has been with this community since 2006. He’s not the type to weep to “I’ll be home for Christmas.” Belonging to a nation whose sons and daughters travel the entire earth, he’s come to define home differently: “We bring Christmas with us.” He told me, “We bring our culture with us, and since we have no families here, we form families.”

I told him of of his compatriot, Sister Marie from Cana, and of her displeasure with the wrapped gifts and white pom poms that abounded around us. “These secular symbols are signs of the coming of Christ,” Father Fernando said, “It’s all that they are. There is nothing unholy about them. The Franciscans want to live simply and that’s beautiful, but these women here are not nuns. They are in the world, and both the convent and the world were created by God.”

The next party, held at a community center in South Tel-Aviv’s Hatikva neighborhood, was utterly huge and soon erupted into some fine dancing.

Yonatan explained that each party was thrown by natives of different regions in the Philippines. With us here were the people of Pangasinan, on the island of Luzon. Following the dancing, they held a beauty pageant and kids got up on stage to sing. Yonatan and his colleague Noa, who made a cameo appearance in the September journey, knew the kids well and cheered them on.

I expressed an interest in speaking to one of the children and Yonatan urged me to avoid doing so. The xenophobic establishment is so eager to deport the kids, that a Christmassy statement could cause much harm. As a safe alternative, I stopped 9-year-old Brigit in the community center’s corridor and asked her about some other wintery holiday.

“What do you like best about Hanukkah?”

“Sufganiot!” she said, the Hebrew name of the holiday’s traditional jelly-filled donuts.

“Which candle of the menorah do you like best?”

“The Shamash!”

Brigit is a smart and wonderful kid and I’m glad to have her share this country with me. The same goes for Ariel, Maria and Seija from Harashim, for Father Fernando and for the African man in the fifth photo from the top. Small country though this is, there’s room here for everyone and for everyone’s traditions, whether or not they mix and mingle with our own. An ethnically exclusive lookout can only last as such for a brief while. Eventually, inevitably, Christmas lights are lit and puto pastries are served, right next to the sufganiot.

___________________________

About the Christmas Journey:

This December, Yuval Ben-Ami embarks on a 10-day journey across Israel and Palestine – to tell the stories of Christmas as it’s celebrated today, in the holy land.

As a volunteer-based media organization with a small budget, +972 Magazine must look externally to cover basic travel expenses needed for special projects like these. Please support the Christmas Journey by making a contribution here, and spreading the word to friends and family!

Read all posts in Yuval’s Christmas Journey | Sign up for email updates from the Christmas Journey.

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Saturday, December 17 2011|Yuval Ben-Ami

A Christmas journey part 7: The children of God

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Nazareth – Tiberius – Capernahum – Safed, Of war and peace

“Peace on Earth.” – When living in the States I would see this statemet/wish/declaration of intent printed on Christmas cards and spelled out in Christmas lights. It seems to be a slogan of the holiday, and to be honest – one of the best reasons to love it.

If Christmas is to be a time of peace, Nazareth certainly showed some holiday spirit on Thursday night. The city’s Christmas market, launched two years ago, was festively opened with greetings in Arabic, Hebrew and English. It was a more jovial and somewhat louder event than the tree-lighting in Ramallah.

But what with all the lights, balloons and crepes, Nazareth looks for an instant like of of those truly calm places abroad, say – Lugano.

This land is no Switzerland, however. While walking along the stalls and waving hello to Nicola “Santa” Abdou, who showed up in full regalia, I was busy with the thought of an impending war. It was the small weekly war fought at the village of Nabi Saleh. As I mentioned in this journey’s first post, the villagers’ attempt each week to reach a a spring that the settlers have taken over. The army is there to prevent this by any means possible. Last week a demonstrator was shot dead in Nabi Saleh. This week my girlfriend is planning to go there.

Leehee, an anarchist friend who frequents Nabi Saleh, gave me tips on the phone to pass on to Ruthie. The first was not to go. “If she’s not used to West Bank demonstrations, Nabi Saleh is not the place to start.” Leehee stressed that the army often clouds the village with tear gas while besieging it, so that no escape from the billows is possible. The children and elderly of Nabi Saleh are choked weekly, even if they do not join the demonstration. The IDF has also been known to shoot live ammunition at demonstrators advancing towards the spring.

I passed the advice on to Ruthie, and then went to join friends from the hostel to buy ingredients for mulled wine. In the midst of the market, Nazareth’s Christmas tree, said to be the tallest in the Middle East, shone beautifully.

We got red Galilee wine, oranges and pomegranates, knowing that the kitchen at the Fauzi Azar Inn would be equipped with all the necessary spices, from cloves and cinnamon to anise stars. I popped into a store to get candles and could only find birthday ones. Well, Christmas is a birthday celebration, isn’t it?

Our wassail was joy itself.

The only thing to disturb my peace were frequent conversations with Ruthie. She was scared of going to Nabi Saleh, but also determined. Her greatest worry was the suffering caused by the tear gas. If the army was to gas the village itself, the experience could be harsh.

I told her about my own sparse experiences protesting in the West Bank. Palestinians living in Israeli-controlled Area C, which makes up 70% of the territory, cannot demonstrate legally, so gas is used almost always. In Bil’in, where enormous amounts of it were directed at us (as well as stun grenades and rubber bullets), I learned that choking can be a good experience. The more one learns of the perverse amount of force used to steal land and subdue resistance, the more one is proud to be part of that resistance. “I loved the snot,” I told her, “I loved the coughing. I loved the inability to breath.”

Then I went back to the drinking and singing.

There was no room for me to stay at the Fauzi Azar, so I ended up sleeping at the neighboring hostel belonging to Abu Said. Abu Said’s is more an actual family home than a proper guest house, as well as a wonderland of local antiques. My roomate was an Irish pilgrim named John, who had spent 12 years of his life in Afghanistan. It was strange to speak about Afghanistan’s troubles while watching Abu Said’s tortoises crawl lazily across the yard.

The following morning I hopped in a car rented by two friendly American travelers: Peter and Ian, father and son. There were three of us in the back seat: Anna from Holland, Pina from Germany and myself. We headed for the Sea of Galilee, and visited some of the calmest places on earth: Tabha, Capernahum, and the mount of beatitudes, where Jesus taught: “Blessed are the makers of peace, for they will be called children of God.”

While Peter and Ian went down to touch the water where Jesus once walked, Ruthie and the other demonstrators began advancing towards the spring. They were instantly bombarded by atrocious amounts of tear gas. Not a stone was picked up from the ground when this happened. Canisters were shot all over the place. There was nowhere to run.

The IDF has been proven to use tear gas past its expiration date. Jawaher Abu Rahma, a woman in Bil’in, died from breathing too much of it. Her brother Bassem died earlier from being hit on the head with a canister. Ruthie put an onion to her nose and tried to calm down.

As the gas was dispersing and she was regaining herself, we ran into a group of chatty and friendly Nigerian pilgrims. I asked one of them, a woman named Lamie, about Christmas traditions in her country. “Oh, we celebrate in a big way,” Lamie said with a huge smile, “We eat a lot, we sing a lot, we go out and see all our friends.”

Between ethnic feuds and oil wars, Nigeria is no Luxembourg. This small description of a merry Christmas in a troubled land helped me accept the dissonance between my surroundings and the updates I was getting by text messages. Mine isn’t the only lunatic country where war and peace co-reside. Knowing this made me feel so much less lonely.

We went on up the mountains to the city of Safed, which has been nearly all Jewish since 1948, and which has grown more and more religious since the time of my childhood. I did not expect to find any trace of Christmas here, and was focusing more on communicating with my recovering girl, now headed back for Tel-Aviv, than with exploring. Soon I bid farewell to the happy bunch and went to catch the bus to my next destination.

Christmas was here. At the bus station was a group of students from North India, all studying at Haifa’s Technion. Despite their unquestionable self-identification as Hindu, all four celebrate it and told me of their special traditions, focused primarily around cake-eating. “We celebrate all holidays,” said Akshe, the tallest of the four, “Also the Muslim holidays, the ‘Eid’”.

Northen India is in the region of Jamu and Kashmir, of the Ahmedabad bombings, of the subcontinental armament race.

“We study here with Jewish and Muslim Israelis,” said his friend Sandib, “and they don’t seem to develop friendships like that. They do speak to each other, if they need some help with work, for example, but there doesn’t seem to be much more going on.”

It then occurred to me that down in Nabi Saleh, Palestinians have just been demonstrating shoulder-to-shoulder with Israelis, that Israelis were demonstrating shoulder-to-shoulder with the people whom we all grow up to think of as our enemies. What I took for the opposite of peace was in fact the true manifestation of peace. There is no act more befitting the holiday spirit than what Ruthie did, and as the peaceful Shabbat came over Safed, I was more proud of her and more in love with her than ever before.

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About the Christmas Journey:

This December, Yuval Ben-Ami embarks on a 10-day journey across Israel and Palestine – to tell the stories of Christmas as it’s celebrated today, in the holy land.

As a volunteer-based media organization with a small budget, +972 Magazine must look externally to cover basic travel expenses needed for special projects like these. Please support the Christmas Journey by making a contribution here, and spreading the word to friends and family!

Read all posts in Yuval’s Christmas Journey | Sign up for email updates from the Christmas Journey

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Yuval Ben-Ami is an author, journalist, traveler and cultural critic. He was born in Jerusalem in 1976 and raised in diverse corners of the country. He traveled Europe extensively in his twenties, working as a musician. He later moved to the United States and began writing for Israeli and international newspapers and magazines, among them Haaretz, Boston Globe, National Geographic (Israel), and Yedioth Aharonot. Since 2004 he has been resettled in Israel, writing the blog Everywhere. His books include "Susanna, Don't You Cry" - a travelogue of the American South, "Finnish Mythology", the novel "I'll meet you Halfway" and two travel books about Israel: "Wonderland" and "A Day on the Town." Yuval Ben-Ami is always on the search for interesting projects.