Bethlehem Diary

Introduction: Why Teach in Occupied Palestine?

Not long after I returned to Ohio from a two-month stint of teaching English in Palestine, I decided, at age 70, to jump back into the dating game via Match.com. I reached out online to a woman in a nearby city who, appropriately aged, was nearing retirement. She seemed smart, attractive and compassionate (Let’s call her Olivia). Olivia had been a fundraiser for a variety of non-profit organizations, most recently her local chapter of the American Red Cross. Along with my credentials as a long-time journalist and the author of a handful of books, I mentioned my having volunteered to teach English in Palestine, thinking it might also show me as a compassionate person. The woman quickly returned my message with encouraging comments. But she ended her text with: “Can I ask why you decided to teach in Palestine?”

I replied, “Because I believe in the Palestinian cause.”

There was no immediate reply this time, and when I refreshed my screen, I saw that she had blocked me from her Match profile.

I have since tried to decipher this drastic response, and only two possibilities occur to me. Either, thanks to Western media propaganda, she assumed that all Palestinians are terrorists and, therefore, I was aiding and abetting violence against innocent civilians. Or, as a savvy non-profit fundraiser, she didn’t want to blemish her reputation in the American Jewish community, where many benevolent souls contribute to worthy charitable organizations – but not so much to the Palestinian cause.

Olivia’s reaction also forced me to focus on what I really wanted in a partner, and my thoughts kept coming back to someone I had gotten to know before I left for Palestine, someone who had supported me the entire time I was there, someone, it occurred to me then, I was running away from. Again.

I have to confess that my pithy answer to Olivia was far more complicated than I let on. Yes, I believe in the Palestinian cause but that belief has been shaped over the decades by a myriad of personal, social, professional, and faith-based influences that should be explained here. If I expect you as the reader to follow my journey of spiritual discovery and political awareness over the next two hundred or so pages, I owe you, just as I did potential Match date Olivia, the full disclosure of how I was moved to travel to Palestine in the first place. 

Let’s first disclose that, by upbringing, I am a lapsed Catholic – thrice-lapsed, in fact. I entered the Church as most Catholics did in the 1950s through infant baptism and then as a first-grader in a Catholic school. I had no say in either. Even so, all through grade school, I never doubted the dictates of my Baltimore Catechism, which in those days had to be memorized verbatim and regurgitated faithfully upon questioning in order to be confirmed by third grade in “the one, true apostolic faith.” I was a good kid – I obeyed and respected my parents, did my best to please my teachers, looked out for others, and indeed believed that doing good works would send me to the good place in the “next life.”

During those innocent early years, I was blissfully secure in the working-class bubble of my large Catholic family (two parents, six kids), my neighborhood of even larger Catholic families (up to 10, 11 or even 12) and a Catholic school and parish (St. Mary) that united as all in faith and social allegiance. The first cracks in that secure foundation began in eighth grade under the assault of my surging pubertal hormones. Nearly every week, I found myself kneeling in the parish confessional before a purple curtain and a whispering priest who I asked to wash away the mortal sins of my incessant “dirty” thoughts. 

It wasn’t until my freshman year in an all-boys Catholic high school that I finally received mental and emotional absolution from an unlikely source – a progressive religion teacher who explained that such thoughts and feelings were perfectly normal at our age and, therefore, part of God’s plan. That plan, I realized as I began to notice the maturing young women around me, was a powerful one, indeed. By my sophomore year, having switched to a public high school, the cracks in my Catholic foundation grew to seismic proportions. By late summer of that year, the whole edifice came tumbling down while I was dutifully attending Sunday Mass.

It was a bright, clear Sunday morning during the “Summer of Love” of 1969 and, as a counterpoint, the height of U.S. engagement in the Vietnam War. Just months away, in early December, the nation’s first lottery drawing for the draft since World War II would decide the fate of my 19-year-old brother Tom. Our pastor – known for calling out from the pulpit any woman not covering the “glory” of her hair with a scarf, or any young man clueless enough to be wearing shorts – delivered a sermon that Sunday that was pro-war and, by definition in my mind, anti-Christ. The line that forced me up and out of my pew with the determination never to come back again was this: “Parents, you should be proud to send your sons to Vietnam to fight against Communism, to fight and die for Christ Our Lord.”

I didn’t return to the bosom of Holy Mother Church until I had my own children more than 20 years later. Why? Because I wanted them to grow up with some kind of religious foundation, even if that foundation was something that would collapse later in their lives, as mine had. By the time they reached their teens, all three of my children had decided to leave the church. I saw no point in forcing them to sit through Sunday Mass and reflect on what they didn’t believe. Soon after their departure, I, too, decided to part ways a second time with Catholicism. 

I might have stayed longer for my own benefit if it hadn’t been for my first divorce.

When my wife left our marriage for a man in California she met online, I was faced with raising our three small children on my own – ages 4, 6 and 8. For the first few months as a single father, I was in a state of shock – angry, fearful, convinced that a “broken home” meant the ruin of our children. There was little support from my fellow parishioners at the time. Instead, I felt treated as if I were contagious – a moral leper with a disease that might spread. Even my parish pastor at the time, a charismatic and kind man whom I admired, turned me down when I sought his counsel. He told me he wasn’t qualified to do so. 

What was left unresolved – and in fact remained that way until I left for Palestine – was my relationship with Jesus as both a pivotal historical figure and a divine presence. I returned briefly to the Catholic Church after my second marriage primarily to please my second wife, who was a devout Catholic convert. I also enjoyed the talented choir and the lively communal spirit of her inner-city parish, a largely African-American congregation in the West End of Cincinnati. But I can remember in those days reciting the Nicene Creed with the rest of the churchgoers solely out of social pressure and years of unthinking repetition, and feeling more than a little hypocritical as I did so.

Obviously, religious affiliation is by no means an indication of where someone lies in their faith journey with God or their relationship with Christ. Like all seekers of something/someone greater than ourselves, my faith has waxed and waned over the years, depending on my life circumstances, my interactions with other believers, and my spiritual readings. But through it all, what has touched me and my faith most deeply has been my experiences with the mystical. Or at least what I interpret as mystical.

My first experience came at age four or five, the earliest I can remember. That was when I was introduced to the image of Jesus through a painting that my mother briefly hung in our living room on a wall not far from our beloved TV. He was a Westernized Jesus, of course, with light brown hair and gentle blue eyes ministering to a small group of happy children under a makeshift wooden shelter in the desert. I had no idea who this bearded man was or why he appeared to be wearing a dress longer than those my mother wore. But staring at that painting gave me a feeling of utter peace and loving nurturance that I can still recall today more than sixty years later. Who was this kind man paying so much attention to children in the middle of nowhere? And why were there no trees like the ones I saw everywhere in Ohio? I wonder now if this deeply-ingrained early memory alone was enough to propel me to the Holy Land. 

My cognitive development may have tempered those experiences but never eliminated them. From puberty to old age they have come at the most unexpected moments – an inexplicable welling up of blissfulness and connectedness with the people and things around me that I can credit only to some all-pervasive, unifying force. I can still remember vividly three such occasions. In my early teens on a family visit to a park, while looking up at the canopy of trees swirling with an unknown presence against a bright summer sky. In my mid-20s, while riding in a crowded subway car below lower Manhattan, standing shoulder to shoulder with a diverse, unspeaking humanity, all of us hurtling toward some unknown but shared fate. In my late 40s, while escaping a sleepless night of worry as a newly-single father, breathing in the deep calm of summer darkness on a run through my neighborhood. 

In more recent years, I have explored mysticism and Buddhism in books, mostly through the superb writings of Aldous Huxley (“The Perennial Philosophy,” “The Doors of Perception”). My reading led me to dally briefly with psilocybin mushrooms. The trips were bedazzling enough (especially the one while watching Disney’s “Fantasia”) but they failed to give me the mystical and other-worldly experiences that so many users have claimed.

On the political side of my development, my work as a journalist and later as a journalism professor made me skeptical of the media image of Israel as a tiny, defenseless nation whose survival was at the mercy of surrounding Arab nations and terrorists of every stripe, but especially Palestinians. In September of 2000, the Palestinians took a more violent tack against the occupation, launching the Second Intifada (or “shaking off” of the Israeli occupation) that included a series of grisly suicide bombings against Israelis, both soldiers and innocent civilians – a tactic that reflected their desperation but couldn’t be justified on any but the most fanatical religious or moral grounds. The Western media labeled the suicidal attacks as “cowardly” and, although it made no sense to me how obliterating yourself could be cowardly, I fell into step with the general condemnation of these “terrorist acts” but with little or no knowledge of what had led up to them.

Then in 2003, following the 911 attacks on the U.S., my doubts about the War on Terrorism began to kick in when the Bush Administration (spurred on by Cheney, Rumsfeld and the other neocons eager for war against the Arabs) decided to invade Iraq. They did so preemptively on the flimsiest of evidence that Saddam Hussein was amassing weapons of mass destruction, a claim that turned out, of course, to be a bald-faced lie. Hussein’s real sin was not only invading Kuwait and threatening our oil supply but launching missiles into Israel during the First Gulf War in 1990. 

The Bush administration tried obliquely to pin the 9/11 attacks on Iraq and knew they couldn’t do it. But they were content to let the majority of Americans erroneously believe Saddam was somehow culpable. The real motivation for the 9/11 attacks was buried deep within the 9/11 Commission Report and ignored by the U.S. media: American support for Israel. Al-Qaeda leader Khalid Sheik Muhammad, cited by the report as “the mastermind of the 9/11 attack,” was driven “by his violent disagreement with U.S. foreign policy favoring Israel. . . . KSM himself was to land [a hijacked plane] at a U.S. airport and, after killing all adult male passengers on board and alerting the media, deliver a speech excoriating U.S. support for Israel, the Philippines and repressive governments in the Arab world.” 

Much of what I knew in only a cursory fashion about the history and occupation of Palestine was clarified and corrected by former President Jimmy Carter’s brave but reviled book, “Palestine: Peace Not Apartheid,” published in 2006. When he and the book were both labeled “anti-semitic” by many in the Western media, I knew then what the Palestinians were up against – not only a brutal occupation but a massive and well-oiled propaganda machine that continues its work today.

The long-standing myth that U.S. and Israeli strategic interests, as well their democratic values, happily coincide has led to an unquestioning acceptance in America of Israel’s right-wing policies and its uncompromising colonialist treatment of Palestine. As a journalist who cherishes our freedom of the press above all other American liberties, I have been deeply troubled for years by the censorship of anyone in the U.S. media (and academia) who dares to criticize Israel as a nation. To do so is to be met with cries of “anti-semitism” and, in the worst cases, the loss of a job or a stagnated career. Criticizing Israel’s policies and actions is no more anti-semitic than criticizing America’s policies and actions is anti-American. In either case, it’s an American right protected by our First Amendment.

Last but certainly not least, I must confess to a deeply personal reason for going to Palestine and the Holy Land – call it redemption. Not redemption in the sense that I fear my soul is eternally damned (although that, too, may be true) but as a way to atone in some small measure for the partners I have hurt over a lifetime. 

I was responsible for the break-up of my second marriage and I did so without the least bit of warning to my loving wife of four years. After years of feeling trapped in our marriage and, at times, second in priority to Kathy’s career, I lost my temper during a dinner out at a high-end Italian restaurant when she began tweeting something for her marketing job. My public outburst was entirely out of proportion to the offense. But rather than seeking counseling or sharing my feelings with my wife, I simply called it quits and walked out the door. (With therapy, I realized I have a deep-rooted phobia of intimate relationships. The anxiety and depression it causes, in turn, feed my temper.)

As if God had intended to echo my blow deep within my wife’s psyche, she took her dog for a walk soon after I had sat down with her for “the talk” and was nearly killed by a reckless driver fleeing a high-speed police chase. Minutes later, while driving to a motel for the night, I received a call from an officer on my cell phone.

I met my wife in the emergency room, where it was determined after many tests that she had fractured her elbow but was otherwise unhurt. What spared her is that she had been totally blindsided while walking her dog and talking on her cell phone. Unaware of the imminent collision, her limp body flipped over the hood of the suspect’s car as it careened over the sidewalk and smashed into a brick wall. If she hadn’t been tossed like a ragdoll into the air, her body would have been crushed between car and wall.

I spent the hours in the emergency room at her side and took her home after. But I didn’t stay the night  – perhaps the biggest mistake of my life. I realized that she had escaped physical trauma but I failed to realize how deep her emotional trauma had been – a horror reflected in her small dog who was found blocks away by police, uninjured but terrified and trembling.

A year later, following our divorce and disappointing efforts at dating by both of us, we got back together in the hope of reconciling with the help of professional therapy – a marriage counselor to work with the two of us and a separate counselor to help my ex-wife deal with her PTSD. The effort lasted nine months. During that time, I believed (as my ex did during the four years of our marriage) that things were going well between us, only to have my ex sit me down in my living room one afternoon and, with karmic justice, tell me she just “couldn’t” any more. She couldn’t overcome the traumatizing events of the past or the risks of sharing a future with someone who had felt trapped by her. It was my turn to be blindsided. But I tried my best to sympathize and I asked if we could still be friends. She generously answered yes and we are friends to this day.

Months after the failed reconciliation, I went back to dating – this time, under the guidance of a counselor I had hoped would help me break out of my phobic pattern. I eventually met a recent widow (let’s call her Holly) who lived in a city several hours away, and, over a series of dates, found her smart, attractive and caring. I was determined to make the relationship work for the long haul, relying on a strategy of “radical acceptance” suggested by my therapist.

Things went well for several months – so much so I went off my antidepressant medication. But gradually I felt the psychic walls close in around me no matter how much I pushed back with acceptance and empathy. I obsessed over the things we failed to have in common. That Holly seldom talked unless spoken to. That she lived in a lily-white upper middle-class suburb and wanted me, a diehard urbanite, to move in. That, on most evenings, unless I suggested an alternative, we stayed home, cooked dinner and streamed TV or read books until bedtime at 9 or 10 p.m. Many men would be happy with that. I felt trapped in a loop.

I talked with my therapist, I prayed, I told myself that no partner is perfect and that you take the good with the bad, but I just couldn’t do it. I quit seeing my therapist and sat down with Holly for the talk. When I told her I couldn’t continue the relationship, she accepted it without a fuss and assured me that, rather than hurting her, I had helped her grapple with the grief of her widowhood. I didn’t believe that for a second but I admired her for the grace to say so. 

I returned to my life of singlehood under the weight of a mountain of guilt, dragged down even farther by a sense of hopelessness that I would never be able to form a successful intimate connection. My self-loathing for not being able to change who I was, for hurting innocent women who loved me, knew no bounds. Weeks went by when I could hardly get out of bed in the morning. I took naps during the day two or three hours long. Nothing I did – exercise, hiking, biking, visiting with my daughter and friends – gave me a sense of joy or purpose. If it hadn’t been for the thought of the emotional scars it would leave on my children, I might have started planning my suicide. Depression, perhaps more than physical suffering, cuts us off from any connection with God, a self-reinforcing cycle of despair. If God is hope, then hopelessness informs us there is no God. And that, in turn, only makes us more hopeless. What breaks the loop, however, is an off-ramp, “a leaf, a stone, a door” we need only be open to – that God is also love. If we are patient and faithful, the Hound of Heaven will come looking for us, and he will find us, snarling in our ear perhaps to get our attention.

What helped me through this period was not my faith. It was simpler than that. For one thing, I went back on my anti-depressant medication. Another was simply the passage of time and acceptance for who I was – major flaws and all. Radical acceptance of me. Despite my sexual yearning, perhaps I had always been meant to be a priest or a monk. So be it. I could learn to live in celibacy, secular or religious, if it meant not hurting anyone again.

A month or so later, I was back on my medication and celibacy was the farthest thing from my mind. I told myself that there had to be someone out there whom I could be comfortable with in a relationship. But I held off on revisiting Match, instead investing more time in my friendships, going to Meet Ups several times a week, reading self-help books. Kathy thoughtfully sent me a book on “Radical Acceptance” that made perfect sense, but then reading is not doing. I met several times again with Kathy for coffee and found a friendly ear and a kind heart but no more than that. So what had been I expecting anyway?

Gradually, I began to succumb again to the old impulses. At first, I took quick peeks at the recommendations on Match, if only to remind myself that there weren’t many choices out there at at my age. (And vice versa for the women, of course.) After several more sneak peeks during the following week, I changed my geographical filter from a 50-mile radius to 100, and up popped a woman named Karen in Indianapolis. Hmmmm. Cute. 63. Gray hair in a stylish pixie cut. Eyes laser-focused with intelligence. No glamour shots or phony come ons. And a profile that blew me away with its candor and articulateness:

Bluestocking with a salty sense of humor. Lover of long walks in all sorts of weather. Academic from a working-class background. Pro-choice, social justice Catholic—practicing, active in my faith community, but ecumenical in spirit.

I’ve traveled a fair amount outside the U.S., and my translation work has taken me deep into the Polish language. Politically I’m progressive and not afraid to take to the streets to stand up for my beliefs, whether that be LGBTQ+ rights, Black Lives Matter, or opposing the draconian policies of a certain ex-president.

Family is important to me. Though I don’t have children of my own (except for a dear daughter-like person who comes to dinner every week), I’m open to those who do. I have close relationships with my siblings, and one beloved niece lived with me for a year when doing her pharmacy rotations. Am also the proud mom of two adorable felines.

Socially, I skew toward introversion, though I love game nights and small dinner parties. My many years teaching typically lead me to encourage everyone to join the conversation.

In January 2020, my spouse of thirteen years died, and thanks to the pandemic, I really haven’t dated much since 2003 ; )

That said, in partners, I favor wit, self-reflection, candor, charm, courtliness, intelligence, a love of laughter, an interest in language, fortitude, kindness, climate-friendly habits, depth, fitness of body and mind, and shared interests. If you’ve done therapy, that’s a plus in my book.

Whoa! It was as if I’d written the profile for the exact woman I’d hoped to meet. But what did “bluestocking” mean? For the first time in my Match dating history, a profile drove me to consult a dictionary: “An intellectual or literary woman. Eg., a Victorian bluestocking.”

Okay, now here was someone who understood words and their origins, and perhaps even recognized the hint of salaciousness in the use of “stocking.” But before I could send off a message, the doubts began to close in, and so did the feelings of hopelessness. Was I really ready to try again? Would I just end up hurting one more innocent person? And my biggest doubt of all – was I willing once again to commit to two-hour commutes on busy interstates?

I studied Karen’s profile picture again. “Cute as a bug’s ear” came immediately to mind – a folksy cliche that would have no doubt sent “bluestocking” Karen running the other way. Still, I plucked up my courage, grabbed a dictionary, and sent off a message that I hoped would connect with Karen, 63, in Indianapolis.

Relationships weren’t the only matters on mind at the time. It was during this same post-depression period that I grew closer in friendship with someone I had met while writing a series of profiles about Catholic nuns for my grade school alumni newsletter. The profiles were the alumni’s way of giving thanks and recognition to the aging sisters who had given so much of their own lives and energy to us as children at St. Mary School. One of them was Sister Mary Wendeln, who would become a role model and dear friend. She grew up just a few blocks from where my family lived in East Dayton in the same safe bubble of working-class Catholicism. Her younger brother Tom was in my class at St. Mary.

Wendeln began her career as a teacher of preschool and primary grade children. But her career path, and her passion, began to change in 1980 when she was sent to a mission parish in Somerton, Arizona, just 15 miles from the Mexican border. There she taught the young, disadvantaged children of mostly Mexican-American and Native American families.

It was in Arizona that she came to know refugee families fleeing the civil war in El Salvador and its brutal military junta, then backed and trained by the U.S.. The 1980 assassination of Archbishop Oscar Romero, who had spoken out against the violence and injustice in El Salvador, was followed that same year by the rape and murder of four church women by the Salvadoran National Guard. Both horrors “had a profound influence on me,” Wendeln said. As a Precious Blood nun, she came to understand the true meaning of the order’s name – that only through blood shed in sacrifice for others do we truly come to know the meaning of Christ.

“It was the first time I’d heard the call to speak truth to power, as Oscar Romero did,” she said. Soon after his murder, Wendeln began making trips to El Salvador with different humanitarian organizations, including the Share Foundation, a non-profit group committed to social justice and sustainable agriculture in Central America. 

In 1986, Wendeln left Arizona for Washington, D.C. on sabbatical and, afterward, decided to remain in the D.C. metro area. She quickly got involved in fundraising and advocacy work opposed to U.S. support for El Salvador’s right-wing regime. During that time, she was arrested, along with actor Martin Sheen, for being part of a “die in” protest at the Capitol rotunda. The action was sparked by the brutal murders in 1989 of six members of the Jesuit community, along with their housekeeper and her daughter, by U.S.-trained Salvadoran soldiers.

In 2005, Wendeln turned her attention to another oppressed group – Palestinians. She was asked to travel to Hebron in the West Bank with the Christian Peacemaker Team, a human rights advocacy and watchdog group. “I realized that the Palestinians, much like the undocumented (immigrants) here, were demonized and I wanted to go over there and walk with them.” Much of her work in Hebron was documenting abuse by Israeli settlers. She left Palestine in 2008 to care for her ailing father in Dayton until his death in January of 2009.

I first met Sister Mary in 2021 when she was retired but, at age 81, still volunteering as a legal advocate for immigrants in Cincinnati. During my visits to her small apartment, I learned, in her words, that “Palestinians are the most marginalized people on Earth.” She told me how the illegal Jewish settlers would harass and assault the Palestinians in an effort to drive them from their land and their homes. 

When I told her that I was close to earning my certificate in teaching English as a second language., she suggested I go to Palestine and work with the refugees there. With the seed of good works now planted in my swamp of guilt and hopelessness, the idea of devoting several months or longer to teaching English to Palestinian refugees began to reach into my soul. If I couldn’t devote my life to just one person, perhaps I was meant to devote my skills to helping a group of people – a classroom of students eager to learn English as a way to find a voice against, and perhaps an escape from, their oppressed state.

I realized the roots of my service were a self-serving desire to assuage my guilt. Perhaps, too, I was simply seeking a way to run away from my problems. But I decided in the end that teaching English in Palestine, a region of the world I had never explored, would at least push me outside the geographical confines of my personal hell and perhaps onto an escape path from my guilt and depression. I also knew I was going to the Holy Land, the ancient origins of Judeo-Christian religion, where perhaps some of that holiness, as my brother Tom pointed out only half-jokingly, “might rub off” on me. 

Call it a chance at redemption. And if that chance was also somehow dangerous – spending months in a region known for its unpredictable cycles of violence — its redemptive powers were certain to be that much greater. Therein lies the power and the mystery, as Sister Mary would say, of sacrificial blood.

I began putting out feelers to anyone in my social circle who might have ties to Palestine. Within days, a close friend and former newspaper colleague of mine, Mary McCarty, put me in touch with a friend of her own, John Wagner. Then pastor at a mid-sized United Methodist Church in the Rust Belt city of Middletown, Ohio, John was also co-chair of the United Methodist Kairos Response, the national Boycott, Divest and Sanction (BDS) movement of the UMC in America. 

John knew someone at Bethlehem Bible College, a progressive evangelical institution in the heart of Palestine, and encouraged me to apply for a volunteer teaching position there. His help in getting me to Palestine would be the beginning of a friendship for the two of us, and a spiritual awakening for me.

Triggering El Al Security

Wednesday, Aug. 30, 2022

After a seven-and-a-half hour flight from Cincinnati, I’m waiting at the boarding gate for El Al flight 320, departing Paris for Tel Aviv at 11:10 a.m., when I hear my name – last, then first – suddenly jump out of the PA’s smooth unrecognizable stream of French like a mid-summer trout. I head to the check-in counter.

I assume it’s a routine pre-boarding check of my passport when the El Al clerk there directs me to a nearby security guard, a tall slender young woman in a blue cap and uniform. Her somewhat shy smile seems non-threatening enough until she informs me that an Arab language textbook and map of the Palestinian territories have been “discovered” in my checked luggage from Cincinnati. 

She then begins to ask me a series of questions interspersed with longer conversations in Hebrew over the two-way on her vest. She seems almost hesitant to be quizzing me.

“Why are you learning Arabic?”

I explain that I’ve volunteered to teach an English class at the Bethlehem Bible College in Palestine. I’m trying to learn some basic conversational Arabic in order to be polite. I pull out the folded paper I have handy in my shirt pocket – a confirmation letter from the volunteer director at BBC. I unfold it and hand it to her.

“How did you get the job to teach there?”

Through a friend of mine in Ohio, Rev. John Wagner.

“Who gave you the map?”

Sr. Mary Wendeln, another friend of mine who visited Palestine years ago.

“Do you know anyone in Israel?” (She asks this same question at least three times during our conversation. If I don’t know anyone in Israel, does that mean I’m an enemy?)

No, I don’t. I have friends who have visited there, though.

“Have you ever traveled to the Middle East before?”

It’s my first time.

“Do you plan to visit any other places in Palestine?”

I’m hoping to visit the sister city of my hometown of Dayton, Ohio – the Salfit Governance (She corrects my horrid mispronunciation. I may have said “sulfite.”)

“What did you do before you retired?”

I was an assistant professor of journalism in Ohio.

The guard goes back on her telecom for the fifth time and now I’m afraid I may be barred entry into Israel, the only way to reach occupied Palestine. Five nerve-wracking minutes later, she writes my name on a sticker and attaches it to the inside of my passport just above my photo.

“Thank you. You are free to go.”

Free?

Five hours later, when I land at Ben-Gurion Airport in Tel Aviv, the first alert to pop up on my cell phone screen is a text from Karen: “Jim, I hope all goes well with your flights and your journey to Bethlehem. (I’ll miss every inch of your skin 😘)”

A few words to fill you in on Karen. Yes, we’d started dating after exchanging messages on Match in June. Nothing serious at first. Hiking, biking, kayaking on a nature preserve lake in Indianapolis, where we scouted the shoreline for black currants, Karen’s favorite dessert ingredient and that of generations of her Polish ancestors.

We had lots of great conversations, hours at a time, and, at least for me, they were always instructive as well as entertaining. Karen Kovacik is a professor of American  literature at IUPUI (Pronounced “Ooey-Pooey” in the local lexicon, and mercifully short for Indiana University-Purdue University Indianapolis). She’s also a poet – the real thing, published in journals, anthologies, and books – and a former poet laureate for the state of Indiana. Before you write off the Hoosier State as literary backwater, keep in mind it’s also the home of Kurt Vonnegurt, Theodore Dreiser, Booth Tarkington, James Whitcomb Riley and, one of my favorite contemporary authors, Dan Wakefield, who also happens to be Karen’s friend and next-door neighbor. She speaks fluent Polish and translates some of Poland’s best contemporary poets for publication in English.

If all that wasn’t daunting enough, her deceased husband, also named Jim, was director for many years of the Indiana Writers Center as well as an accomplished fiction writer in his own right.

As a journalist and failed mystery novelist, my first impression is “I am not worthy.” 

The month before I leave for Palestine is filled with rapid-fire developments on the Karen front. By early August, after Karen’s busy schedule forces her to cancel a weekend visit to Cincinnati, I succumb to cold feet and send off a cowardly, true-to-pattern text.

Hi, Karen, I like and admire you but I think we’re both having trouble dealing with the long distance issue. I know I was the one to reach out first and I apologize but I don’t think this will work out. Jim

Minutes later, my phone chirps – literally – with my cricket ring tone. Gutless, I let the call go into voicemail. Karen leaves a long, heartfelt message, the text of which I finally skim the next morning. Feeling ashamed, I send another text:

Karen, I’m sorry I missed your call. Thank you for the kind words. I apologize if my message surprised you. It’s not just the distance but the timing. I leave for Palestine at the end of August for two months and after that I don’t know where my head will be. Plus you have to start preparing for your classes. Maybe we can touch base again when I return in November. Best, Jim

Karen: Do you have time to have an actual conversation about this?

Me: Sure. Just name a time good for you. I’m washing my windows at the moment. 

Karen: Haha! Why don’t you call me when you’ve finished your chore?

A long, reassuring phone conversation follows. The gist of it? Let’s continue to stay in touch, show each other whatever affection is comfortable for both of us, and not worry about where it takes us. 

Agreed.

We meet again in mid-August, and nature takes its course between two healthy, skin-hungry adults – although, I learn later, it’s a leap taken with much trepidation by Karen, who’s still mulling over my trustworthiness. Before that night, she hadn’t been intimate with anyone for nearly a decade given her late husband’s declining health. It’s then, too, that I learn Karen shares her bed with her “two adorable felines,” one of whom decides that my legs make for a warm perch to curl up for the night. I don’t dislike cats, I just don’t like to be touched while I’m trying to sleep. It can take me months to get used to sleeping next to someone, even without the annoyance of an “adorable feline.”

In a few days, though, I’ll soon have another feline to disturb my sleep.

The Long Drive to Bethlehem

Wednesday, Aug. 31, 2022

I’m riding “shotgun” in a seven-seat Ford shuttle van driven expertly by our Palestinian escort, Rami, enroute along a series of crowded highways from Ben Gurion Airport in Tel Aviv to the Palestinian territory of the West Bank. Our destination, Bethlehem Bible College, is 60 kilometers to the southwest through the partitioned city of Jerusalem and into downtown Bethlehem.

In the backseat are Prof. Andrew Bush, chair of the Department of Peace Studies at BBC, and his wife Karen, both of whom engage me in a friendly and informative conversation as we travel. The Bushes are returning to BBC from their home in Philadelphia in time for Andrew to begin fall classes for the fifteenth year. Their flight happened to arrive at the airport just before mine.

Nearing Jerusalem along Route 443 and then Menachem Begin Boulevard, I am struck by the austere beauty of the rolling hills in all directions. The underlying stratum of white limestone – vaguely pinkish in the late evening light – bursts from beneath the greenery of shrubs and olive trees clinging to the small bit of soil allotted to them. Hemingway’s short story, “Hills Like White Elephants,” comes immediately to mind. On top of and encircling most of the hills are modern cube-style residential developments of matching white concrete and stone that appear to grow out of the limestone ridges like teeth from a jawbone. The limestone itself, called Jerusalem Stone, has been the chief building block in the region for at least 3,000 years, creating a continuity with its ancient past literally carved from stone.

“I can’t believe all the new development,” I say.

“Yes,” Andrew says, “but it’s hard to tell what is Israeli, what is Palestinian and what are illegal Israeli settlements” in the occupied territory. 

A 15-foot-high barrier wall of white concrete patterned to look Jerusalem Stone snakes through the hills on both sides of the highway. Andrew informs me this is “the Green Line” that separates Israel proper from the occupied territory of Palestine’s West Bank, bordered on the west by Jordan and the Dead Sea, and on the south, east and north by Israel. The line marks the boundaries set down in the 1949 Armistice Agreement between the armies of Israel and those of its neighbors – Egypt, Jordan, Lebanon and Syria – after the 1948 Arab–Israeli War. 

The Green Line once held hope for Palestianians as the future outline of their own state – an internationally-recognized starting point for negotiations with Israel. But for the last four decades, Israel has built settlements, highways (such as the one we’re now traveling on) and light rail lines on much of Palestine’s territory. Israel has sought to erase even the memory of the line from world maps and public consciousness.

The roots of the Arab-Israeli conflict go back long before World War I to the declining Turkish Ottoman Empire. For several centuries under Ottoman rule, indigenous Jews, Christians and Arabs had lived in relative peace in Palestine and the Middle East. But in Europe, with the rise of modern nation states like France, Germany, Russia, and Poland, European Jews were increasingly marginalized and persecuted as religious and ethnic “outsiders.” By the late 1800s, Jews in Europe had launched the Zionist movement around the idea of a national homeland of their own in Palestine to be re-established on Biblical-era lands once ruled by their ancestors. The problem was, the Palestine of 1914 was then inhabited by more than 700,000 indigenous people – 80 percent Muslim, 10 percent Christian, and 10 percent Jews. 

Then came World War I. After promising the Arab countries their independence from Turkey if they would fight against the Turks and Germans, Britain reneged on that promise and, under pressure from Zionists, unilaterally declared Palestine a homeland for Jews under the Balfour Declaration of 1917. In the decades that followed, hundreds of thousands of Jewish immigrants escaping persecution in Europe poured into Palestine, a trend accelerated after Hitler rose to power in 1933. By the end of World War II, more than a half million European Jews had settled in Palestine intent on colonizing the land for a modern Jewish state.

Even though Palestine continued under British rule, tensions between Jews and Palestinians grew and both sides began smuggling weapons for what they knew would be a coming war. Arab demands for independence and resistance to European immigration led to a rebellion in 1937, followed by continuing terrorism and violence on both sides. Finally, in 1947, the British colonial rulers threw up their hands and turned the problem over to the United Nations. A UN Partition plan called for creating two independent states – one for Palestine, one for Israel – but gave the majority of Palestinian land to its minority Jewish population. The Arab leadership rejected that plan as patently unfair and the stage was set for war. 

Then, on April 8, 1948, the powder keg was lit. In the village of Deir Yassin, Jewish paramilitary groups massacred 108 Palestinians, including women and children, piling up their bodies and burning them. Fearful Palestinians began fleeing the country to neighboring Arab nations, and five weeks later – a day after Jews declared an independent Israeli state – forces from Egypt, Jordan, Syria and Iraq were drawn into the conflict. The bitter fighting that ensued has been called “The War of Independence” by Israelis and simply the “Nakba,” meaning “Catastrophe” or “Disaster,” by the Palestinians.

By war’s end in 1949, Israel had control over all the land proposed by the UN as an Israeli state, plus 60 percent of the land that had been proposed for Palestinians. Hundreds of villages in Palestine had been destroyed and 750,000 Palestinians had fled the country or were expelled. Their abandoned properties were then confiscated by the fledgling nation of Israel. 

Festering tensions and border skirmishes between Israel and its Arab neighbors led in 1967 to the Six-Day War, a pre-emptive strike by the Israeli military against Egypt, Syria and Jordan. Following its lightning victory, Israel occupied the Gaza Strip and West Bank, including East Jerusalem. The war brought about a second exodus of Palestinians of more than a half-million refugees, mostly to Jordan and Lebanon. Many remained on the 22 percent of land still held by Palestine, but would find themselves under military occupation and victims of Israel’s expansionist plans. 

Under international law, victors in war cannot legally occupy conquered enemy territory. But since 1967, and especially the 1980s, Israeli settlers, with the unofficial and sometimes official backing of the Israeli government, have slowly acquired land in the West Bank. The displacement of Palestinians continues to this day. There are now more than six million Palestinian refugees recognized by the UN, with 1.5 million of them scattered in refugee camps in Jordan, Lebanon, Syria, the Gaza Strip, and the West Bank.

Each new Israeli chokehold on Palestine has triggered popular uprisings, including the two Intifadas (Arabic for “shaking off”) from 1987-1993 and again from 2000-2010. The Intifadas, especially the second, were labeled by the Western media as terrorist movements, in part because some Palestinians resorted to desperate suicide bombings in Israel, mostly in military installations but also on civilian buses and in cafes. The two Intifadas killed a total of 841 Israeli citizens. In retaliation, 6,000 Palestinian civilians were killed by the Israeli military.

While the land grab in the West Bank continues, Israel abandoned its settlements and its military presence in the Palestinian territory of Gaza in 2005. But Israel still controls what happens inside Gaza through a blockade on imports, severe restrictions on travel to and from Gaza, and shrinkage of Gaza’s commercial fishing zone to just three miles along its coast. Rocket attacks from Gaza, which have resulted in a total of 27 deaths of Israeli citizens, are met with massive Israeli retaliation. Since 2008, Israeli attacks, mostly from the air, have killed 4,000 Palestinians, including 2,200 children. 

Today, Gaza’s nearly 600,000 residents are trapped inside a border fence under almost unlivable conditions while Israeli controls their water and power supplies. Unemployment rates are some of the world’s highest – 40 percent overall and 60 percent among young adults. All but 5 percent of the water pumped locally in Gaza is contaminated and undrinkable. Electricity is supplied to residents only a few hours a day. Health care workers are besieged by power and water shortages and a lack of medical equipment and supplies.

While life is more tolerable for Palestinians in the West Bank, travel to Israel and beyond is severely restricted. A small percentage of Palestinian residents can now drive their own cars into Israel, but they must have Israeli driver licenses and Palestinian plates. 

Our shuttle driver that evening, Rami, is one of the lucky few. Even so, Rami and other Palestinian motorists must deal with numerous military checkpoints and frequent and often unpredictable road closures. 

We near one of the checkpoints as we approach West Jerusalem, the Palestinian portion of the ancient city. Rami stops the van at the guardhouse gate. A young Israeli soldier who looks barely old enough to shave tries to compensate with a stern scowl as he pokes his head in Rami’s window and scans the occupants. He asks for my passport first. 

The soldier glances as I hold it open and says, “Where is your visa?”

Andrew explains that I have no visa because I’m a volunteer staying just 60 days in Palestine. That doesn’t satisfy the soldier. He asks again for my visa.

I remember the small stub I received at airport customs okaying my entry to Israel. I produce it from my wallet for the young soldier. He examines it and, with the same scowl, tells us to move on.

After we pass through the checkpoint, Andrew comments that it had been reopened after weeks of closure following another round of violence in the West Bank. Palestinians shot and wounded two Israelis who had ventured into the West Bank near Nablus to visit Joseph’s tomb, a funerary monument some have claimed to be the gravesite of the Biblical patriarch. In response, the Israeli military shot and wounded four Palestinians while arresting two suspects.

Rami speaks up in his broken English that the checkpoint is still closed from Israeli West Jerusalem into Palestinian East Jerusalem each day from 10 am to 4 pm – a restriction that has cut deeply into his income and that of other shuttle drivers to and from the airport.

The driving distance from Jerusalem to Bethlehem is little more than five miles along Hebron Road but it can take 20 minutes or longer with traffic and checkpoints. As we near the northern outskirts of Bethlehem, a frightening sight soon comes into view along the back-lit western horizon – a 30-foot wall of concrete slabs topped with unscalable fencing, barbed wire, and a bunker-like guard tower. The dark gray brutishness of its construction reminds me of the witch’s castle in The Wizard of Oz. 

What we see from the van is just a small part of the 440-mile Separation Wall through the West Bank that Israel has been building since 2002, claiming it’s necessary for security. But the wall’s path cuts deep into Palestinian territory and confiscates large swathes of fertile Palestinian land, isolates whole Palestinian towns and villages, and has cut off thousands of Palestinians from social services, schools, and farmland. In some places, the separation wall runs along the Green Line, but most of its route lies inside the West Bank – sometimes by many miles. The wall is now two-thirds complete, but when finished, it will be more than double the length of the Green Line. In 2004, the International Court of Justice ruled the wall was “contrary to international law” and called for an end to construction, the return of seized property, and compensation of Palestinian landowners.

Like the Berlin Wall before it was toppled in 1989, the Separation Wall is emblazoned with political graffiti. As we pass by in traffic on our way to Bethlehem, I catch a glimpse of a giant KKK figure in white robe and hood and the words “No Freedom Allowed.” We ride by too quickly for me to see much more. I vow to return later and take pictures. 

According to Open Bethlehem, a non-profit international effort to recognize Palestine as a nation, Bethlehem had more than 220,000 residents as of 2020, including 20,000 living in three refugee camps. Almost half as many Israeli settlers (100,000) now surround the city, including annexed portions of Palestine considered illegal under international law. Bethlehem is girdled by both a ring road for settlers and the infamous Separation Wall. The growth of illegal settlements in and around Bethlehem continues unabated. “It is an open-air prison,” author Nicholas Blincoe told The National Geographic in 2017. “There’s no other way to describe it.”

Israeli guard tower overlooking checkpoint into Bethlehem from Israel.

A few more minutes along Hebron Road and we enter the heart of Bethlehem, a welcoming sight of congested traffic, crowded streetside cafes and restaurants, and grand old buildings of Jerusalem limestone. A few blocks ahead and on my right lies Bethlehem Bible College and my teaching adventure for the next two months.

The small six-building campus sits behind a decorative wrought-iron fence along Hebron-Jerusalem Road, one of the busiest thoroughfares in central Bethlehem. As its name implies, the four-lane road connects Hebron in the south to Jerusalem in the north. We enter through the driveway gate and arrive in the back parking lot just before 9 p.m. The campus grounds of mostly stone, concrete, and asphalt are aglow in the security lights. There are no ivy-covered walls or lush landscaping here, but it’s a college with a purpose. The introduction on Wikipedia reads: “Bethlehem Bible College is a Christian evangelical college, founded in 1979 in Bethlehem, under Israeli military occupation. It was created to prepare Christian leaders to serve Arab churches and society in the Holy Land. It trains students to model Christ-centeredness, humility and biblical wholeness.” 

I hope the college is true to its word. Although the term “evangelical” has become nearly synonymous in the media with right-wing, fundamentalist intolerance, progressive evangelicals have long been active in the fight for social justice, a tradition stretching back to the dark times of slavery. Evangelicals were at the forefront of the abolitionist movement in America, and many of the faithful risked their reputations and their lives to help slaves escape to freedom via the Underground Railroad. My home state of Ohio was spared the curse of slavery by a single vote cast by Ephraim Cutler, the son of an evangelical minister, during the state’s constitutional convention in 1802. Evangelicals also took the lead in the early struggle for women’s rights. The militant English suffragette Annie Kenney thought the battle to give women the vote was “more like a religious revival than a political movement” because its language was steeped in Christian values and imagery.

When we exit the van, Michael (pronounced Mee-SHELL), the head of college maintenance, is waiting in the parking lot to greet us. He’s a kindly younger man with a fashionable scruff of unshaven beard, perhaps in his mid-30s. He’s soft-spoken, competent in English, and attentive almost to the point of sycophancy. He insists on carrying my bag up to my room on the second floor of the old guesthouse. At the door, he hands me the room key on a red neck strap and an electronic gate card to enter the campus from the street. 

It doesn’t take me long to learn that Michael is the go-to man for any practical advice I need for daily survival, not only about the operation of the college, but Bethlehem itself. Shopping, banking, getting around town by taxi or bus – he’s the de facto concierge. And he’s easy to reach – a WhatsApp text from a volunteer or guest is answered almost immediately in his politely formal English.

My un-airconditioned room for the next 10 weeks at Bethlehem Bible College.

Before leaving, Michael lets me know the room’s mini-fridge has been stocked with snacks.

“And coffee?” I ask, knowing it will be my first craving in the morning.

He says there’s a breakfast room on the top floor of the adjoining guesthouse – a newer complex still being furnished. 

“Is there anything else I can get you?”

“Not now. Thanks!”

My room is spacious and comfortable enough but sparsely-furnished with a sofa, a twin bed, a console table and a single straight back chair. It faces the four lanes of busy traffic on Hebron-Jerusalem Road. The two front windows, even when closed, can’t keep out the cacophony, especially from the buses and unmufflered motorcycles. Temperatures that night are still in the high 80s, even higher inside the stuffy room. Mercifully, a swiveling floor fan provides both white noise and a tsunami of air movement. I point the fan directly at my unclothed body on top of the bed covers. After more than 20 hours of travel time from Cincinnati, I have no trouble dozing off with fantasies of swinging in a hammock under a tropical breeze.

That is, until 11 p.m. or so, when I wake to hear a series of rifle shots, ten evenly-spaced distinctive “bangs” that seem to be just outside my window. I jump from my bed but dare not turn on the lights for fear of becoming a target. (I learn later that gun fire, automatic and semi-automatic, is not uncommon in Bethlehem. Refugees in the nearby camps will sometimes fire off their assault rifles, like fireworks, in celebration of some special event.) Although the sound rattles me for a while, jet lag and sleep deprivation begin to work their soporific magic and I doze off again. 

That is, until just before 5 a.m., when I wake again, this time to the loud tinny broadcast of Muslim prayer. A male voice rises and falls in a melodic chant, overwhelming the white noise of fan and traffic. I’d seen it in movies but never experienced it first hand – speakers mounted on the minaret of a nearby mosque spurring the local Muslim community to say their daily prayers. Viewed as the will of God, Muslim prayers of thanksgiving are broadcast five times a day, beginning at dawn (Fjar), renewing at midday (Dhuhr), afternoon (Asr) and sunset (Maghrib), and ending at night (Isha). Prayer times vary throughout the year and are determined by the position of the sun in the sky.

Mosque tower near Bethlehem Bible College.

There is no separation of church and state here, and that includes the airwaves. Anyone within hearing distance of the speakers – Muslim, Christian, Jew, agnostic, atheist, whatever – are subjected to the same pre-recorded chants, sometimes in multiple male voices, for about 10 to 15 minutes. What I don’t realize then is that the chants will eventually become part of my daily rhythm, like church bell tolling or bird song, and a minor annoyance I learn to ignore even in the pre-dawn hours.

I am now fully awake but also ravenous. I head to my mini-fridge where the generous hosts at the college have very thoughtfully left me a brown paper bag of fresh pita and two small porcelain bowls sealed in plastic-wrap – one with hummus and the other filled with a feta paste. I quickly tear through two of the four soft pitas, scraping out generous portions of the dip with each bite I stuff into my mouth. It’s so fresh and delicious I may start chanting my own prayer of thanksgiving.

I shower and then try to shave – only to discover that I brought my electric shaver but not the charger cord. Ugh. Back to wet shaving for the duration, and the usual nicks and cuts. 

My first order of business that morning? Coffee in the breakfast room to get my system and my day going. For volunteers, that means leaving the old guesthouse and walking next door to the newer air-conditioned facility for paying guests. The breakfast room is reached via elevator on the fourth and final floor. It’s mercifully empty when I arrive before 6 a.m., with no obligation to make small talk while my neurons are screaming for caffeine. There’s a sink, an oven, a large refrigerator, a small countertop with microwave and coffee maker, and a dining table for eight. The staff has provided a tin of ground coffee, paper filters, and a stack of freshly baked pita, thick and soft as pancakes. The refrigerator is filled with cartons of milk and bowls of fresh hummus and labneh, the thick strained yogurt favored in the Middle East, topped with olive oil and fresh local herbs. Both bowls are for dipping with the delicious pita. Tempting, but I’m already full from my mini-fridge raid.

Tall picture windows on three sides of the room offer a rooftop panorama of the city in the pre-dawn gloaming. From the rear of the room, over the sink, the view informs me of why I came to Palestine. The western hills in the distance are covered with squat limestone dwellings, their outlines subdued in shadows of mystery. Their timelessness seems to touch the soul with a sense of peace and unshakeable permanency. “The lost lane-end to heaven: a stone, a leaf, an unfound door,” as Thomas Wolfe would say. Or perhaps the emotion springs from what the more empirical would call, in Jungian terms, the collective consciousness, one saturated for millennia with images and stories of The Holy Land. But it’s all there in those three little words, Carl. Why look any deeper?

A second cup of coffee and windows in the hillside homes wink with light where dozens of other souls are waking to a new morning – another day, another chance at life, for good or ill. As sunrise nears, the white homes turn first to pink then a golden hue filled with the promise of adventure. I gulp the last of my coffee.

I have four days until I begin teaching Sept. 5. It’s time I cannot squander.

First Day Exploration, Bethlehem

Thursday, Sept. 1, 2022

The Bushes live just down the hallway at the back of the guesthouse. I knock at their door at the reasonable hour of 9 a.m. and ask Andrew about grocery shopping options within walking distance. Among other things, I need disposable shavers and shaving cream. But I also love to cook and plan on stocking up for the next few days. Andrew suggests I shop at Jumbo (pronounced “Jimbo,” thank you), a supermarket with decent selection and prices. He says it’s about a ten-minute walk on back streets but the simplest route is along the main roads – south on Jerusalem-Hebron Road to the second traffic light, turn right on Schools Street, then walk several more blocks downhill to the store.

To be on the safe side, I have my passport and blue card stuffed deep in my small backpack, along with a water bottle for the day’s expected heat, a high of 90. My first encounter leaving the guesthouse is with Simba, the college’s adopted feral cat. He’s a scroungy-looking gray-and-white and very vocal. Yet, the moment you approach with an outstretched hand, he shies away. His home is a towel-lined metal box in the shade of the guesthouse where BBC staffers leave a bounty of lunch leftovers and scraps. At night, Simba prowls among the bushes fronting the guesthouse, letting out his plaintive cry through the screens of open guestroom windows. My gut reaction is to let him inside. But then what? Like getting a monkey off your back, I would think. He soon sneaks off to someone else’s window. 

The less fortunate cats and kittens on campus scrounge in the parking lot dumpster. They scatter if anyone passes near, seeking shelter in the crawl space below the security office trailer.

I wonder why a back way to the store would be any easier than walking two blocks and making a right turn until I begin walking the route myself. America may have surrendered its suburbs to the automobile, but Palestine has done the same with its cities. Sidewalks, if they exist at all, are narrow uneven strips of asphalt sometimes less than three-feet wide and terrifyingly close at times to speeding traffic. What makes matters worse is that Palestinian motorists feel it’s their right to park on any walkway where there is no street parking, creating an obstacle course for pedestrians that often requires a walk-around into the busy street.

Typical “sidewalk” in Bethlehem along busy Hebron-Jerusalem Road.

At the first traffic light on Hebron-Jerusalem Road, I quickly learn that a walk sign means “shwayye” (very little) to motorists in Bethlehem. A pedestrian must first make sure a driver trying to negotiate a turn, with or without a green light, doesn’t mow you down with your first step off the corner. In time, I learn that it’s sometimes safer to jaywalk across a busy street during breaks in traffic. Raised berms on the four-lane roads become narrow safety zones, just a foot or so wide, where pedestrians can stop and face the traffic from the other direction before the final crossing. Perhaps because they trust so deeply in God, Palestinians keep their backs to traffic when walking in the street. I prefer to meet my death head on.

Jumbo is exactly how Andrew described it – a mini-Walmart that carries nearly everything (except clothing) at reasonable prices, from groceries and drugstore items to housewares and small electrical appliances. Most shelving signs and product labels are in both English and Arabic. Thank you. The items are easier to find, too, because unlike America, the selection isn’t overwhelming. On average, prices seem to be about one-third less than what I pay at my hometown Kroger.

When I finish shopping, I line up at one of the two checkout lanes where I’m surprised to see that any customer in a hurry (but almost always male) will cut in line straight to the cashier if purchasing just an item or two. No one objects. Least of all me. I’m in no hurry and still in my cultural observation mode. When my turn comes, I’m ecstatic that my Visa card is accepted. I begin bagging my own items, thinking it’s a small courtesy for the busy cashier, until a middle-aged male bagger high-steps to the end of the checkout. He glares at me as though I’m trying to steal his job. I back off and he smiles. So much here to learn.

With my two bags of groceries plus shavers and gel, I decide to find the safer back route to campus. My first foray into a side street results in a dead end. But the next side street up the hill runs all the way to the rear of campus. The long quarter-mile stretch is a mix of beautiful stone homes and churches interspersed with empty lots strewn with heavy rocks and layers of litter and trash. According to the World Bank, only 1 percent of waste in Palestine was recycled in 2019. Sixty-five percent was disposed of in landfills and a whopping 33 percent illegally dumped. Prior to the weekly sanitation pickup, dumpsters are overflowing with trash bags and loose clutter that spills onto walkways. It’s a major problem, especially for a city like Bethlehem that depends so heavily on tourism. 

A little Google research reveals the source of the trash problem. Under international law, Israel is supposed to handle the waste removal from the occupied territories. Instead, they leave it to the Palestinian Authority and their local governments. Neither entity has enough funds to keep up with the rising tide of waste nor access to enough remote areas where the trash could be buried in landfills. Adding insult to injury, Israel transports its electronic wastes to Palestine, where local businesses and workers eager for income burn or bury the items so that people already trapped in an occupied land must deal with pollutants like arsenic, cadmium, chromium, mercury, and lead.

Near the end of the backstreet, I spot a woebegone-looking dog in one of the vacant lots. But when I call to him and try to approach, he quickly runs away and hides behind a stone wall. Like the cats in the college dumpster, I can count the ribs on his sparse frame. 

Animal rescue activists in America would have their compassionate work cut out for them here. And yet I have seen no homeless people living on the streets in Bethlehem. I suspect the closeness of families here and the financial hardship of keeping pets account for the differences with our own country.

***

My first lunch in the BBC cafeteria (one of the perks of being a volunteer) introduces me to the simplicity and freshness of Palestinian meals. I grab two small cans of Coke Zero from the standing glass case (a shekel, or 33 cents, each) and belly up to the stainless steel counter. Mimi, the assistant to chef Ala’a, loads my styrofoam to-go box with a tomato-based stew of lamb, potato and chickpeas along with an equally substantial pile of Arabic yellow rice and a small side salad of finely chopped tomato, cucumber, onion, green chiles and mint – a Palestinian favorite. Too embarrassed by my lack of Arabic to join the strangers I see in the dining area, I snap shut the squeaky styrofoam lid and head back to my room holding my bounty in both hands, careful not to slop any of the aromatic juices through the sides.  

I don’t know the Arabic names of any of the lunch items I dig into atop my console table but, in the parlance of all non-aesthetes, I know what I like. The lamb is tender and lean, the chickpeas soft with a bit of crunch between the teeth, the sauce buttery rich and subtly spiced. Before I mix the yellow rice with the stew, I take a bite and discover hints of cinnamon, clove, and cardamom in the buttery smoothness. When I’ve gorged enough on those two items, I turn to the salad – all of it local produce dressed lightly with olive oil and lemon. The diced green chiles are mild and balanced nicely by a touch of mint – a refreshing end to my meal. If this is what Ala’a serves everyday, I’m on board for the duration.

When done, I have no scraps to share with poor Simba. Still a bit jet-lagged from the previous day and night of traveling, I declare a nap is in order. I turn the floor fan to high, strip off my clothes and fall into a deep sleep on my firm mattress as the surfeit of calories begin to flood my body. 

Life here is good.

Simba, the Bible college “adopted” cat.

***

Later that evening, I remember my vow to return to the Separation Wall and snap photos of the political graffiti. It’s just a five-minute walk north along Hebron-Jerusalem Road from the guesthouse. The closer you get to the wall, the more you see spray-painted on walls and abandoned buildings the whimsical but message-laden work of London-based street artist Banksy, a strong supporter of Palestine. Whether they’re originals or copies can be hard to tell, but they express Banksy’s persistent theme of innocence defying brutality. The silhouettes of small children enjoying their playthings are juxtaposed against the tools of violence and oppression. A tiny boy and his teddy bear are wrapped together in barbed wire. A young girl in a pink dress pats down a soldier, his hands against a wall. More in Banksy’s optimistic vein, a little girl jumps a rope of barbed wire in tandem with a heavily-armed soldier.

Perhaps Banksy’s best-known piece of street art is tied to the struggle for Palestinian freedom. It shows a masked protestor during the Intifada with his arm held back, his body poised at that moment to heave a bouquet of flowers instead of a Molotov cocktail. I find a quick all-black copy of the famous work on a white stone barrier a block from the wall. 

Banksy’s pro-Palestinian art is everywhere near the Bethlehem checkpoint.

When I return to my room, I remember the pre-departure advice from my good friend and colleague Mary McCarty, “I hope you keep a journal. Not everyone has the chance to do what you’re doing.”

She’s right. Writing it all down will not only help me sort out my thoughts but create a record and a message I can share. 

But with whom and where? And dare I share my experiences on social media?

Andrew would know. 

The Agony of Student Selection

Friday, Sept. 2, 2022

I wake that morning to the jangling tones of my iPhone wind chimes, my body tangled in sheets after a fitful night of sleep full of anxious dreams I can’t recall. Simba is meowing just outside my open window, so loudly that at first I think he’s actually in the room. It’s 8 a.m. and already 90 degrees. In two hours, I will meet my students for the first time. After a quick shower and shave, I dress in my khaki Dockers, a leather belt, and a freshly-ironed button-down shirt – a show of respect for my students. I look at my phone. Good. I have just enough time to grab coffee and a croissant at Zawedeh, a small family-run cafe that came highly recommended by Andrew. 

Just down the street from Jumbo’s – and mercifully air-conditioned – Zawedeh’s merits Andrew’s praise as the best coffee shop in Bethlehem. The contemporary decor of glass, chrome and wood has the crowded tables of customers, indoor and out, to prove it. The lattes are creamy rich and smooth and the servers a courteous delight. The mixed aromas of brewing coffee and freshly baked bread add to the warmth and coziness. Although I’m on a keto diet and proud to have lost 15 pounds in the last three months, I can’t resist the high-carb bakery items in the counter display, both Western (croissants, brownies, cookies) and Palestinian (knafeh, ma-amoul, ghraybeh). Like Europeans, Palestinians prefer their pastries sweet enough to enjoy but not pancreas-challenging sweet the way most Americans do. I order a chocolate croissant and, for good measure to get me through the morning, an oatmeal cookie chocked with cranberries and white chocolate. I sit down at one of the high-top tables with an hour or so to relax. Time enough to enjoy my latte and sweets, hit up the latest Google news and Facebook posts on my iPhone, and catch up on all that’s happening back home.

I also heed the recent advice from Andrew not to post anything about my stay in Palestine. Or at least not anything political, which, being the political animal I am, I find impossible to do. Andrew tells me the Bible college tries to steer a neutral course, at least publicly, through the minefield of the Israeli-Palestinian conflict. Instead, I decide to share my diary with a select few family and friends. I dub it simply, “Bethlehem Diary.”

***

Administrative building at Bethlehem Bible College.

By 10 a.m., I’m anything but relaxed. I’m sitting behind a long conference table in an empty room on the top floor of BBC’s administration building, an elegant example of 1920s Islamic architecture with its arched windows, fancy grillwork, and lavishly marbled interior. It was once the home of The Helen Keller School for the Blind and visited by Keller herself. Directly across the table from me is a chair for students, the “hot seat” for candidates applying to the course. Claude Juhan, the volunteer coordinator, sits well off to my right, respectful of my place of judgment.

On the table in front of me is a stack of evaluation forms for students wanting to enter my Pre-Intermediate English Class (M,W,F – 4:30 pm to 6:30 pm). With twenty-plus students waiting anxiously to be called from downstairs, there won’t be room in the class for all of them. The responsibility of choosing weighs heavily on me because I know how much learning English means to the people in Palestine. For many, it’s a ticket to higher-paying jobs and perchance a way to escape the hell of Israeli military occupation.

The one-page evaluation form is in two parts. The front page is a test of conversational English. I ask the potential students a series of simple questions and they answer me.

1. Tell me about yourself? (Family, job, school, etc.)
2. What did you do last week?
3. If you could travel anywhere in the world, where would you go? Why?
4. What would you like foreign visitors to know about Palestine?

Each question is followed by a blank where I will enter a number from 1 (lowest) to 5 (highest) based on the clarity and proficiency of their answer. 

On the back page of the form is a test of their written English, which they complete at the other end of the table while the next student is interviewed. The back page illustration is a humorous drawing of a man standing on the edge of his office chair trying to lift a large box onto a shelf well above his head. There is every indication he will fall.

To the right of the drawing, students are asked to write in English the words for as many objects in the drawing as they can. In the space below the drawing, they are asked to write a short story about what they envision happening.

The students range in age from 15 to mid-50s. Most are women, all but one of them (a teenager with long hair) are dressed in the traditional head wrap and scarf called a “hijab.” The women, much more than the men, are “dressed for success” in beautiful silken hijabs and long colorful cotton dresses.

Claude makes it clear that she wants to know soon after each student’s interview whether they are accepted into the class. I ask if we could tally their scores and talk about our selections after everyone is done – a better way, in my opinion, to make comparisons. In her polite but very direct English, she says, “No. We have no time.”

Well at least, I tell myself, I won’t have to agonize over my decisions.

We reject five candidates, all of whom couldn’t understand the conversational questions in English. Often they would turn to Claude looking for help in Arabic. Claude again doesn’t mince words. She tells each of them that the class is beyond the grasp of beginning students and will be taught in English only.

Two young teenage boys – friends who insist on being interviewed together – are lost from the very beginning of the interview. They both plead with Claude for entry to the class, but she’s insistent. My heart goes out to them although I know I wouldn’t be able to help them. My Arabic is no doubt even more challenged than their English.

After many repetitions of the first question, Rasmia, a young woman in her 30s, manages to tell me that she has three children and is a government worker. She is lost on all the other questions unless given help from Claude. When I ask where she would travel if she could go anywhere in the world, she answers quite seriously, “Jerusalem.” 

Sigh.

Passes for Palestinians to enter the Holy City are extremely difficult to obtain from the Israeli military. Those lucky enough to get one gain many advantages for both employment and education, not to mention the opportunity to visit the places sacred to all three Western religions – Jews, Muslims. and Christians.

Among the fifteen accepted students are just two men, both in their 30’s, both of whom need English to advance their careers. One is a veterinarian with his own clinic in Ramallah. The other works for his father’s payroll firm in Bethlehem. I’m not surprised by either occupation. Small, family-run businesses fare best in the occupied territories. Unemployment in Bethlehem, where tourism is the primary industry, stands at 29 percent and is far greater for young adults. The rate has risen steeply in recent years because of the pandemic and because so many Westerners are still afraid to visit the Holy Land. 

“Steve” (his English adopted name) tells me speaking better English will help him and his father expand their customer base at their payroll firm. “You need English to work with people in Jordan and Egypt,” he says.

Where in the world would Steve most like to visit? 

“Las Vegas and Seattle,” he answers. 

I tell him Seattle is a beautiful city and that I have a cousin there. I decide not to express my feelings about Las Vegas.

For veterinarian Raed Ali (“Adam” is his adopted English name), a better grasp of English will help him navigate the computer-related needs of his growing clinic.

Among the best qualified candidates are perhaps a half-dozen teenage girls, most of whom seem to come from more advantaged families – an assumption I make based on their clothing and their enrollment at private schools.

Bara’a, a 16-year-old from Bethlehem, is one of the most engaging and enthusiastic.

“What did you do last week that was fun?” I ask.

“Nothing,” she smiles. “I studied.”

Where in the world would you most like to visit?

“Ah, Paris. I love Paris from the movies.” She turns starry-eyed. “The places! The food!”

Hiba is another very promising young student. She tells me she enjoys reading, writing, and speaking in English. (I don’t tell her but think to myself that she would put to shame most American teenagers.)

Where would she like to visit?

“Switzerland,” she answers immediately. “I love the trees. And it is quiet.”

Amen, I tell myself, then tell her my oldest daughter Maddy hopes to move to Zurich in January for a job with a pharmaceutical start-up company. Hiba’s mouth opens in a little “0” of surprise and envy.

Du’a, one of the last candidates to be interviewed, may be overqualified for the course. She’s 34, has a degree in finance, and does the marketing and fundraising for the grade school affiliated with the Church of the Nativity, the top tourist attraction in Bethlehem.

Du’a, too, bubbles with enthusiasm. She says she would most like to visit Ireland “because it’s so green.” When I ask what she would like foreign visitors to know about Palestine, she answers like a true public relations pro. “My school at the Children of the Nativity. The children who need help there.”

The one candidate that Claude and I openly disagree on is Najah, a woman in her 50s who is very eager to join the class. We wait until the interviews are complete to finish our somewhat heated discussion.

During the interview, Najah was noticeably nervous and unsmiling. She had a hard time understanding my questions and was the only candidate who got help from Claude. I learned in her much-broken English that she’s a schoolteacher and would like to visit “Jordan. Any place.”

“I can’t help her,” I tell Claude, and then angrily, “Who’s teaching this class?”

But I stop short of a full DeBrossean blast, something I have been prone to do during heated disagreements. Full disclosure: I was fired from my newspaper reporting job two weeks shy of my retirement because I let fly an angry email at an editor who I felt was trying to micro-manage a story assignment. I could have been dismissed on the spot without my retirement benefits, but the managing editor graciously showed me mercy for 18 years of service to the paper. For that, I will always be grateful.

When I left for Palestine, I vowed I’d learn to be more Christ-like and control my hair-trigger temper, a trait I inherited from my father who could lose it over an uncooperative zipper or a bent nail. In a larger sense, I wanted to relearn the basics of Christ’s teachings: love my enemies, forgive those who trespass against me, and, when hurt or offended, refrain from angry outbursts. Those who know me best realize that the last rule has never come to me naturally. 

To her credit, Claude tightens her jaw, purses her lips, but chokes back her own triggered reaction. She then calmly points out that, while Najah’s spoken English is challenged, her written answers are clear and grammatical. Helping Najah speak and better understand spoken English will, in turn, help her young students, she says.

I skim the written page on her evaluation sheet (I’ve seen worse writing from some of my former college students) and instantly agree that she deserves the opportunity. Claude smiles triumphantly. I apologize to her for my earlier brusque response. To reward myself for my uncharacteristic humility, I leave the interview room and head over to the cafeteria to see what delicious items Ala’a has prepared for today’s lunch. On the way across the parking lot to the campus education center, I reassure myself, “So far, so good.” All the students seem motivated and eager to learn. But I won’t really know the challenges that lie ahead until I teach my first class. That will be Monday, just a weekend away.

For the remainder of the day, I decide it’s time to check out the more touristy areas of town. Manger Square, the center of Old Bethlehem and home to the Church of the Nativity, is several blocks south of campus and east along the market strip of Children’s Street – a 20-minute walk. As you near the square, the streets get narrower, the shops more numerous and the shopkeepers more aggressive about hawking their wares. While I’m navigating the hectic fusion of traffic and pedestrians, shopkeepers step into my path with a standard query, “Hello, where are you from?” It’s the hook for getting me to stop and talk and then inspect their merchandise. Instead, I do a walk-around, mindful of the traffic, and try to avoid eye contact. But when I can’t, I say in my best Arabic, “Anla shukran. Sakne hon,” which means “No, thank you. I live here.” They get the message.

When I finally reach the marbled pedestrian-only expanse of the square, it’s like I’ve escaped from a maze. Manger Square has anchored Bethlehem’s Old City since the Ottoman period of the 19th century. On the south side of the square is its main attraction, the 4th-century Church of the Nativity alleged to have been built on the humble birth site of Jesus, hence the square’s name. Other sites include the Church of St. Catherine; the Mosque of Omar; the Bethlehem Municipality building; and the Bethlehem Peace Center, which promotes the culture, history and tourism of Palestine. Besides being a pedestrian haven from traffic, the square has benches, fountains, and trees that provide merciful shade on another cloudless day. The temperature is already 90 degrees in a cloudless sky.

My target destination is the Church of the Nativity, a must-see for anyone visiting Bethlehem. But before I’m halfway across the square, I can see the blocks-long line of tourists waiting in the sun to get inside. I decide to return at a less crowded time. After all, I’ll be spending two months here. Instead, I continue my quest to find a money changer that will accept my Visa card in exchange for shekels. Having no cash means I can’t shop with most of the smaller retailers nor pay for my Coke Zeros at the BBC cafeteria. The Bank of Palestine and Western Union office directly across the street from campus have already declined me because I can’t remember my Visa pin number. But now I find myself in Tourist Central of Bethlehem. Perhaps I’ll get lucky. If not, I may have to go begging to Andrew or Michael for a cash loan, a heavy price to pay in embarrassment for my overseas travel stupidity.

My first stop is a tiny hole-in-the-wall exchange on a narrow side street just off Manger Square. The glass door is wide open with a single clerk behind the counter, a kindly-looking older man standing in front of a larger-than-life wall portrait of Yasser Arafat, the former president of Palestine and a national hero who died in 2004 during the Second Intifada. Both portrait and clerk represent a more hopeful time when it seemed negotiations might lead to peace and a Palestinian state.

I say “hello” to test the clerk’s knowledge of English and he responds with a smile that flashes through his neatly-trimmed gray beard. 

“Hello, how may I help you?”

I pull out my Visa card and explain my predicament. He puckers his beard-rimmed lips and shakes his head. “I can’t help you, but have you tried Western Union?”

I wince. “Yes. They can’t, either.”

“I’m sorry.”

Me, too. I fear I will owe money to every merchant in Bethlehem before my daughter Maddy receives the forwarded letter with my new Visa pin. 

On my way back to campus, I explore the Old City’s narrow hilly side streets of stone homes and foot-worn public stairways – until my conscience begins to nag at me. I simply must start work on the lesson plan for Monday’s class. My penchant for procrastination has followed me all the way to the Holy Land.

***

After all my walking that day, I’m ravenous by the time 6 o’clock rolls around. But without a penny in cash to my name, I’m limited to restaurants that accept credit cards, and that usually means the more pricey establishments. A Google review (5 stars, 1 dollar sign) sends me off to a local fast food joint called Ramzi Burger just two or three blocks from campus on Star Street. The moment I walk in, I see the small space of just six booths filled with young local families – not tourists. A good sign. I can also see the place is American friendly. The menu above the counter is in English with photos and the items instantly recognizable from fast food chains in America. But, I ask myself, is this the kind of food I came all the way to Palestine for? Not at all, but it’s cheap, looks decent and I’m hungry. I belly up to the cash register and order a regular burger and the “Gabbage (sic) Salad,” assuming it’s coleslaw. 

I sit at the last open booth and, minutes later, a smiling young man delivers my food on a tray with fork and knife and napkin at the ready. (I thank him, wondering if I should leave a tip – not a requirement, I’m told, in Bethlehem.). The burger doesn’t disappoint – thick, juicy, and “through the garden” with fresh tomato, lettuce, pickles, and onion on a soft sesame seed bun. The salad is a pleasant surprise. It’s sliced red cabbage in a light dressing of olive oil, lemon juice, garlic and a touch of salt. Yum! So I didn’t cop out on the local food after all.

While I eat, I find myself watching the way young parents here interact with their babies and toddlers – the mothers gazing at them with undivided attention and speaking softly without babbling or cooing. The children – transfixed by their mothers – return the gaze. The fathers  walk into the restaurant cradling their swaddling bundles tenderly in both arms (not hanging from pumpkin seats). The parent-child connection is direct, intimate, unforced. 

Perhaps American parents are just as loving, but for one thing, you don’t see as many small children in America. The average age in Palestine is just under 21, and 38 percent of the population is under 14. 

Like everything else during the occupation, children and child birth rates have become part of the ethnic and political divide. For decades, the high birth rate among Palestinian women raised Israeli fears that the “Arab womb” would soon overwhelm the Jewish majority in Israel. But the latest data (2022) from the World Bank and other sources show that the fertility rate in Israel (3.1 children per woman) is now higher than that of Palestine (2.9). That’s due in large measure to the influx of ultra-Orthodox Jews whose fertility rate is more than double the Israeli average (6.6 children). Both Israeli and Palestinian fertility rates are considerably higher than those in the rest of the Western world, including the U.S. (1.8). For now and into the foreseeable future, Palestine’s population (5.3 million) stands at little more than half of Israel’s (9.6 million).

The ambulatory children in Ramzi Burger are lively but well-behaved. None are absorbed in smartphones or video games. Out on the streets, I have seen many young boys playing on the sidewalks or weaving their bikes through traffic – but never girls. They seem always to be in the company of a parent.

On my way back to the guesthouse, I’m surprised to see the small produce market directly across the street is brightly lit and still open as evening falls. I walk under the canvas awning and into the cramped windowless confines of the market, taking in the citrusy smell of fresh produce. The local bounty practically spills over the makeshift wooden stands. Juicy-looking red, green and black grapes. Bags of bright orange carrots the thickness of two or three fingers. Tomatoes of every size and shape with the green veiny stems still on. Loose Romaine – greener, leafier, thicker than I’ve ever seen in the states. The stalks of asparagus, bunched with blue rubber bands, are slender and so crisp-looking their stems beg to be snapped between thumb and forefinger.

Two other customers in the store are piling up bag after bag of produce on the square wooden counter. The quantities are so large I can’t help thinking these are restaurant owners stocking up their kitchens for the next day’s offerings. The clerk, or perhaps owner, stands behind the counter and reaches into every plastic bag, quickly weighs its contents on an electronic scale, then carefully rings up the price on his cash register before refilling the bag. When everything is tallied, he stashes each of the smaller bags into larger white bags voluminous enough to fill a kitchen trash can.

It’s hard to miss the clerk in such a small space. He’s a tall, lanky and pleasant-looking man in his 40s, light-skinned, with an air of European sophistication that speaks of worldly experience beyond just bagging produce. He turns his blue eyes on me and starts speaking in a language that’s too flowing for Arabic. When he sees I’m clueless, he switches to English.

“I’m sorry. I thought you were French,” he says in a slightly nasal accent that perhaps is French as well. It must be my long pants and ironed shirt. “Can I help you with something?”

“Do you take credit cards?” I ask, wincing because I already know the answer.

“No, but if you see something you want, you can pay me another time.”

Unbelievable. And yet he wasn’t the first clerk that day to extend me credit. A convenience store owner next to the college let me grab a cold bottle of water on what I now call “the trust plan.” It seems to be a Palestinian courtesy. At the produce stand, I begin stocking up on all my favorite things – lettuce, tomatoes, carrots, grapes, and for good measure, a box of unsalted raw almonds for snacking. The price for all of it? About a third less than what I would have paid at a supermarket in Cincinnati, and for lesser quality.

I leave the store knowing I have to do something about my lack of cash, and soon, unless I want a reputation as a foreign freeloader. A call that morning to my credit union offered no quick solution. For security reasons, they won’t give me the Visa pin over the phone. The number will have to be mailed to my home address and won’t arrive for seven to ten business days. What I don’t realize is that the post office won’t forward “sensitive” mail to my daughter’s address in Cincinnati, as I had requested before leaving for Bethlehem. Instead, the letter will be returned to the credit card company. After a half dozen emails and foreign-rate calls to my credit union over the following week, it will take more than a month for my daughter to receive the letter and text me the pin. All in the name of banking security.

In the short-run at least, I can still enjoy the bounty of Palestine. The red grapes, while not entirely seedless, are juicy, flavorful, and burst in your mouth like candy. (As for the tiny seeds, they’re entirely chewable and, I’m told, good for you.) The carrots are crunchy and almost sweet. The lettuce crackling crisp. The smallish round tomatoes are the juicy antithesis of the hard tasteless pulp that passes for tomatoes back home.

With a climate akin to Southern California, Andrew tells me later, farmers in Palestine can grow almost anything. Further research reveals why the region’s limestone laden hills are so fertile. They sit atop an enormous aquifer, a source that has also supplied water to nearby Jerusalem since 200 BCE. The aquifer is still one of the main sources of water for both central and southern Palestine as well as Israel. But, like nearly all resources in the West Bank, the water is under Israeli control. During the Six-Day War in 1967, the Israelis took over a pumping station in the Bethlehem region that later became the site of a settlement.Today Israel distributes the water to the Palestinians in the Hebron and Bethlehem area. Knowing they can be cut off at any moment, and often are, Palestinians keep tanks of reserve water on the roofs of their homes and businesses.

I return to my room to find a stack of clean white towels, bath soap bars, and shampoo packets on top of my mini-fridge. Everyone at the college (well, with the exception of one person perhaps – more later) has gone out of their way to make me feel welcome. My frustrations here – and they are clearly First World – have more to do with technology.

My room is private and comfortable enough – with toilet, sink and walk-in shower – but there’s no AC and no cross breeze from the front windows. Fortunately, although it’s hotter here than back home by 10 to 15 degrees, the humidity is far less and the temperatures drop to comfortable levels at night – but only if you sleep naked on top of your covers and under a blasting fan.

Things do work here most of the time. And that’s especially true of the WiFi. I can get a reliable and powerful signal anywhere on campus. I learn later that much of the credit belongs to a very smart young man, Wajdi Zoughbi, a computer engineer who’s in charge of the college’s technical facilities.

On the negative side, I soon discover that the laundry dryers don’t really dry and the electrical outlets, for some reason, don’t supply enough juice to run my handheld clothes steamer. I’m back to ironing again. When showering, I don’t wait on the hot water. It takes at least five minutes to kick in, wasting what in Palestine is a precious resource. The momentary icy shock on my scalp and shoulders works better than a double-infused espresso to wake me in the morning. After a few seconds of pain, I’m acclimated and refreshed by the time the warmer water arrives.

Far more frustrating is the bathroom toilet seat. It can’t be raised to the masculine position without dropping (thwack!) to the porcelain rim. Which means unzipping and peeing becomes an awkward two-handed maneuver. Several days later, while shopping at Jumbo, I come up with what I consider a brilliant solution – a self-adhesive picture hanger on the front of the toilet tank. Seat hooked for number one, unhooked for number two.

But my biggest challenge in Bethlehem won’t be dealing with technology or bathroom amenities. It will be learning to forgive others.

Finding Home Away from Home

Saturday, Sept. 3, 2022

The Bible college has no sports or fitness facilities but I learn from Michael that there’s a gym open to the public at the Catholic Action Center near the Bethlehem University campus, a 15-minute walk away. The cost is $40 per month – a reasonable sum for someone who desperately needs regular exercise not only to maintain his, err, boyish physique but his mental health as well.

Catholic Action fitness center near Bethlehem University campus.

That Saturday, I arrive at the Catholic Action Gym just after 4 p.m. and present my Visa card to the tall older man standing behind the reception counter. He speaks little English, but he smiles and shakes his head no. Another cash-only vendor. I show him my empty wallet.

Without a moment’s hesitation, he starts writing in his receipt book. He rips off the small piece of perforated paper and hands it to me. A receipt for 140 shekels, dated and signed. My pass to the gym. 

“Later,” he says. “Okay?”

I thank him profusely and start for the gym door to the right of the counter when the man wags his finger at me and says, “La,” Arabic for “no.” He writes “6 pm” on another piece of scrap paper and hands it to me. I nod and tell him I’ll return at 6. 

What I discover later is that the hours of 4 to 6 pm are reserved for women at the gym. Men can use the facility from 6 to 9:30 pm, and both men and women are welcome between 6 and 7:30. Even Christians here are protective of women.

The Catholic Action Network is a complex of religious, cultural, and recreational buildings sharing a hilltop with Bethlehem University. BU itself is much bigger – a Catholic co-educational university of 3,000 students (BBC has just 250) founded in 1973 and open to students of all faiths. It was the first university established in the West Bank and can trace its roots back to the late 1800s when the De La Salle Christian Brothers (the Lassalean Order) opened schools in Palestine, Turkey, Lebanon, Jordan, and Egypt under Ottoman rule.

BU’s walled campus sits atop one of Bethlehem’s highest hills, a neighborhood that is mostly Greek Orthodox and decidedly upscale by Palestinian standards. The streets are narrow, blessedly quiet, and almost free from traffic. White stone walls dripping with flowering vines of bright purple and orange front substantial homes. There are beautiful views of the city and valleys below in every direction.

From the gym, I beginlooking for a cafe where I can sip and read for the next few hours until the gym reopens at 6. My meandering eventually leads me to a refuge better than a cafe – a bar that promises a cold beer and air conditioning in Bethlehem’s merciless heat. It’s down a flight of stairs off the street with a catchy name I won’t reveal to avoid being promotional. Let’s call it Asim’s Grotto. 

Through its glass door, I enter a cozy, cave-like space with vaulted ceilings, rough-hewn stone walls, and table candles and wall lanterns for subdued lighting. The whole space is just big enough for a countertop with a handful of high chairs and two tables tucked away in a nook. The place is empty of customers but I hear something surprisingly familiar over a wall speaker at the back  – 1930’s or 40’s American swing music. Count Basie?

Entrance to and interior of The Barrel.

The bartender, a lanky young man with a gentle smile, turns his eyes on me and says, “May I help you?” in such perfect English I’m startled.

“Do you accept credit cards?”

“No, I’m sorry. There’s a cash machine just up the street.”

“I don’t know my pin. But thanks.”

I’m ready to start for the door when he says, “No. Forget it. What would you like?”

“I promise I’ll pay you back the instant I get cash.” 

I’m beginning to sound as practiced in my begging as Wympee from the old Popeye cartoons.

“Don’t worry. We’ll work it out.”

“Do you have any lager?”

“I do. Do you want local?”

“Of course!” 

Oh dear. I’ve hit the beverage jackpot.

“Then I recommend a local beer called ‘Shepherd’s Milk’.”

The name sounds none too appealing but I nod yes. I scoot onto a high chair in the very middle of the bar.

The bartender produces a tall frosted glass, pulls one of the lineup of six draft handles, and carefully fills the angled glass. He sets down a coaster and places before me a liquid of perfect amber hue with just the right amount of foam.

“Thank you!” 

The first sip is pure ambrosia – cold, flavorful, tingling the parched mouth and throat with its malty essence as only a good lager can. I take a bigger gulp and bang my glass down on the bar in the time-honored male tradition of showing how much I like the beer.

“Oh my God that’s good!”

“May I ask where you’re from?”

The States. Ohio. Cincinnati. I’m already used to the blank stares.

He clearly doesn’t recognize the state or the city but says, “I would love to travel to the States someday.”

I extend my hand and introduce myself as Jim. He introduces himself as Asim. I stumble over the pronunciation a few times before I get it right, the emphasis on the second syllable, as in “ah-SEEM.” It means guardian in Arabic.

“What brings you here, Jim?”

I tell him I’m teaching English at the Bible college.

Then I ask him: “Where did you learn your English? It’s perfect!” 

I exaggerate a little. He has a very slight accent, a mix, it seems, of British crispness and something nasal – Portuguese? French? Albanian?

He almost blushes. “Thank you. I’m self-taught.”

“You’re kidding me?”

“No, I taught myself from books and watching American TV. My biggest influence, however, was Christopher Hitchens.”

“Wait a minute. You mean you were taught by THE Christopher Hitchens?” The brilliant British-American author and journalist who died, I think, a few years ago. (Actually, it was 2011. So much for my memory.)

“No. I listened to his videos. They were excellent. I learned a great deal.” 

Hitchens is perhaps best known for founding what he called the New Atheism, a creed that says religion should be criticized, countered, examined, and challenged by rational argument. One of his bestselling books was “God is Not Great.” Quite a contrast, I would suspect, to the sentiments of most people in Bethlehem.

Asim asks me what kind of music I like. He has Internet access to everything. I say I like what I hear so far. It’s been mostly swing and traditional American jazz. Count Basie. Benny Green. Louis Armstrong.

He changes to some old-time blues. Lightnin’ Hopkins. “It’s a Sin to be Rich, It’s a Lowdown Shame to be Poor.” 

“I love this kind of jazz,” he says, and for the first time I see a chink in his American-wannabe armor.

“That’s not jazz. That’s blues.”

He turns the volume down and asks me to explain. I tell him jazz is lively and upbeat while blues is bittersweet and kind of whiny, the way life mostly is, at least for me. I imitate some typical blues chords on air guitar – melancholic, twangy, slowly rhythmic. 

Asim stares at me strangely and says, “Give me an example.”

My mind goes back to the very first concert I attended in high school. 

“Play BB King’s ‘The Thrill is Gone.’” 

As Asim heads to the console at the end of the bar, I notice a framed black-and-white photo behind the bar of a man with a wild handlebar mustache and laser-focused eyes. He’s staring straight at me from the wall. Familiar-looking but who? It takes my age-addled neurons a second to retrieve.

Nietzche! Okay, I’m no longer in Kansas any more.

Asim serves up one of his carefully handmade cocktails.

BB King’s smoky voice and the sweet mournful timbre of Lucille, his beloved electric guitar, fill the room and flood my brain with high school memories. As Asim returns, he nods his head in rhythm to the music, strokes his jawline. Yes, he gets it.

I point to the photo behind the bar. “Is Nietzche one of your heroes?” 

I hope not. Nietzche’s politics have always puzzled and frustrated me. Was he an aristocratic radical? A rugged individualist? An anarchist? Or, worst of all, a proto-fascist? His “Superman” inspired Hitler and, decades later, a Hitler wannabe like Trump, although I’m certain the latter never so much as cracked one of the German philosopher’s books.

“No. Not a hero. I have no heroes. But he was a big influence on me.” He says Nietzche saved him from the utter nihilism of Schopenhauer. 

I laugh out loud. I’m both gobsmacked and grateful that somehow (God’s plan? Fate? Serendipity?) I found my way into this particular venue. Asim could be Bogart to my Ingrid Bergman. “Of all the gin joints in all the towns in all the world, he walks into mine.”

I ask for his life’s story, and Asim delivers concisely, in perfect English and with a vocabulary that would have challenged every student I ever taught in my four years at Ohio’s Miami University.

Asim is the son of a Palestinian refugee who fled penniless to a neighboring Arab country. With street smarts and hard work, his father built a business with close ties to Iraq. Asim and his siblings lived a life of relative luxury until it all came crashing down in 2003. That’s when the U.S. invaded Iraq on the shameless lie that Saddam Hussein was harboring weapons of mass destruction.

Yet Asim harbors no ill will toward Americans. He says he harbors no ill will toward anyone, and I believe it. He reminds me again of Bogart’s Rick in Casablanca, running a tavern where the service steers tactfully among warring factions of all stripes. But beneath his air of impartial sophistication, like Rick, you sense immediately that Asim has a big heart. But I soon learn it’s one whose compassion is reserved more for individuals than nations or peoples or religions. He says he sympathizes with the Palestinian cause but sees no solution to the occupation and the tension between Arabs and Israelis, at least in the short term. “The Israelis want all of the land to themselves and the Palestinians want more than they can ever get back. How many times now have we lost wars?”

Asim was able to finish his education at a private bilingual high school before poverty forced him out into the world. He worked at a supermarket in his native country for several years but longed to move to Bethlehem. It was there that his family returned twice a year to spend the winter holidays and part of their summers. “I’ve always had good memories of this place,” he says.

For years, Asim scrimped and saved with the goal of opening his own bar in Bethlehem – all the while reading deeply and widely in philosophy, religion, literature, and science in a variety of languages. He speaks Arabic, English, Hebrew, and a little Greek.

I bow toward him with my arms extended. “I am not worthy! I am not worthy!”

Asim laughs and asks if I would like another beer. Why, of course.

As our conversation continues, I realize I will never make it to the gym before it closes at 9:30. And even if I do, I’m not sure if I’m in the best of shape to keep my balance on a treadmill machine. 

It isn’t long before I realize that Asim has probably read every book of philosophy and work of fiction I had read as an undergraduate at Harvard, and more. The conversation turns to Dosoevsky’s “Crime and Punishment” and I strain to remember more than just Raskolnikov’s chopping up his landlady with an ax. He tells me “The Idiot” is even better. I confess with shame I’ve never read it.

To show him I’m not clueless, I tell him I don’t think Schopenhauer is entirely without hope. I badly paraphrase one of his famous quotes I remember from college, Googled in its accurate form here: “A man can be himself only so long as he is alone; and if he does not love solitude, he will not love freedom; for it is only when he is alone that he is really free.”

Asim fires back that Schopenhauer also said that “the will to live is aimless, irrational, and painful. He believed it would be better to kill yourself.”

All right, I think, is he trying to get me to order another beer?

“And so what does Nietzche have to offer? ‘The will to power?’” I protest. “The Superman who makes up his own rules? That’s the kind of thinking that gave rise to fascism, and Donald Trump.” 

“Not necessarily. Nietzche simply calls for finding your own meaning because there isn’t an intrinsic one. You can create your own purpose that gives you a reason to live. That person is stronger to face everything in life. But he does agree that Schopenhauer is right, that life is essentially meaningless.” 

Uncle! 

“And so what meaning in life have you found?”

“I have a business that I wish to make better, to make it more profitable, to make it nicer. That, in itself, is a purpose, so I can have something to work on. Five by five meters that are entirely mine, to make it what I can. Yeah. I guess one of the main meanings in my life is my job, so far.”

I think but don’t say how limited and unsatisfying that purpose seems to me. His is an inward philosophy for someone who is young, strong, ambitious. Those of us who are cognizant of our aging, like myself, strive to connect to something larger than our mortal selves. We are more likely to find our purpose in striving to leave behind a better world for our children and our children’s children. And we cling to the hope that perhaps there is something beyond this one. Is it a deeper quantum world from which the illusion of our own has sprung full-blown, much like a multi-sensory hologram? Or, more conventionally, can we simply say it’s God’s plan? Whatever is “out there” has to be better than what humanity, with its billions of suffering souls, has devised so far.

It’s only by reading up later on Nietzche that I find another of his life-affirming doctrines, one that came to him in an epiphany while hiking in the Swiss Alps – the Eternal Recurrence. The idea appears in his more literary work, “Thus Spake Zarathustra”: “‘Now I die and vanish,’ you would say, ‘and in an instant I am nothing. Souls are as mortal as bodies.’ But the knot of causes in which I am entangled recurs,— it will create me again! I myself belong to the causes of eternal recurrence. I come again, with this sun, with this earth, with this eagle, with this serpent — not to a new life or a better life or a similar life:— I eternally come again to this identical and selfsame life, in the greatest and even in the smallest, so that I again teach the eternal recurrence of all things.’”

In other words, Nietzche tells us, live in a way that we wish always to live again. That is how we determine our happiness in the eternal recurrence of the universe.

I text Karen about my good fortune in having found such a haven of intellect and conviviality. I also mention, jokingly, that I hope I’m sober enough to return to the gym at 6. 

Karen: It’s what—4:30 there? Pace yourself!

I change the topic of conversation with Asim by mentioning I’m the only person who has walked into the bar that night.

Asim shrugs. “Before the pandemic, 40 or 50 tourist buses would come up this way every night. Now it is only one or two.”

On that depressing note, I decide it’s time to leave. A quick dinner of fresh Edam cheese, hot Palestinian pickles, and the delicious local wheat bread – soft and flavorful and just a little sweet – that Andrew and Karen left on my door handle that morning awaits me in my room.

I slip off the barstool. “In the words of MacArthur, I shall return. And with enough cash to more than pay off my debt, kind sir.”

“I hope you do return,” he says. “We haven’t even started talking about religion yet.”

“Don’t worry. You’re my new home away from home.”

Can one man save a bar? I don’t know but I may be willing to give it a try. But first I have to muster my will to power and find a source of cash.

I walk back to the guesthouse a bit unsteadily along the narrow, uneven Bethlehem pavement. I recount the numbers of beers I had that evening – four, at least. More than I usually have, or should. Before the pandemic, I had confined myself to no more than two drinks a day, usually red wine with dinner per my doctors’ recommendation. He added, however, that current medical research indicates one drink a day would be ideal. But months of isolation at home had steadily upped my consumption and, most likely with it, my blood pressure.

Often when I drink, I think of my poor father, spiralling deeper into alcoholism during his retirement, then dying of a stroke at age 75. 

“Pace yourself.”  

Indeed.

From then on, Karen and I begin to exchange texts nearly every day, often more than once. Her messages become an anchor of comfort and familiarity for a stranger adrift in a strange sea.

An Invitation I Can’t Refuse

Sunday, Sept. 4, 2022

At 8 a.m., there’s a knock on my door. Back home in Cincinnati, this would have been an ungodly hour of the morning and a violation of my cherished retirement routine. Here, I’ve learned not to binge Netflix until 1 am.

Standing outside with his usual bright smile is Prof. Andrew Bush, the American director of the Institute of Peace Studies at BBC and my unofficial tour guide, mentor and fast-growing friend. It turns out he’s also pastor at a small church in the Palestinian territory of East Jerusalem.

“Hi,” he says, “some of us are going to church in Jerusalem this morning. Would you like to go with us?” 

My mind spins for a moment. I don’t normally go to church, especially the evangelical kind, but spending time with Andrew and his wife Karen is always a pleasure. And, besides, when in Bethlehem, do as the Bethlehemians do.

“Sure,” I answer. “Do I have time to shower?”

“No problem. We leave at 9. Meet us at the van.”

Before I close my door, Andrew turns and says, “Don’t forget your passport.”

“Yes! Glad you reminded me.”

Like all my relationships, the one I have with Jesus Christ is complicated. Before leaving for Palestine, I had read several books about the life of Jesus by Marcus J. Borg, the American New Testament Scholar and theologian. Before his death in 2015, Borg was one of the leading voices of what has been called progressive Christianity. I had never heard of Borg until a Facebook friend, responding to one of my despairing comments about the hypocrisy of much of organized Christian religion, recommended I read him. 

I devoured two of Borg’s books in just a week – “The Last Week: The Day-by-Day Account of Jesus’s Final Week in Jerusalem” and the more personal self-reflection “Convictions: How I Learned What Matters Most.” Until I read Borg, I had never thought of Jesus as simply an extraordinary man – a non-violent radical who dared to defy the oppressive authority of his times and paid the ultimate price for his convictions. I must confess that the divinity of Jesus has always been problematic for me, but that doesn’t mean I don’t see his extraordinary behavior as divinely inspired. The leap of faith is just that for me – a leap from my mental bedrock of empiricism I’ve always been too fearful to leave behind. But I can certainly respect others who have had the courage to make that leap.

That said, I’m still a bit nervous about what I will encounter at an evangelical church service and how I might react. My childhood memories go back to a “Holy Roller” church near our home known for its raucous cries and wild dancing – both of which passersby could witness on hot summer days when the front doors were wide open. As an adult, several women I had dated took me to their Christian megachurches replete with jumbo screens and “Christian rock” songs that seemed to be neither.   

With Karen Bush in the front passenger seat of the van and myself in the back, Andrew drives first to the nearby home of Dr. Bishara Awad, founder and former president of the Bible college, who’s joining us for the services this morning. The Friday before was his 80th birthday.

I will be teaching at the BBC education center named in honor of Bishara, one more reason to be on my best behavior at church. I have yet to meet the man but others here portray him as nothing less than a modern saint. I expect someone pious, commanding, wearing their Christianity on their sleeve.

But when Bishara opens the back passenger door and greets me, I am totally disarmed. He is a small, rotund man, perhaps 5’4”, with a deep tan, closely-cropped white hair and twinkling brown eyes. He has a smile that says he’s more interested in you than you are in him.

We exchange pleasantries on the ride to church, with Bishara asking about my teaching, my hometown, my family. He speaks a more formal English with only a slight Arabic accent in his deep resounding voice (No problem for my hearing challenges). He tells me his mother once lived in Lima, Ohio, about an hour’s drive north of my hometown of Dayton up through the rural Catholic countryside known as “The Holy Land” where my French ancestors had settled. As a teenager, Bishara’s mother worked in Lima while her older brother earned his theology degree from nearby Bluffton University, a private Mennonite college. We both agree it’s a small, small world. 

But it’s days later, while reading Bishara’s gripping autobiography (“Yet in the Dark Streets Shining,” co-authored by Mercy Aiken), that I fully realize the greatness of the man who was sitting beside me. Awad was just 6 years old when his father was killed by a sniper during the Israeli-Arab war of 1948. Forced to flee their Jerusalem home, Bishara and his six siblings grew up as refugees in the West Bank and, although their mother did her best to keep the family together, the children spent at least part of their youth in orphanages. Through decades of persecution and war, Bishara somehow managed to become a spiritual and community leader in his new home of Bethlehem. It was there he learned to forgive his enemies and to advocate for peace – and justice – between Israelis and Palestinians. In 1979, under the military occupation that began in 1967, he founded BBC, the first evangelical college on the West Bank.

On the drive to Jerusalem, talk turns to border security and the rumors that Israel will soon begin tightening restrictions even more on foreign visitors and workers in the Palestinian territory. Surprisingly, professors like Andrew are not given visas from Israel while ministers and their wives are. Andrew is worried that, when his ministerial visa expires later this year, it will not be renewed.

“Israel clearly wants to isolate Palestinians from the world community,” Andrew explains. Oppression unseen is oppression that doesn’t exist.

While I don’t have a visa, I do have an American passport – a golden ticket to just about anywhere in Palestine and Israel. Israeli officials place no restrictions on American travelers, no doubt to avoid any negative publicity in the United States. America, after all, is the chief diplomatic and military supporter of Israel. Without the backing of the US, Israel would be far more isolated from the world community for its illegal settlements and apartheid policies. 

Many other nations have allowed their citizens and corporations to join BDS, the Palestinian-led movement of “Boycott, Divestment and Sanctions.” The aim of BDS is to pressure Israel to end its occupation and colonization of Palestine through an international boycott of its products and tourism, a withdrawal of foreign investment from its economy, and the imposition of financial sanctions. The tactic has been used before with success and without violence. BDS pressure from Europe and the Americas, including the U.S., succeeded in overturning South Africa’s apartheid system in 1990. But it took 30 years.

But Israel has been treated differently, especially by the United States. Pro-Israeli lobbyists have used their muscle to pass bans against BDS in 35 states, laws that the ACLU say are a clear violation of America’s First Amendment rights. Boycotting as an expression of free speech was affirmed by the U.S. Supreme Court during the Civil Rights movement. Anti-BDS laws require government contractors to promise that they will not boycott Israel and that managers of public pension funds will not invest in companies that boycott Israel. In some states like Texas, public employees, including teachers, have been forced to sign anti-BDS agreements in order to be hired or keep their jobs. Critics of BDS call it “anti-Semitic.” I call it pro-Palestinian.

Ben and Jerry’s is one of the few American companies to push back against the anti-BDS lobby in America. Founded by Jewish friends Ben Cohen and Jerry Greenfield in 1978, the Vermont-based ice cream retailer has long been committed to social justice and, despite being sold to Uniliver in 2000, still is. But when the company decided to quit selling its products in Israel several years ago, its parent company, Unilever, sought to purchase its franchise in Israel and reopen its stores. Ben & Jerry’s sued and a federal judge sided with Unilever. Ben & Jerry’s recently filed a new suit in September of 2022 to block the takeover. 

After a 30-minute drive from Bethlehem and, surprisingly, no checkpoint stops, we pull off the street into a walled stone enclosure, the site of the East Jerusalem International Church. The building is an elegant two-story mansion in the Arabic style, much like BBC’s administrative building, serving now as a church and religious training center. It’s surrounded by tall decorative grass and flowering vines and flanked on two sides by a small orchard of olive trees. You could say it looks downright Biblical. The service will take place in a first-floor wing of the mansion – a joyful room with high ceilings, marbled floors, and an abundance of morning light streaming through its cut-glass windows. About 50 folding chairs are lined up in five rows. An aisle up the middle leads to a simple wooden lectern with microphone, two floor speakers, and an array of potted bright red flowers. To the right of the lectern is a grand piano to be played with classical mastery by Jenna, a friend of the church who lives in Jerusalem. 

After the entrance songs are sung, Andrew goes to the lectern, welcomes everyone, and kindly introduces me as the new volunteer English teacher at the college. He then invites the other 20 or so congregants to introduce themselves.

Andrew Bush delivers sermon at East Jerusalem International Church.

Besides Bishara, there are two other representatives from BBC – another professor named Andrew and his wife Elise. Adding some welcome diversity to the congregation is a UN worker from Nigeria, Timu, his wife Nema and their five lively and beautiful young children, ranging in age from toddler to about 12. The two older boys are dressed in what looks like school uniforms of white shirts and dark pants. But the girls stand out with carefully braided beaded hair and cotton dresses of bright tropical colors lovingly hand-made by their mother. New attendees include, Hannah and Sarah, a couple of college-age Mennonite missionaries from the U.S. working in Palestine, and, for a touch of interfaith diversity, a woman in her 30s from the Israeli community named Rani. 

Timu with his youngest child, Desire

When the congregants have finished, Andrew introduces himself, just briefly, but enough so for me to realize he’s an interesting amalgam of the rational and religious. Both he and his wife were “born again” while living in New Mexico, where Karen’s father was a nuclear physicist at Los Alamos. Andrew doesn’t explain when or how he and Karen were reborn before turning his attention to the day’s Bible reading – Acts 3, verses 1 through 10, “Peter Heals a Lame Beggar”:

One day Peter and John were going up to the temple at the time of prayer—at three in the afternoon. Now a man who was lame from birth was being carried to the temple gate called Beautiful, where he was put every day to beg from those going into the temple courts. When he saw Peter and John about to enter, he asked them for money. Peter looked straight at him, as did John. Then Peter said, “Look at us!” So the man gave them his attention, expecting to get something from them.

Then Peter said, “Silver or gold I do not have, but what I do have I give you. In the name of Jesus Christ of Nazareth, walk.” Taking him by the right hand, he helped him up, and instantly the man’s feet and ankles became strong. He jumped to his feet and began to walk. Then he went with them into the temple courts, walking and jumping, and praising God. When all the people saw him walking and praising God, they recognized him as the same man who used to sit begging at the temple gate called Beautiful, and they were filled with wonder and amazement at what had happened to him. 

In the sermon that follows, Andrew doesn’t hold to a literal interpretation of the passage but approaches it instead from a more metaphorical viewpoint. The lame man “walking and jumping” into the temple illustrates the transformative powers of faith in Christ, both spiritual and physical. And the fact that a lame beggar was invited into the temple is an example of the inclusiveness of Christianity. The message: Christ came to tell us that all are welcome into the Kingdom of God.

Toward the end of the service, congregants are asked to speak up about any new events or developments in their lives. I find the group so warm and welcoming I have no trouble contributing. So, without really lying, I stand up and face the congregation and talk briefly about how my “spiritual journey” brought me to Bethlehem Bible College and how happy I am to be there. It’s well-received. 

I decide that going to church may not deepen my faith but it has warmed my fellowship among the BBC community. I no longer feel so alone.

***

After church, with the gym closed for Sunday, I decide to take a long exploratory walk through Beyt Jala, the mostly Christian neighborhood west of campus. I have nowhere I have to be and, besides, it’s a gorgeous day – 88 degrees and sunny with a slight merciful breeze. I head out the gate in front of the guesthouse directly onto Jerusalem-Hebron road, turn left and take my first left downhill on a commercial side street. There’s a busy car repair shop, a bakery, a pharmacy and three- and four-story apartments with balconies festooned with brightly colored clothes left out to dry. 

I turn right at the next street and I’m soon in open fields of high yellow grass, green scrub over rock and, of course, lots of debris. The street becomes a dusty white unpaved road. Ahead I can see the cement walls of the Aida refugee camp, topped with wire fencing and barbed wire. I’ve been told not to visit the camp without the safety of an escort, but my curiosity draws me along the streets that surround it. I can’t see much over the eight-foot walls but there’s plenty of graffiti to keep me entertained. A black silhouette of a man holds his chained hands above his head for all the world to see. And a whimsical green caterpillar says in a cartoon bubble, “Stay in skool” (sic) and “Read a book or something.” The second phrase triggers memories of my mother’s response whenever I complained about being bored.

I complete the periphery of the camp and, looping west and then south, find myself back in the open fields and dusty roads behind the BBC campus. After a half mile or so, I’m on paved streets again and passing by Beit Jala Pharmaceutical, a huge walled-in complex of high-rise office buildings and laboratories for manufacturing generic drugs. It gives me hope that there are at least some good jobs here. 

I keep walking along the unnamed street until I reach another commercial area with a cafe, a butcher shop, several clothing stores, and a nail salon. In the rotary at the end of the street, I find a curving storefront of fast food restaurants – Pizza Hut, McDonald’s, KFC – and, lo and behold, at the end of the curve, a money exchange store. 

After so many rejections of my Visa card at other exchanges, I’m hesitant to give it a try. But there’s always hope. I enter through the double glass door and walk into a small lobby with folding chairs against the wall and a glassed-in counter with four teller windows. Only one teller is working on a Sunday, a young woman who looks like an ad for Chanel. Long black hair, bright red lipstick, and matching nails. Her slender frame is gracefully packaged in a tight black skirt and loose ivory blouse. She smiles as I approach.

“Can I help you?”

With my mouth just inches from the stainless steel voice portal, I tell my tale of woe in the simplest English I can find. She nods as I speak. 

“Wait here,” she says when I finish. “I’ll see if we can help.”

She disappears behind the door at the back of the glassed-in chamber. An eternity seems to pass as I stand there alone before she returns through the door, followed closely by a balding young man in his 30s with wire-rim glasses and a neatly-cropped black beard.

All business, the young man looks me straight in the eye through his thick round lenses and asks for my Visa card. I slide it through the opening on the counter. He looks at it carefully, front and back, and disappears again through the back door. 

Yikes. Is he calling Visa? The police? The Israeli border patrol?

The young woman smiles at me as though to say everything will be alright.

Minutes later, the serious young man returns with my card. 

“How much do you want?”

I nearly faint with surprise and delight. Can it really be true? My brain grasps at figures. Okay, okay. One hundred dollars. About 330 shekels. That should last me for a week.

My glee is somewhat tempered when I learn it will cost 30 shekels to get my 300. A ten percent fee when I know my credit union would have charged just 3 percent. But I’m in no position to argue.

Magician-like, the obliging young man snicks out a variety of denominations from his cash drawer and, like dealing from a deck of cards, briskly snaps the bills, one at a time, onto the countertop in front of me.

I thank him repeatedly as I stuff the bills into my wallet and my wallet into my front pocket. Its soft thickness presses against my thigh like a reassuring hand. 

In my glee, I begin to sing softly the lyrics from an old Jackson Browne tune:

Caught between the longing for love

And the struggle for the legal tender

Where the sirens sing and the church bells ring

And the junk man pounds his fender…

First Class Is a Charm

Monday, Sept. 5, 2022

Over a morning latte at Zawadeh, I finalize the details of the lesson plan for my first class at 4:30 that afternoon. It’s mostly a matter of introducing myself and the students to each other. I also plan to pass out the syllabus and familiarize students with the textbook, homework requirements. and my plan for progressing through the course.

Before returning to the guesthouse, however, I decide to stop at Jumbo’s to pick up some clothespins for the rack in the upstairs laundry room – an alternative to the dryer that doesn’t really work. But inside the store, I am stumped. I go to the detergent section, the housewares, the hardware  – no clothespins.

On past occasions at Jumbo when I couldn’t find an item, I sought out the manager, a younger man who could speak a bit of English. He was always courteous and helpful. But today he’s not there. So I go first to a checkout clerk and make a pinching motion on my index finger and say, “Wehn?” – the Arabic word for “where.” She looks at me as if I’m insane. So I turn to the 30-ish man who bagged my groceries the last time and make the same gesture. He looks up from his bagging, scowls, and shakes his head. Okay, I was always lousy at charades.

I pull out my phone and type “clothespin” into Google translate and play the audio in Arabic for the benefit of the bagger. My effort seems only to annoy him further.

I get an idea. I noticed there were standing clothes racks in the housewares section. I return to housewares, pick up a rack and this time make the pinching motion for the bagger right on the rack.

He speaks up in Arabic and points to the far wall where the cleaning supplies are. I say, “Shookrahn.” and set about to find the elusive item. I look everywhere on the displays along the wall and the items in the nearby aisles – brushes, sponges, mops, brooms, rags, cleaning solutions of all kinds, but no clothespins. After five or ten minutes of fruitless searching, I return to the bagger and spread out my hands in a gesture of frustration.

Angrily, he stops his bagging and stomps toward the cleaning supplies. I follow on his heels. At the end of one of the aisles, hidden on the lowest shelf, he grabs a bag of clothespins and jabs it at me, then storms back to the checkout. 

Sheesh.

With a focused effort, I bite my tongue and return the clothes rack to the housewares section. On my way out, I smile at both cashier and bagger and again say, “Shukrahn.” 

No response.

Notch one for Christ.

***

At around 4 pm, I head from the guesthouse over to the administration building and up to the second floor office of volunteer director Claude Juha. The door is locked and the office is closed. I panic. Since I don’t have access to a printer at the college, I had asked Claude to print out my syllabi for all 16 students in my class plus copies of my first week’s lesson plans and the list of students in the course. Samar, the friendly receptionist in the lobby, tells me that Claude’s day ends at 4 and she has left the building. I kick myself. I should have gotten there earlier but no one told me about a 4-pm shutdown, either. Only government offices and banks close at 4 pm in the States. But, yes, this is not America.

I hurry off across the parking lot to the education center. Perhaps Claude dropped off the copies there. But when I arrive in Room F2B on the third floor, there are no papers anywhere. And no Claude. She had also promised to help me connect my laptop to the classroom TV screen. My heart starts racing. Not a good way to launch a class when I can hardly pronounce the students’ names. But, taking a deep breath, I tell myself I have at least 15 minutes or so before they begin to arrive.

I take matters into my own incapable hands, noting that there’s a loose HDMI cord on the floor dangling from the TV screen. I get out my laptop and dongle and insert the cord into the dongle’s HDMI slot. Then finding the TV remote on the teacher’s desk, I press the power button and, voila, “we have ignition.” But when I inspect the screen, the text and icons are so tiny I can’t possibly read them. Off I go into the Apple labyrinth of commands and menus trying to find the right settings.

Moments later, the first two students arrive – early! – a couple of older teenage girls. I greet them with a distracted “Welcome!” and go back to my frantic software search. The two girls, one wearing a hijab (Muslim?) and the other with long flowing locks (Christian?), find seats together among the 20 or so in the room. I learn later that their names are Bara’a and Hineen and they are BFFs.

As the wall clock ticks toward the 4:30 start time, I abandon the quest to fix the screen and greet each student as they arrive. I introduce myself and ask their names. I remember none of them. 

The only faces I recognize from the interviews are “Steve” and “Adam”, the thirty-something professionals, and Naja, the schoolteacher whom Claude and I had initially disagreed on.

By 4:36, the classroom is filled with all 16 students, but there’s no Claude. All right, take charge, I tell myself. You can do this. I write my full name on the whiteboard and briefly introduce myself. There are smiling faces all around the room. And then I ask each student to come to the whiteboard and write their own names and ages as well. I repeat their names out loud, triggering sporadic giggles from the class, and copy them on my legal pad. As a native English speaker, I’m used to talking mostly with the front of my mouth – lips, tongue, roof of mouth. But many of the sounds in Arabic start at the back of the throat, a bit like German, another language I’ve never mastered.

It’s sometime after 4:40 pm, during the slow parade to the whiteboard, that Claude appears with my syllabi and lesson plans. There are no apologies for being late. So be it.

Claude begins passing out photocopies of the textbook to the students who have paid for them. The two who haven’t are left empty-handed. I ask other students to share with them and they cheerfully comply. I ask Claude about the class list. She’ll have it tomorrow. Okay, at least I have their names on my legal pad. 

After a half hour of pacing around the room, calling each student by name and asking them to tell the class why they want to learn English, I have hit my teaching stride. Even the watchful presence of Claude in the corner of the room can’t keep me from my appointed task – helping those who need help learning English. The class laughs good-naturedly as I either mispronounce or misname the students I call upon. But I can tell the crowd is on my side from their smiles and their nods. I forge ahead.

My beginner intermediate English class. Back Row – This is where “the guys” always sit together and help each other out. Adham (left, his preferred spelling) and Steve (center) have taken young Issa (right) under their wing. Both Steve and Adham work in their father’s businesses – a payroll firm for Steve and a computer repair shop for Adham. (Adham commutes two to three hours each way from Bethlehem to his job in Ramallah. He’s often late for class but I’m just amazed that he consistently shows up.) Issa, a high school student, has speaking challenges but has stuck with the class. He jokes around with the two older men like bigger brothers. It’s adorable.

Center Row – Naja (left), a grade school English teacher, writes beautifully in English but wants to learn to speak it better so she can help her own students. Teachers, of course, make the very best students – she’s attentive, helpful, always on time and always does her homework (which is entirely voluntary). Du’a (second left) is a young mother and PR/fundraiser person for one of the local private schools. She is perhaps my best student but I sometimes have to restrain her from correcting the other students out loud. I don’t want to discourage anyone. Manar (second right) is a young bride and university student (occupational therapy) who lives with her husband in her parent’s cramped home. Manar is very bright but also shy about speaking. I suspect Manar has been a victim of academic English. She has a hard time expressing herself in normal conversation and her writing is wordy, circuitous and often obscure. (Don’t get me started on academese!) Yasmeen (right) is a journalist with a wonderful sense of humor and an openness to everything. I wish she could share some of her confidence with Manar.

Front Row – Saja (left) and Bara’a (second left) are high school students and BFFs. Haneen, another of their friends, dropped the class even though I tried my best to talk her out of it. All she lacked, really, was confidence. Saja is one of my best students and likes to invent celebrity dialogues for the class, including one between rapper Travis Scott (who?) and his girlfriend Kylie Jenner (Oh…). (I guess I have to pick up the latest copy of People to keep up.). Zainab (right) is a 12-year-old who usually shows up with her cousin Zainad of the same age. I have a real challenge telling the two apart because their names and looks are so similar. I’m not sure either girl is getting much out of the class, but they bought their textbooks and they keep coming. I wonder if they’re under orders from their parents to attend. I’ll have to ask Naja sometime if she knows. She often works with them when the students pair up for discussion.

The title of the first unit is “Getting to Know You.” I had originally planned to show a YouTube clip of Deborah Kerr singing the song of the same title to her class of Balinese children in “South Pacific.” The video would have been accompanied by lyrics on the screen. Cute, but no go. Punt and try something else. I write a list of “getting to know you” questions on the board and ask the students to pair off and ask and answer the questions with each other.

From what I’ve heard from students in class so far, I’m already pleasantly surprised by the level of competence shown by nearly all of them. They seem well beyond the basics and ready to hold simple English conversations as pre-intermediate students should. The pairing of students also gives me a five-minute break to collect myself and look at my lesson plan for what to do next.

The getting-to-know-you profiles in the textbook feature Marija, a medical student in Zagreb, and Jim Allen, a retired factory worker in Manchester, England. Since the college can’t afford access to the online recordings in the book, I have students read out loud the transcripts of what Mariya and Jim say in their recordings at the back of the book.

The students are nearly all eager, even the older adults, to read for the class, answer questions, and contribute to the general discussion. I’m stunned. Their responsiveness becomes so competitive I have to compensate those who don’t get chosen by promising them the next task. For a teacher, it’s an abundance of riches.

By 5:30, things are going so well that Claude, reassured that I’m not some English teacher wannabe, quietly leaves the classroom, and understandably so. I learn later she’s the mother of a young child and certainly can’t spare the extra time away from home. That probably also explains her late arrival. Yes, I’m learning.

For the grammar portion of the class, I draw a timeline with arrows to illustrate simple past and simple present vs. the more elaborate present continuous with the verb form of “am, is, are” + verb + “-ing.” Present continuous starts in the past and continues through the present into the future – hence, its name. 

“I am biking along the trail until it ends,” I say by way of example. “Or, in conversation, ‘I’m biking along the trail until it ends’.” 

I write down the list of verb contractions but I can tell from the response in the class that it’s something they already know. 

All right, I move on to point out that the present continuous phrase “going to” is often used to replace “will” in conversation. “‘I’m going to watch TV tonight’ is what most Americans would say rather than ‘I will watch TV tonight.’” 

I tell them Americans are lazy in their speech and often say “gonna” for “going to.” I offer an example that I had planned to show from another “South Pacific” clip.

“A woman breaking up with her boyfriend might say, ‘I’m gonna wash that man right outta my hair.’” I do the scrubbing motion on my scalp.

Laughter ensues, and then a lively discussion of English idioms and slang – topics that all ESL students love because they feel like they’re learning “real” English, not the stiff, formal language taught in textbooks.

We finish all the exercises in my lesson plan for the day and actually spill over into the plan for the second class. Thankfully, I had copies of both with me.

I end the class feeling like a rock star, even though part of me realizes I had talked too fast and too much. Students should have had more time to converse among themselves.

Regardless, many students thank me as they leave – something I seldom heard as an assistant professor of journalism in the States.

Du’a, the forty-something mother and school fundraiser, stops by my desk and says she would like more instruction in everyday conversation. I tell her I’ll try, but the approach of the textbook (published by the prestigious Oxford University Press) is to work on all facets of English at once – listening, reading, speaking and writing. The four elements reinforce each other, according to the textbook authors.

Teenage friends Hineen and Bara’a ask if they can get a selfie with me. I’m flattered and, despite a long-standing policy of never doing social media with my students, I make an exception in this case. They leave giggling with each other as BFFs should.

I pack up, turn off the room AC and lights, close the door and head for my new favorite hangout in Bethlehem. I know that Asim will have a congratulatory beer waiting for me. 

And, finally, I’ve got his cash.

I have a text from Karen, perfectly timed.

Karen: How did your first class go?

Me: Very well! They are so sweet! Like you, they laughed at all my corny Dad jokes. Ages 15 through the 50s. But only 2 men out of 16 total.

Karen: Interesting. Wonder what the job situation is like for women there. 16 is a good number for conversation and small group work.

Me: Yes. I love that number. Very manageable. I think the women are just more verbal and confident in themselves. Better integrated brains.

Karen: Maybe more motivated to communicate and profiled less by the powers that be.

Me: Good point. Both of my male students are techies in their 30s. They need English to advance their careers. Israel may soon crack down on foreign teachers in Palestine. The faculty is very nervous. All part of Israel’s attempt to isolate Palestine from international support.

Karen: Terrible. It’s not like this form of soft diplomacy is hurting anyone or disrupting Israel’s hegemony. It’s like under apartheid in South Africa when black students were taught Afrikaans instead of English to isolate them.

Me: Yep. They’re worried about the growing international BDS movement. Not terrorism.

Stranger Danger

Wednesday, Sept. 7, 2022 

That morning, as I prepare for my second class, I’m heartened to see a new message from Karen, who has become my classroom mentor. A teacher’s teacher, she’s won numerous awards in her long academic career. 

Karen: Just woke from a dream where I was kissing you and forgot to prep for class. Sadly, only 50% true!

Me: Lol! Hope you get caught up. I am sleeping the sleep of the exhausted these days. No dreams to share. Students have asked to switch the class from MWF TO MTW. Friday is the Muslim Sabbath, so no one works. I have mixed feelings. It will be three days of intense work for me and then four days off, which is nice, but I’m afraid they’ll forget everything by Monday. Thoughts?

Karen: What about MWR instead?

Me: They won’t allow it for some reason.

Karen: Hm, okay. If you keep to the MWF schedule, will a bunch of students not show up on F? Might make more sense to do MTW because then they’d get three days of instruction (though of course that would be harder for you).

Me: I’ll let you know. Thanks for the advice.

On my way to class, I stop by the facilities office to pick up my new campus access card (the first one didn’t work). Michael kindly gives me my card and the desk lamp that I asked for.

I thank him and am about to leave when he begins speaking somewhat sheepishly. He asks me to please not use the kitchen and laundry room in my guesthouse. It’s for “ladies only.” Instead, he says, please use the same facilities in the adjoining guesthouse – the new building still being furnished.

Over the last few days, I saw hints of something afoot after using the utilities in the older guesthouse. My cleaned dishes were always set aside separately from those already in the strainer or placed outside in the stairway landing on top of an upright piano. My laundry detergent was always moved just outside the laundry room door. Obviously, someone didn’t want me violating their space. That someone was most likely Jasmine (not her real name), a student in her early 20s living in the room across the hall from me. For some reason, she has taken an instant dislike to me. Several times I’ve run into Jasmine on campus and each time I got the cold shoulder in response to a friendly hello. I have no idea why. None.

It dawns on me that a triggering event might have occurred the night before. I had just finished using the microwave in the upstairs kitchen to heat up my dinner and, in the darkened stairwell (the guesthouse lights are on a timer to save electricity), I started down the steps to my room. Coming up the stairs at that moment was Jasmine, who was so frightened by my sudden presence I could hear her gasp. 

I said “Afwahn” for excuse me and “Marhaba” for hello. No response.

I’m pretty sure that Jasmine asked Michael to make the utilities in the guesthouse “ladies only.” But I don’t believe her request was religious or cultural. Jasmine wears Western-style skinny jeans and her hair like Farrah Fawcett – big, long, curly

When I confide in him later, Andrew tells me that Jasmine is “known to be territorial,” then shrugs his shoulders as to why. Karen has run into the same disinviting behavior when using the upstairs kitchen. Jasmine, Andrew says, is no longer taking classes at the college but has been living in the guesthouse for the past year. He doesn’t know the reason for her stay there, but he suspects she may have nowhere else to go. 

All right, I tell myself, I will be kind and patient with her, no matter what. Christ would. (Weeks later, Karen Bush would invite both of us to lunch, where Jasmine and I got to know and like each other. Afterward, we’d share extra food with each other and borrow cooking items, as “dorm mates” should. But I was smart enough not to use the upstairs kitchen and laundry room again.)

I go off to my class and, by 4:40 pm, all 16 students have taken their seats – ten minutes late but still better than my first class, which didn’t start until almost 5 pm. 

I’m actually ready for them today. With some help earlier that afternoon from Wajdi, the friendly and very helpful IT engineer at BBC, I have both TV screen and laptop ready to play the YouTube clip of Deborah Kerr crooning “Getting to Know You.”

I chose the song because the lyrics align with much of the unit’s vocabulary. But I also wanted to introduce my students to the genre of musicals – a unique and innocently entertaining part of American culture. Appropriate material, I would think, for both evangelicals and Muslims.

I’m handing out copies of the lyrics to the class when Nisreen, the lobby receptionist, walks into the room with four children waiting anxiously in her shadow – two teenage boys and two young girls in hijabs who look all of 12-years-old.

“Claude told me to bring these students to your class today,” she says.

Great, I tell myself, because no one told me. “Do they have books?” I ask.

“No, but they will have them for the next. Do you think you should move to a larger classroom?”

Luckily, there are just enough empty seats left in the classroom. The total enrollment in the class now is 20.

“No, this is fine,” I say. “I can make it work.” In Palestine, flexibility has quickly become my middle name.

I have the four students take their seats and I go to each to ask their name and have them write it down for me. The two teenage boys – Issa and Thaer – have no problem understanding. But the two prepubertal girls, who are possibly sisters or twins, haven’t a clue as to what I’m saying. They stare at me with blank unhappy faces. Did their parents order them to come here?

Others in the class instruct the pair what to do in Arabic. They are both named Zainad. All right, not sisters then. Both have the same uncomprehending stare as I speak. What in God’s name are they doing here? Regardless, I push on.

I go to the whiteboard and write “American Musicals.”

“Does anyone know what an American musical is?”

Not a soul raises a hand. I realize now I have probably over-reached.

I explain, as slowly as I can, that musicals are movies and plays “where all the actors sing and dance. Kind of like an opera, but happier.” I shuffle a few steps around the room singing “la, la, la” and get the intended laughter. “In American musicals,” I say, “everyone is happy… Happy, happy, happy.”

On that note, I play the video clip of Deborah Kerr and begin singing along with her from the lyrics sheet. Only a few students join me but there are smiles all around, so it’s not a complete flop. Just a semi-flop. Worth the try.

I rescue myself by turning everyone to the textbook and an exercise where I have them read out loud a passage about a talk radio counselor – what Brits call an “Agony Aunt.” I ask other students to share their books with the new arrivals and they quickly comply. When the reading is done, I have the students split into pairs to discuss and answer the list of questions in the textbook. 

Najah, the schoolteacher, has taken the young girls under her wing. Thank you. 

The rest of the class session goes smoothly if not always enthrallingly. One of the topics brought up in the discussion of the radio counselor is divorce. I note that in America half of all married couples split. I ask if anyone knows the divorce rate in Palestine. Adham, the 30-something veterinarian, shoots an arm in the air. 

“It’s about 20 percent.”

“That’s very good,” I say. “You can be proud of that.” And as someone twice divorced, I say that with heartfelt honesty and a little guilt.

The textbook moves on to stories and discussions about being best friends. What are the attributes of a best friend?

Among the many student responses, Rana, a very bright high school graduate who plans to study occupational therapy in college, says, “Good friends encourage you.”

“Yes! So true.”

I write “encourage” on the board.

“Good friends say things that give you confidence. That make you brave. That give you courage.” And I circle “courage” in the word encourage.

At some point, the discussion returns to American musicals, perhaps because the students would like to see me dance and sing like an idiot again. I point out that some Americans think musicals are “corny.” I explain that it means they are “too sweet, too happy.”

Halib, another graduating high school student in the class, surprises me by saying “jokes can be corny, too.”

We launch into a discussion of corny jokes, or “Dad jokes” as we say today, where I confess to being a perpetrator. 

To illustrate, I write the numerals 6 and 7 on the whiteboard. 

“Why was the number six afraid of the number seven?” I ask the class. Heads shake around the room.

I add the numbers 8 and 9 after the 7, pointing to each of them in the series as I say, “Because seven ATE nine.”

There’s a silent moment of comprehension, but then the students smile and groan. 

“Now you know what a corny joke is, right?”

After class, I send off a message to Karen, hoping to get a little succor for my wounds.

Me: Class today is a disaster. More later.

Karen: Big hugs

Me: I’m coping for a change. They sent 6 new students to my class with no warning. Some can barely speak English.

Karen: Oh no! Is this something you can negotiate with the volunteer coordinator?

Me: Believe me I will.

Karen: I wonder how much students pay for these classes.

Me: Free. It’s a community service.

Karen: That’s a pleasant surprise. I’m used to greedy administrators 😉

Me: 😂❤️I survived! Thanks for your support. And the class voted to keep it MWF.

Karen: Yay! Democracy rules (at least for now)

Sadly, I get the reference to what’s happening at home.

Dating, Palestinian-Style

Friday, Sept. 9, 2022

I arrive just minutes before my third and final class of the week with more than a bit of trepidation about teaching the day’s textbook topic – “A Blind Date.” After consulting with Andrew, I’m not sure it’s culturally appropriate. 

“Try it anyway,” Andrew encourages me. “It will be interesting to see how they react.”

All but three students from Wednesday’s class show again, including newbies Issa, a quiet teenage boy, and the two young “Zainab’s,” who I now know are cousins. The girls have the same blank stares but at least they have textbooks open on their desks.

There’s no pub date in our book but I’m sure it must be pre-Internet given what follows under the unit title: “Every week the EVENING STAR helps a single person choose the perfect partner and have a date in an expensive restaurant. The couple then tells the STAR what happened.”

Below the textbook introduction is a profile of Matt, 29, who will have his choice of three “lucky” women as potential dates – Miranda, 29; Beth, 25; and Holly, 30. The women’s profiles, of course, are only half as long as Matt’s. All four include headshots with names, ages and their “star signs” listed below.

I start by asking if anyone knows what a blind date is. The women in the class, especially the younger ones, eagerly answer out loud.

“Meeting a stranger.”

“Why?” I ask.

“For a date.” “To see if you like them.” “For a relationship.”

“Where do you meet?”

Silence ensues. I’m not surprised. I learned earlier from Andrew that casual dating is often disapproved of in Palestinian society. Couples are most often introduced by families and spend time just getting to know one another in their parental homes before deciding whether they want to marry or not. 

Courting couples in Palestine aren’t supposed to see each other alone or in private. Among the Palestinian urban elite, however, the younger generation (but certainly not teenagers still living at home) may meet and choose their partner without family involvement.

“To be safe, blind dates meet in a public place,” I say, “like a restaurant or a cafe.”

Again, silence. But it’s too late now to switch topics.

Things liven up when students begin taking turns reading out loud the profiles of Matt and his harem of potential dates. When I draw a chart on the whiteboard for each of the three women – with columns for listing pluses or minuses – the women in the class eagerly volunteer what they think will appeal to Matt. The Three Amigos at the back of the room? Meh. Not so much.

From the textbook:

“Matt” is a climate change scientist living in the South of London. He’s an outdoorsy, athletic type who enjoys camping, diving and surfing. He spends a lot of time at sea on research ships. But when in London, he enjoys meeting friends for a few beers and going to football matches (soccer to Americans, of course). 

His perfect partner? “Outgoing, funny and good to talk to. She dresses nicely but isn’t too worried about fashion… Enjoys having a good time in the city but also likes traveling, sports, and country life.”

The teenage girls in the class clamor for Holly, pointing out that she likes traveling, skiing and going out with friends to restaurants, bars, and clubs. She wants a partner who likes “sports, travel and adventure.” Holly is also the youngest and sweetest-looking of the three.

Miranda, 29, is immediately rejected by the class because she “hates men who are crazy about football.” Well, duh.

But then Du’a, the mother in the class, surprises me. She says Holly, at 30, is “too old” for Matt, who is 29. (What?! I hold my tongue.) But then Du’a also points out that Holly is a fashion designer and “loves clothes.” Uh-oh. That’s a non-starter for Matt.

Du’a lobbies for Beth, 25, a bookstore manager who says she “likes to look nice but I don’t think too much about clothes.” Beth adds in her profile that “sometimes I really need to get out of London and go walking in the country.” Her perfect partner? “Someone who’s kind and good to talk to, who likes both town and country life.”

Matt will explain his choice at the back of the book. But first, I have the students vote on their prediction. Beth gets four votes – from Du’a, the two 30-something men and myself. But the teenage girls are sticking with Holly.

So who did Matt choose? Beth! 

Du’a and I break into a fist pump.

After class, one of the teenage girls, Haneen, approaches me bashfully and says she’s having a hard time understanding me in class. (I had noticed that she gets a lot of help from Bara’a, the BFF who always sits next to her.)

“Should I quit?” she says. 

I tell Haneen definitely not. And then I repeat what I often tell the class, to little avail. “Please raise your hand if you don’t understand something. Don’t be shy. I’ll do my best to help you.” 

Only the two older men in the class and Du’a, who doesn’t suffer fools silently, will actually interrupt me in class.

I can tell, though, from the anguished look on Haneen’s face that I haven’t really reassured her.

“Please come to class anyway,” I plead. “You’ll learn. It takes time. After a while, you’ll get better. I promise. Okay?”

“Okay. Thank you.” She smiles and walks away to meet Bara’a at the door.

It will be the last time I see her.

A Gauntlet for Pedestrians

Friday, Sept. 9, 2022

After completing my first week of classes, it’s time to make a pre-dinner visit to my beloved grotto to reward myself and catch up with my friend Asim.

To walk anywhere in Bethlehem’s city center, I face the impossibly congested intersection at Hebron Road and Moradeh Street, just a half-block south of campus. Today, the start of the Muslim weekend, the horn honking among motorists is at its rush-hour peak – louder than anything I’ve ever heard in New York or even (dare I say it?) Boston. Adding to the chaos that evening are swarms of young boys on bikes, weaving in and out of the blocked traffic hawking packages of tissues.

I’ve learned that Palestinians are the kindest, most generous people I’ve met. And yet, put a Palestinian behind the wheel of a car and they suddenly become hell’s own spawn. They drive at breakneck speeds and they honk ceaselessly – when traffic slows, when it’s stopped, when it doesn’t start up fast enough, when it dares to impede their progress at intersections. They honk at pedestrians in their way, they honk at pedestrians not even close to being in their way.

So why are Palestinians such aggressive drivers? Perhaps because a car is one of the few places where they can exercise control when they are given so little control over countless other areas of their lives. That includes many of the freedoms Americans take for granted. Where they can work. Where they can live. Where and when they can travel. What they can do with their homes, their businesses, their land. Whether they can organize politically, vote for the party of their choice or even protest their conditions. And most recently under Israeli dictate, whether they can fly their nation’s own flag.

Walk signs are no protection for a pedestrian in Bethlehem, and when I get the signal to proceed through the congested intersection, I make sure motorists on both my left and right see me and are aware that I’m crossing. At times I’ve almost had to step in front of the moving stream of cars to get them to stop – a risk I’ll take only when they’re traveling at slower speeds and I can make eye contact with the drivers. Today, the traffic is so snarled, it’s hardly moving at all. I weave without incident between bumpers.

Safely on the other corner, I face another but far less dangerous gauntlet. I’m soon surrounded by the boys on bikes, thrusting their packs of tissues in my face and pleading for money. They’re smiling and almost laughing as they do it, realizing it’s all part of a game to be played with tourists. 

I usually shake my head and keep walking away until the boys lose interest. But today I’m flush with cash, so why not? I pull out my wallet and open it as packs of tissues are pushed even closer toward my face. I thumb through the bills. Oh no. The smallest I have is 50 shekels, or about $16. 

What to do? 

With a half dozen young faces smiling and begging around me I decide it’s a good cause. I’m investing in their futures. But I don’t want all the money to go to just one boy.

I hold the 50 shekel note high above my head and say, “Okay! Okay! But share. Do you understand me? Share this.”

Heads nod eagerly around me. But when I bring my hand down toward the most insistent of the boys, he hands me the tissues, grabs the bill and races off down the sidewalk on his bike. The other boys, screaming, race after him.

I shake my head in self-disgust. I’m left holding a $16 package of tissues worth less than $2, all to enrich a single greedy boy. Am I really that naive? I don’t need to answer that.

But it’s only money and, besides, it will make a good story to tell Asim over a cold beer.

In another block or two, I learn another lesson, a far more frightening one. I’m walking in back of a row of vehicles parked on the sidewalk, careful to keep an eye on the traffic over my left shoulder as I venture into the street. 

What I don’t see on my right is the driver in the parked van ahead of me. I walk inches behind the van just as the driver backs up. I scream and leap forward in a single bound, but not quickly enough. The far corner of the van’s back bumper grazes my raised leg and I’m sent twisting, hands first, to the ground – ilhamdullilah, beyond the path of the van. The driver continues backing up, either oblivious to, or ignoring, what has happened to the pedestrian in his path. He roars off down the street.

I check all my limbs as I stand again. Still intact, still functioning. The only pain is where my hands scraped on the asphalt. I’m a lucky man. (Urgent note to self: Always, ALWAYS check the front seat of a parked vehicle before venturing behind it.) 

When I at last reach the grotto, I order a beer the moment my behind hits the barstool. I tell myself I it’s exactly what I need after what I’ve been through this evening.

But after downing the one, mostly to slake my thirst, I begin “an examination of conscience,” as Catholics would say. Perhaps I should have started with a glass of soda water.

I text Karen, my un-enabler.

Me: I’m drinking too much here. Gotta work on that.

Karen: Probably should not say this by text, but you’ve expressed concern about drinking before. Said you were trying to reduce to two glasses of wine a night from three. What does the drinking help you do? Alternatively, what, if anything, does it keep you from being or doing?

Me: No problematic immediate effects, just thinking about long term health. Here it helps me relax in the evening.

Karen: To be honest, I’m a bit concerned about you. The FDA says not to drink while taking Zoloft, in part because alcohol temporarily raises serotonin, while the med is reducing it. The alcohol can actually worsen your depression and anxiety, and long term can contribute to memory issues. Plus it can mess with blood sugar. If you’re still on the high dose of the SSRI and are drinking a lot, that could be volatile. (She includes a link to a woman’s health site.)

Me: Gotcha. I’ve been duly chastised.

Karen: That’s not what I was going for.

Me: I was just teasing. I’m not offended. Texting loses all the nuances. I’m thankful that you care. 😘

Karen: Alcohol, as you know, has never been a good drug for me. Nor was weed. But I’ve definitely had other addictive tendencies (food, exercise, sex, work), and when I went into them and looked at what terrified me to look at, there was always some longing, often a feeling of unworthiness so profound it seemed annihilating. Yet going into the heart of things didn’t annihilate me (or at least hasn’t yet). I feel like it has made me braver. Could not have done it without therapy, though. And for me consistent spiritual practice though I know that’s not your thing.

Me: 👍

I don’t tell her but I think I AM becoming more spiritual. Perhaps not in the way of Karen, who attends Mass every Sunday like the good Polish girl she is. But in Bethlehem and the Holy Land, it’s hard NOT be spiritual. The sun, the air, the ancient hills breathe with a spirituality that’s hard to define but somehow you can feel clear to your bones and into your soul. Just being here stirs thoughts of God, thoughts of monotheism and its ancient roots, thoughts of the origins and meaning of everything.

I stop at two beers and head back to my room to finish reading my book about Bishara, the founder of the Bible college, a living saint if there ever was one.

Living Behind Walls

Sunday, Sept. 11, 2022

At 9 am, I meet Andrew and Karen at the van for the half-hour drive to another Sunday service in Jerusalem. I’ve decided that going to church on Sundays can’t hurt me. It also gives me the chance to reflect on my own spirituality and meet new people.

In the van with us that day are Anita, a Presbyterian minister who also runs the gift shop at BBC, and another Andrew, a 30-ish professor at Bethlehem University. We’re in the blocks-long traffic backup waiting to go through the checkpoint at the Bethlehem exit into Israel when my stomach drops with a sudden realization.

“I’m sorry,” I announce to the occupants in the van, “but I left my passport back at the guesthouse.”

I can almost hear Andrew sigh. Karen glances at him to stifle any further reaction. And Anita says, “I wouldn’t worry. I don’t think they’ll check anyway.” 

Anita, in her 40s, is a native South African and Presbyterian minister who has lived in many parts of the world, including South America and Germany. A no-nonsense person with a big heart, she has seen how apartheid works in two countries now. She speaks perfect English among several other languages.

But Andrew says he doesn’t want to chance it. “We’ll have to wait in line anyway.”

So he hangs a U-Turn and drives the five minutes back to campus. Before I exit the van, he says, “Don’t forget your visa, that little blue stub they gave you at the airport. That’s what they really want to see.”

“Gotcha.” I would have never remembered.

Ten minutes later, as our van approaches the checkpoint gate, a young female Israeli soldier, no more than 20 and no cap or helmet over her long dark hair, raises her hand to stop us. Dangling from a strap around her neck is a very lethal-looking black assault rifle, American-made, almost as tall as she is. 

It always unnerves me to see young Israeli soldiers – weighed down with body armor, ammunition belts and high-powered weapons – going about the work of oppression. Their innocence has been sacrificed on the altar of Zionism and the memories of the Holocaust. Never again. Yes, but what of the Palestinians? And do two wrongs make a right? Zionists are a bit like the kid who gets beat up by the school bully and then goes home and takes it out on his little sister.

I learn later from Asim that checkpoint duty is considered scut work in the Israeli army, assigned mostly to fresh recruits and Ethiopian and Arab Israelis. Yes, there are nearly 2 million Arabs living in Israel (about 20 percent of the total population), of which 1.6 million are Israeli citizens. As citizens, those who qualify  are permitted to join the Israeli army. Asim says the Arab soldiers are the most rigid of all at checkpoints because they’re trying to prove their loyalty to Israel despite facing discrimination and Jim Crow-type segregation.

Karen rolls down her window and the soldier quickly glances around the van.

“U.S.?” she asks.

We all answer with a resounding, “Yes!”

“Go ahead.” She steps back and waves us through.

Once Karen has her window rolled up again, we all have a good laugh.

“I told you so,” Anita says. “She sees we’re all white. ‘Yes, go ahead!’”

The congregation this Sunday again numbers about 20, including the sweet, lively children of Timu and Nema. Their youngest, a toddler named Desire, sits quietly on her father’s lap.

Anita gives us a break from all the “liveliness” by taking the four older children downstairs for Sunday school.

Although the date is Sept. 11, there’s no mention during the opening prayer session of the 19th anniversary of the attack on the World Trade Center and the Pentagon. I’m certainly not the one to bring it up.

Andrew’s sermon that morning is a continuation of Acts 3 and Peter’s account of the lame man who is healed in the name of Jesus and enters the Temple to pray. This time, Andrew focuses in particular on Verses 24-26, the final paragraph of Acts 3:

“Indeed, beginning with Samuel, all the prophets who have spoken have foretold these days. And you are heirs of the prophets and of the covenant God made with your fathers. He said to Abraham, ‘Through your offspring all peoples on earth will be blessed.’ When God raised up his servant, he sent him first to you to bless you by turning each of you from your wicked ways.” 

Andrew notes that God told Abraham that “through your offspring all peoples on earth will be blessed.” In other words, Andrew says, the Jewish followers of Christ would bring the entire world into his fold. The command to Abraham was a direct contradiction of the Old Testament belief that Jews “are the chosen people of God.” Sadly, he adds, that Christ-refuted belief underlies much of Israel’s discrimination against the Palestinians, especially from the illegal settlers. 

After the service, we treat ourselves to coffee and desserts, including the sweet juicy red grapes and a deliciously rich local pastry, Tamriyeh, baked by Jenna, the church pianist and a woman of many talents. The pastry has been stuffed with semolina pudding, then lightly fried and dusted with powdered sugar and pistachios. Yum. Bellying up to the serving table, I meet James Alty, a Canadian who heads the discipleship program for the Mennonite Church in the West Bank.

James, whose closely-cropped hair is actually whiter than mine, is a delightful and intelligent man, quick-witted and just as quick to laugh at others’ jokes. He’s also a good example of Canada’s image of kindness and tolerance. The discipleship program brings young Mennonites of college age to the West Bank and places them in volunteer positions in hospitals, food banks and other charitable organizations. They stay for a year, usually before returning to their universities. James’ wife, Joan, runs the same program in Amman, Jordan. Because of visa hassles between the two countries, the couple hasn’t seen each other in nearly a year.

Mennonites are pacifists who emphasize an absolute obedience to Christ’s teachings in the Bible, including his cry for social justice. Mennonites are living proof to me that the words “progressive” and “Christian” don’t have to be mutually exclusive. Similar to the Amish in their beliefs, Mennonites differ from the mostly rural Amish sect in that they allow the use of modern vehicles, electricity and today’s digital amenities. The church has a long and close connection with the Bible college. Bishara Awad, the founder of BBC, once served on the Mennonite Central Committee and was principal for 10 years at Hope School, a Mennonite school for orphans and the disadvantaged in Beit Jala. 

James and I exchange anecdotes about the challenges of living in the West Bank, generating some good laughs. He’s an avid cyclist and bikes nearly everywhere he goes in Jerusalem. I tell him I do the same in my neighborhood of Cincinnati.

“But I can’t believe you bike in all this traffic,” I tell him. “You’re a brave man.”

“Not really,” he says. Jerusalem, he points out, has extensive bike paths for getting around without a car. “My biggest problem are the settlers. Children will sometimes throw rocks at me while I’m riding. I even once had an old man stop me in my tracks and curse at me. I had no idea what he was saying (in Hebrew) but he didn’t stop until he was almost red in the face. Then he spat at me and left.”

James smiles, shrugs. Such is life in Palestine among the Chosen People.

***

As it nears 6 p.m., that merciful hour when temperatures cool and the breezes begin to swoop down from the skies over the ancient hilltops of Bethlehem, I head north from the guesthouse toward a tourist attraction that Asim told me I shouldn’t miss – The Walled Off Hotel.

The Walled Off (a word play on “Waldorf,” of course) is the brainchild and creative masterpiece of Banksy, who began leaving his art work all over the walls and empty buildings in Palestine as a protest against the Israeli occupation in 2002. The hotel opened to guests in March of 2017, just a few meters away from the Separation Wall. The 10-room boutique hotel also serves as an art gallery, a history museum, a watering hole for tourists, and a standing protest against Israeli apartheid. Banksy had hoped the venture would also boost tourism and job opportunities in Bethlehem, where Israeli control over air and car travel has increasingly choked the West Bank economy. All profits from the hotel go back into local projects.

I walk there with the intent of checking out the hotel and its art, having a glass of wine in its lobby bar, and helping the cause. But getting to the hotel is a pedestrian nightmare. It’s surrounded by a busy four-lane road coming from and going to the Bethlehem checkpoint. (For the less adventurous, I recommend taking a taxi – they’re everywhere in Bethlehem and the drivers are mostly trustworthy.)

From the outside, I can already tell the hotel is worth the perilous walk. High above the entrance to the three-story Arabian-style palace, the hotel’s name flashes on a giant marquee with old-fashioned incandescent bulbs. Greeting visitors at the door is an eerily-lifelike chimpanzee dressed in a red bellhop uniform and standing barefoot on a pile of suitcases. The oblivious chimp grips an open suitcase, its contents spilling all over the landing.

Entering the lobby you find an elaborate expansion of the same whimsy — a visual feast of details that can’t be taken in with just a glance. It’s part Banksy art exhibit, part funhouse, part Victorian brothel of flocked wallpaper, red velvet curtains, tasseled lamp shades, and intimate lighting. The immediate impression is moody, surreal, engaging, like a stage set for an episode of Twilight Zone. 

I sit at one of the many bistro tables in the lobby and, in an instant, a tall young server in Old Timey dress of white shirt, red vest and black tie approaches my table with a smile. He takes my order and returns with a glass (as Hemingway might say) “of the good local cabernet” – a somewhat fruity but well-balanced red from the Cremisan winery in the rocky hills northwest of Bethlehem.

I can’t just sit. I take my glass of wine and begin to explore my surroundings.

On the lobby wall to the right of the reception desk is an abstract triptych where winged cherub statuettes in gas masks hang from the ceiling in mock heraldry. To its right is a painting of a little girl holding a croquet mallet who has just hammered a heart-shaped opening through the Separation Wall. On a dais below the artwork is a player piano, a black grand, its keys plunging to the notes of a simple melody, slow and soft, in the haunting style of Erik Satie. Watching the piano’s ghost-like performance, I feel the hair on the back of my neck stand on end.

Through a double set of French doors, the front wall of the lobby opens into a streetside verandah. Beyond the narrow street is the Separation Wall, monolithic and depressing despite its colorful graffiti. No thank you. I prefer to stay inside. 

To the right of the French doors is an inviting nook that will become my favorite hangout at the hotel – a refuge whenever I feel the need to escape the guesthouse and journal in air-conditioned comfort, a glass of wine or beer within easy reach. The corner booth of buttoned red leather sits below one of my favorite Banksy paintings – an abandoned guard tower encircled by children on flying swings, their arms raised in glee.

When I return to my table and finish my wine, the server asks if I’d like to visit the hotel’s museum on the history of the occupation and the Separation Wall. It’s 50 shekels, or about $15. 

Why not? When a tourist, do as the tourists do.

The entrance to the museum and all its subsequent tiny rooms is like wandering through a Halloween haunted house. Thick rubber curtains and blacked out hallways create a frightening, claustrophobic effect as you move from exhibit to exhibit. The displays are full of Banksy’s artwork, historic photos, and pertinent quotes and testimonials from all sides – Israeli, British and UN leaders along with Palestinian refugees, advocates for peace, and Jewish settlers. 

Many of the refugee testimonials are so powerful that I begin taking pictures so I can remember their words. Within minutes, the museum receptionist bursts through the rubber curtain and scares the Bejeezus outta me. She smiles. She’s only there, she says, to inform me that photographs in the museum are not permitted.

I apologize profusely (I swear I didn’t see the sign at the entrance) and promise never to post the pictures I’ve already taken. She thanks me, smiles and leaves.

How many more faux pas before they kick me out of Palestine completely?

A Visit to the Church of the Nativity

Tuesday, Sept. 13, 2022

After nearly two weeks in Bethlehem, it’s time to explore some of the sites that lure tourists from around the world to this ancient city. So on a day off from teaching, I wait until 5 pm or so when the day’s heat begins to lose its edge and head off by foot to visit the primary tourist attraction in Bethlehem – the Church of the Nativity.

On the way to Manger Square in the Old City of Bethlehem.

First built above the cave where Jesus was believed to have been born 2022 years ago, the basilica has been rebuilt and restored numerous times over the centuries, more times than I could ever recount here. It’s worth a visit to Wikipedia to get the details.

The earliest recorded history of the site dates back to 248 AD, when Greek philosopher Origen of Alexandria wrote the following about the grotto: “In Bethlehem the cave is pointed out where He was born, and the manger in the cave where He was wrapped in swaddling clothes. And the rumor is in those places, and among foreigners of the Faith, that indeed Jesus was born in this cave who is worshiped and reverenced by the Christians.”

My timing is perfect. Once I arrive in Manger Square, I can see there’s only a short line of maybe a half-dozen people waiting to get inside.

Plaza and entrance to the Church of the Nativity.

The entrance to the basilica is not what I expected at all. The headway is so low that even a shortish person like myself, at 5’8”, must bow to enter. I learn from a sign inside the church that the entrance was built this way centuries ago to keep people from bringing their horses and cattle inside. Since that time, however, it has been renamed the “Door of Humility” and, indeed, there’s something humbling about the experience, especially when you duck under and then emerge suddenly into the expansive interior of the church. It feels like a rite of passage.

The vaulted ceiling soars to the heavens with the support of marble colonnades trailing into the distance and ending at an elaborate altar. Massive gold lamps hang everywhere from the ceiling, sadly obscuring the views of the church’s many fine paintings and frescoes.

As I approach the altar and the sigyearnns pointing to the Nativity grotto to its right, I notice a woman who appears to be having her baby blessed in her arms by a priest. I certainly hope it isn’t because the baby is sick. An older girl of eight or nine (her sister?) stands nearby looking distractedly around the church and fiddling with a charm bracelet on her wrist.

A small chapel to the right of the altar contains the entrance to the grotto where it’s said the infant Jesus was born. The crowd there is thicker but also more silent. The grotto is down a short, narrow flight of steps with a doorway that again requires a bowing of the head. It’s framed by intricately sculpted white marble almost translucent in its purity.

As I join the double line of faithful descending to the shrine, the closeness of the crowd and the warmth from their massed bodies intensifies with each step. The feeling isn’t one of discomfort but rather of a shared humanity, of a yearning in all of us for something greater, better than ourselves. No one jostles, no one pushes, no one speaks as we proceed one small step at a time toward the goal of our pilgrimage. (Uncannily, I can’t help but notice in the line at least three or four young women in white vails who could pass for our image of Mary today.)

Once we reach the marble floor of the grotto, the people huddled before the birthplace are so thick I can’t see the marker until I’m almost on top of it – a silver star with a dark hole in its center the size of a man’s head. The entire grotto is no bigger than a tennis court, the ceiling low, the air stagnant. The body heat from the crowd reaches its peak, again a reminder of our shared physical and spiritual presence.

Many visitors get down on their hands and knees and crawl to the hole to put their hand into it. One older man buries his whole face into the center of the star and keeps it there for several seconds. He lifts his head and exhales with a sigh, as though he has breathed in the presence of the Holy Infant itself. Perhaps he, too, is hoping for a cure or a miracle. I decide to move on and let the believers have their chance.

Above the marker is a small altar with a dazzling painting of the Nativity scene in the Orthodox style – the perspective slightly flattened, the key players dressed in robes of rich reds and deep blues. Their large halos are like gold shiny platters serving up the heads of saints and angels alike. Ownership and operation of the church is shared by the Greek Orthodox, Armenian Apostolic, and Roman Catholic authorities in Bethlehem.

As I look through the crowd for the exit, I see a circle of men and women at the back of the grotto take each other’s hands and begin singing. I recognize neither the language nor the song but its simple joyful melody adds to the air of universality in the cramped space. We share a oneness of wonder and humility as our bodies meld together in warmth and breath.

Not until I exit by way of the opposite stairs do I realize the grotto is directly below the basilica’s main altar and that I have just traversed its length underground. Alighting again into the cooler expanse of the church, I see the parents who just had their baby blessed talking to the priest in front of the altar tabernacle. The mother softly sways as she cradles the child in her arms. I wonder how the couple managed to get such special treatment, worried again it may be because they’re in need of a miracle.

As I head toward the church exit, I pass by people in the hallway taking pictures of a dramatic, life-size sculpture of St. George behind glass. In full armor and flowing scarf, the saint is poised to slay a dragon from atop a rearing white horse. The dragon is a bit pitiful, though, for a dragon – half the size of the horse and pinned helplessly on its back as St. George thrusts his spear toward its open mouth.

Being the Euro-centric person that I am, I’ve always assumed that St. George, a Roman Army officer and Christian martyr, was the patron saint of England alone. What I learn, though, is that he is also the patron saint of Bethlehem as well many Eastern European and Balkan countries, including his namesake country of Georgia.

St. George was a victim of Emperor Diocletian’s purge of Christians, whom he feared had grown too powerful among the Roman ranks during the latter part of the Third Century. Wanting to unify the empire under a single pagan religion, Diocletian demanded that his military aides, including St. George, carry out his orders to rid their regions of Christians. To pledge their loyalty to the cause, the military leaders were asked to make sacrifices to the Roman gods. St. George refused. Furious, Diocletian had him subjected to a series of tortures to renounce his Christian faith. When he wouldn’t, he was executed. Almost nine centuries later, the Crusaders from England adopted St. George as their warrior icon in the bloody struggle to wrest the Holy Land from Muslim control – a symbolic role the saint would probably have never wanted.

For Christians in Palestine, St. George is revered as a local hero. After his father was martyred in Turkey, his mother moved the family to al-Khadr near Bethlehem on land owned by her family. Raised as a devout Christian, St. George joined the Roman army and rose through the ranks for his devoted service. He was one of three top military aides in the empire’s eastern region called to Caesaria for a meeting with Diocletian. George was the only aide to defy the emperor’s wishes.

This new knowledge explains the St. George plaques I have seen above the front doors of many wealthier homes, especially those near the Bethlehem University campus. Andrew explains to me later that this is how Christian households identify themselves, just as Muslims in the city often mark their households with the traditional star and crescent moon.

At the exit from the church, I walk blinking into the bright light of the basilica’s courtyard and take in the fresh evening air. A nearby plaque says the courtyard is flanked on all three sides by monasteries, one each for the allied Catholic churches operating the church and its shrine.

I return to the bustle of Manger Square feeling somewhat ashamed of myself for having been cynical enough to relegate the church to just one more “tourist attraction.” Whether or not the church is the true site of Christ’s birth hardly matters. What matters most is that people who journey there are inspired in their faith and share that inspiration with others. The power of faith needn’t be circumscribed by the unknowns of archeology.

The visit to the church triggers a long text to Karen.

Me: Hi, Karen. I hope your week is going well. I think I should explain a little more about “redeeming” myself in Palestine. It’s true I still feel guilty about divorcing Kathy. But more than that I have failed at relationships throughout my life. I’ve seen therapists off and on over the years and thought it would help me with my last relationship with Holly. It didn’t. I have a deep-seated fear of intimacy that I just can’t shake. So I dedicate myself to social causes to try to compensate. I thought I had overcome the problem when I tried to reconcile with Kathy but she decided it wasn’t worth the risk to start all over again. My jerking and twitching in my sleep is a manifestation of what’s happening in my brain – trying to shake off whatever I think is trying to suffocate me. I could work on it again but the geographical distance between us makes it all the harder. I make a much better friend than a lover. Jim

Karen: You might be closer to healing than you think. Jim, could I call you? My purpose would not be to persuade you to be more than friends. It’s just that I’m bad at texting in such contexts. 

I decide not to respond. The pattern again. And then, ninety minutes later, I receive another text.

Karen: All right. Will try to do this in writing. First, Jim, I appreciate your telling me all this. I have noticed at times that you’re still working through the trauma of how your first marriage ended. But I also want to encourage you not to give up on intimacy. You say you’re a person who needs physical affection, and I’ve found that to be true. You might be closer to healing than you think. No matter what, I’m grateful for the time we spent together, for the luxury of your touch. You brought me out of a kind of wilderness, and you were able to hear my tangled history, my busted up truths. Thank you for both. I’ve enjoyed our warped Catholicism, our political banter. The oldest/ youngest dynamic, so familiar to us both, is something we could have worked on. You aren’t perfect, and I’ve noticed things you consider flaws. You tend to swallow your anger. You crave intimacy, but fear rejection if you reveal too much. You’re an interesting blend of iconoclast and people pleaser. The only thing that is an obstacle for me is your drinking. My first husband Danny was essentially a high-functioning alcoholic, and that affected everything. Even in (your mystery novel) “Hidden City,” your character worried about his drinking. You said you spent so much money in the only liberal bar you used to hang out in you could’ve “afforded the down payment on a house.” In the end, I don’t know you that well, but I’m guessing that your alcohol use has been a way for you to try to get close to people, but also has prevented it. When I sent you the link on Zoloft and alcohol, your first response was anger. I actually was interested to see that—it was your first and more honest reaction. In my conversations with you, I have said certain things I was afraid to say in part because I’m 63, and who knows how much time remains. I crave intimacy—physical, spiritual, intellectual. I sense you do, too, likely not with me, maybe with someone geographically closer. But to do that would require a major realignment, and only you can decide if it’s worth the effort. So, yes, I hope we can remain friends. Karen

Me: Thank you for the kind and helpful words. Visiting Palestine has been a spiritual awakening. Perhaps it will lead to more.

Karen: Glad to hear it. I’d still be interested in reading your blog if you’re inclined to share it. I wonder if it’s the place itself or something in you.

Me: Not sure but I hope to find out.

Karen: Full disclosure: after I go through my little Cancerian melancholy here, I will reach out to the potentially interesting suitor I put off when dating you. 

Me: I wish you only the best.

Hmm. If that last message is meant to make me a bit jealous, it works. But given my pattern, it’s also strangely reassuring. If Karen decides to break things off, then I’m off the hook. The phobic part of my brain doesn’t think beyond its release. But another, perhaps deeper, part of my brain worries I might lose her. What I want isn’t always what I need.

Inside a Refugee Camp

Thursday, Sept. 15, 2022

At 10 am, I meet Sari Zeidan, head of the Shepherd Society, outside his office door, which happens to be immediately to the right of the entrance to my guesthouse. The Shepherd Society is the charitable arm of the Bible college, a small relief agency that creates jobs, distributes food and clothing, and provides assistance for medical care, school tuition and utility costs to struggling Palestinian families in the West Bank.

Sari, 30, is thin and slightly built, with brown eyes that peer from his wire-frame glasses with a gentleness and wisdom that remind you of a young Mahatma Gandhi. Sari grew up in Bethlehem and graduated with a degree in social work and psychology from Bethlehem University. Unlike many educated young adults in Palestine, he chose to stay here. He has a brother living in Atlanta whom he hasn’t seen in seven years. He says they have video calls most every night.

Sari Zeiden, Photo courtesy of Bethlehem Bible College.

Sari has agreed to give me a tour of the Aida Refugee Camp, one of three in Bethlehem and the closest to the Bible college, just a 10-minute walk downhill to its lone entrance off an unmarked dusty lane. The camp is home to more than 6,000 refugees who still live on a quarter-square-mile patch of walled-in space nearly 75 years after they were driven from their homes by the Israelis.

“All of the families have been here since 1948,” Sari tells me as we enter through the gate. “It’s now the fourth generation. Some came from Haifa, Nazareth, Yaffa and Nablus. They’re old now but they are settled here.” 

Aida is one of 19 refugee camps in the West Bank alone, housing about 220,000 Palestinians, according to the United Nations Relief and Works Agency (UNRWA), which locals simplify to “Unnerwah.” In all, the number of registered Palestinian refugees has grown from 750,000 in 1950 to 7 million today. A third of them live in refugee camps in Palestine, Israel, Jordan and Lebanon.

The camps began as tent cities in 1948 during the war. As hope for the refugees to return to their rightful homes dwindled, the camps evolved into makeshift villages of cinder block and tin roof shelters and, more recently, stone and concrete homes resembling housing outside the camps. Only shoddier and more cheaply built.

From the entrance, we soon arrive at the communal center of the camp where most of the relief agencies have offices, outreach facilities and schools. Chief among them is UNRWA, which opened a new medical center, quite luckily, just before the 2020 pandemic. The center is marked by a black cement archway in the shape of a keyhole and topped by a giant rusted door key, a symbol of hope for the Palestinian right of return to their family homes. An older building to the left of the key is the UNRWA camp headquarters. Up the street and through the archway is the new four-story medical center, a bright white, hygienic-looking building with glass slits for windows, perhaps in case of an Israeli bombing. 

To the north and west, the Separation Wall forms part of the barrier around the camp. Block-long stretches of the 30-foot-high cement slabs are covered by a series of keyhole posters, each devoted to the story of a different Palestinian village among the 700 or so destroyed by the Israelis. Just over the wall is Israel. Refugees are permitted to leave the camps, but only to visit in the Palestinian territories of the West Bank. They carry the same green cards that all Palestinians do.

Even so, Sari says, everyone knows who the refugees are. Like welfare recipients in America, they carry the stigma of their misfortune in their insurance cards and other benefits only registered refugees can receive. Blaming the victims knows no national boundaries.

The inside walls around camp, as well as many of the buildings, are decorated with graffiti that helps hide their grimness and despair. 

“As you can see, we are making the walls more beautiful to look at – something that is artistic,” Sari says as we walk.

One of the first pieces of wall art we pass on our way south is a black-and-red portrait of a fierce young woman in a traditional Palestinian head scarf known as a keffiyeh, gripping an upright assault rifle in both hands. She’s Leila Khaled, a Palestinian refugee born in Haifa in 1944 who later became a member of the radical Popular Front for the Liberation of Palestine (PFLP). If anyone is keeping score, Khaled has the distinction of being the first woman hijacker for her roles in the 1969 hijacking of TWA Flight 840 and El Al Flight 219 a year later. After diverting the El Al flight from Tel Aviv to Heathrow London, Khaled was captured by British commandos. Thirty-one years later, under pressure from the US, she was released from British prison in exchange for civilian hostages kidnapped by other PFLP members. She is now 78 and still very active politically. Barred from entering Palestine, she lives in Amman, Jordan with her two sons and physician husband.

We head south past the Separation Wall and along an open road leading to the camp’s housing. It isn’t long before we come upon an older man picking figs from a tree branch hanging over one of the smaller walls.

We exchange a friendly “marhaba” (hello) and “keef haleek” (How are you?) before the man pops a green fig into his mouth.

I stop Sari. “Wait a minute. You mean you can eat figs fresh off a tree?” 

I’ve never had anything but dried figs from the supermarket.

“Of course,” he says. “Would you like one?”

I can honestly say I have never refused an offer of food of any kind.

The old man picks a fresh fig and, smiling, hands it to me. He says something to Sari.

“He apologizes. He says the better figs are at the top of the tree. But it takes a younger man to climb there.”

I thank him profusely and bite into half the fig. It’s crunchy, juicy and just sweet enough. Refreshing compared to the gooey sweet dried figs I’m used to.

“Delicious,” I say. “What a feast.” 

I imagine how happy my father would have been picking figs from trees. Every Spring, he would go hunting among the tufts of grass for tender young sprouts to toss into his dandelion salad. It was one of our family’s favorite dishes – an old French country recipe wilted with thin slices of onion in apple vinegar, bacon fat and a little salt and sugar. As a long-time factory worker, it gave my father great delight that the salad cost him practically nothing but his own labor.

Throughout the central part of the camp, I see many unfinished buildings – perhaps a third of them – including a massive new structure that is obviously intended for a mixed use of first-floor retail and three stories of apartments above.

“They start a building and run out of money,” Sari explains. “They begin again when they have the money.”

One of many unfinished buildings in central area of Aida Refugee camp.

We turn left and enter the western portion of the camp, where the streets narrow and the deteriorating houses begin to crowd together like old teeth. Here is the dark heart of the camp, tucked away from the relief agencies.

“Do you see all the four-story houses?” Sari says. “They are all illegal. You are not allowed to build houses in the camp higher than two stories. But the authorities look the other way.”

To save money, he explains, the refugees and their builders cut costs on materials and design. Each story houses a different family. But there’s a chance one family’s home may collapse into another and the whole structure will come crashing down.

The overbuilding is a direct result of families having nowhere else to go. When a man marries, it’s a Palestinian tradition for the groom’s family to build a home for the new couple. But refugees seldom have enough money to build homes outside the camp. So they build inside the crowded camps, higher and more precariously.

“If you build a home here, it costs about $13,000,” Sari says. “If you build outside the camp, you will pay $100,000 or more.” Or almost eight times as much.  Housing codes and land values can be a bitch.

We pass a second-hand store, where the owner sells objets d’art made from items he’s found in the trash. The shop looks like the aftermath of an exploded Rube Goldberg machine. The shopkeeper, a middle-aged man in tattered clothes, smiles as he approaches us, speaking in Arabic.

“He’s inviting you to come look in his shop,” Sari tells me.

“Not now,” I say, smiling at the owner. “Maybe when I come back.”

We come to the only grocery store I’ve seen so far – a mini-mart with a little boy outside gripping a sucker that balloons the side of his cheek. When he pulls it out, I notice the sucker is still in its wrapper. That’s a lot more self-control than I would have shown at that age.

“You think I can take a picture of him?” I ask Sari.

“I’ll ask the mother.” She’s inside the store behind the counter, keeping a careful watch on us.

The mother agrees, but before I snap the picture she hides herself. I don’t know if it’s for reasons of modesty or security.

Sari reminds me that privacy laws are different in the refugee camps. In the US, you can photograph or film anyone in a public space. You can even capture them inside their own homes as long as you are standing on public property. But here you must have the permission of your subjects under any circumstances. Sari tells me of a documentary team that filmed extensively in the camps without written permission from their residents. The finished film was pulled from YouTube because it had violated Palestinian law.

I ask Sari if he might find a refugee family I can interview. He says yes, but not today. He wants to speak with them first. I assure him that’s fine.

At places along the cramped, shoddy residential streets, I notice flowering vines on stairways and potted plants on porches and decks – statements of pride among the humiliation of being poor, isolated, forgotten. 

“They make beauty out of nothing,” Sari says. “That’s what they try to do everyday. It’s not a good place to look at but they try to make it better.”

As we round our way back to the camp entrance, Sari points down the hill. 

“See that green space to the right of the wall there,” he says. “That’s Palestinian land but it is now in Israeli territory. It is useless for farming or building homes.” Someday, he says, the illegal settlers may make use of it instead.

I ask Sari, who is driven by his deep Christian faith and a devotion to pacifism, if the two Intifadas accomplished anything for Palestinians.

“Not at all,” he says. “They only made things worse.” 

He points out that the Separation Wall was planned after the First Intifada ended in 1993. By the time the wall is complete it will be twice as long as the internationally recognized Green Line between the two countries, capturing much of Palestinian land. After the Second Intifada in 2005, Israel severely restricted travel to and from Palestine and continues to make it worse, discouraging tourism and choking off a key part of Bethlehem’s economy.

Even so, I can’t help thinking Leila Kahled would have given me a different answer.

Later that evening, I realize there’s no message from Karen. Disappointing, but also my own fault. 

I finish my lesson plans for tomorrow and decide to reward myself with a trip to the grotto and a cold beer – just one, I tell myself. As I enter, I’m glad to see several other paying customers when Asim introduces me to a man in his 30s standing at the end of bar drinking a beer. I think at first he must be Dutch, because he towers over me by at least a foot. 

We shake and my hand disappears like a mop handle into his. 

“Hi,” he smiles, “my name is Jacek.” 

Correction, Polish. Jacek is in Bethlehem for the night, and one of the nicest people I’ve ever met. We strike up a long conversation in English about Poland, about the war in Ukraine, about his work as a tour guide. He’s built like a power forward but I resist being “that guy” who asks if he’s ever played pro basketball. Instead I tell him about Karen and her work as a translator of Polish poems.

“She sounds very smart.”

“She is.”

Jacek tells me he gave up a lucrative career as a software developer in Warsaw five years ago and now travels the world as a professional guide. He says it’s the best decision he ever made and, with my prodding, ticks off the long list of countries he’s visited. It makes me more determined than ever to travel while I’m still healthy and possessed of my faculties.

On my way back to the guesthouse, I send off a text to Karen about the serendipity of meeting Jacek.

Karen: Jacek (Dehnel) is also the name of a poet I translate.

Me: I’ll check his stuff out. Jacek was incredibly nice and tall! Like 6’6”. I felt like a shrimp.

No response. Hmmm.

The nights are finally cool enough that I can close my windows against the traffic noise and Simbah’s yowling. I crawl under my sheet and thin blanket and pull them up to my chin. But within minutes, I realize I need warming. I find a quilt on the top shelf of the armoire, throw it over the bed, and crawl under again. 

Warm, but not the same. 

An Evening at the Grotto

Saturday, Sept. 17, 2022

I’d heard about a Palestinian youth festival taking place all that weekend in Manger Square from Nasira, Asim’s aunt. An animal rights activist in her 50s, Nasira is staying with Asim for a few months while visiting Palestine. During that time, she’s volunteering with a Bethlehem animal rescue shelter and has shared many sad stories. Nasira dotes on her nephew and, like me, loves his edgy sense of humor. Her English is not as sophisticated as Asim’s, but she’s also less cynical in her outlook. She’s given me much good advice while I adjust to life in Palestine. 

I’m thinking of asking her to go with me to the festival – as a friend, not as a “date” – but I’m not sure how she, or Asim, would react. Or myself, for that matter. I’m still carrying the much-deserved burden of guilt from my past failed relationships.

On my way to Manger Square, I stop by the grotto, where nephew and aunt are sitting outside at a cafe table in the evening breeze. Both are smoking and sipping shots of Bushmill’s, Asim’s favorite drink. Nasira is relaxing in the Betty Boop T-shirt and tattered jeans she often wears to the bar.

When I tell them my plans for the evening, Asim shakes his head. “I wouldn’t go. There was a fight there last night.”

“A fight? About what?”

Asim shrugs. “Between Christians and Muslims. I heard several priests were hurt.”

“But I thought Christians and Muslims here got along.”

“Most of the time they do. But there are fights. I wouldn’t go.”

I throw up my hands and ask for my favorite local brew, Shepherd’s Milk. Asim returns with an open bottle and a frosted glass. Ambrosia.

I can tell Asim is in a foul mood and trying not to show it. I soon hear why. 

He points down the street to where his landlord lives and says a word I won’t repeat here.

During the pandemic, Asim closed his bar for a year and only now, in the last week or so, has he seen a return of tourists to the area. The sleek German-built tour buses seem to multiply on the streets by the day.

Asim says he had worked out an arrangement with his landlord by paying 65 percent of the rent in cash for the period the bar was closed. That evening, however, just minutes before my arrival, the landlord insisted on being paid back the full amount – $100 extra per month until the debt is paid off. Asim does a quick calculation on his phone. It will take him 78 months, or 6 and a half years, to dig himself out.

I ask Asim if he has anything in writing about the previous agreement. No, he says, the landlord is an old friend. The lease was a verbal agreement among “family.” And, besides, he says, even if he had something in writing, the Palestinian police wouldn’t enforce it.

This starts Asim on a tirade about the Palestinian Authority, what he calls a “fake” government.

“The Israelis control everything,” he says. “When the military shows up, the police disappear.” And many of the police are corrupt and must be bribed to take action, he says.

“You need cheering up,” I say. “I could tell you some good American Dad jokes.”

I finally trigger a smile. Nasira also laughs. She understands more English than she can speak.

Asim has another reason to be in a bad mood. His permit to travel to Jerusalem expires the next day. It will take a month, perhaps months, for the permit to be renewed by the Israelis. He has no say in it, not even an application form. 

Asim needs to travel to West Jerusalem now and again to replenish his liquor supply. Only on the Israeli side of the city do they stock the whiskeys, gins, vodkas and cocktail ingredients to serve his more Western clientele – and to please himself. 

The almost ritualistic care and attention Asim gives to making each drink reminds me of Molly Wellman, the celebrated Cincinnati mixologist and bar owner I wrote a magazine piece about in 2016. For myself, I prefer beer or wine. But during my second visit to the grotto, Asim concocted the best Manhattan – straight up, with a lemon twist – I’d ever tasted. (Sorry, Molly.)

The conversation turns again, as it often does at the grotto, to the “open-air prison” for Palestianians trapped in the West Bank. Asim tells me there are many younger residents of Bethlehem who have never been able to leave the city because they can’t get permits. “I know men in their 30s who have never been to the sea,” he says. The coastal city of Tel Aviv is little more than an hour’s drive away.

Access to Jerusalem is crucial to the survival of many Palestinian business people and for Palestinians who can’t find work in the West Bank. The permits are extremely hard to come by from the Israeli military. Religious officials like Andrew Bush, pastor of a church in East Jerusalem, can get them. So can Palestinians whose skills and labor are needed in Jerusalem. Or if you have the right connections, as Asim does.

“I see people as an investment,” Asim tells me one night in a moment of candor. “I invest my time in them because I never know when I might need them.” He smiles. “You are excluded, of course.”

Of course. Although I don’t know how I could possibly help him anyway.

I am reminded of a conversation I had with Issa, a 26-year-old medical intern I met at the grotto the week before. Issa lives in Bethlehem but is doing his medical internship in an Israeli hospital in Jerusalem. He hopes someday to become a general surgeon. He was able to land a permit both because of his skills and because he is half Armenian and has an Armenian passport.

Even so, Issa says, he faces discrimination in Israel. Patients who learn that he has Palestinian roots, or simply because of his Muslim name, refuse his care. “It happens every day,” he says. He also expresses some bitterness because he has so far failed to get a recommendation from one of his Israeli department heads for a residency in general surgery. The week before, he says, another intern from the north of Israel was given a slot ahead of him.

“But can’t you work in a Palestinian hospital?” I ask. 

He shrugs. Asim tells me later there is no money to be made working in a Palestinian hospital.

My visits to the grotto prove to be an important part of my on-the-ground research in Palestine, not just a welcoming place to drink. On my third or fourth visit to the bar, I was nearly knocked off my stool one afternoon by the passing din of car horns and loud speakers. I race up the stairs in time to see a half-dozen pickups and Jeeps festooned with yellow flags roaring up the hill. The celebrants are honking their horns and yelling at the top of their lungs. For a moment I suffered a flashback to the Trump truck rallies of 2020.

I turn to Asim behind the bar. “What the hell’s going on?”

Asim takes it all in stride. “Probably someone was released from prison. I’m surprised they weren’t shooting rifles.”

“A political prisoner? Do we know which one?”

“There are thousands of them.” Fact. 

According to Al Jazeera, Israel holds some 4,450 Palestinians in prisons – including 160 children, 32 women, and 530 “administrative detainees.” That’s a bureaucratic euphemism for prisoners held indefinitely on suspicion without being charged or tried.

And all the yellow flags?

“Fatah,” he says. Fatah is Palestine’s social democratic party and the largest faction of the Palestinian Liberation Organization (PLO). It was founded by Yassar Arafat, the popular Palestinian leader who died under mysterious circumstances in 2004.

But Asim and I don’t always see eye-to-eye and it can lead to some lively discussions. For one thing, I don’t share his relentlessly anti-religious views. But then again, I’ve never had my family’s life ruined by warring religious claims. 

Asim and I come closest to a heated argument one night over his views on “woke culture.” He detests it. I respect its aims (tolerance and respect for people regardless of their race, gender identity or sexual orientation) but not always the means for enforcing its standards. Firing or punishing people for things they say about less advantaged people – no matter how sincere the offender’s apology or how far back the offense stretches into their past – creates only more hatred and divisiveness. 

Even worse is taking historical figures or books out of their cultural context and condemning them by today’s standards. Both grate against my almost religious devotion to free speech. And you certainly don’t persuade anyone of your views by simply labeling them a racist, a homophobe, or a transphobe. 

On the other hand, anti-woke people can over-react to the most superficial concessions to diversity and tolerance.

Asim is a huge fan of Tolkien’s “Lord of the Rings” books, and the new Amazon TV series based on those books galls him to no end. 

“Because the series has black dwarves?” I ask. To me it’s just a matter of updating the social context. No one is being hurt by the changes.

“Yes. That was never Tolkien’s intention.”

“But Tolkien is dead. And, besides, they’re fictional characters, for God’s sake.” 

“I don’t care. It bothers me. Why did they feel compelled to do that? Because they’re ‘woke.’”

“But why should you care if they are?”

“I believe works of art should be left in their original context.”

“But it’s not the original work. It’s a TV adaptation.”

“Based on the original work.”

I drop the subject. Like so many culture war debates these days, neither of us is moved from our position. But does Asim’s objection to black dwarves in “Lord of the Rings” make him a racist, as woke culture would inform us? 

I don’t know. But let’s put him, too, into context. I’m pretty sure the only black people Asim has ever met are the Ethiopian-Israeli soldiers at checkpoints who ask to see his permit.

Struggle for the Legal Tender, Part II

Monday, Sept. 19, 2022

In the mid-day heat and the echoing overhead drone of the Zuhr (noon call to prayer), I leave the guesthouse and begin the quest to find the currency exchange that allowed me to buy shekels with my Visa card. After a week of drink and food purchases, my once-fat wallet is empty. But for the life of me I can’t remember the location of the exchange or its name. Leaving the exchange two weeks before, I was so delighted to have cash again I never bothered to look up at the storefront sign.

Even so, lingering among the billions of neurons and glia still remaining in my 70-year-old short-term memory are fleeting images of a spot I associate with the exchange. Yes. Somewhere not far from the Jumbo Supermarket and the main road through Beit Jalal. On a curving side street. Very little traffic. So when I reach Jumbo, I begin exploring all the nearby curving roads I can find. An hour later, dripping with sweat, I have no idea at all where I am. It seems I’ve been walking in dizzying circles past the same stone houses, littered empty lots and dumpsters crawling with woebegone felines.

I decide to give up the quest and do some shopping in the air-conditioned comfort of Jumbo, where they at least respect my credit card if not my person. I pull out my phone and follow the walking directions. But as I round a curving street back to the main road, I notice a Domino’s pizza on my left. And then a McDonald’s. And a KFC. Suddenly, my prefrontal cortex is lit up and buzzing with refreshed memories. 

Two more stores around the curve and there it is. “Joe’s Money Exchange.” A name I will never forget.

As luck would have it, the balding young man with beard and glasses (Joe himself?) is on duty and willing to do business again.

Hallelujah.

Fear and Loathing in Hebron

Saturday, Sept. 24, 2022

I arrive by shuttle van from Bethlehem in the bustling center of Hebron close to noon. With almost seven times the population of Bethlehem, Hebron is the second-largest city in Palestine (210,000 residents, nearly all Muslim, and some 800 Israeli settlers) and a major economic center known for its limestone quarrying, glass blowing factories and ceramic shops as well as agricultural products like figs and the delicious red grapes you can pop like candy. As one of the oldest cities in the Middle East, it dates back to 1,700 years before Christ, but where I’ve been dropped off, it’s hardly apparent. The streets here are even more jammed with traffic than Bethlehem. But unlike Bethlehem, alhamdulillah, there are sidewalks you can safely navigate. 

My mission for the day is to find the Old City, not only for its historical significance but because I’ve heard it’s one of the most heavily militarized zones in the West Bank, a logistical nightmare for the Palestinian inhabitants who must negotiate its many checkpoints.

But first, something to eat. I walk around looking for a quick lunch somewhere when I feel chilled air emanating from an open arcade of shops to my right. Where there’s AC, there must be food. I follow the arcade into an expansive atrium and discover a six-story shopping mall — the Hebron Center.

I feel like I’ve dropped through a wormhole into suburban America. Only now, for the first time in Palestine, I see Muslim women in burkas, the long black robes with hoods and masks revealing only a pair of mysterious eyes. Hebron Center is the same mecca to commercialism you’d find anywhere in the world — the obligatory spray fountain in the atrium courtyard, chrome-and-glass elevators, eye-catching window displays and all the same cookie-cutter stores (mostly knock-offs of the real brands) selling trendy clothing, bath and beauty products, housewares, high-tech gadgets and lingerie. In fact, I pass at least three lingerie stores on the way to the food court on the third floor. Women in burkas are shopping in all of them. What happens in the bedroom stays in the bedroom.

The food court is hopping with nary an empty table. Should I do take out? I decide to order first at a restaurant with a meat case full of delicious-looking kabobs, worry about where to eat later. But when I ask for the grilled chicken barbecue, the owner sends a young boy out to clear a table for me, and that includes its three female occupants who have finished eating. I feel guilty and embarrassed as the trio politely leaves but the boy insists I sit there. My order is on the way, he says. The chicken and veggies are delicious — fresh, lightly seasoned and grilled to tender-but-crisp perfection — maintaining my record in Palestine of having never had a bad meal.

When I finish, I quickly exit to the street again and plug “Hebron Old City” into my GPS. The Old City, not the city center, is what I came to see — an area rife with conflict between Jewish settlers and the native Muslim population. But I can hardly believe what I’m seeing on Google Maps. The Old City is perhaps four blocks to the west from where I’m standing but the walking directions show a wide U-shaped path going north out of the city and south again. The travel time? One hour and 4 minutes.

You’re kidding? I switch the directions to public transit mode and it produces nearly the same path and, given the traffic, almost the same travel time. Should I just walk toward the Old City and see where it takes me?

But while I stand at the mall exit looking lost, a 30-something Palestinian man in casual Western clothing approaches me and says, “Can I help you find something?” He’s slightly shorter than I am with a neatly-trimmed salt-and-pepper goatee and a reassuring smile. I tell him about my dilemma in trying to reach the Old City.

“Come,” he says, “I will take you there.”

I hesitate for a moment wondering if I’m about to be led to an alley and robbed or kidnapped. But my gut instinct tells me something different. I have only once been cheated by a Palestinian since I’ve been here – a street vendor selling roasted corn who took my 10 shekel coin and failed to give me the 5 shekels in change. I decided it wasn’t worth arguing over what amounted to less than $1.50. (Okay, so there was also that young boy selling napkins in Bethlehem, the one who grabbed my 50 shekel note and ran.)

I have little time to make up my mind, however, because the smaller man takes off like a shot through the crowded sidewalk, waving me to follow. I do, trusting in God, trusting in the basic goodness of my fellow man.

We soon enter into the narrow, canopied, teeming streets of the Old City market. Along the narrow walkways are small shops on either side and clothes hanging overhead so close you have to bow your head to pass. The air is redolent with the citrusy smell of fresh produce and the exotic aroma of Middle Eastern spices along the way.

Old City Market in Hebron. Notice the wire fencing above the market to catch trash and debris thrown by illegal Israeli setters.

I still have no idea where I’m headed but the Palestinian man introduces himself as Khaldun, an Arabic name I learn later means “eternal.” We strike up a conversation as we walk, his shorter, younger legs moving much faster than my own. Khaldun’s English is very good, thanks to his training as a mechanical engineer — a college major, he tells me, that requires mastering English to read the necessary textbooks and latest research papers. Khaldun now owns a small company of his own — a carpentry shop that turns out ornate scrollwork and other decorative wooden furnishings for expensive homes. He shows me pictures from his website as we walk. Gorgeous stuff and, I suspect, well out of my own price range.

I tell him I’m from Cincinnati, expecting the usual non-response. But he instantly says he has milling machines in his shop made in Cincinnati. Milacron? Yes! Oh my God, what a global village we live in.

I soon realize why Google Maps doesn’t show the path we’re taking through the Old City. Up ahead is a line of 10 or so people waiting at a floor-to-ceiling turnstile gate. Just beyond it is a glassed-in guardhouse and several soldiers with assault rifles. An Israeli checkpoint. I’m glad this time I had enough sense to bring my passport and travel visa. 

Khaldun touches my shoulder. “I have to go,” he says. “But I will leave you in good hands.”

He signals behind us to a tall young man just down the crowded market street who comes to us and introduces himself. For reasons I will explain later, I can’t use his real name. Let’s call him “Mo.” Khaldun waves goodbye to both of us as he takes his leave, starting off down an intersecting unblocked walkway.

“Are you here to see the real Hebron?” Mo asks. 

Mo has an almost childlike smile, innocent and trustworthy. 

“What do you mean by ‘real’?” I ask.

“I can show you the settlements, the disputed areas, even a refugee camp.”

It doesn’t take me long to realize that I have just been handed off to a tour guide. I feel taken advantage of, but it lasts only for a second. A tour guide may be exactly what I need right now. I came to Hebron at the urging of my dear friend Sr. Mary Wendeln to see exactly what Mo is promising. “If you want to see how bad it is in the West Bank, you have to go to Hebron,” Sister told me during one of my visits to her apartment in Cincinnati. She speaks from experience. In the 1990s, she served as a human rights monitor in the Hebron area, a witness and watchdog to help prevent settler violence against Palestinian residents and farmers.

“You bet,” I tell Mo, realizing, of course, that at some point I’ll be asked for money. But I’m in a trusting mood. The timing of everything so far seems more than just serendipitous. A tag-team scheme? God’s providence? I may never know the answer.

As we join the waiting line, Mo points out the overhead wire meshing above the market street behind us, covering the entire width and length of the walkway. The mesh is sagging from the weight of the rubbish, including plastic bottles.

“The settlers throw their trash there,” Mo says. “Sometimes they fill bottles with urine and let it drip.”

I learn later that the homes above the market shops are occupied on the south side by Palestinians and on the north side by Israeli settlers. Both sides display their nation’s flags from windows in a kind of symbolic Mexican stand-off. Mo says the settlers will sometimes swipe the Palestinian flags and try to replace them with Israeli ones.

Hebron is often called a “microcosm” of the Israeli occupation. In addition to the usual West Bank divisions of Areas A (Palestinian control), B (joint control) and C (Israeli military control), the Hebron Protocol of 1997 divided the city into two more sectors: H1, controlled by the Palestinian National Authority, and H2 (roughly 20 percent of the city, including 35,000 Palestinians) under Israeli military rule.

Since the 1980s, Jews have settled illegally in the H2 section of the Old City, where they are closely guarded by the Israeli military. Estimates are that 700 to 800 setters now live there among the Palestinians, sometimes on the same streets and even in the same buildings. No one knows their exact numbers, however, because most of the settlements are unofficial and have no citizen registration. Volunteers from B’tselem, an Israeli human rights organization, take frequent photos of the settlement sites for comparison and continually update their maps. A new official settlement of 300 more Israelis, still without a name, was approved by former Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu just before he and Trump left office in 2021. (Update, February 2023: With Netanyahu and Israel’s extreme religious right back in power, the government has approved 7,000 new homes in Jewish settlements in the West Bank. The move defied growing international opposition to construction in the occupied territory.)

Ten minutes later, the indicator light above the turnstile ahead of us turns to a green arrow and the line of waiting pedestrians winds their way through. Mo goes ahead of me, and as soon as he gets through, the green arrow turns to a red X and I’m locked out. I panic, thinking somehow I’ve been targeted.

“Don’t worry,” Mo says from the other side. “They only let so many in at once.”

The line of pedestrians backs up behind me and, sure enough, a few minutes later, the red X becomes a green arrow again and I push through into the short walkway leading to the glassed-in guardhouse. As I follow Mo, we’re stopped short of the guardhouse by a female Israeli soldier wearing no helmet but otherwise armed and in full gear. She has long hair and more than a touch of makeup in the mode of nearly all young women in Palestine – Jewish, Muslim or Christian.

“He’s an American,” Mo tells her. 

Mo apparently has been through this drill before.

“Do you have a gun?” the soldier asks me. 

That’s a question I’ve never had to answer in my life, but I guess I’m fair game considering that, yes, I am an American.

I tell her no and she signals me in. It’s amazing what being Caucasian will do for a visitor here.

From the guardhouse, we exit left into a large asphalt-covered plaza blazing under the midday sun. Two roads from the plaza fork left and right up the hill beyond. Both roads are blocked by sections of concrete and movable steel barriers. Guard stations are positioned at the entrance to both roads with a sun canopy and two picnic tables between them. Four soldiers stand or sit there watching from the shade. 

Mo tells me he can take me no farther. Palestinians are not permitted beyond this checkpoint, only settlers.

Indeed, just ahead of us, two male settlers, pistols bulging from holsters on their hips, pass the guardhouse and enter the road on the left. One of them, dressed in a black T-shirt and jeans, hears Mo talking about them, turns and shouts back to us, “Israel is the most humanitarian nation on earth!” (I can’t tell whether he’s serious or not because he immediately turns again and starts walking up the road with his partner.)

Armed Israeli settlers enter street in Hebron only they can access to illegal settlement.

Mo approaches one of the soldiers at the station, a young male with the standard assault rifle strapped around his chest.

“Do you speak English?” he asks the soldier. Mo points to me, an obvious foreigner. “He would be happy to hear from you because he wants to hear both sides. Who is allowed to enter here?”

The soldier speaks very matter-of-factly. “It is closed to anyone who does not live in the settlement. You need a blue ID.”

Mo steps back to explain. “We have at least 250 military bases in Palestine but in Hebron in particular we have at least 23 checkpoints in the city. The Israelis block the (settler) roads by concrete and by checkpoint, and we are forbidden to go there.”

Up to 50,000 Palestinians live in homes in the H2 sector of Hebron under Israeli military control and the rest (160,000) live behind checkpoints in the H1 sector. “This is the daily intimidation we face because the Israelis don’t want any Palestinians to live here,” Mo says within earshot of the soldiers. “And they are taking more and more land by using the military as a tool (for settlers), as a way to take over the land from the people who live in these homes.”

Mo tells me that the most radical and abusive settlers are often motivated by religious Zionism. They see the land grab in Palestine not as an occupation or theft but as a liberation movement repatriating a persecuted people to their ancestral homeland, a right given to them by God from Biblical times. Anti-Zionists, on the other hand, see the movement as part of a colonialist and racist ideology based on the supposed “exceptionalism” or superiority of the Jewish people.

Mo argues, though, that religion on both sides is often a mask for more secular and economic aims. “Most of the politicians (Israeli and Palestinian) are secular. How can you prove that you are following ‘God’s law’ when you are doing all of this (violent) stuff? Most people are acting against their religions in order to get an economical advantage.” 

The primary objective of the illegal settlements, Mo says, is to evacuate the Palestinians in increments and take over their homes, lands and neighborhoods. The settlers are the vanguard of the Israeli government and military, whose ultimate goal is to extend Israel to all of Palestine. To no one’s surprise, in late December of 2022, incoming Prime Minister Netanyahu agreed to advance annexation of West Bank land as part of a coalition deal with the far-right Religious Zionism party.

Mo explains how many Palestinians survive emotionally during the occupation. “A lot of people here are feeling pain and suffering, but they are also happy. They don’t care. They just don’t care. They don’t care about tomorrow, or what tomorrow is providing for them. They live for the moment.”

Mo says he has an assistant who can escort me into the settlement area, but first we must go back to his offices in the new city. I’m a little wary, especially since Mo hasn’t yet mentioned his fee. But trust has gotten me this far in my Hebron adventure and again I say okay. 

As we prepare to leave the plaza, a man in a long apron approaches us from behind one of the crowd barriers to our right and starts speaking to Mo in Arabic. Mo tells me the man is a Palestinian shopkeeper who can’t cross the barrier but has asked if I would like to take a look at his ceramic wares. The man is pointing to a shop in a row of stores less than a hundred feet away. I get the distinct impression that Mo has an arrangement with the shopkeeper but I say yes anyway, since Hebron is known for its beautiful ceramic wares.

Inside the shop’s cramped quarters, the walls are lined top to bottom with unfinished wood shelves of handmade cups, plates and other pottery painted in the ornate Arabesque style of kaleidoscopic blue and orange. The shopkeeper offers me a small cup of Turkish coffee, which I don’t refuse. I look around the shelves for a while and find a coffee cup with a skyline of ancient Bethlehem, a souvenir for me or my espresso-loving oldest daughter Maddy. When I bring it to the checkout counter, the shopkeeper produces a matching saucer. Why not? I purchase both items for 60 shekels ($20) and the shopkeeper carefully wraps them in bubble wrap and tape. After he hands me the package and bag, I find Mo waiting just inside the shop door.

As we return the 50 feet or so to the Palestinian side of the metal barrier, Mo is confronted by a female soldier from the canopy between the guardhouses. She asks him in broken English why she shouldn’t arrest him for having transgressed the barrier. 

Mo, I am told later, has been arrested many times before, his wrists bound with cable ties and a blindfold pulled over his eyes (the standard military procedure) for the march to the military base at the top of the hill beyond. He’s usually released in a few hours after paying a small fine. Once, however, he spent a week in an Israeli prison after a collaborator and Facebook friend reported what the Israelis interpreted as “an incitement to violence” posted on his private Facebook page. Mo paid a 5,000 shekel fine, or about $1,500, before he could be released. 

I expect Mo to apologize to the soldier and ask to be excused, but instead he launches into a semi-tirade in English about the specifics of the Israeli military law and whether he had actually violated the forbidden space on the settler road. The other three soldiers under the canopy, all males, are listening closely. 

I really want Mo to back down but his argument with the soldier seems more than a bit staged – a way for me to bear witness to the excesses of Israeli military rule. At the same time, I think the Israeli soldiers are just as aware of my presence and so resist the urge to arrest him. After a while, the female soldier simply walks away. So do we. Mo grins at me, knowing full well he was safe in the presence of an American tourist. PR triumphs over injustice. Such is life under occupation.

After passing through three more checkpoints, we arrive at Mo’s office – dubbed the Hebron Peace Center – in a central Palestinian neighborhood under Israeli military control. There I’m introduced to Becky (not her real name), a 60-something staff person at the center and a former human rights monitor from Australia who has been traveling to Hebron for 11 years. (Both Becky and Mo have asked me not to use their real names for fear the type of information they share will lead to retaliation from both Israeli and Palestinian authorities.) Becky informs me the center uses its tour “donations” to support its mission of connecting foreign volunteers with a local medical clinic, women’s support center and schools. The center also offers job training and employment assistance to locals.

So what is the expected “donation”? Mo tells me anywhere from $175 to $200 for the day. The price includes a tour of the settlement area, a free meal, a visit to the city’s famed Ibrahimi Mosque and Cave of the Patriarchs (where Abraham, Isaac, and Jacob, along with their wives Sarah, Rebekah, and Leah, are said to be buried), an evening tour of a nearby refugee camp and a safe return via bus to Bethlehem.

The center doesn’t accept credit cards but Becky says I can use PayPal. I send $200 to Becky’s PayPal account. Considering that the Bible college wanted $200 for a personal half-day tour of Jerusalem, I call it a bargain.

***

Becky’s tour begins where Mo left off – at the Ab Al Reesh checkpoint plaza and the two roads leading up to the hilltop settlements and the surrounding Palestinian neighborhoods. We choose Shohada (Martyrs) Street to the left where a thriving Palestinian market once stood. The other road to the right, which has no name, is for the exclusive use of settlers to reach their homes and their synagogue. As a former human rights observer, Becky has no trouble getting either of us past the guard station.

The first settlers in Hebron arrived soon after the Six Day War in 1967 when Israel began its occupation of Palestine. “They asked permission from a local hotel to allow them to come here and stay for a while, which the management graciously did, but then they never left,” Becky says. “Instead they brought a container up here (full of their furnishings) and that’s when the first settlement started.”

Becky points out the boys’ high school on the left side of the road. (A separate facility for high school girls is just beyond the boys’.) She tells me Israeli soldiers have attacked the school and several others in the area with teargas, most recently in March of 2022, when dozens of teachers and students had to be evacuated. 

In all, there are nine Palestinian schools in this area of Hebron under Israeli civil and military control. Teachers, children and parents not only face frequent abuse from settlers but they also must deal with the whims of Israeli soldiers as they pass through as many as five checkpoints to reach their schools. Enrollment at all the schools has dwindled dramatically.

The reaction of soldiers at any checkpoint is unpredictable, Becky says, depending on their orders for the day, sometimes loose, sometimes more strict. “It can be related to what’s happened in the rest of the West Bank,” she says. “The soldiers are not supposed to interfere with the kids going to school, but on some days, they may inspect their backpacks or pull up their shirts or pants legs. Other times there’s no interference at all. It’s all about control, control, control.”

Much of the settler abuse comes from the Alrajabi settlement, a large house that used to be owned exclusively by a Palestinian family. The settlers claimed they bought half of the building from another owner and forced the Palestinian family to live in its other half. Deeds in Palestine are often not recorded, so proving ownership in court is costly and nearly impossible. When human rights organizations tried to intervene, Becky says, the family asked that they stop. The attention, the family said, only made matters with the neighboring settlers worse.

I ask Becky how she got involved with the human rights organization that first brought her to Hebron in 2011. “Before then, I knew very little about Palestine except what I’d heard on the news. I thought (the Palestinians) were really bad guys and poor Israel, because that’s what I was raised on. And then in 2008, there was coverage of the bombing in Gaza. And I thought, no no, soldiers bombing kids is not cool. So then I knew the story (from the Israeli point of view) wasn’t quite right.”

As we climb Martyrs Street toward the settlements and Palestinian homes near the top of the hill, the streetlamps along the center of the boulevard are festooned with Israeli flags flapping in the breeze. But their sound is the only sign of life here. The once-proud old two-story buildings are empty and locked behind rusted metal doors and gates, their limestone streaked and chipped, their decorative tiles shedding, their window grates like rotting teeth. What was once one of Hebron’s busiest markets for produce, poultry, gold and other goods is now a kilometer-long ghost town. 

Author stands on Martyrs Street among abandoned Palestinian businesses and homes.

Between 1,500 and 1,900 houses and shops have been abandoned along the street. “Almost all of these beautiful Palestinian homes and shops were closed after the massacre in the mosque in 1994,” Becky says. “Others closed due to the loss of trade” that followed. 

The 1994 massacre at Hebron’s Ibrahimi Mosque was carried out by Baruch Goldstein, an American-Israeli religious extremist. The mosque site is considered holy by both Jews and Muslims as the reputed burial site for Abraham, Isaac, Jacob and their wives. Muslims venerate the earlier prophets but claim Mohammed was the true representative of God, just as Christians assign the same role to Christ. 

On Feb. 25,1994, during the Jewish holiday of Purim – which happened to overlap that year with the Islamic holy month of Ramadan – Goldstein opened fire on a large gathering of Palestinian Muslims praying inside the mosque. The attack left 29 people dead, several as young as 12, and 125 wounded. Goldstein was overpowered, disarmed, and then beaten to death by survivors.

The massacre immediately set off mass protests by Palestinians throughout the West Bank, and another 20 to 26 Palestinians were killed and 120 injured in clashes with the Israeli military. Nine Israeli Jews were also killed. Afterward, Becky says, a kilometer-long stretch of Martyrs Street was closed to “protect” the Palestinians and was never reopened. In another move said to protect Palestinians, the Ibrahimi Mosque was divided in two, with 60 percent of its area going to Jews. Muslims and Jews have separate roads leading to the site as well as separate entrances.

On every other abandoned building along a block-long stretch of Martyrs Street are signs posted by the Israeli government declaring the history of the shuttered neighborhood from an exclusively Israeli point of view. The first marker we see reads “DESTRUCTION – The 1929 riots: Arab marauders slaughter Jews. The community is uprooted and destroyed.”

Missing is the lead-up to the riots. In 1917, the British reneged on a promise to grant independence to Arabs if they fought against the Germans and Turks in World War I. Instead, under the Balfour Declaration, the British colonial rulers awarded more than 50 percent of Palestinian land to the Jewish minority there. Tensions between the two groups grew as tens of thousands of Jews, mostly from Europe, emigrated to the Holy Land. The 1929 Hebron riot refers to the killing of 67 or 69 Jews on Aug. 4, 1929 by Arabs incited to violence by rumors that Jews were planning to seize control of the Temple Mount in Jerusalem. The riot also left scores seriously wounded or maimed. Jewish homes were pillaged and synagogues were ransacked. 

Some of the 435 Jews who survived were hidden by local Arab families. Soon after, all of Hebron’s Jews were evacuated by British authorities, not by the Arabs, as an historical marker along Martyr Street implies. Many of the Jewish families returned in 1931, but almost all were evacuated at the outbreak of the 1936–39 Arab revolt. 

Another historical marker reads “Liberation, Return, Rebuilding, 1967: the liberation of Palestine and return of the Jewish community. ‘The children have returned to their own  border.’ (cf. Jer. 31:17).” 

The “liberation” of Hebron in 1967 was actually part of the Israeli military occupation of the West Bank and the beginning of the illegal settlements following the Israeli victory in the Six Day War. Thirty years later, the original Jewish inhabitants of Hebron sent a letter to Becky’s international human rights organization stating that “the settlers (in Hebron) must leave. They don’t represent Judaism, they don’t represent us,” she says. Most of Hebron’s Jewish settlers, she points out, come from the U.S., Russia and Eastern Europe, not from the Middle East.

The history of the Jewish people in Palestine as the victims of oppression, not the oppressors, is deeply ingrained in the mindsets of both the settlers and the Israeli military. The same can be said of Western mainstream media. 

“There’s no use talking to a soldier or a settler because you always get the same answer,” Becky says. “They say, ‘If we put down our weapons, they would just kill us. They don’t belong here. This is Judaic Samaria. There is no such thing as Palestine and they are all terrorists – whether they’re a small child or a big adult, they’re all terrorists’.”

We pass the Israel Museum, devoted to Jewish art and artifacts from the region, and next to it the Beit Hadassah settlement, a long, narrow building that houses perhaps the most radical settlers in Hebron, Becky says. The rear of the settlement overlooks the Old City market and is responsible for much of the rubbish and sewage that rains down on the Palestinian merchants below.

Beit Hadassah illegal settlement.

Farther up the hill on Martyrs Street, beyond the rows of closed shops, an old four-story building still houses the offices of the monitoring group where Becky once worked. It was through that work that Becky has gotten to know many of the Palestinian residents in the neighborhood. As we turn left and climb another hill, she points out the home of a Palestinian man who works as a driving instructor.

Every window on the first floor of the home has been broken at one time or another, she says. Settlers throw trash in his yard and have stolen most of his land as well. “He was involved in the second Intifada and spent time in prison.” she says. “He realized that the violence achieved nothing and now has a strong commitment to nonviolent action.”

Despite the odds, she says, “he raised a beautiful family here. He has five children who were all attacked at one time or another by adult settlers as well as by other kids. But he’s not going to leave.” 

The same is not true of the man’s children. His oldest daughter, who recently married, moved out into her husband’s home in Hebron’s H1 sector under Palestinian control. His oldest son, a successful accountant, moved to the U.S. “Usually, it is the wives who go to live with their husbands. So it is really difficult for a (Palestinian) son to marry and stay here. That’s how (the Israelis) get rid of them.”

From there we turn right along the hilltop and come to a guardhouse next to the gated entrance of a kindergarten opened by Palestinian activists in 2013. Soon after its opening, settlers spray-painted a playground wall with “Death to Arabs,” according to a story in the Palestinian magazine “+972,” named after the country’s international telephone code. Enrollment has dropped from about 100 students to 12 today, Becky says. “They’re having a hard time keeping their doors open.”

Parents and children on their way to schools face harassment from settlers as well as cars speeding down the hill. “There have been three accidents with settlers just flying around that curve (at the bottom of the hill) and onto the road that leads to the synagogue side of the Ibrahimi Mosque.”

Becky says an older settler woman who lives near the kindergarten frequently comes out of her home with a camera to photograph and intimidate the children and their parents. “She shouts at them, ‘You caused Auschwitz! You caused Auschwitz! Remember Auschwitz!’”

The settlements are costly for the Israeli government to maintain, Becky says. Many settlers can’t find jobs and are subsidized by the government. In Hebron, the settlers also require around-the-clock military protection with a separate unit of soldiers for each eight-hour shift. “It’s a huge amount of money to keep this occupation going,” she says. One Israeli financial expert, Shir Hever, estimates the cost at $1 billion a year for subsidies, health care clinics and security.

We continued along the hilltop road toward a small guardhouse with a single male soldier inside, his window pulled wide open toward the blazing street. The one-person booth is situated on a sidewalk just outside a Palestinian home. Becky explains the site’s significance.

“In 2016, when the Israelis thought there might be a third Intifada, two Palestinians were accused of stabbing a soldier on this street. The soldiers shot both of them. The first one was shot dead. The second one was injured.”

“A settler at the scene shouted, ‘Put a bullet in the dog,’ and a young Israeli soldier obliged by executing the wounded Palestinian on the spot. The whole incident was recorded on video by a human rights advocate who lives in that house behind the guardhouse. It was ostensibly put there to protect the family from settlers, but it also serves to intimidate any further monitoring of abuses.”

The soldier who performed the coup de grace was charged with murder but the offense was later downgraded to manslaughter. “He spent only nine months in prison,” Becky says. “When he was released, settlers danced on the spot where he killed the Palestinian.”

As we pass near the guardhouse, the young male soldier inside asks me in a heavy Russian or Eastern European accent, “Where are you from?” He’s either bored out of his mind or checking me out, or perhaps both. He has a Coke can in his hand.

“Cincinnati,” I say. “Ever heard of it?”

“Of course,” he answers, smiling. “Who hasn’t? What are you guys doing here? Did you just come to visit?”

Becky and I answer repeatedly in the affirmative.

“You’ve got quite a complex here,” I say, trying stupidly to sound innocent.

“Yes,” he says. “You have plenty of places to go. Why did you pick here?”

“Well, I’ve been to Bethlehem,” I answer truthfully, and then add less truthfully, “I want to try to visit as many of the holy sites as I can.”

“Are you a Christian?”

“Yes, I teach at Bethlehem Bible College.”

“Really?”

“I teach English. But don’t ask me about my Arabic.”

Becky turns the tables, “And where are you from?”

“I’m from here,” the soldier says, almost sighing. “I live in this place. Up the hill (in the military base.) But you know how it is. I have to spend three years of my life in this. Not all of it fun.”

Three years of military service is mandatory for both sexes in Israel, beginning at age 19.

“Yes,” Becky says sympathetically. “And we could be such friends.”

“I mean, yeah,” the soldier says, shrugging. “God only knows how many years (it will take), though.”

“It’s going to change,” Becky says gently. “It’s got to change.”

“I really wish it could.”

Becky says “yeah” almost in a whisper.

“‘Cause it’s not a pretty thing, compulsory military obligation,” the soldier says. “Not nice.”

“Yeah.” And then Becky asks, “Did you ever think about refusing?”

“No, no. Because I believe in the cause, you know. I mean, I wish things were different. It isn’t good. But I don’t like (spending) eight hours here holding a gun and stuff all day. But a man’s gotta do what a man’s gotta do, you know how it is.”

“Yeah.”

“Like I said early (sic), I wish things weren’t like this. I wish we could change the situation but…”

“Do you mind sharing with me what you see as the cause?”

“Well, (for the Israelis) it’s bring more family, bring more friends, bring more people. And until they see, you know, the Arab side, well… it’s a sad situation. This conflict has been around longer than any of us and we all get sucked into it.”

The soldier touches on a theme I have long suspected. The “cause” of Israel has little to do with democracy or the Jewish religion, neither of whose basic tenets justify Israel’s treatment of Palestinians. Devotion to Israel is devotion to a cult of ethnic solidarity and security at any price – a collective neurosis wrought by centuries of Jewish persecution. Like any cult, that devotion can’t be questioned on moral, legal or any other grounds, and its demands apply as much to its chief ally, the United States, as it does to the Jewish people.

Becky pulls out all her persuasive charm. “I wonder what it would look like if you were just able to see each other socially. You know, get to know each other personally.”

“I don’t know because some of (the Palestinians) will just spit in your face, you know. And it’s like, damn…”

“And it goes the other way around, too.”

“Yes.”

A silence ensues. I decide to break it. “You look awfully young. What are you, 19?”

“Yes, 19. I’ll be 20 this November.”

“So when do you finish your furlough?” Becky asks.

“I still have about two years left,” he says, then adds a date that is probably seared into his young brain. “May 7, ‘24.”

“So good luck!” I say, thinking it’s time to move on.

“Yes, I appreciate you coming to visit,” the soldier says genuinely.

“I enjoyed it,” I say. “Thank you.”

“Yeah. Bye guys.”

Becky tries one more time to reach out. “I’d really love you to meet this Palestinian friend of mine. Maybe have coffee sometime.”

There’s no reaction from the soldier. 

“Bye bye,” he says, waving his hand a little.

At the end of the road, we come to a more modern house behind a locked gate. It belongs to Abed, a friend of Becky’s, and his wife. “Just on the back side of this house is his land,” Becky says. “They had to get consent (from the Israeli military) to go there and pick their own olives. And on the days they were able to go, they got into fights with the settlers. It’s a hell of a life. Soldiers on rooftops were constantly looking into their windows. There was constant harassment at the checkpoints. He and his wife left. The house now is abandoned.”

Not far beyond the abandoned house, the street clears and a view opens of Hebron spread out across the valley below. “The settlers claim this is the view described in Genesis Book 13,” Becky says, where God promises the land to Abraham and his descendants. “You can look it up.” I do.

The LORD said to Abram, after Lot had separated from him, ‘Lift up your eyes and look from the place where you are, northward and southward and eastward and westward, for all the land that you see I will give to you and to your offspring forever. I will make your offspring as the dust of the earth, so that if one can count the dust of the earth, your offspring also can be counted’” (13:14-16 ESV). 

The LORD instructed Abraham: “Arise, walk through the length and the breadth of the land, for I will give it to you.” (13:17 ESV). 

Jewish settlers claim this is the hilltop in Hebron where God promised Abraham all the land that could be seen in perpetuity.

The tour of the settlement neighborhood has ended. We start down the hill and turn left toward a checkpoint west of the Old City, an exit that leads to a Palestinian-controlled area known as Bab Al-Zawiye. We pass through the checkpoint unimpeded and walk down an empty block-long corridor that ends in a small plaza. A row of concrete barriers blocks the far end of the plaza from a busy four-lane street – the same street, I believe, where the shuttle first deposited me in the city center. The barriers mark a major juncture between the H1 and H2 boundaries where Palestinian and Israeli military control collide. As such, it’s the site of frequent Palestinian protests – both organized and spontaneous – against the occupation and the settlements. 

One of 28 military checkpoints now in Hebron, leading to a busy plaza and the scene of frequent Palestinian protests.

On Fridays especially, when school is out, “kids will throw stones at the checkpoint and the soldiers will respond with a couple of them coming out. And if (the youths) continue doing so, they’ll send out 12 more soldiers. They take up positions behind the concrete blocks here. And you’ll have snipers, you’ll have teargas, rubber bullets… the kids will sometimes roll burning tires down the street.”

I ask Becky if she thinks Palestinians are gearing up for another Intifada. I cite the news stories of growing violence in the West Bank as well as the recent concerns expressed by the White House. In Hebron in particular, the Palestinian news agency WAFA has reported increasing Israeli military interference with journalists and activists. 

Becky says no. “Not yet anyway – there’s no cohesiveness among Palestinians. Maybe we’ll see a fall of (the Palestinian) government before then. But things here frequently escalate and then die down.” 

Two days later, Becky sends me a text on WhatsApp. “You asked me about a third Intifada – we have a lot of problems here tonight 😂😂😂 The helicopters are very busy.”

“Are you all right?” I text back.

“I’m fine but there’s a lot going on here.”

Becky texts me later that Palestinian youths were throwing stones again that night at the Bab Al-Zawiya checkpoint and, the following morning, a crowd of demonstrators just outside the concrete barriers was dispersed with teargas.

I doubt that, three millennia ago, Abraham could have foreseen what the future held from his hilltop view.

A Visit to The Milk Grotto

Tuesday, Sept. 27, 2022

After nearly a month in Palestine, I’m at a standstill as to where to go next with my on-the-ground research. My all-day tour of Jerusalem is two days away. And I’m still waiting on Sari to arrange an interview with a family at the Aida refugee camp. Most discouraging of all, I have failed to get any response at all to my requests for interviews with the major figures in the Palestinian advocacy and peace movement, including Omar Barghouti, the founder and leader of the BDS movement. But as a veteran reporter, I’ve learned there is no substitute for persistence and, if all else fails, shameless wheedling. I haven’t given up hope.

In the meantime, I decide to revert to being a tourist again and visit another attraction in Bethlehem, the Milk Grotto Chapel, an underground pilgrimage site for Christians seeking the intercession of the Virgin Mary. According to tradition, the Holy Family found refuge in a small cave in Bethlehem during the Massacre of the Innocents before fleeing into Egypt. The chapel’s name comes from the apocryphal story that a “drop of milk” from Mary’s breast fell onto the floor of the cave and changed its color to white.

(By the way, a visit to the grotto is best combined with a tour of the Church of the Nativity, just a few blocks away. But in my case, I had finished a previous trip to the church too late in the afternoon for the grotto to be open.)

Off Manger Square, Milk Grotto Street is a blocks-long gauntlet of religious gift stores leading to the shrine entrance. But among the stores are the working shops of some of the best olive wood carvers in Bethlehem. The olive trees used in their carvings come from the Judean hill country around Jerusalem and Bethlehem and can be up to 2000 years old. Like true craftsmen the world over, the carvers don’t aggressively hawk their wares but take obvious pride in showing off their skills as they work with their tiny power tools and chisels in full view of passersby. Some carvers specialize in elaborately detailed religious figures and Biblical scenes. Others, my personal favorites, craft more modern and abstract designs with an emphasis on blended curves and shapes that bring out the beauty of the wood.

The craft of carving olive wood first began in the 4th century A.D. to provide souvenirs for pilgrims during the Byzantine era. But the industry really took shape in the 17th and 18th centuries when Christian missionaries taught woodworking to provide an income for Palestinian Christians living in the Muslim-dominated area. Today, olive wood carving remains one of the last sources of business for many Christians in Bethlehem. The industry depends mainly on tourism in Israel, and during times of unrest and checkpoint closures, many workshops struggle to stay in business.

I pass on any purchases before I reach the chapel. Its exterior, built by Franciscans in the late 19th century, looks almost baroque in its ornateness – an elaborate wrought iron gate opens into a small courtyard and an arched entryway topped with delicate stone-carved filigree. Once inside the door, you immediately descend a steep series of steps into the muted lighting of the cave. The atmosphere at bottom is both cozy and somewhat eerie, filled with the mind’s unseen presences lurking in the shadows. A sign asks for silence, and for obvious reasons. Some visit the cave in the hope of healing their infertility. Others pray to Mary for a miraculous cure for their children.

The craggy ceiling of white rock has been preserved with only a few stone pillars to support it. A path curves left past a small shrine and several statues before ending in its farthest recesses at a Renaissance painting of Mary suckling the baby Jesus. There, just a foot or two from the portrait, I find a young woman in jeans and a T-shirt sitting hunched over on a pillar bench, so much so that her backpack is nearly horizontal. Her elbows are planted on her knees, her hands clasped over her ears in a pose of complete supplication. She seems so distraught that, against my better judgment, I almost want to touch her shoulder in reassurance.

A quote from C.S. Lewis comes to mind: “God whispers to us in our pleasure, speaks in our consciences, but shouts in our pains.” That’s how God gets our full attention.

Nor do any of the other visitors to the cave disturb the young woman. Each enters the niche, glances at the portrait and quickly retreats. 

I head back to the stairs and, from there, turn for a final look. The young woman is still stuck in her pose, perhaps bent to God’s will but pleading her case with Mary. 

I can only hope she gets all that she came for.

Exposing the Truth in Jerusalem

Thursday, Sept. 29, 2022

Per usual, I arrive almost a half hour later than planned at the Damascus Gate bus terminal for the walking tour of Old Jerusalem – 8:10 am when the tour is scheduled for 7:50. No matter how much time I leave for the bus trip from Bethlehem, it seems I run into unforeseen challenges, this time a massive traffic jam leading into an Israeli checkpoint. 

Thank goodness the meeting place in the Jerusalem Hotel is just across the street from the bus terminal. I tell myself there’s a small chance the group hasn’t left as I enter the hotel lounge. I am floored to see the group still there. Five young adults are gathered around a coffee table where the tour guide, Yahav Zohar, has spread out a large map of Israel and Palestine. 

Thinking I’ve delayed the tour, I throw myself at the mercy of the group.

“Please don’t kill me.”

“No problem,” Yahav says. “I was just giving a brief lesson in the history of Palestine and Israel. We are now up to the 1967 war.” 

Cool. So all I’ve missed is the 1917 Balfour Declaration and the 1948 Nakba, both of which I now know all too well. 

After some quick introductions, I learn that the small group of young tourists are accountants from the same firm in London, three men and two women fortunate enough to live in a country that still requires paid vacation time from employers – a yearly minimum of almost six weeks (28 days). Simon, a tall young man in his late 20s with an appropriately ruddy British complexion, tells me the group plans an “adventure holiday” together every year. 

Damn.

Yahav continues his briefing on the post-1967 occupation of Palestine in a way that cuts straight to the truth, a compelling trait he shares with some of the best journalists I know. That he can do so in a foreign language makes him even more remarkable.

“The problem of the West Bank is the real fundamental question of Israeli politics – what do we do with the land we want and the people we don’t want.” He says “we” because he’s an Israeli himself, having grown up in West Jerusalem and, now only in his 30s, having done just about every kind of work you can think of. Like Asim, my favorite bartender in the world, Yahav is self-educated and impressively bright. According to his bio on the Green Olive Tour site, “he has worked as a falafel vendor, an organic produce marketer, a smuggler, a translator, a journalist and a human rights advocate. He has again taken to wandering the streets of Jerusalem, this time as a tour guide, exploring its history as well as its present day society and politics.” 

Green Olive Tours is part of the Green Olive Collective, a tourist agency founded in 2007 by human rights activist and businessman Fred Schlomko, a Palestinian native who grew up in Scotland and the U.S. The agency aims to educate people in democratic values and human rights through its in-depth tours.
   

Yahav continues: “We want the West Bank for a long list of strategic and other reasons. It’s a significant chunk of our small country, it’s sitting on water resources, it’s sitting on strategic hills, but maybe most importantly, for its significance in the Bible.” The Zionist movement that began in Europe in the late 19th century “wanted to bring Jews specifically here because this is where Jews anciently come from. If you read the Bible, you will very soon find out that the ancient Jews do not come from Tel Aviv or Haifa. They come from Jerusalem, Nablus, Hebron, Bethlehem, basically the West Bank.”

Yahav has a progressive and skeptical point of view of his native country – a realpolitik that understands how the world works combined with a sense of compassion and outrage when that world causes injustice and suffering. He has a distinctive way of speaking, too, and it’s not just his somewhat nasally Middle Eastern accent. He starts every sentence on a high note and ends with a low, a kind of point-counterpoint of reasoning that says, “If this, then that and, well, what did you expect anyway?”

“The state of Israel conquers this land and says, ‘Sorry, we cannot leave, this is our heartland. At the same time, they say, ‘We cannot officially annex it because that would mean two things. One, giving citizenship or some sort of civil status to all these (Palestinian) people, which will lose or significantly dilute the Jewish majority in our parliament in our Jewish state. Two, a lot of these people are refugees of the 1948 war. If we now dissolve this border, how do we stop them from coming back to the places that we pushed them out of?’ So the official decision of the Israeli state following the 1967 war, for both the West Bank and the Gaza strip, is basically the decision not to decide.”

But the official non-decision was soon followed by an unofficial decision that would change forever the prospects for peace – the settler movement. By the 1980s, Jewish settlers – many of them religious zealouts – began moving en masse into the occupied territories. They were especially drawn to the sites of religious and historical importance, Yahav says, “with the military providing the physical support for it and the government providing the legal framework for it, which is basically`colonial.” 

The Israeli government didn’t stop with dropping the legal barriers to settler entry. It began subsidizing their housing and living costs as they moved into confiscated Palestinian properties. So while empires all over the world had given up their colonial territories following World War II (with the exception of the Soviets, of course), Israel was beginning its own colonization of Palestine in earnest.

By 1987, the Palestinians realized the Israeli military occupation wasn’t temporary but part of a long-term plan of ethnic cleansing. They started a series of protests and violent riots soon to be called the first Intifada. The Israelis tried to crush the uprising with increasing military force but eventually agreed to peace talks in 1993 and the signing of “what is mistakenly called the Oslo Accords,” Yahav says. 

The accords were neither an agreement nor signed in Oslo, he explains. They were agreed to at Camp David during the Clinton administration by then Palestinian leader Yassir Arafat and Israeli Prime Minister Yitzhak Rabin. The latter would be assassinated in 1995 by Israeli extremists for his attempt at compromise. Arafat is believed to have been poisoned by the Israelis, leading to his death in 2000.

The accords simply pointed toward a path to peace between the two nations, later known in the media as “the Peace Process.” The main principles of the accords was that the Palestinians would recognize the state of Israel and that Israel would recognize the Palestinian Liberation Organization (of which Arafat was leader) as the representatives of the Palestinian people.

It was never stated but clearly implied in those principles that Israel would move toward leaving the West Bank and Gaza over the next five years as negotiations between the two groups continued. In the meantime, “while we are negotiating, we’re going to create a new temporary situation inspired by a Jackson Pollock painting,” Yahav says in jest about the accord negotiations. He points to the scattered islands of cities and towns on the map, marked in yellow against a background of red and blue, ceded to Palestinian control. “It looks like somebody just got drunk and threw paint at a map,” he quips. “There is no way to create a country from this scattered mess.”

Yahav compares the Palestinian lands to the federal reservations created for Native Americans in the United States. “But there’s also a big difference between this and America in that the people inside these islands are not Israeli citizens. They don’t have equality in a system that ultimately controls them. They don’t have the freedom of movement to leave for other parts of the country. And the umbrella that they are under is not the Israeli state directly, but the Israeli military, in which really nobody has a vote. It’s a military government which controls their air space, their borders, their water resources, their population registration, etc., etc., etc.”

With negotiations stalled and the settler movement growing steadily, Palestine erupted in a second Intifada in 2000, with extremists this time resorting to suicide bombings as part of their desperate tactics. Israel, in turn, responded with aerial bombings of civilian areas and plenty of media exposure of the grisly suicide bombings that succeeded in turning world opinion against the Palestinians.

Arafat, too, joined the Second Intifada and, like Rabin, paid the ultimate price as leader of the Palestinians. He died of an apparent heart attack in 2000 during an Israeli siege of his office in Ramallah. But prior to the attack, witnesses say Arafat had been growing increasingly weak and sick from a mysterious illness. An autopsy revealed the presence of unusually high levels of plutonium in his body. Most Palestinians believe to this day that Arafat was poisoned by the Israelis. 

By 2005, the Palestinians simply gave up the fight, Yahav says. Little had been accomplished against the overwhelming might of the Israeli military while the desperate suicide bombings (labeled “cowardly” by the Western media) had cost them much of their international support.

Yet even before the Second Intifada, Israel had begun building the 750-mile long Separation Wall between Israel and Palestine that confiscated even more of the original Palestinian territory. In a no man’s land behind the wall, a quarter of a million Palestinians are isolated from the rest of the West Bank and mostly confined to where they live. Many have been cut off from their farms and family members. 

With Arafat’s death, a new leader was chosen for the Palestinian people but not by an election or popular support. Mahmoud Abbas, a moderate whom leaders in both Israel and the U.S. found acceptable, slipped into office and has remained there for 17 years. Abbas is increasingly unpopular, especially with young people in Palestine, and his government has been unable to contain the recent spike in violence in both the West Bank and Gaza. Some observers say a third Intifada is on the way.

With the tour group now up to date on the historical and political scene, we are ready to begin our tour of Jerusalem’s Old City.

***

Jerusalem is like no other city in the world, not only because of its ancient and, many would say, sacred history, but because it has been at the center of religious and territorial clashes almost from its founding in 3,500 BC. The powerful tectonic plates of empire and religion have collided, shuffled, collapsed, collided and reshuffled here again and again over three millennia. In that time, Jerusalem has been leveled at least twice, besieged 23 times, captured and recaptured 44 times, and attacked 52 times. 

In 1000 B.C., King David conquered Jerusalem and made it the capital of the Jewish kingdom. Forty years later, his son, Solomon, built the first Jewish temple there. But then a succession of larger, more powerful nations reconquered the city – the Babylonians in 586 BC, the Greeks and Alexander the Great in 332 BC, followed by the Romans, Persians, Arabs, Fatimids, Seljuk Turks, Crusaders, Egyptians, Mamelukes and Islamists. In 1516, Jerusalem became part of the Ottoman Empire until 1917 when it was taken over by the British in World War I. The British remained there until 1948 when Israel became an independent state. The city was then divided between Jordan on the east and Israel on the west until the Six-Day War in 1967 when the Israeli military took total control.

Technically, Jerusalem is still divided between Israelis in the west and Palestinians in the east. But since 1977, Israelis have been building neighborhoods in and around East Jerusalem. Palestinians say the long-term plan is to create an Israeli “ring” around East Jerusalem, cutting it off from its nearby cities and effectively eliminating it as the capital for a future Palestinian state. The final map of Jerusalem has been one of the most contentious disputes in Middle East peace negotiations. 

Our tour group arrives at Damascus Gate, a tourist attraction in its own right. Built in 1537 by the Ottoman Emperor Suleiman the Great, it’s still the main entrance for Arabs into the Old City. It’s also one of the most surveilled public spaces in the world, with cameras pointing in every direction. Two Israeli guard stations are poised above either side of the plaza steps leading down to the gate.

The plaza at Damascus Gate leading to the Muslim Quarter. Note the two guard stations and poles with surveillance cameras.

“It’s not just cameras but also a system that reads every email and Facebook post and cross-references them,” Yahav says. “Because here are a quarter of a million Palestinians on this side of the wall with access to all parts of Israel. They are the great danger that Israel sees. Somebody from East Jerusalem told me, one of my colleagues, that in Bethlehem people are under military government. Here we are under secret police – not officially the case, but in many ways true.”

Passing under the massive stone arch, we enter the Muslim Quarter of the Old City, a misnomer because it covers more than half of the Old City and contains many Christian residents and Jewish settlers as well. We turn left on a fork through the narrow market streets toward the center of the Old City and the Jewish Temple Mount (known to Muslims as the Al-Aqsa Mosque) – a massive 35-acre walled-in plaza encompassing religious sites venerated for thousands of years by Muslims, Jews and, to a lesser extent, Christians. The plaza occupies one-sixth of the entire Old City.

Entering Damascus Gate.

On our way along Hajay Street, Yahav points out a three-story stone building bridging the market walkway in the very heart of the Muslim Quarter. The walls of the building are defiantly festooned with Israeli flags and banners and its roof topped by a giant menorah.

Headquarters for Jewish extremists who want to rebuild the ancient Jewish temple.

The building is the headquarters for right-wing religious organizations who want to rebuild the ancient Jewish temple destroyed by the Romans in 70 AD. That site is now occupied by the Al-Aqsa Mosque complex where worship has been restricted to Muslims for hundreds of years. The Dome of the Rock, the gold-domed octagonal building in the northeastern quadrant of the plaza, sits atop one of the most sacred sites for both religions – an ancient hilltop believed to be a connecting point between Earth and heaven, known to Jews as Temple Mount. A growing number of conservative Jews and right-wing evangelical Christians are determined to rebuild the temple there on the last bit of space in Jerusalem still largely controlled by Muslims and Palestinians.

Tens of millions of dollars from both Jews and Christians around the world have been raised toward the temple rebuilding. So far, that has meant developing architectural plans and historical research for a new temple while at the same time establishing more Jewish settlements around the Temple Mount with the thinly-veiled support of the Israeli government. Israeli taxpayers pay hundreds of millions in shekels each year for the private security around the settlements, which house only about a thousand settlers.

Our first stop, however, on the way to the Temple Mount is an Austrian Hospice (in the old meaning of “lodging for travelers”) run by an order of nuns and dating back to the 1850s during the last decades of the Hapsburg Empire. It’s the only hotel in the city that will allow Green Olive Tours access to its rooftop and its panoramic views of Old Jerusalem.

Yahav promises not to keep us too long on the rooftop in the intense morning sun. (The high will reach 90 by noon.) He points us in the direction of the Dome of the Rock and the Al-Aqsa complex. “It is a place where a half-million people can gather together, as happens on the Fridays of Ramadan. These are the moments of great fear for the Israeli police, just as, in the same plaza 2000 years ago, the Jewish pilgrimage holidays were a great fear for the Roman army,” he says.

Yahav (above) points to landmarks in Old Jerusalem. Dome of the Rock (gold dome in bottom photo).

“There is a remarkable set of similarities between how the Israelis feel about the Aqsa Mosque today and how the Romans felt about the Jewish temple in the same location two thousand years ago. The Romans ruled this whole country absolutely under a military government, but mostly stayed out of the temple and allowed Jewish priests to run it – just as today, the Israeli soldiers rule Jerusalem but mostly stay away from the mosque and allow Muslim clerics to run it.”

In normal times, the Roman governor resided in his luxurious Mediterranean palace in Caesarea but, for the perilous Jewish holidays, he would come to Jerusalem to oversee security and stay in the Antonia Fortress (between the Austrian Hospice and the Dome of the Rock) which once overlooked the temple plaza. “Historians say (the fortress) is where Jesus was brought before Pontius Pilate to stand trial for his rabble-rousing,” Yahav says. 

“How historically accurate are those sites? Well, it is not for me to say. I would say there is a lot of argument about this. The Bible does not give these exact points so there’s different traditions. For example, the Anglican tradition says the Crucifixion didn’t happen (on Calvary) but just outside Damascus Gate in the Garden Tomb, and Pilate’s office was not in the Antonia Fortress but in The Citadel,” a walled building about a half-kilometer southwest of Calvary. “It’s hard to know for sure what truly happened,” Yahav says. “One of the reasons is that 30-something years after (the Crucifixion) there was an uprising of the Jews against the Romans. At the end, the Romans destroyed Jerusalem completely, leaving not one stone on top of another.” Such was the fate of all ancient cities that dared rebel against Rome.

Three hundred years after the Crucifixion, the Roman emperors themselves became Christians and suddenly Jerusalem became holy ground to the Roman Empire. The Christian Romans rebuilt the city, erecting enormous new churches and opening inns for pilgrims. “But the place where the ancient temple was, they left in ruins and, in fact, made it the garbage dump of the city,” Yahav says. “This was making an early Christian theological point that this is what happens to people who don’t listen to Jesus. So for 300 years of Roman Christian rule, the Church of the Holy Sepulchre was a huge fancy center and the place of the temple was in ruins.”

When the Muslim armies conquered Jerusalem in 636 AD, the caliphate Umar agreed to very generous terms for the time, Yahav says. First and foremost, the “infidels” weren’t slaughtered. Instead, Umar allowed the Christian churches to remain open and Christians to practice their faith. But Umar ordered the clearing of the rubble over the old temple and built a new mosque there.

“All of this leads me to the question, why do Muslims want to pray in the place of the Jewish temple?” Yahav says. “If we ask Wikipedia, it will tell us Islam was founded in the seventh century by the prophet Mohammed. But if you ask Muslims, they will tell us, ‘Not so. Islam just means pure true monotheism and there have always been such people.The first Muslim was Adam. He ate the wrong fruit but he knew something was telling him which fruit to eat. And then Noah and Abraham and basically the ancient Jews were another step in that direction. And if this is an ancient monotheist shrine then by simple translation, it is an ancient Muslim shrine.’”

From the Muslim point of view, the ancient Jews were monotheists but their religion became more and more corrupt. “God sent them various prophets to put out their corruption,” Yahav says. “The last prophet that God sent the Jews was Jesus. But then the followers of Jesus, again in the Muslim view, made an error to say that Jesus himself was God, and therefore this is not true pure monotheism. So Mohammed, in their view, came not to start a new religion but to bring people back to ancient pure monotheism.”

The mosque marking the place of the Holy Rock, the connection point between Earth and heaven, was finished in 691 AD, making it one of the oldest buildings still standing in the world. When it was first built by Muslims, Jews, too, were welcome to worship there. “They said Jews and Christians are not Muslims but close enough and they can live and worship alongside us.”

Enter the Christian crusaders from Europe. In 1099, they conquered Jerusalem and killed all the Jews there as “heretics,” even babies. Jerusalem then became a Catholic-only kingdom for some 88 years. The Dome of the Rock was turned into a church and so was every other semblance of Jewish and Muslim religion.

But then Saladin reconquered Jerusalem for the Muslims in 1187. “He said, ‘We are not like the Crusaders. We allow all religions in Jerusalem but we now put in place new rules to make sure everyone knows that Jerusalem is Muslim first. So we can have Jewish and Christian worship in Jerusalem but not in the plaza. You can have churches, but no church towers. You can not have any Christian or Jewish processions through the streets of Jerusalem. And as fate would have it, one of those rules was that the whole great plaza is now for Muslim worship only.”

Jews were grateful to Muslims for allowing them back into the city “although a little bit frustrated maybe,” Yahav says. “They couldn’t come to the holiest place (at the Temple Mount) but they were not going to argue about that.” Instead, they began looking around the outer periphery of the plaza for another place of Jewish worship – settling on the Western Wall, known in the West as the Wailing Wall, one of the last remaining structures built by King Herod in the first century BC.

And that’s where we head for the next stop on our tour.

Along the way, however, we make a short detour to catch our only glimpse of the Dome of the Rock. A short stairway from the market leads to a pair of green metal doors, one of which is open to the plaza. Two Israeli soldiers stand guard on either side. Anyone wanting to enter through the door must prove they are Muslim, and it takes more than just a passport or a visa. If challenged, entrants must be able to recite certain Muslim prayers or parts of the Quran, Yahav tells us. Members of our tour group glance at each other. We’re not going anywhere.

Muslim entrance to Al-Aqsa complex from Muslim Quarter.

The soldiers allow our tour group to come to the top of the stairway. From the open door, we can see the bright gold top of the Dome just beyond the trees. Tourists from other groups are lined up behind us. So we take a couple of quick photos and retreat down the steps.

A few more blocks south in the Old City, we pass through an Israeli checkpoint and emerge into the sunlit, marbled plaza of the Western Wall. The space seems impressive enough, two-and-a-half treeless acres fronting an ancient stone wall 60-feet high and 160-feet long. But the open space that serves 400,000 visitors a day is still less than one-tenth the expanse of the Al Aqsa Mosque and Temple Mount compound on the other side of the wall.

The wall itself has survived more than two millennia, an age shown in the weathered limestone blocks that make up the first 40 feet or so of its height above ground. Here and there in the cracks among the blocks, bushes and other plants have insinuated themselves into the wall, including a member of the toxic henbane family called Hyoscyamus The top 20 feet of the wall are nearly intact and constructed of smaller, newer stones whose shape is much like the thin rectangular bricks used in nearly all Roman construction.

The Western Wall was part of the renovation of the second Jewish temple and King Herod’s expansion of the plaza surrounding it. The wall itself was never meant to be a holy site. But barred from worshiping inside the Temple Mount, Jews have turned to the Western Wall as a substitute holy place for 900 years and counting.

“For most of those hundreds of years, this place looked nothing like this because here was a Muslim neighborhood,” Yahav says of where we’re standing. “It was known as the Moroccan neighborhood, and there was just a narrow space between the last houses in the neighborhood and the wall in which Jews could pray under many Muslim restrictions.”

Those laws said Jews could pray there. But because the wall was in a Muslim neighborhood, they couldn’t build a mosque at the site, bring chairs to sit in or erect barriers to separate men and women as part of the Jewish Orthodox tradition.

As the centuries passed, the Jews grew increasingly resentful of those restrictions. In the 19th century, wealthy Jewish financiers in England – primarily the Montefiore and Rothschild families – tried to buy out the Moroccon neighborhood, but couldn’t obtain the homes nearest the wall. So in 1917, when the British took over Jerusalem, a group of rabbis sought out the British commanders and asked them for more space, time and worship rights at the Western Wall. 

“The British immediately said no,” Yahav says. “‘The British Empire does not touch religious status. So whatever was here before, they told the rabbis, stays.” However, the British changed every other restriction against Jews in Palestine under the Balfour Declaration of 1917, allowing and encouraging an influx of Jewish immigrants, arming a Jewish police force and promising a Jewish homeland.

Feeling more empowered but more frustrated than ever in Jerusalem, Jews bristled under the continuing religious restrictions and, in the summer of 1929, launched a march with flags and drums through the Muslim neighborhood to the wall. They were met, of course, by Muslim residents with clubs, and fighting spread throughout the city.

Nothing changed under British rule until after the war of 1948 when Israel gained its independence. But Jerusalem was then divided east and west between Israel and Jordan. Jews still had no access to the Western Wall until the Six-Day War of 1967, when Israel took control of all of Jerusalem. On the seventh day of the war, Israeli soldiers showed up with bulldozers and loud speakers, Yahav says. “They told the people of the Moroccan neighborhood, ‘You have one hour to clear out. We are giving you some money but you have absolutely no choice.’ Within 24 hours, they bulldozed away 120 homes, evicting more than 600 people and killing at least one resident, and cleared out the Moroccan neighborhood for the plaza you see now. But I would bet the vast majority of people who visit and pray here have no idea.”

On average, more than 100,000 people visit the Western Wall each day. It’s also where every new Israeli soldier is sworn in, pledging loyalty to the Israeli state. But the site is still a distant second best for many Jews, especially those on the Religious Right.

“When the Romans destroyed the temple, many people thought this was the end of the Judean religion because the religion at that time was all about pilgrimage and sacrifice and ceremony in the temple,” Yahav says. 

In 70 AD, when the temple was leveled, a group of rabbis decided to reinvent the religion to survive without it. “That reinvention is a text-based religion, which replaced the animal sacrifices of the temple with daily prayer,” Yahav explains. “But in every one of those prayers, in every Jewish ceremony whatsoever, part of the text says, ‘Please, God, rebuild our temple so that we may go back to worshiping you properly.’

“The whole Jewish religion that we currently have is theoretically, formally a temporary thing until we can go back to killing sheep and rubbing their blood on stone. Most Jews, I suggest, don’t take this exactly at face value. I’ve interviewed my father and grandfather and others who go to synagogue and pray these words and they say, ‘No, no, it’s a metaphor. We don’t really need priests killing sheep’… But there are some people who do take this very literally.

“For many centuries, it didn’t matter what Jews had in their minds when they said those words because there was nothing they could do about it. That began to change in 1967 when Israel conquered Jerusalem. That is really the birth of the modern temple movement, which is people saying this is what we have been praying for these 1900 years, save three. It is God helping us rebuild the temple, it is God making the Jewish state of Israel, giving it sovereignty over this place. Now all we have to do is physically go there, knock down the Dome of the Rock, and build the temple back in its place.

“Jewish politicians who support the temple movement today generally will tell you, ‘In theory, in the future, we would like to see the temple rebuilt but we realize that’s not going to happen politically right now. So our demand for now is to share the plaza in space and in time. Since the same place is holy to both Jews and Muslims, let’s divide the plaza, make a Jewish prayer area, a Jewish prayer hour.’

“This demand, on the face of it, is very reasonable. The problem is, the way Muslims see it, this is the last place in the country that is still really theirs and any concession that they might make will only be a stepping stone toward complete Israeli control (of the Al Aqsa site). So even the tiniest change the Israelis try to force through faces a huge amount of resistance here and around the world.”

Yahav points to the long covered bridge in the south end of the plaza, a wooden structure stretching from the plaza floor and rising above the wall into the Al-Aqsa compound. “This is the entrance for non-Muslims who want to visit the mosque. It is called the Moroccan gate, the last thing left from this Moroccan neighborhood. It is open weekdays, Sunday through Thursday, from 7:30 to 10:30 in the morning and, again, from 1:30 to 3 pm. 

“You go there, you stand in line, you go through very careful security, with checks not only for whether you have a gun or a bomb, but whether you have anything that you might use to run a Jewish prayer service because that is what the temple movement supporters constantly are doing, defying the arrangement. They will start running a Jewish service in the plaza and Muslims will gather around them and the police will get involved.

“I actually have family members and people I know who support this idea and want Jewish services there. I tell them, ‘Look, your idea to share out the plaza is a nice idea. It comes from a good instinct of equality. But I suggest once we have a situation where you and the Palestinians have equal citizenship, equal rights, then this issue will be pretty easy to resolve. 

“But the way it is now, Palestinians feel surrounded and attacked. We hear many, many times from Palestinians in East Jerusalem and all over the country that they’re discriminated against in a multitude of ways, in funding for their neighborhoods, in education, in health care, roads, and their political rights. And most of the time, they keep their heads down and keep quiet and wait it out. They just want to survive. They don’t want to fight because there’s no way they’re going to win against the Israeli police, against the Israeli government. 

“But then, on the other hand, many, many Palestinians in Jerusalem I’ve talked to say they would die for Aqsa. They say that’s when we don’t mind getting arrested, getting shot at, because this is what we are – the guardians for all of the Muslims of the world.”

In 2000, after seven years of negotiations, there was still no agreement from the Oslo Accords between Israelis and Palestinians over the division of Jerusalem. So President Clinton asked Dennis Ross, then head of Middle Eastern Affairs for the U.S. State Department, to draw up an agreement for the two sides to sign. The compromise established West Jerusalem as the Israeli capital and East Jerusalem as the Palestinian capital and shared the Old City between the two.

The Muslim Quarter and the Christian Quarter became part of the Palestinian principality while the Jewish Quarter, including the Western Wall, remained part of the Israeli principality. The plaza of the Al-Aqsa Mosque (or the Temple Mount), however, continued as part of the Palestinian principality.

“This idea was deeply offensive to many Jews, in particular those people on the Religious Right,” Yahav says. “In the minds of the hard core of the settler movement and the temple movement, the current state of Israel is only a sort of transitory step toward the remaking of the Biblical Judean kingdom and the rebuilding of the temple. So if the state of Israel gives up sovereignty of the place of the temple, what then is the point of the state of Israel?”

These right-wing groups went to their point man in parliament, Ariel Sharon, then head of the opposition Likud Party. “He was not a religious man but many of his voters were, and he said, ‘All I can do is make a statement about opposing this idea.’ But to do so, he wanted to give his speech in the plaza of the mosque.” The Israeli police begged him not to. “The police told him, ‘Please, sir, don’t. There has never been an Israeli official or anyone like that in there. This is a tense time and you are a target.’”

In the end, the Israeli government approved the speech but also went into panic mode, “shutting down the whole of the city, putting 1,000 policemen on duty, putting armed guards in the plaza, and snipers on towers,” Yahav says. “The whole mosque was shut down so Sharon could go in there and make a short speech that the place of the Jewish temple belongs to the Jewish people. 

“But never mind exactly what he said. The very fact of his going in there with armed guards was considered by many Palestinians an invasion of the Aqsa mosque. They started huge protests, which started Israeli soldiers shooting, which then became riots, which became the beginning of the second Intifada, which brought about the collapse of the Israeli government coalition and new elections.” 

Ariel Sharon emerged from the violence and chaos as the new prime minister, perhaps exactly as he had planned.

Sharon couldn’t put a complete stop to the Oslo accords, but he continued to promote Jewish settlements in the Muslim Quarter and strategically around the Temple Mount. Still, the basic arrangement stayed the same – the Aqsa Mosque remains Muslim and other religions have limited visitation rights but no right to worship there.

Yahav tells the group we are free to visit and even touch the Western Wall – with men going to the entrance on the left and women to the entrance on the right. Tradition still separates the sexes at the site. The men, unlike the women, are also asked to cover their heads, even if it’s just a ballcap, which I happened to bring with me for protection against the sun. The three younger men in our group are handed disposable skull caps on their way in.

Closer to the wall are crowded Bar Mitzvah celebrations under long canopies. Nearest the wall and in its shade are rows of Jewish scholars reading from the Torah. Scholars and visitors pray with both their hands against the wall, perhaps a substitute connection to God and heaven that can’t be attained by a visit to the Dome of the Rock. 

Attendants offer slips of paper and pens to anyone who wants to write a note of prayer to be stuffed into the many cracks in the wall. More than a million prayer notes are placed there each year, to be buried (not irreverently burned) twice a year in a nearby Jewish cemetery. Barack Obama, Hillary Clinton, and Mitt Romney are among the many American politicians who have placed notes there, no doubt with prayers for Jewish support in their upcoming elections. 

“All of this is to take nothing away from the true and powerful religious feeling that people have who come in here,” Yahav says. “Some people come here for normal daily prayers, but most often, especially on the women’s side, people are here because somebody is sick, somebody wants to get pregnant; there is some personal hardship to overcome.” 

Still, the holiest of holy sites is not the wall, but on the other side of the wall, Yahav says. The idea of reclaiming the Temple Mount and rebuilding the temple has perhaps its deepest roots in Jerusalem’s Jewish Quarter, the next stop on our tour. It’s just up several sets of stairs to the south.

Yahav leads us there where we find another, smaller plaza with a gold menorah shrine under glass at its center and the periphery surrounded by newer buildings – a synagogue, museums and small gift shops. The stone buildings look old but all of them are new, Yahav tells us, constructed in the late 1970s and early 1980s.

Plaza in the Jewish Quarter of Old Jerusalem.

A number of the stores specialize in souvenir items aimed at supporters of the Temple Movement. They include reproductions of what the Jewish Temple might have looked like in ancient times as well as the current Western Wall – absent the Dome of the Rock and Al-Aqsa Mosque rising behind it.

The plaza is home to the offices of The Temple Institute, a right-wing religious organization devoted to researching the history and archaeology of the Temple Mount. A Visitors Center includes dioramas of the new Jewish Temple and Temple Mount as well as exhibits of artifacts discovered in the renovation of the Jewish Quarter.

“An interesting thing about this little museum is that there is nothing in it to tell you that this temple is not presently existing,” Yahav says. “Because in their minds, they’re going to rebuild the temple very soon, and this will keep functioning as a visitors center for the temple before people go in.”

From the plaza, Yahav leads us north up Jewish Quarter Street through a neighborhood of stately homes and front yards with flowering vines and trees. “Here before were just the slums,” he says. “Here was the poorest neighborhood of Jerusalem for many centuries. Not far from here was the (kosher) slaughterhouse where they killed all the animals for the city’s consumption. And not far from here was the garbage dump.” 

In Biblical times, so many animals were slaughtered for both sacrifice and consumption that the blood polluted Jerusalem’s water supply and the city had to turn to Bethlehem as a clean source of water. It remains so today. 

“Jewish Quarter Street was for many centuries called Jew Street. It had a few synagogues. In all the housing around here lived many Jews, but not many of the houses were owned by Jews but rather by Muslim landlords. Jews for centuries were the weakest, poorest group in Jerusalem.”

In the 19th century, however, wealthy European Jews “started to help Jews move out to other neighborhoods built outside the Old City,” Yahav says. “So by 1948, when the British left, here in the Jewish Quarter was left only the very poor, the very old, the very religious – the people who would not or could not leave. And these people were forced out of here at gunpoint by the Jordanian army after heavy fighting.”

The Jewish residents in the neighborhood were replaced by Palestinian refugees from West Jerusalem and the surrounding villages. “So the Jewish Quarter became essentially, but not officially, a Palestinian refugee camp. And that is what the Israelis found in 1967 when they invaded here.”

Before construction could begin on the new buildings in the Jewish Quarter, archeologists pleaded with developers to hold off, Yahav says. “They said, ‘Wait, please don’t build here. Suddenly we have a whole quarter of the city without people or buildings. Finally we can do a systematic archeological excavation.’ One of the biggest archaeological digs that ever took place followed here over the next ten years, year-round, with hundreds of archaeologists. In the excavation, they found, as you might expect, ruins from many different periods, from many different civilizations, from many different religions.”

The archaeologists pressed the government to reserve part of the neighborhood as an archaeological park so people could come to see the layers of history in Jerusalem. But after ten years of digging and research, the Israeli government said enough is enough in 1977. “They told the researchers, ‘We have to have Jews living in the Jewish Quarter – historically, politically. It’s too important,’” Yahav says.

The excavation of Jerusalem was carefully documented in a three-volume book, then covered up and no longer visible. “A few places of special interest were made into museums in the basements of some of the new houses,” Yahav says. “And a very few places were left unbuilt and put on display. But what’s interesting to me in the context of this political tour is how, among all the different historical stories, the Israeli government decided which to tell and which to show.”

Our next and final stop on the tour is one of those preserved stories, an ancient fortification dating back to the Judean kingdom. Yahav gathers us by a railing and small plaque overlooking a 20-foot-wide channel with 10-foot cement walls on either side. Nearly the width of the channel are broken chunks of stone stacked in tight rows – the remains of King Hezekiah’s “broad wall” built to protect the western border of Jerusalem in 700 BC. The wall stretches for blocks in both directions with overpasses for cars and pedestrians at the major streets.

“Of all the things that were excavated in the Jewish Quarter, this is not the most visually impressive,” Yahav says of the site, “because not far from here they found mosaic floors and Roman bathhouses and many churches from many different times.

“This big wall here was just a big wall. Archaeologists say since it is such a big wall, which is very wide as you can see and continues this way and that, it must be the city wall. And they say this is a city wall from about 700 BC. The plaque says this is important because it’s ancient. But I say we’ve excavated parts of Jerusalem from 3800 years ago, a thousand years before this. They are not on display like this.

“The wall is on display because 700 BC is the period of the Judean kingdom, and the Judean kingdom is what we are looking for. Pretty much since 200 years ago, when modern archaeology began, it has almost always been connected to national movements looking for their ancestors – the Zionist movement perhaps more than any other. From its foundation in the late 19th century, Zionism was obsessed with archaeology, with trying to find the Judean kingdom. 

“Zionist archaeology has been 120 years of almost complete frustration, of digging and digging and digging and finding very little. There was indeed a Judean kingdom, but it was small and weak and poor and so did not leave many great monuments for us to find. 

“There is an ongoing argument about how long this Judean kingdom existed because the Bible tells us of 400 years. But almost all the archeological findings are from the last 150 years of those 400 years. So there’s a question of how much of those 400 years are myth and how much of it is real history. But never mind, this wall is from a time when we clearly had a Judean kingdom, and this is a big wall. It is clearly the biggest physical object we can connect to the Judean kingdom. It’s a big score for the archaeologists and it is also a big score for the Zionists. 

“The Zionist movement, you might say, is in a strange position in many ways. Of them, one is that the Zionist movement was established in the late 19th century by very secular Jews. Many of them were socialists and they were anti-religious in many ways. But they were a socialist, secular movement walking around carrying a Bible. 

“David Ben-Gurion (the first Prime Minister of Israel) ate pork, drove on the sabbath, followed no religious school, but he knew the Bible almost by heart. He had in his home every week a Bible study class, not with rabbis but with archaeologists and historians, trying to find the ancient places in the modern countries and connect to them.

“In 1937, Ben-Gurion appeared famously in front of a British government committee with a Bible in his hand, saying, ‘This book is our deed of ownership to this land.’ And that is also the dedication in the Bible that the (Israeli) soldiers swear in on and go to war for. So if the Bible is an historic document granting political rights, then finding this (wall) is a very big political score. Archaeologists say this could very well be, as the sign behind me suggests, a specific wall mentioned in the Bible.”

But the Bible passage about the wall “is also a story about how weak the Judean kingdom was,” Yahav says. “It is about Judea paying tribute to Assyria, then deciding to rebel by switching their allegiance to Egypt on the other side. When (Judean) King Hezechia decided to do this, he was approached by the prophet Isaiah, who lived in Jerusalem at that time, and told not to do this. Isaiah said, ‘I have a vision of a message from God to you. The message is that the Assyrians are coming to punish us and the Egyptians are not coming to protect us.’ 

“So the king says, ‘No, no, the Egyptians have assured me,’ and Isaiah says, ‘No, I had this vision.’ So the king says, ‘You know what. I’ll build a big new wall and that will stop the Assyrian army and slow them down until the Egyptians come to protect us.’ But Isaiah insisted that ‘you are destroying private houses to build this useless wall.’ That’s what it says here (in the plaque) – you have ‘numbered the Jerusalem houses’ torn down to fortify the wall.”

Isaiah was right, Yahav says. The wall didn’t help. Assyrian king Sennacherib invaded Judea, laid waste to its cities and brought Jerusalem to its knees. The Egyptians never showed.

“There is a certain irony I see that perhaps may not be appreciated by the people who designed this space in 1977. Proving this connection to the Judean kingdom through the Bible is, according to the Bible, a wall that was built against the will of God, destroyed people’s property and wasted the public’s money for an unwinnable war.”

Yahav wraps up his tour of the site. “The Jewish Quarter, as I told you, overwhelmingly was not owned by Jews. It was Muslim landlords and Jewish renters. Those Jews were forced out and Palestinian refugees took their place. And then the Israeli government confiscated the property from their Muslim landlords and made the Israeli government sovereign.

“One may ask, by what legal right? And the Israelis would say basically, ‘We don’t have to tell you. It’s a special executive order that bypasses normal procedures. The decision is that we need the Jewish Quarter to be Jewish and that’s it.’” 

Restricting the public display of Jerusalem’s many ancient treasures to a single Judean-era wall serves the propaganda purposes of the Israeli government, Yahav says. “Here is the wall that the Judean king built, that the Judean prophet Isaiah told him not to build. Here is the Bible in stone. Here is our right to this property and that is why we keep this here on display.” 

We return as a group to the indoor markets of the Old City, this time in the Jewish Quarter where everything has been restored and marked with historical exhibits and signage along the way. For that reason, perhaps, it seems less historic and, to me, less engaging than the more chaotic and dilapidated markets of the Muslim Quarter.

“What they’ve reconstructed for us here is a 12th-century Crusader period market,” Yahav tells us.

He points down the long, busy arcade of open shops. “If you keep walking down that way you will see they reconstructed a Sixth-Century Byzantine market. One might ask, what was in Jerusalem between the 6th and 12th centuries? Well, more than a few hundred years of Muslim rule. It’s not that they didn’t find anything from that period (while renovating), they just didn’t put it on display because the story we want to tell is, first of all, Judaen, then Christian. Why? Because the Christians are allies and Christians are not competing with us for control of Jerusalem. But the Muslim story is one we don’t want to tell.”

Yahav announces that the tour is over, then gives us directions to the Damascus and Jaffa gates from where we’re standing. We applaud and thank him profusely. I plan on giving the tour four stars on Google reviews the moment I return to campus.

Weeks later, I send Yahav an email asking if he sees any possible solution to the Israeli-Palestinian conflict. His answer isn’t very hopeful.

“I’m not sure how to best answer your question,” his email begins. “The solutions are many – two states, a democratic one state or a confederation (of the two). Each of these would offer less inequality and less oppression. The question is why would Israel and Israelis, the stronger side, the oppressors, opt for any of these – in fact for any change in the status quo which serves them. Unfortunately, it is hard to see how or why this would change without some pressure from the outside.” 

To me, the outside pressure that would most likely work and, at the same time avoid more violence in the region, is BDS – Boycott, Divest, and Sanction. Sadly, in the U.S., that path has been blocked in 35 states by laws that ban a boycott against Israel, defying a First Amendment right recognized by U.S. courts during the Civil Rights era. 

In February of 2023, the U.S. Supreme Court, dominated by ultra-conservative justices, refused to hear a case that would have reaffirmed that right and reversed the state anti-BDS laws.

Gutless.

Unlocking the Locked Heart

Sept. 25, 2022

Late on a Sunday afternoon, I discover an email from Karen on my laptop. She’s been working on a poem about a massage she’d gotten during the pandemic after many months without human touch, an experience nearly all of us who are single can relate to. But in Karen’s case, the isolation is compounded by the grief of having lost her husband of 13 years.

Karen runs the poem by me, something she has done with other of her works in progress, and I’m flattered that she would even want my opinion. Poetry is something I enjoy and admire, if for nothing more than the rhythm and evocativeness of its words. But it’s not something I can do. It takes a special gift, and Karen has that gift.

Her poems are always powerful and rich in detail, at times humorous but nevertheless unflinching in their look at both herself and the world around her. Like all highly-literate poems, I don’t always get them, and I don’t want to insult her, or embarrass myself, by asking for an explanation.

To my relief, I find this latest poem, “Unlocking the Lockdown,” accessible even to a prosaic journalist like myself. As in so much of her poetry, its power springs from a place deep within herself, a reservoir of emotion infused with her Catholic upbringing. I’m in awe of her work, as always, but the word “bray” grates in my ear as she recalls the moment during her massage when she suddenly starts crying.

But this welling— 

who knows its source? One moment, burning  

in her trapezius, then her face wet.  

As if the body were fighting back,  

as if its story had thickened  

like some bible with gold tassels  

and color plates of anguished saints.  

For even saints bray in the meadow 

            when their wounds need a kiss.

I read the poem several times before sending my response.

Me: I agree it’s much stronger now. “Bray” seems almost derogatory though. Is that what you’re going for?

Karen: Hey, thanks for the comments! I definitely want some sort of verb with an animal resonance—also had “bleat” and “low” and “keen.” Like the sound of “bray” with “saints” but might sound unpleasant or harsh. Like “low” with meadow but worry it could be read as an adjective. Bleat is more plaintive than bray but it doesn’t go as well sonically. Must choose something!

Hours later that evening, I hear from her again.

Karen: My massage was not sexual, though obviously some could be. But the intensity of emotion I felt during it helped me see my body wasn’t dead. So yay!

After we exchange a series of monosyllabic words to replace “bray” – yowl, wail, yelp – Karen comes up with “howl.” It has the right meaning as well as a sly reference to Ginsberg’s poem of the same title.

Karen: Occurs to me I never gave you a massage. Maybe we should contemplate one month of FWB. Since you love initials.

Whoa. I’m a bit taken aback by the aggressiveness of the proposal, but also reassured in my own guilty way that there will be no boundaries. My hesitancy to respond is quickly followed by Karen’s qualifier – a product of her own hesitancy, I learn later, in part because of my drinking. Alcoholism is something she doesn’t want to deal with again in her life.

Karen: TBD

Me: OKWM

Karen: Are you still feeling the spiritual awakening?

Me: Kinda. Everything just seems so hopeless here though. Especially after I visited Hebron.

Karen: Are you writing about it?

Me: Yes. But it’s a lot of transcribing of interviews and doing background research. The city is so divided by borders and checkpoints and the history is so complicated.

Karen: It’s important you’re doing this work.

Me: Thanks for the support. I have to keep that in mind.

Fighting against hopelessness has become both a political and personal struggle for me in Palestine. But if I need inspiration, I never have far to look. I’m surrounded by examples of faith and perseverance among the people I meet and of hope in Christ among the ancient sites I visit. 

One of most inspiring of those sites is the Garden of Gethsemane.

The Joy and Agony of Gethsemane

Sunday, Oct. 1, 2022

I rise early, shave, and dress in cargo shorts and a T-shirt for another day of baking heat with plans to pay hooky from church that morning. In less than two hours, I need to be in Jerusalem for the start of an all-day bus tour of Masada and the Dead Sea. I’m looking forward to seeing the ancient hilltop fortress where rebel Jews made their final stand against the Romans and, of course, levitating like any tourist in the concentrated salt waters of the Dead Sea.

At 6:50 a.m., it’s another beautiful cloudless morning of silvery blue skies when I reach the ramshackle shelter for the bus to Jerusalem three blocks south of campus. Stacked along the sidewalk are rows of suitcases and boxes of goods to be sold at markets in Jerusalem. Most of the passengers are older Palestinian women in hijabs with business and shopping to do in the bigger city. 

When the bus pulls up to the shelter, it’s numbered 4, not the number 3 I have taken to Jerusalem in the past. But the ticker above the windshield is flashing Jerusalem. I look at my phone. It’s already 7 a.m. and I’m cutting it close as it is.

I board and pay my 5 shekel fare and find a seat near the middle of the bus. The ride is uneventful until, 20 minutes later, when the bus pulls off the main road and stops at what looks like another bus shelter. Everyone on board exits the bus, including the driver. But not me. This isn’t my stop, I tell myself. I’m waiting for the bus to take me to Damascus Gate, the main entry to Old Jerusalem and the Muslim Quarter. We are stopped in the countryside in the middle of nowhere.

Moments later, a young female Israeli soldier with a single braid of thick blonde hair down her back enters the bus holding an assault rifle pointed at the floor. She looks back and forth as she treads up the aisle, inspecting each of the empty seats on both sides of the bus – until she stops at me. As the only person who failed to exit the bus, I’m more than a little frightened that I have defied the rules. But the young soldier seems even more embarrassed by the situation than I am. Without looking me in the eye, she asks quietly for my passport. I pull it out of my backpack and hold it open to my photo, my visa sticker attached. She glances, nods, and moves on.

Israel, I ask myself, why do this to your children? Is there any altar worthy enough to sacrifice their innocence?

The passengers and driver reboard the bus and, 35 minutes later, we reach the central bus terminal outside Damascus Gate. I glance at my phone. 7:55. I’m already ten minutes late for meeting my tour bus when my phone buzzes with a call. It’s the tour guide asking where I am.

I had assumed Damascus Gate was the closest stop to the King David Hotel where the tour was meeting. It isn’t. I should have gotten off the bus a mile earlier. 

The tour guide asks kindly if I can get to the hotel in five minutes, otherwise the bus is leaving. I check my GPS. No way. It’s at least a 20-minute walk and my right knee still aches from having stumbled on the sidewalk Thursday while running to catch a bus for the tour with Yahav. 

When will I learn to leave earlier for appointments?

I apologize and ask if I can reschedule. The guide says I’ll have to take that up with the main office.

All right, so I missed the tour, I tell myself, and I may not get a refund of my $145 tour fee. But I’m at Damascus Gate in the very heart of Jerusalem and can walk almost anywhere in the Old City and its environs. Rather than kicking myself and returning to Bethlehem, I choose to make the best use of my errant trip by visiting the nearby Garden of Gethsemane. It’s all part of my more Christ-like and forgiving attitude toward humanity, including the person whose flaws I know best, me.

Gethsemane had been on my Holy Water Bucket List even before I left Cincinnati, thanks to Karen who told me how impressed her sister Linda had been with her visit there. The GPS shows the garden is just a 15-minute walk away – through the Muslim Quarter to Lion’s Gate and then five more minutes on surface streets to the western foot of the Mount of Olives. 

A fumble and a recovery. I’m on my way.

Lion’s Gate is one of the seven gates open to pedestrians in the massive stone wall built around Old Jerusalem in 1538 during the Ottoman occupation. Jerusalem has been occupied by so many different foreign entities over the last three millennia you need a spreadsheet to keep track of them. The Syrians, Babylonians, Egyptians, Greeks, Romans, Ottomans and British. Most recently, Lions Gate is where the Israeli army invaded the Muslim Quarter during the 1967 Six-Day War. They still occupy all parts of the city, including East Jerusalem, which the Palestinians had hoped to make the capital of a renewed homeland.

Lions Gate in Old Jerusalem.

Once outside the gate, it’s a short walk downhill and across a busy four-lane street to the garden entrance. But it requires turning away several taxi drivers who insist I’ll never make it there on my own. It doesn’t help, of course, that I’m limping from my knee injury. I feel like the wounded wildebeest trailing behind the herd as the lions circle. 

When you first approach the entrance gate, the garden looks small and ordinary – a collection of several dozen olive trees on a patch of ground less than a third the size of a football field. But the walk around the garden fence can be otherworldly if you keep your focus within its confines – like peering back in time thousands of years. An ageless quietude seems to infuse the gnarled and twisting tree trunks, their long roots clawing into the dry sandy soil to seek the nourishment of water below. Clumps of trees are gathered together at their base like ancient clans. Their winding branches reach out in every direction, lush with leaves and heavy with olives. 

At that time on a Sunday morning, I’m lucky enough to have the garden all to myself. Blissful solitude, so unlike the experience of Christ, who had neither on the night before his arrest and crucifixion. The three disciples who had accompanied him to the garden — Peter, James, and John — repeatedly fell asleep despite his requests that they pray with him. In the distance, no doubt, he could hear the approach of the angry crowd coming for him, led by one of his own disciples, Judas.

Garden of Gethsemane.

A black marble slab at the eastern edge of the garden is engraved in both English and German with Jesus’ plea for mercy without disobedience: “Father, if it be possible, let this cup pass from me: nevertheless not as I will, but as Thou wilt.”

Below the scripture is a Mennonite prayer, a sentiment I have tried to take to heart since my arrival in Palestine: “O Jesus, in deepest night and agony You spoke these words of trust and surrender to God the Father in Gethsemane. In love and gratitude, I want to say in times of fear and distress, ‘My father, I do not understand You, but I trust You.’”

Gethsemane means “oil press,” which is where in Biblical times the farmers brought the olives harvested on the mount for making oil. Whether any of the existing trees were there at the time of Christ’s agony is uncertain. Carbon dating of bark samples reveals that at least three of the trees were standing in 1100 AD. But their origins could be much older, researchers say, since olive trees can grow back many times after being cut down to their roots. Regardless of their ages, all of the trees still produce an abundance of olives. I can see hundreds of them in every tree, soon to be collected for the mid-October harvest.

One of the trees, located in a corner of the Latin Quarter, is marked as the oldest in the garden. Its multiple, intertwining trunks certainly make it one of the biggest. And as it continues to grow, its roots have burst through the stone foundation surrounding the garden.

Oldest olive tree in Gethsemane, at least 1,000 years old.

I’m able to enjoy several more minutes of peace and reflection in the garden before the morning’s first tourists and their guides arrive. I decide it’s a good time to leave the garden behind and look inside the adjacent Church of All Nations, a Russian basilica built in 1924. It was so named because most of the major countries in the Christian world contributed to its construction.

The church doors are wide open to a tall metal screen carved with an elaborate silhouette of an olive tree. Once inside, I instantly fall in love with the basilica’s simplicity and muted beauty. It’s a fitting complement to the garden.

Church of All Nations.

The church is empty as I approach the altar. At its base is the “Agony Rock” where Jesus supposedly held his vigil of prayer. The rock is long and smooth and slightly convex, rising from the soil like the dorsal side of a humpback whale. It’s lit by a single votive candle placed above its center. Bordering the rock is a low rectangular fence of wrought iron shaped like an interlocking series of thorny crowns.

“Agony Rock” at base of altar.

For some reason, perhaps because of its lack of any historic authenticity, the rock fails to move me the way the living garden had. 

I head for the exit.

***

I was lucky enough to escape the crowds going into the garden, but leaving I had to deal once again with aggressive taxi drivers. They simply would not believe that I wanted to limp to the top of the Mount of Olives. I figure if Jesus could ascend to heaven from there, the least I could do is walk to the site in tribute. But I have to admit, it took me nearly 30 knee-numbing minutes to climb the seemingly endless series of steps.

Along the way, I pass hillside apartment buildings to my left, bikes and toys parked on balconies, clothes hanging over railings. I have no idea if the homes are Arab or Israeli but I note the security wall and razor wire along the steps to my right.[10/1/22, 2:46:15 PM] Karen  Kovacik

When I at last reach the top of the stairway, I recover with a few deep breaths and discover I have another block or two on uphill streets to reach the apex of the mount. It’s there I’m told you’ll find the very best views of Jerusalem. To my disappointment, though, neither of the prime viewing locations is public. The Church of the Ascension, which was built at the highest point on the mount, charges an admission fee listed on its door. I refuse to pay for entry to any church or religious site. If God is there as claimed, his presence shouldn’t be exploited as a revenue source. Opposite the church along the main road is the entrance to a walled hillside park with lovely terraced gardens and wooden benches where you can sit and enjoy the panoramic view. But when I try to enter, a security guard in a glass booth informs me it’s private property. 

No wonder Jesus left in such a hurry.

Along the busy hilltop street are touristy restaurants, shops, and markets. I buy a large bottle of cold water at a convenience store and begin the long descent on my gimpy knee, as disappointed with the Mount of Olives as I was enchanted with the garden.

Back at the guesthouse, I text Karen to thank her sister Linda for suggesting I visit Gethsemane. She responds by asking if Linda can read the blog about my visit. Of course!

Me: I’m headed for the Dead Sea tomorrow. I found an extra large pair of swim trunks in a local store that barely fit over my ass

Karen: Your ass isn’t that big though. Or are men’s butts smaller there?

Me: They’ve got micro butts here! The women don’t. Ilhamdullilah!

Karen: Haha! Big butts 4 ever!

Me: They make the rockin’ world go round. 

Karen: True! But I still avoid flared skirts😉

No way I’m touching that.

Me: LOL! Trying to write a narrative of this Hebron story is a bear. I saw so much in so little time, then trying to confirm the details and add the photos. Aargh.

Karen: I will add enlightenment to my morning meditation for you. But you know what you’re doing. You’re just at the stage when everything feels impossible. And it’s probably both good and bad you don’t have a strict deadline.

Me: Amen.

I whine again to Karen about my knee, realizing it’s nice to have someone who cares enough I can whine to.

Me: My knee has gotten worse. Makes it harder to escape being hit by traffic. 🙏😆 Now that I’m limping every taxi driver in Bethlehem slows down and asks if I want a ride. I’m going to a pharmacy today to see if I can get a brace per your suggestion.

Karen: (Sardonic chuckle about your traffic crack) But, seriously, sorry to hear it’s worse. The elastic brace was a godsend when I messed up one of my knees a couple of years ago. If you can take Aleve, it’s the best anti-inflammatory. As I type all this, I feel so “eldest child.”😉

Me: Well you are, dammit. And I’m the youngest – spoiled. It’s who we are. I’ve found if I totally straighten my knee as I place my foot forward I don’t have to limp. Hard at work on my Hebron story. Need to get it out of my craw. Crawl?

Karen: Oof, hope you’re able to “cough it up.” Am reading 23 student poems and slurping cafe au lait. In other news, the Buddhist relationship book I’m reading (for my own reasons) offers the advice to “avoid giving advice.” Bwahaha!

Me: LOL! I’m on my way now to the pharmacy. That is, if I don’t get mowed down by a car or motorbike.

A Random Encounter

Thursday, Oct. 6, 2022

I have volunteered to teach a second class in English starting this week for members of the Bible college staff. (Claude asked me if I would, so I must be doing something right.) The class is a half-dozen or so pink- and blue-collar workers at the college who want to improve their interaction with English-speaking guests. All of them have delightful senses of humor, especially the custodian Naseef, who tells me his career plans (wink, wink) are to be “top boss of the college.”

My regular students are already getting teary-eyed about my departure. Me, too. (Oct 19 is our final class; I will continue the staff class until Oct. 28). Several teenage students have asked for selfies and some of the older ones have already given me personalized presents. Naja shows up to class on Friday with a huge bag of fresh limes from her backyard tree. Du’a gave me an elaborate wooden crucifix, hand carved and painted by her husband. The students have all promised to bring the food and drinks for our class party following a final “exam.” Each student will have a two-minute conversation with me in front of the class on a topic of their choosing. 

Two days ago, I canceled my plans to visit Turkey during my last week overseas (and had to eat the non-refundable airfare), not only because I wanted to continue the classes with the staff but also to see more of Palestine. Next Thursday I’m signed up for a bus tour of the holy places around Nazareth and the Sea of Galilee. I hope as well to rent a car and visit Haifa and its famed beaches along the Mediterranean coast the week after, or perhaps hike through the mountains at Ein Gedi near Masada to a spectacular waterfall. But, of course, with just three weeks left before I leave for home, I can’t possibly do it all.

Tomorrow morning I’ll be part of the olive harvesting on the grounds of East Jerusalem International Church where Andrew is minister. I’m curious to see how this works since there are more than a dozen trees, each heavier with olives than the cherries I can remember on our two backyard trees in East Dayton. Afterward, the olives will be taken to a local cooperative press and each of us will be given a bottle of the fresh, delicate oil to take with us as a shared reward.

In the meantime, let me tell you about a random encounter in Bethlehem.

One Thursday afternoon as I’m walking downhill on Aftal Al Shaware Street from my favorite teaching supplies store, an old Palestinian man walking very slowly up the hill stops me. He’s gripping two bulging bags of groceries from Jumbo, one in each hand, when he asks my name and where I’m from. 

I’ve learned such questions from strangers in Palestine can either be a come-on for a sales pitch or a show of genuine curiosity. Kids come up to me all the time on the street asking those questions so they can practice their English. One father even brought his two young sons over to me at a bus stop so they could converse. But sometimes, too, it’s someone looking to sell something or direct me to a nearby shop or restaurant. 

In this case, the old man surprises me by asking if I believe in God. I answer yes. He asks me if I’m a Christian. I think to myself, it depends on the definition. But my answer is “I don’t know.” His English is excellent and, since we are near the Bethlehem University campus, I wonder if he has some affiliation there. 

I know I’m stuck for the long haul when the old man stoops and places his two bags of groceries gently on the sidewalk. Freed of his burden, he tells me he had a massive heart attack last year and almost died. He had six stents inserted in his cardiac arteries and survived. He says that’s when he turned to God after a life of neglect. 

Before long, his story becomes a conversion pitch for Islam I’ve heard several times before. I don’t really mind hearing it again. It goes: Muslims have nothing against Christians or Jews but Jesus was only a prophet and Mohammed was the final and greater prophet who brought the world true religion, or better put, “returned” humanity to the one true religion of monotheism. He tells me Christians erred by believing that Jesus was also God and that the Holy Spirit makes three when, in fact, there is only one God. I hear the old man out because I can tell he truly fears for my soul. It must be my white hair.

“Believe in the one true God,” he tells me as he picks up his burden again, “before it’s too late.”

I don’t tell him but I think to myself, “Thank you, kind man. But that’s what brought me here in the first place.”

I hear from Karen later that night.

Karen: How lovely you get to spend another week in Palestine. I knew you’d bond with your students (and they with you). The college will want you back! I was relieved you found a bus trip to the Sea of Galilee since Polish and Palestinian drivers seem equally aggressive (and I learned to drive on the Dan Ryan).

Me: You’re right. I was crazy to think I wanted to drive here. I’m sure they’ll want me back but conditions here aren’t always the best for volunteers. My surge protector sparked and died this afternoon and my fan quit working. I’m hoping they send me an electrician tomorrow. 

Karen: Is it possible to get another surge protector there? Or are they not designed for American prongs?

Me: Yes it is. I’ll get one tomorrow. Jumbo!

Finding Bliss in Battir

Tuesday, Oct. 11, 2022

With a day off from teaching and wary of maxing out my credit card on another expensive guided tour, I decide today is a good day to heed the oft-given local advice that I shouldn’t miss seeing the farming village of Battir, just four miles west of Bethlehem.

Besides, the day’s forecast is perfect for a walk in the countryside – mostly sunny with a high of 80 degrees.

First settled during the Byzantine era, Battir is a UNESCO World Heritage Site and, I’m told, one of the loveliest and most verdant spots in Palestine. Andrew and Karen have suggested I hike along one of the secluded trails there and stop for lunch at The Terrace Cafe, a hillside restaurant renowned for its food and magnificent views of the valley below. The one-way taxi trip will cost 17 shekels (about $6), or at least that’s what I thought I’d heard from someone in the BBC cafeteria. (Spoiler alert: I wasn’t wearing my hearing aids at the time.) 

At about 11 a.m. that morning, I step off the curb on Hebron-Jerusalem Road just outside the campus gate and, instantly, a taxi stops at my feet. I hop in the front seat and soon discover the polite young driver speaks little or no English. 

I try to tell him I want to go to The Terrace Cave in Battir, the one recommended by the Bushes, figuring I’d have lunch there and fuel up before my hike. The driver has no idea what I’m saying. So I hand him my phone with the GPS directions to the restaurant. He takes my phone, looks at it and nods yes, and off we go. He hands my phone back.

I ask him how much for the trip, and I swear he says, “17 shekels,” although (stupidly again) I’m not wearing my hearing aids. As we drive, I’m looking at my phone and he’s not going in the right direction. So I hand the phone back to the driver. He looks, nods and keeps my phone in his left hand while steering with his right. When he needs to shift gears, which he must do frequently in Bethlehem’s stop-and-go traffic, he uses the knuckles of his left hand on the steering wheel and his right hand to shift. This is a remarkable (and nerve-wracking) talent I have seen displayed only among Palestinian taxi drivers.

We’re somewhere in the suburbs south of Bethlehem when the driver’s own phone rings. He answers it and hands it to me. On the line is his supervisor, who does speak English quite well. He tells me the trip will cost 110 shekels. As my otherwise sweet daughter Maddy would say, “I flipped a shit.” I tell the supervisor the driver told me 17 shekels. He says I must mean 17 dollars. We haggle back and forth but his final figure for the trip is 70 shekels, or $23.

I immediately tell the driver to stop. “I’m getting out here!” I shout. I don’t care where I am, I’ll walk back to the Bible college if I have to. I refuse to get ripped off.

But the driver looks at me wide-eyed and doesn’t stop. I feel like I’m being kidnapped. As he slows down for the next stop sign, I hand him 20 shekels and open the door while the car is still moving. Flabbergasted, he hits the brake and I hop out of the car and onto the curb. The driver hurries around the front of the taxi, says he’s sorry and hands back my 20 shekels before returning to the driver’s seat. 

It’s at that point I realize I don’t have my phone. I must have left it in the taxi.

I pound on the window as the driver is about to take off. I put my hand to my ear and then make an empty hand gesture. He gets it. He reaches over and opens the passenger door, pulls back the passenger seat. No phone on the seat. No phone on the floorboard. I look inside his console, inside the glove compartment. No phone. He looks at me like I’m crazy and repeats many times, “I’m sorry.” 

I’m convinced he stole my phone. 

Realizing there’s no way I can fight this guy even if he does have my phone, I start walking off down the street. Within minutes, I find another taxi and ask to be driven back to Bethlehem. The driver’s English is a little better this time, so I tell him to take me to the bus station, a central point in Bethlehem about four blocks south of the college. He nods and off we go.

When he drops me off, I ask how much.

“Seventy shekels.”

Not 17?

Fine. I don’t care. At this point, I just want to get back to the college and see if I can locate my phone from my laptop with “Find My Device.” I also want to check with T-Mobile to see if I’d been smart enough to buy insurance on the phone. I can’t remember. Dollar signs – hundreds of them –  appear before my eyes.

At the bus station, I hand over the 70 shekels and waste no time walking back to campus. In my room, the “Find My” app shows my phone is still somewhere south of Bethlehem. And it’s moving! Crap. The taxi driver has it for sure.

A pop-up asks me if I want to report the phone lost. I click yes. It asks me to input a phone number in case the phone is found. I put in Andrew’s phone number. With my laptop in hand, I head over to the Bible college administrative offices to see if someone there can help me. Should I report the phone stolen to police? Is there anyone who can drive me to my phone?

When I enter the office of my supervisor, Claude, she looks concerned and says she’s been looking for me. The taxi driver called Andrew and wants to return the phone.

Now I’m totally baffled. Is this a scam to collect reward money?

I tell Claude everything that happened on the way to Battir.

“Seventeen shekels?” she says. “I don’t believe you can go to Battir for 17 shekels.”

Damn. 

Claude tells me to wait outside for the driver. I stand by the busy road, ashamed of how I’d treated the driver and determined now to wear my hearing aids at all times. Showering and sleeping will be the only exceptions.

A different driver, a middle-aged man with a mustache, shows up at the college about five minutes later. He has my phone in his hand but it’s clear he doesn’t want to talk to me. He wants to talk to Claude. So I take him inside the Bible college offices and, for several minutes, Claude and the driver speak in Arabic – angrily at first and then they start laughing together.

The driver smiles and hands me the phone. I try to slip him a 50 shekel note for all the trouble I’ve caused, but he refuses to take the money.

As he exits the building, I feel lower than a snake. No, worse than that. Something subterranean. A worm.

But more than that, I’m beginning to realize that the default cultural mode in America is distrust of strangers and fear of crime. No wonder our country has become so divided.

Can I – can we – ever learn to trust each other again?

Inshallah. Inshallah.

*****

Like a kid who just fell off a bicycle, I go back to the curb on Hebron-Jerusalem road and hail another taxi, this time driven by an older man. My hearing ads are now firmly implanted in my ear canals, the audio option set to “speech.”

“Battir?” I ask him.

“Yes.”

“Seventy shekels?”

He nods and off we go.

I’m not sure where I want to be let out in Battir. But once we hit the main village road a half hour later, I catch glimpses through the old buildings of verdant hillsides to the west and north. In the valley to my left, I spot a railroad line and, running beside it, a sandy white hiking trail that snakes off into the distance and disappears. Something tells me that’s where I want to be.

I point to the trail and tell the driver I’d like to go hiking there. He nods and drops me off in the middle of the village next to a hiking sign that points down a curving road into the valley. I give him the 70 shekels, plus a generous tip to make karmic amends for shafting the previous driver. As he drives off, I’m surprised from behind by an entirely different mode of transportation – three young teenage boys on a gray donkey. They laugh and wave as they clip-clop gently by me along the road, the first boy holding the reins, the second and third holding tightly around each others’ waist for the unsteady ride. 

Teens in Battir.

I think I’m going to like this place.

I decide that lunch and an exploration of Battir can wait, including its famed Roman pool. Ancient springs still supply water to the village and, through a cobbled irrigation system of Byzantine-era carved-stone sluices and modern PVC piping, also provide the water for its bounty of produce – tomatoes, cucumbers, eggplant and vegetables of every kind; fresh herbs, including sage, thyme and mint; orchards of olive, fig, and citrus trees, even patches of wheat and barley.

I plod down the wide curving road into the valley, my knee much better but still not pain-free. On my left, a thick shelf of limestone, scooped away and smoothed to the touch by the currents of some antediluvian river, support a row of old stone houses above. On my right, the view opens into a panoramic view of the valley, the hillsides striped with even rows of stone-terraced gardens and orchards, as though the giant hand of God had reached into the valley and gently scraped his fingernails along its ticklish contours. 

Without realizing it, I’m approaching an unseen boundary on my way down into the valley – the Armistice Agreement Line that formally ended the 1948 war and separated Palestine from Israel. That line held for almost 20 years, until Israel’s victory in the 1967 Six-Day War. Still running through the valley along the forgotten boundary is the Jaffa-Jerusalem Railway. Built in 1890, it was the first railroad in Palestine and one of the first in the Arab world. It was shut down during the 1948 war and reopened a year later as part of Israel Railways and is still in use today.  

Jaffa-Jerusalem Railway.

But I’m not here today for political and historical research. I’m here for a long, peaceful walk in the countryside, away from the noise and congestion of Bethlehem, a pause from my teaching and class preparation. A chance, perhaps, too, for some long overdue reflection on both the course of my life and my relationship with God.

As though He (or She or It) knew what was on my mind, I find the hiking trail – in fact, the entire valley as far as I can see in either direction – empty of people and traffic and trains. Not even a gray donkey munching among the fields. It’s almost 3 p.m., comfortably warm without a breeze, with wisps of clouds coursing overhead in a sunny sky. 

Which way then on the trail? I choose left, which seems to lead away from the village and offers the best views of the lush hillsides on either side. The railroad line is soon hidden in that direction by a widening strip of weeds and olive trees. 

Part of me, which is fascinated by trains, would like to see one breeze by as I hike. Part of me, too, would just as well forego the reminder of anything modern. I want to disappear into the eternal past.

It doesn’t take long for me to fall into a dream-like state. After a mile or so of hiking in the warm sun, I’m no longer aware of thirst or hunger or even my injured knee. There’s just the steep terraced hillsides on my left reaching toward the heavens, the occasional lonely tree at the very top silhouetted against an azure sky. On my right are thick groves of olive trees and brambles. Birdsong reaches my hearing aids here and there in bits of chirps and twitters, but the rest is silence. Not even the white noise of traffic.

Whether Christ and his apostles ever walked this trail, their presence is something I can’t help feeling here. It’s in the almost blinding whiteness of the path ahead, far into the unknown distance. So, too, in the greenery clinging to, and somehow growing from, the ancient mottled rock ascending to the sky. And over everything in my private little world, it’s in the way the passing clouds cast moments of transitory shade along my path, like the blinking of some enormous watchful eye. All that matters is that I AM seen, perhaps loved. I can feel it in the warmth and beauty and silence all around me.

I reach a point on the trail where the railway curves away and disappears and the rock face soars upward nearly straight – untamed and unfarmed – to an unseen plateau above. I stop and press my hands against the wall and lean the weight of my body into its solid unmoving fixedness, thinking again of Nietzche’s doctrine of Eternal Recurrence. 

Yes, this rock, this place, this moment I would live again and again, and all the moments in my life leading up to this moment of peace and reflection. Here, now, only now, the past forgotten, the future heedlessly unknown. A moment of grace to let go. To trust in Him, in myself, in Karen. In the goodness of all people and the hope for its triumph in the end.

****

The return trip from Battir is just as eventful as my botched attempt to get here, but for very different reasons.

After a two-hour hike along the valley trail and a quick tour of the town’s Roman baths, I head to The Terrace Cafe, where I’m served an unforgettable dinner of fresh hummus, pita right out of the oven, and stew made from the delicious local tomatoes and herbs. 

When I finish, I treat myself to a second cup of sage-scented Palestinian tea and relax for a while at my table beside the balcony rail. Below me is the riotous quilt of gardens where most of my meal’s fresh ingredients were grown, including the thick sprig of sage coiled around the inside of my tea cup. In the distance to the north I can see a higher elevation trail that loops through the orchards to the west and disappears beyond the next ridge. Someday, when I return here, that will be my next hike.

The sun is perhaps an hour away from dropping just below the hills, that time when sunset crowns them with golden clarity. I would like to stay here and watch until then but the idea of finding a taxi in the dark doesn’t appeal to me.

When I leave the cafe and walk up the hill to the nearest busy street, I’m not sure which way to turn for the town center and the taxi stand. I’m looking in both directions, trying to make up my mind, when a young man in a nearby parked car honks his horn.

He sticks his head out the driver’s window. “Where are you going?” 

“Bethlehem,” I say. 

He points me for me to get into his car, a battered, dusty Kia four-door that has seen better days. 

“Are you a taxi?” I ask.

He nods but there’s no taxi sign or light anywhere on his car.

But, yes, it’s high time I begin to trust in my fellow man. So I get into the back, close the door and, with a lurch of the car’s worn clutch, off we go. We twist and turn through the village’s narrow hillside streets and pick up three other young Palestinian men. They all look about the same age as the Israeli soldiers I see at the checkpoints, only they’re smiling and joking with each other in Arabic. My own elderly and foreign presence barely merits a nod.

Is this really a taxi, I ask myself, or are we all going somewhere on a joy ride? Come on now, trust it. But we continue to drive in loops around the village.

Once we reach the main road again, the driver sees a yellow taxi van approaching from the other direction. He stops and honks. The van, too, stops and the two drivers talk to each other through open windows.

The young driver turns back to me and says, “Taxi.”

Oh my God, he was taking me TO a taxi! What a sweetheart!

I pull some shekels from my pocket and try to hand them to the driver but he says a very definite, “No!” in English. He points to the van. It’s waiting.

I shout “Shukran” several times as I leave.

****

The van weaves through town dropping off its other passengers. When I’m the only one left, the driver smiles back at me and points to the front passenger seat, an invitation to come sit beside him. I do. He’s a younger man in his early thirties with glasses, a mustache, and possibly the brightest set of white teeth I’ve ever seen. He smiles easily and often, as though the world were his private joke. Is he mocking me? Or is he just high on life or maybe something inhalable? Nobody can smile that much.

He asks me in very broken English where I’m going in Bethlehem. I simply say “Sinema” – a main thoroughfare in Bethlehem that I’ve learned will get me close to the Bible college. The driver says, “Good, good.” 

He introduces himself as “Rihad.” I return the introduction and use my little bit of Arabic to ask him if he lives in Battir (yes!) and then I tell him how beautiful it is. His smile flashes even brighter.

On our way out of town, we approach an intersection where a black Khia stops to let us pass. It’s the same driver who picked me up! I wave and Rihad honks.

“What a great guy,” I tell Rihad.

“Special,” Rihad says. 

On the main roads back to Bethlehem, Rihad and I engage in a very challenging but heartfelt conversation in English. From his point of view, the gist of it is this: he loves Americans and hates Israelis. 

“Fuck you, Israel,” he says in his best English. I raise my eyebrows but don’t say a word.

I try to tell him I wish America would give Palestine more support. I’m not sure whether he understands me or not. But before long, he reaches into his console and pulls out a small bottle of what looks like perfume. He starts spraying my neck with it.

I catch at my breath. Am I being groomed?

While I’m still recovering from what I think is an assault, he hands me the bottle. 

“A gift,” he says. 

It’s a scent I’ve noticed before on men in Palestine – more masculine than feminine, but subtle, nothing like the air-invasive and aptly named Axe body spray favored by young men in America. 

I try to give him some money for it, but he refuses. I thank him and stuff the bottle in my short’s pocket, doubting, though, I’ll ever use it. Inwardly I shake my head. I’ve been in Palestine for two months now and it’s still full of surprises.

When Rihad stops at a gas station to fill up near the Bible college, I tell him I can walk from here. He asks me how much money I have, indicating the price is negotiable. I hand him 70 shekels. He gives me 20 back. I try to return the coins and he shakes his head no.

He says “Good!” several times. I say “Shukran” even more times.

We exchange “byes.” He gives me a final flash of his white teeth as I depart. It’s a smile I don’t think I’ll ever forget. It’s the smile of Palestine. Open, innocent, maddeningly inexplicable.

Resistance is Refusing to Leave

Thursday, Oct. 13, 2022

My attempts to land interviews with the founder and leader of the BDS movement, Omar Barghouti, or his sister Mariam, a prominent journalist in Palestine, fall through. I don’t know enough of the right people, or have strong enough media credentials, to get their attention.

But with the help of my friend, John Wagner, I’m pleased when I hear back from Rifat Kassis, a long-time Christian activist for the rights of Palestinians and the welfare of children around the world. Today I’m heading to his office in an old YMCA building in the heart of Beit Sahour, a working-class village about two miles east of Bethlehem. 

Kassis is a mountain of a man, and not simply because he has trouble fitting his six-foot, 220-pound frame behind a cramped office desk. 

Think immovable. Think uneroded over time. Think rock-like in his faith that non-violent resistance will someday lead to social justice and freedom for Palestinians.

Rifat Kassis.

“If you study Palestinian history, you will see that from the beginning of the 20th century, our resistance comes in waves. Resistance, contained, domesticated, and then again resistance, contained, again domesticated and again resistance,” Kassis tells me. “Such a nation will never surrender and will never be defeated. And this is what the Israelis don’t understand.”

In 2008 and 2009, Kassis was the coordinator among a diverse array of Palestinian Christian churches in the creation of the Kairos Document, a 16-page cry of faith and hope for Palestinian freedom based on Christian theological principles and moral values. For a year and a half, Kassis worked with the leaders of 15 different Christian sects in Palestine – among them Orthodox, Catholic, Lutheran, Baptist and Anglican – to hammer out a consensus documenting Israeli apartheid and Palestinian suffering to put before Christian leaders around the world for their support.

Part of the document’s call to action includes a plea for churches to join the BDS movement against Israel until it lifts the military occupation of Palestine and grants Palestinians equal rights. A non-violent approach used successfully against South African whites to end the apartheid there in 1994, BDS has been outlawed in the US by more than 35 states under the sway of the pro-Israel lobby. 

Israel’s response to the growing BDS movement worldwide is to label its supporters “anti-semitic.” Palestinians like Kassis who engage in non-violent resistance and human rights advocacy are also often labeled “terrorists” and, in many cases, sent to prison.

Kassis has been there twice. In 1988, he was jailed for a year without being charged under Israel’s “administrative detention” policy. Palestinians suspected of being a threat to Israeli security can be imprisoned for renewable periods of six months with little or no evidence to support the allegations against them. 

“Some people now in prison have been administratively detained for five, six, seven years,” Kassis says, “which means that (the Israelis) will not have solid evidence to convict them, but based on a whim and secret files, which are not shared with the lawyers. There’s no fair trial at all, and this is practiced today.

“I was administratively detained for six months and then another six months. At that time, they gave you a green card, but not an American green card, an Israeli green card, which means you are a threat to the state. So in other words, it means you will be confined to your neighborhood, to your village. And if a soldier would see your ID while on the street in another area, he would consider you as a target.”

Kassis was arrested for helping launch a campaign using the American colonial strategy against the British occupation, “No taxation without representation.” The Palestinian group refused to pay taxes to Israel until the government declared how it was using the money, as required under international law. During this civil disobedience, Beit Sahour residents organized a protest where they threw their ID cards into a basket in the town hall, much like the civil disobedience in America against the British.

The Israelis immediately imposed a curfew on the 11,000 people in Beit Sahour and arrested everyone whom they suspected were leaders of the protest. Kassis was one of them.

Kassis had been arrested one other time, in 1983, but for interrogation only. “I did not confess to anything, so I was released after three weeks or one month. I can’t remember exactly. But it was an interrogation about them suspecting me of being an activist. Israel doesn’t distinguish between being socially active, human rights active or politically active. All of them are the same. And if you follow the news, any human rights activist is a suspected terrorist.” 

In 2021, the Israelis designated six non-profits as terrorist organizations – Addameer Prisoner Support and Human Rights Association; Al-Haq, a human rights organization with ties to the UN; Bisan Center for Research and Development, a women’s rights organization in rural areas of Palestine; Defense for Children International–Palestine; the Union of Agricultural Work Committees and the Union of Palestinian Women Committees. The designation allows Israel to shut down the organizations, seize their assets, and charge their leadership and staff with terrorist offenses. According to the UN, Israel has never proven its allegations against any of the listed organizations and, in April of 2022, called on foreign governments to resume funding to the organizations.

“Israel keeps surprising us with all these inventions of (terrorist) concepts because they also labeled Kairos as a terrorist ideology” as well as several of its signatories “terrorist theologians,” Kassis says. 

Kassis, too, was condemned as a terrorist for speaking at the memorial for Hashem Khader Abu Maria, a staff member of Defense for Children International-Palestine. Hashem was killed in 2014 by Israeli forces while peacefully attending a solidarity march with Gaza. Kassis was head of the organization at the time. 

Israeli forces shot Hashem in the chest as he stood still at the demonstration. Leading up to his shooting, Israeli soldiers and Palestinian youths had clashed when the Israeli military attempted to disperse the crowd. Reminiscent of the protesting students shot and killed at Kent State University in 1970, Hashem was not participating in the violence when a bullet struck and killed him from a distance of about a football field, witnesses told DCI-Palestine.

“So according to the custom here, when someone is killed this way, he will be called a martyr,” Kassis says. “This is how we honor our killed people.”

As the director of the organization in which Hashem worked, Kassis gave a speech at the funeral. “And (the Israelis) used it and misused it to prove that we (Defense For Children International) are terrorists and we are connected to the PFLP (Popular Front for the Liberation of Palestine) and on and on.”

Over his nearly 40 years as a human rights activist, Kassis has advocated for victims of war and oppression, especially children, throughout the Middle East and Eastern Europe. He has worked among Syrian and Chechneyan refugees, at times spending years abroad. But he has always called Beit Sahour home. Since 1989, Kassis and his wife of 41 years, Ibtisam, have lived in a housing cooperative of 25 families where they raised their three children.

The Kairos Document-Palestine took a year and a half to hammer out. “This is a compromise among 15 different people who worked on it. And you’re talking about 15 people from different walks of life – ordained clergy, patriarchs, archbishops, academics, activists, young women, old men, young men, and different political affiliation also. 

“We come from different churches, different denominations, but we do not claim to represent our churches. This was done purposefully because it is a ‘people’ document more than an official church document.”

Differing Christian theological interpretations were at times obstacles to a consensus, Kassis says. “I used to joke about the difference between a theologian and a terrorist. With the terrorist, you still can negotiate.

“Sometimes we went so far as to (debate) whether we could use the word ‘sin’ for the occupation or whether this was heresy. I mean all this kind of wording. This took time because we wanted to be correct but also we wanted to be clear and sharp in naming things without any kind of compromising diplomacy because this is what we suffer from.”

Kassis called Kairos “the most important document which the Palestinians ever had in their history, and this is not my personal opinion. This is the opinion of many, many people. You can’t imagine how many students did their Ph.D. (dissertations) on Kairos or their masters thesis on Kairos. Or how many books have been written on Kairos, how many articles, how many conferences, how many universities used Kairos as part of their curricula.” 

Although a separate document, the Palestinian Kairos was inspired by the Kairos Document of 1985, a statement issued in 1985 by a group of mainly black South African theologians. That document challenged the churches’ response to what the authors saw as the vicious policies of the South African apartheid regime. It’s a prime example of liberation theology – or “theology from below” – among Christian faiths.

At an assembly of the World Council of Churches, the Palestinian Kairos signatories and South African church leaders tried to pass a resolution labeling Israel as an apartheid state. “Of course we were confronted badly by other churches trying to silence us, mainly the German churches,” Kassis says. Despite the opposition, “we managed to have a resolution, a compromise resolution, where there is an invitation to churches to study these reports and to rethink their stance (on) Israel as an apartheid state.”

The German churches were even more opposed to the resolution than the German government, Kassis says. “How do you say? They become more Catholic than the Pope.”

Is Germany’s guilt over the Jewish Holocaust to blame? “Yes, but it seems like they are not learning from this guilt feeling, because they sided with the wrong party during the Holocaust and they are fighting with the wrong party now.”

Kassis believes the Kairos Document has helped advance the BDS movement. “I think of all the churches, American churches mainly, who made resolutions either to suspend their investments in entities complicit with the occupation, or boycott the products that come in from settlements, or even calls to culturally boycott Israel. They based their demands on Kairos theology.” The boycotting churches include the Methodists, Presbyterians, Lutherans, Anglicans and the United Church of Christ.

And the Catholic Church? “That is a different story. It’s a very centralized church… It has to be diplomatic because it’s a state (in itself). And like a big ship, it cannot turn easily. But (BDS) is building up even within the Catholic Church.”

Kassis takes hope from the fact that Pope Francis read the Kairos Document as part of his preparatory literature before visiting the Holy Land in 2014. “We were able to confirm that,” he says.

Kassis’ own religious background is Lutheran, his father having converted from the Greek Orthodox Church in 1948. (“Kassis” is Greek for priest.) He began his college studies in Germany but returned to Palestine and completed his degree in psychology and sociology at Bethlehem University. 

“I learned English in school but I strengthened my English in prison,” he says. “In prison you have lots of time. I was also the representative of the prisoners with the Red Cross. I used to practice because they would visit us every week.” 

Unlike many other Palestinians I’ve talked to, Kassis believes the two Intifadas helped advance their path to freedom. “Definitely. Our struggle is an accumulation. We are struggling against one of the strongest countries on Earth. Israel has the fourth strongest army in the world, although I think it’s the third maybe, not the fourth. Israel is not just any country. Israel is equipped with a heavy propaganda machine (with) blind loyalty from the U.S. and from many Western countries in the European Union.

“It’s not easy to fight such an entity. It is not easy even to get your narrative through in a world where the media are controlled by superpowers, by white supremacists. So it is no wonder that we are unable to liberate ourselves.

“This is one part of the story,” he says. “The second part of the story is that we Palestinians are divided. We do not have one vision. So our problem is with our leadership. We are fighting (with each other) on the rubble of our demolished homes,” Kassis says. “We are ashamed of this split. While all (the Palestinian) people are unified in their resistance to the occupation, the leadership is split. This is a shame.”

The primary split is between the Fatah leadership in the West Bank and Hamas in Gaza. Palestinians are increasingly alienated from the leadership in both organizations, Kassis says. “Why is there this disconnect between the Palestinian leadership and the people in the streets? Because the Palestinian Authority failed their people. They introduced the Oslo agreement (in 1993) as the recipe for justice. Before Oslo, we used to have around 30,000 Jewish settlers in the West Bank. Today we have 850,000. Almost one million Jewish settlers. Before Oslo, the Palestinians in Bethlehem used to control around 90 percent of Bethlehem. Today we are controlling less than 11 percent. There are more than 20 different Jewish settlements in Bethlehem alone, and the Separation Wall is eating our land.”

Kassis points out his window to wire fencing not far from the former YMCA building where he has his office. “I mean just look at this, the (Jewish settler) development at the edge of Beit Sahourian land. This (was done) in 1996, the peak of Oslo. So this is the fruit of peace? So how will our people agree that Oslo brought something good? This is where the split is, and the split is widening due to this failure (of leadership) to provide for their people.

“We Palestinians, like any other nation, have the good, the bad and the ugly, as Clint Eastwood put it correctly,” Kassis says. “But we are unable to bring our story (to outsiders) through the media. I often say, if you come here with an open heart and mind, you need just two hours to be transformed and to see the reality — one nation dominating another nation`and pretending to be the victim. We are being killed and the perpetrators claim themselves as the victims. And all this bullshit, excuse my language, about the few and the many, David and Goliath. Who is David and who is Goliath? Who are the few? Who are the many?”

U.S. and European support for Ukraine in the war against Russia is a sticking point with Palestinians. Ukrainian Jews are prominent among the illegal settlers displacing Palestinians from their land and their homes. Zelensky, who is Jewish, has appealed personally to Israel’s leadership for help in the fight against Russia while ignoring the plight of Palestinians. “Zelensky is a racist,” Kassis says. “Putin isn’t much better, but all these campaigns to show Zelensky as a freedom fighter is bullshit.”

Further dividing Palestinians, Kassis says, is the emergence of a new social class of Palestinians who are benefitting from the status quo. “They have joint ventures with the Israelis while the people, they suffer, they are impoverished.”

One example is the construction of the new Jerusalem to Tel Aviv high-speed rail line. When finished, it will speed tourists and other travelers between Jerusalem and Ben-Gurion airport in just 28 minutes – a trip that now takes two hours or more depending on traffic. As a result of the construction, Israel is “giving more permits to Palestinians to work inside Israel as cheap labor. So this is again playing within our economy.”

More telling are statistics that show wealthy Palestinians are investing more money on projects inside Israel than Palestine. “Capital doesn’t have a nation,” Kassis says.“Capital doesn’t have a homeland. All these capitalists are working together, investing together. So our people know this.”

Kassis says he’s not aware of the recent rise of the Lions’ Den – a resistance group of young armed Palestinians with no formal ties to existing factions. But he acknowledges the growing rift between younger Palestinians and the current leadership. The Lions’ Den emerged among a group of young men, all under age 25, following the killing of Ibrahim al-Nabulsi, a prominent militant from Nablus, by Israeli forces in August 2022. Since then, members have regularly engaged in armed clashes with Israeli security forces and shootings against Israeli military and civilian targets in the West Bank. The group’s name pops up frequently in discussions of whether there might be a third Intifada.

“Yes, this generation is taking over in the streets,” Kassis says. “They do not relate to classical leadership and the classical political parties.”

But Kassis doubts there will be any change in Palestinian leadership in the near future. “This would be very difficult due to the occupation. I mean people say, ‘You do not have an election,’ which is true. We should have elections. But even if we had elections, we are not free to campaign for office because Israel will arrest people. They consider Hamas, the PFLP, the DFLP, and the PLO as terrorists. So if you run on behalf of those organizations you will be arrested. Democracy under occupation doesn’t exist here in Palestine.” 

And yet Kassis says he hasn’t given up hope of freedom for Palestinians. “Just look around. I mean, despite all the misery, we are still laughing, joking. If you had been in Beit Sahour last Sunday for our marathon, there were young people all over our streets. Our young people are not sad despite their unemployment. They still go to university to study, they still have motivation to build their own business enterprises.”

But don’t many younger Palestinians want to leave? “Yes, we suffer from emigration, sadly. I have three children. They all studied abroad but they came back.” 

Emigration hurts Palestinian Christians in particular since they comprise only about 1 to 2 percent of the total population in Gaza and the West Bank. Despite such a small minority, Christians have lived in peace with Muslims in Palestine for the last 1,500 years, Kassis says.

“But we should confess that what seems to be happening in the Middle East, what’s happening worldwide, is very much impacting us here. ISIS, their occupation of Iraq, etc…. this kind of extremism we never had before. And then there’s the split between Sunni and Shia, thanks to the U.S. administration and the EU. So far I don’t feel that we are under any threat (of Christian-Muslim violence), but we need to be careful.”

Kassis says the relationship between Palestinian Muslims and Christians of his own generation is much closer than the ties among their grandchildren. “There are these new Christian schools who attract Christians and rich Muslims while the public schools attract poor Christians and poor Muslims – more Muslims than Christians. So we do not have a closeness like we used to have before where all of us were in the same social class, the same community, the same schools. We studied together, we worked together, we played together etc. But we cannot afford to split our two communities, so that’s why we need to keep an eye on this.”

I ask the question that is on everyone’s minds in Palestine and Israel today: Is there a third Intifada on the way? 

“An occupied nation, an oppressed nation is in Intifada all the time. Our steadfastness, this is part of our intifada. Not losing our hope, this is our intifada. To continue teaching our young people, (getting) our children to stay (in Palestine) is also part of our Intifada. But, yes, sometimes people will see only the obvious manifestation, the demonstrations. And not even the demonstrations – they will see only shootings. The media likes blood. Where there is blood there is media. But they fail to report on the daily struggle of all people, whether in Jerusalem against the ethnic cleansing or whether in the southern hills of Hebron, where they are also subject to ethnic cleansing and to demolition of their homes on a daily basis.

“There are villages and communities where for the past seven or 10 years, their homes have been destroyed because of the Israeli racist laws against them,” he says. “As long as there is an occupation there is Intifada. But sometimes it gets heated, sometimes it calms down. But I’m from the type of people who say that just being here, staying here – this is part of our struggle.” 

Life as a Refugee

Wednesday, Oct. 19, 2022

At last, I have an interview with a refugee family in nearby Aida camp, thanks to the help of Sari Zeiden, head of the Shepherd Society, the charitable arm of Bethlehem Bible College. 

When we arrive that morning at the home of Ali and Reem Abu-Aker, it’s not what I had expected at all. Once off the camp’s narrow, grimy streets, entry to her building is from a sunny, well-kept courtyard with a lone thriving lemon tree. Their home is up a flight of stairs of moldy, peeling concrete, but inside, where Reem greets us, is a spotless, orderly refuge for the young family of four.

Reem in her apartment.

“Us” is myself, Karen Bush (wife of Andrew) and Sari, whose organization has provided assistance to the family. We introduce ourselves and Reem leads us to a small living room of comfortable but older chairs and sofas. A window with open curtains lets in an abundance of light from the courtyard, bathing the room in the kind of golden warmth I’ve seen only in Palestine.

Reem, the author, Karen Bush and Sari Zeiden.

Dressed in jeans, a long-sleeve, loose-fitting shirt and a coral pink hijab, Reem is pretty in the way of nearly all young Palestinian women – a perfect complexion, lush brows, sparkling brown eyes. She’s beaming that morning. A phone call is coming at any moment from her husband Ali. And in another 11 days, after serving 10 months in an Israeli prison near Ramallah, he will be coming home.

Ali was arrested for an offense that could occur only in an occupied nation – looking for work. It was just before Christmas 2021, long after Ali’s business as a street-corner juice vendor had died with the pandemic and the loss of tourism in Bethlehem. Over the next year and a half, he had worked at a variety of construction jobs in Palestinian territory, but the dust from the work sites had aggravated his asthma. 

So with Christmas approaching, he crossed the checkpoint from Bethlehem and began looking for work, any kind of work, in the more lucrative hunting grounds of Israeli territory. There he was spotted by Israeli soldiers. Ali had just enough time to take a picture of himself and send it off with a text to Reem before his phone was confiscated, his wrists cable-tied, and his head sacked for the trip to the local military installation. 

“Are you kidding me?” she texted back. He answered no. 

“I started crying,” she says.

Reem brings us Turkish coffee in small ceramic cups and saucers and a plate of delicious baked goods from one of the local bakeries. It’s a gracious and generous gesture considering her circumstances, but it’s the Palestinian way. With the arrival of food, the family’s recently adopted feral cat, Lulu, decides to join us as well. Reem’s two young boys, 11-year-old Jad and 6-year-old Eid, are in school until noon. They are the fourth generation of their family to live in a refugee camp.

With Sari acting as translator, Reem tells us that Jad, the older boy, can hardly wait to see his father again. His anger over his father’s absence has affected his work at school and he’s not studying as hard, she says. 

Education has become a top priority for Palestinians since the occupation, but especially since the failure of the Oslo accords. It’s viewed as the best leverage for finding employment and, for many younger Palestinians, a ticket to freedom in another country. From 1997 to 2021, illiteracy rates among all Palestinian residents (aged 15 years and above) dropped from 13.9 percent to 2.3 percent. Among women, the decline was even more dramatic – from 20.3 percent to 3.5 percent.

Reem says education is “the best weapon” for her children’s future. But in the camp, she says, “it’s a little hard to have a good education” because the UNRWA schools are crowded and the students aren’t as serious as those in private schools. It reminds me of the situation in the U.S.

Reem’s own education was at Dar al-Kalima University in Bethlehem, where she studied painting and ornamental woodworking. She has since taught herself how to make ceramics. Sari tells us she’s very talented and that the Shepherd Society is looking for a project that both she and Ali can work together on for the Bible college. 

We ask to look at a sample of her work, and Reem leaves and returns to the living room with a glazed ceramic plaque of a stylized map of Palestine in the shape of a fish. It’s beautiful and one of a kind. I ask if she sells her work and I get a quick reply, “Not this one.” She has items on sale, however, at the arts college gift shop. 

Reem says she has always loved art. She has been painting since she was three and says her two boys show a similar interest. Before they came along, she had worked with a group of artists renovating the icons and ornate wooden doors at a Catholic Church in Beit Jala.  

Just a few months before Ali was arrested, the couple had moved to their new apartment – a roomier home in the refugee camp for their growing family. But now the landlord is threatening to evict them, Reem says. She hasn’t been able to pay the rent for the last two months. While the Shepherd Society provides food packages, medical care and educational assistance to the family, it does not offer direct financial aid. 

Reem has told the landlord that, once Ali is released from prison, they will have the money to start paying the rent again. Reem says she’s willing to return to work because the kids are no longer such a responsibility. But she’s waiting on Ali to be home so he can take them for a few hours each day. Ali himself may take up his street vending business again now that the tourists are returning. “He loves to deal with the foreigners,” she says.

On top of the fear of losing her home, Reem has neighborhood gossip to deal with as well. They speak about her being alone in the house and question her ability to care for her children. “I know myself, and my family knows me very well,” she says. “(My family) knows that I will be strong enough to keep everything as it is. They would not leave me here” if they thought otherwise.

Ali’s family started living in the camps in 1948, following their banishment from a village in the north of Palestine during the Nakba. Reem’s mother, too, was just a little girl when they came to Aida. Reem met Ali, who is about 10 years older, while he was visiting at the arts college.

As Reem talks with us, she seems a bit distracted. She doesn’t want to miss Ali’s call. She says they have only one cell phone for all 500 or so prisoners at the facility with a two-minute limit on calls. Ali has told her the phone is always hot because it’s in continuous use throughout the day and night.

Reem has been able to visit Ali only twice since his imprisonment. Besides having to arrange for someone to watch the boys, transportation to and from the prison is a hardship. What would normally take 15 minutes by car takes nearly two hours on a Red Cross bus because of all the family members it picks up along the way. Visiting time is limited to 40 minutes for each prisoner and the bus passengers must wait for everyone to finish before they can make the return trip. It’s an all-day ordeal.

Reem says she feels like every time she speaks about Ali her energy goes out to him and he calls. Every time. And, sure enough, it doesn’t fail her again. Her cell phone rings and Ali scurries from the room with the phone to her ear, her bright voice trailing behind her like the glow from a shooting star.

When she returns, she says Ali is fine and looking forward to getting home. He has been counting the days, just as his family has.

I ask Sari to ask what kind of future she wants for her children. “Many things,” she answers. But at the top of her list is that her boys have homes of their own. ”In 10 years,” she says, “they will both be teenagers and will start thinking about having a family.” In Palestinian culture, men who want to marry must have a home they can provide.

Does she think her sons will stay in Palestine? She says Ali and she have talked about this many times. “Every time, we tell ourselves it will get better here. It will get better. But at some point, despite that we love Palestine, sometimes we think we should leave for a better life and another place. Yes, Palestine is nice and beautiful but we don’t have rights here.”

But perhaps more than anything, even freedom, she says, she wants stability for her family. “You don’t have a stable job here. You don’t have your own house. If you want to build your own house, if you want to build your children’s future, you need maybe another 50 years to save the money that you need. So it’s very hard here.”

Lulu, curled now on Sari’s lap, has her eyes glued to the baked goods on the coffee table. Reem tells us the boys were upset when the cat disappeared for several days last week. And then on the way home from school, they found her at the home of a neighbor woman who rescues cats. “They said, ‘Oh, this is our kitty.’ But the neighbor, who works with animals, wanted to send her to another place.” Reem went to visit the woman and told her, “No, this is for our children. They can take care of her. They like cats.”

Reem admits she has grown attached to Lulu as well. “She wakes me up in the morning and she starts playing with my feet.”

Somewhere a rooster is crowing in the neighborhood as we prepare to leave. Karen asks Reem a great final question – does she have a message she would like to send to the people in America?

Reem thinks a moment and says, F

She walks us out to the courtyard with us before saying goodbye. 

The lemon tree is still shimmering there, healthy and happy in its little square of dirt, its bright green branches reaching toward the sun.

A Tour de Farce of Galilee

Thursday, Oct. 20, 2022

The bus tour departing from Jerusalem is titled “Christian Gems Around the Sea of Galilee.” But despite our 5:40 a.m. departure and visits to the touristy “Wedding Church” in Canaa, an archeological museum featuring the sodden remains of a fisherman’s boat from Jesus’ time, and some kind of self-congratulatory interfaith conference center inspired by the 2015 visit there by Pope John Paul II, it’s now mid-afternoon and we haven’t come close to experiencing the Sea of Galilee itself. Every step of the way, the sea’s blue tranquility and tree-lined shorelines have taunted the 15 members of our tour group through the captivity of our bus windows. 

Our next and final destination around the sea is Magdala, the ancient fishing village where Mary Magdalene was believed to have been born. Upon arrival, we are hustled by our tour guide, Daniel, into yet another modern building, the Magdalena Institute, touted like most of the sites we have visited that day as a “Crossroads of Jewish and Christian History.” According to its website, the institute “seeks to highlight issues of human dignity – with an emphasis on the dignity of women – and contributions of the feminine genius in both religious history and facets of life today.” 

And so what about the dignity of Palestinians?

But in the basement of the institute is a panoramic mural worth the trip. It shows a gathering of men’s sandaled feet as a woman’s hand reaches surreptitiously and tentatively through their limbs toward the white hem of a robe. The robe, of course, is that of Jesus and the hand is that of a desperate woman with an incurable disease. The scriptural passage reads: “Now there was a woman who had been suffering from hemorrhages for twelve years; and though she had spent all she had on physicians, no one could cure her. She came up behind Jesus and touched the fringe of his clothes, and immediately her hemorrhage stopped. Then Jesus asked, ‘Who touched me?’” (Luke 8:43-48.) 

Without showing a single face, the painting is a powerful portrait of humility, hope, and faith in the power of God. 

As I reflect on the mural, I notice another bus tourist, Miriam, sitting on the bench beside me. Miriam, whose seat on the bus is across the aisle from mine, is a young woman of about 30 or so who I suspect is a member of the Mennonite faith or similar tradition. She’s alone on the tour, as I am, and tells the group during our introductions that she’s from France. She wears a long, loose flower-print dress, little or no makeup, and a pair of wire-rim glasses. I’m flattered that she feels comfortable enough to sit next to me.

With my mind working in its journalistic dirty-laundry ways, I turn to Miriam and say, “I’ve always heard she was a prostitute before she met Jesus. Is that true?”

I’m thinking of Mary Magdalene but, like most things I know from scripture, I have it wrong.

Miriam looks slightly taken aback. “No, there is nothing in the Bible about that,” she says in her slightly nasal French accent.

“I’m sorry,” I tell her. “I was raised Catholic. We didn’t learn much about the Bible. But I do think that’s what they taught us.”

Miriam shakes her head in emphasis. “Mary Magdalene was one of the earliest disciples of Jesus, and very loyal. The Bible says she was at the crucifixion.”

I nod, a bit embarrassed at my ignorance.

Our tour guide, Daniel, appears in front of the mural and announces that we will have just ten minutes to explore outside the shirine, where archeologists have excavated a second-century synagogue and a small fishing harbor from the time of Jesus. The 15 of us dutifully exit to take advantage of our allotted time.

I’m looking around the excavated harbor, wondering if Jesus and the apostles ever tied their fishing boat there, when I notice Miriam looking out to the blue dazzle of sea. I can almost read her mind. I begin walking from the harbor toward the stony beach about 300 yards away at the same time Miriam does. We laugh a little when we realize that both of us have the same rebellious idea. To hell with the archaeological dig, we want to put our feet in the waters that Jesus is said to have walked upon. At the beach, we take off our shoes. Miriam hikes up her dress to just above the knee and starts toddling over the loose stones toward the lapping water. I’m a few steps behind her in my tell-tale American cargo shorts. 

The excavated Biblical-era harbor at Magdala.

With our feet and ankles finally in the sea, we are llike a couple of misbehaving children out of sight of the adults. The water is crystalline and clean but the small rounded stones beneath our feet are painful and slippery. I wait for the pain to subside and moments later, in the chilled water lapping around my ankles, I feel rooted to something ancient and pure that travels all the way up my legs and torso into my beating chest. The here/now is the same here/now that Christ and his apostles must have felt as they cast their nets for both fish and souls.

Miriam starts off for the beach when I ask if she’ll take my picture in the water. I hand her my phone and she snaps a half dozen or so shots as I stand there bow-legged to keep my balance, my tender feet complaining. She waits for me as I gingerly return to the beach and then hands me my camera. I thank her and, of course, look at the shots.

Author standing in the Sea of Galilee.

Miriam dutifully starts back toward the bus but I stand on the beach for a while with my shoes back on, looking across the blue expanse to the misty hills beyond. The Sea of Galilee is hardly a sea. It’s a middlish-sized lake of 64 square miles. I’ve heard people on the tour say they can hardly believe the apostles could have felt their lives threatened there during a storm. But a little boat filled with too many fishermen would have been extremely tippy, not to mention that some of the apostles may not have known how to swim. To the doubters, I say, oh ye of little imagination.

As Miriam and I enter the bus, Daniel lets us know that our little excursion has delayed the tour and we now have just five minutes to visit the Jordan River on our way back to Jerusalem.

Miriam and I take our seats and glance conspiratorially across the aisle.

After an entire day of driving through mostly desert, the approach to the River Jordan Valley presents a dazzling and unexpected oasis of green. Green trees, green shorelines, green water. It seems like a pop-up card from the surrounding blandness of tan and brown. At the tour site parking lot, Miriam and I are among the first to exit. But we soon lose each other and the other members of our tour group as we enter the crowd in the narrow plaza of shops along the river.

From the plaza, a dozen or so people dressed in white robes stand in line along a curving ramp into the river, awaiting their turn to be immersed in the waters where, two millennia ago, John the Baptist once baptized Jewish believers. Wading waist-high into the current, each baptismal candidate is flanked by two smiling assistants as the minister plunges them backward and under the flowing waters. The candidates come up from the water holding their noses and blinking their eyes, but smiling joyously none the same. From there, the newly-baptized are led by the arm by an assistant to a nearby exit ramp to keep the assembly line of baptisms working smoothly.

Whether you believe in the efficacy of baptism or not, the communion of so many people enjoying a rebirth, emotional and spiritual, in a river where Jesus himself had been baptized is infectious. You can’t help smiling at all the people smiling. How I wish it were that simple and easy for the skeptical among us to be reborn, redeemed, and sent on our way.

Before long, Daniel is moving among the crowd on the plaza, urging members of our tour group to return to the bus. By the time we get back to Jerusalem and the Aroma cafe, it’s past six o’clock and a cloudy night has fallen over the bustling city. I thank Daniel, tip him and say a quick goodbye to Miriam, then head off down Hillel street toward Damascus Gate, hoping to catch the last bus from Damascus Gate to Bethlehem.

I haven’t walked more than a block when a bolt of lightning tears through the blackened skies like a fiery rip down a curtain. A second later – Blam! – a deafening crack of thunder unleashing sheets of rain. Pedestrians scramble for cover under storefront awnings and recessed doorways. I bide my time under the portico of a streetside cafe, watching the gutters in the street fill with twisting cords of water. I breathe in the rain-cleansed air and feel the chilled moist breeze brush across my face.

This torrential ending to the day is meant to be. A reminder of the endless cycle of rain and renewal, water and rebirth. Saecula Saeculorum. Amen.

I text Karen with Miriam’s photo of my standing in the shallows of the Sea of Galilee, arms akimbo, feet delicately planted on the slippery rocks below the surface.

Karen: I see that you’re getting rebaptized (!) but wanted to respond to your last diary. Laughed at the corporate ripoffs. Felt for you in the disorienting taxi ride, but didn’t grasp why you felt abject afterwards, though I guessed you berated yourself for not trusting the driver. Anyway, enjoy your jaunt to the Jordan!

Me: Thanks. Except I’m stuck in Jerusalem in the rain with no cash. Aargh. Have to find an ATM.

Karen: Oh no! Will rub the Buddha’s belly on your behalf (even if wrong religion)!

In a few minutes, the rain stops as suddenly as it started, like someone crimping a giant hose. The wet streets are streaked in the reflective glare of streetlamps, headlights, tail lights. The sidewalk cafes slowly stir back to life as I walk toward Damascus Gate and the bus terminal. 

In the next block I find an ATM that accepts my Visa card. Fifteen minutes of brisk walking later, I text Karen from the road.

Me: Found one! And caught the last bus to Bethlehem! Thank Mr Buddha for me.

Karen: Yay! Found hotel in NYC mid-Nov for $100/night near Grand Central! Stayed there before so it’s not derelict😉 Spoke too soon. 205/night for queen

Me: I’d split it with you if you didn’t steal all the covers.

Karen: It has a lovely rooftop and is close to a Cuban restaurant

I’m sensing an invitation, and I’m not sure how to handle the mixed feelings of adventure, lust, flattery, and fear that things between us are perhaps progressing too quickly. I wish I could discard my fears as easily as the rain water rippling down the street gutters and into the sewers.

Me: Whoa! Hey, have to get through the checkpoint at Bethlehem. I heard they shot off tear-gas there this morning during a protest. Hope I can get through. The power of a US passport!

Karen: You probably weren’t serious abt going to NY, but if you were, I’d love it if you’d come. Krysia and I are giving a reading on 11/16, but otherwise will be having coffee with friends and bumming around museums.

Me: Where are you reading?

Karen: It’s with the European Literature Network, so there will be poets from different countries. Did one of those before which was at the Czech Cultural Center on Upper East Side

Me: Quite an honor. Congratulations! Unfortunately I’ll be recovering from double hernia surgery while you’re in NYC. I don’t think you’d want to be anywhere near me.

Karen: Oh I forgot about that! The last thing you need is traipsing through the subway. What day is your surgery?

Me: Nov. 9. Six week recovery period.

Gift Shopping, Bethlehem Style

Oct. 24, 2022

With just four days left before I return home to Cincinnati and my friends and loved ones, it’s time that morning to do some serious souvenir shopping at The Star Bazaar, the unique gift shop on the second floor of the education center at Bethlehem Bible College. The shop is run with a velvet fist and a big heart by Anita Venter, a Presbyterian minister by way of South Africa who carefully selects and prices the items, all of them handcrafted by local artisans. I have visited the store several times before to purchase books from its small but mighty collection of writings by the world’s best progressive evangelical authors, both Palestinian and international. While there, I have always taken time to peruse the shelves with thoughts of which items would most interest each of my family members and the friends who inspired me to come to Bethlehem.

For both my youngest daughter Sylvie and a special friend in Indianapolis, I choose dangly earrings made from thin coils of silver wrapped around the marbles that Palestinian children propel from sling shots, with little effect, at the bullet-proof guard tower windows high atop the Separation Wall. The artisans have chosen undamaged marbles in a variety of ironically beautiful colors – translucent marbles of amber, sea green or deep purple blue, and solid marbles ringed in milky white and bright red, orange or blue like the atmospheres of tiny distant planets. (For customers with a more pacifist bent, there are “Peace Earrings” that substitute polished spheres of olive wood for the defiant marbles.)

My other message-laden gift choices are the Christmas tree ornaments made from Israeli teargas canisters found in the streets of Bethlehem following local protests. The pewter cylinders with Hebrew lettering are cut down to the size and shape of napkin holders and decorated with red, green, blue or yellow ribbon. A grab a handful to give away as stocking stuffers. For  my oldest daughter Maddy, who has been picking up my mail and watching my car, I find a hand-embroidered black vest to go with nearly everything she wears.

But most of the items in the shop are Christian-based – creches and Nativity figures of every kind, a wide selection of traditional Christmas tree ornaments, statuettes of saints and angels, custom-made rosaries, fish-shaped bowls and key chains, and many varieties of crucifixes. The last includes the hand-made Holy Land crosses Bethlehem has long been famous for – glued together from 14 pieces of olive wood (each piece representing the agony of Christ on the way to Calvary). Tiny glass insets at each of the four extremities are filled with bits of olive leaves, frankincense, flowers and stones from Jerusalem. 

The key chain, a wiggly fish of segmented olive wood, I know my son Patrick will like and use. For Sister Mary Wendeln, I find a highly-stylized carving of Jesus kneeling under the weight of his cross. For Rev. Wagner and the more religious members of my family, a traditional Holy Land cross. And for everyone else to whom I am indebted, a candy dish sculpted from a single piece of olive wood in the shape of a jumping fish.

Anita and her assistant, Riham, carefully package my items in layers of bubble wrap and tape. I leave the shop with two shopping bags heavy with gifts and the fear I won’t have enough room in my suitcase for all of it.

On the short walk through campus to the guesthouse, the noon-hour air is crackling with Arabic from loudspeakers down the hill at the refugee camp and up the hill at the mosque tower. I can tell from the anger in the voices that the message is more than just the call to prayer. What I don’t realize until the city shuts down in protest the next day is that Israeli soldiers earlier that morning had abducted two Palestinians in Beit Jala, just west of Bethlehem, while southeast of the city in Tuqu’ town, Israeli settlers had attacked homes and cars with rocks.

In four days, I tell myself, I will leave for home. I pray for my sake, and for the sake of peace in Palestine, that things begin to cool down.

The Lost Day

Friday, Oct. 25, 2022

At 2 a.m. I awake in my from a loud argument that seems to be just outside my open window. I take a peek through the curtains and see three young Palestinian men in a heated discussion on Hebron Road, their cars parked on the sidewalk just in front of the guesthouse. I close the window and go back to bed. But at 5:30 or so, I awaken again to the call for prayer. I try repeating my new mantra “Trust in God, Trust in God…” but my heart won’t slow enough to let me doze.

On restless nights, my strategy is to get up, make a cup of coffee and read or write until I am mercifully sleepy again. Throwing on running shorts and a T-shirt, I walk over to the adjoining guesthouse with my empty “You Have Influence” coffee cup and take the elevator up to the third floor breakfast room. While my coffee is brewing, I look out the rear window above the sink and watch the sky above the hills slowly begin to silver. It’s always a cherished moment of calm and reflection before my busy day begins.

What I don’t realize is that the day before had been another very active one for the Israeli army. They shot and abducted three Palestinian construction workers near the Separation Wall southwest of Hebron as the trio tried to find jobs in Israel, invaded a village northeast of Ramallah after Jewish settlers had attacked Palestinian cars there, abducted five Palestinians from homes in Ramallah, Jenin, and Hebron, and nabbed eleven more that day, including a woman, from their homes in occupied East Jerusalem.

Nearing 10 a.m., the caffeine has worn off and my back aches from sitting so long in front of my laptop writing from a straight back chair. As a volunteer, I have never bothered to ask for a computer chair, mindful that, on the college’s shoestring budget, they’re probably scarce even for staff. I congratulate myself for having completed my two lesson plans for the day and getting a good start on blogging my interview with Palestinian activist Rifat Kassis. I’m finally sleepy again.

I close my window, turn on my floor fan to obscure the traffic noise, and retreat to my bed, too tired to bother with an alarm. Even so, I never nap much longer than an hour and both of my classes today are in the late afternoon. I soon drift off into oblivion.

I wake with a jolt. A gunshot? Or a backfire from one of the untuned motorbikes racing along Hebron Road? I pick up my cell phone from the table near my bed and look at the time. Almost 1 p.m. It doesn’t seem possible. I feel like I closed my eyes just five minutes before.

I sit on the edge of the bed, naked in the heat, and look around as though I’ve woken up in this room for the first time. I know I’m supposed to be here (Bethlehem Bible College), know where I am (Bethlehem), but there’s an air of unfamiliarity to everything I see. The green curtains glow from the brightness of the mid-day sun, casting a ghostly pall over the items in the room that only adds to their strangeness. The sofa. The table. The drying rack where my socks and underwear hang limp like melting clocks in a Dali painting.

My phone shows I have a WhatsApp message sent by Trudy nearly two hours ago. Trudy? It takes me a moment to remember that she’s the woman in the room next door with her husband David. A Canadian couple in their 70s. Nice people.

“Make sure your windows are closed?” the message reads.

Of course. 

I text back. “They are. Why?”

Trudy immediately replies. “Tear gas.”

I jump to the window and pull the curtain. Hebron Road is now eerily empty. No pedestrians. No traffic. I glance farther up the road toward the Separation Wall and the looming guard tower. There’s a smoking heap of garbage in the middle of the street. A dumpster was left there, too.

I could kick myself. A chance to witness a protest and the Israeli reaction and I sleep right through it. I suddenly feel very old. And fogged. I can’t shake the unfamiliarity of my surroundings, as though I’m experiencing deja vu in reverse.

Perhaps all I need is food. But I’ve already missed the deadline for takeaway at the cafeteria. I decide to pack up my laptop and head to my favorite refuge – the Walled Off Hotel – for a quick lunch and a chance to do a little more writing.

Before closing my laptop, I look to see where I left off in my blog. But when I begin to read the lede and the paragraphs that follow, I swear it’s something I didn’t write. 

Has someone hacked my computer?

That fear soon morphs into a more serious one. Did I have a stroke? In my sleep? Is that even possible? Is there such a thing as a sudden lapse into dementia?

I read the words again on my computer screen but I still don’t recognize them. 

I open a Google browser and quickly type in “symptoms of stroke.”

The top result: “Sudden numbness or weakness in the face, arm, or leg, especially on one side of the body. Sudden confusion, trouble speaking, or difficulty understanding speech. Sudden trouble seeing in one or both eyes. Sudden trouble walking, dizziness, loss of balance, or lack of coordination.”

I have none of those symptoms, and yet I can’t remember words I’ve written just several hours ago.

I’m too embarrassed to ask for help but I feel the need to be somewhere with other people. Yes, the Walled Off. I dress, stuff my laptop in my backpack, grab my wallet, phone and keys, and head out the door.

Hebron Road outside the guesthouse is miraculously empty. A slight haze still clings to the air, graying my view of the guard tower a block and a half ahead. Whether it’s from the garbage fire or the teargas is hard to tell. My eyes aren’t tearing, but the fogginess of the scene only adds to the fogginess inside my brain. I realize I’ve always had a tendency to hypochondria, but this is something I’ve never experienced before. Worse than the brain fog I felt in the early days of my Covid infection, when I misplaced items all over my apartment.

As I walk the four blocks to the hotel, I try to calm myself by repeating my new mantra, “Trust in God. Trust in God….” In a moment it brings relief, a sudden feeling of being taken care of by something larger than myself. A feeling, too, that everything around me is transitory, illusory – but that’s okay. The unfamiliarity of my surroundings, and the detachment I now feel, is perhaps a sign that I no longer belong here but somewhere else – somewhere peaceful and benign. Another dimension? The Kingdom of God? 

In my new-found calm, I realize I’ve somehow walked past the Separation Wall where the streets are busy again with traffic. Wait. How did I miss the hotel? I look behind me down the street. I can’t see the hotel from where I stand, only a wide curve in the Separation Wall and the traffic flowing around it. 

Where am I?

I feel the panic begin to rise again, my heart pounding in my throat. Am I really lost after walking just six or seven blocks? 

I consider whether I should hail one of the taxis along the busy street and ask to be driven to the nearest hospital. But I’m not sure of the quality of care I’ll receive there. Besides, I remind myself I have no physical symptoms to report. Does anyone actually treat this kind of amnesia?

I break into my mantra – Trust in God. Trust in God – and start walking back toward the curve in the wall. Once I clear the bend, I see the hotel entrance tucked away on the narrow side street to my right. The famed bellhop chimp is ready to greet me at the door. I chuckle a little. The absurdity of the mannequin reassures me I’ll be alright.

As soon as I enter the lobby, I scoot into the empty corner bench at my favorite table. It sits below the Banksy painting of a guard tower on the Separation Wall. It’s menace has been turned into a carnival swing ride, the children squealing in delight from their seats. 

As I pull out my laptop, a young male server in a black jacket and red bow tie  – yes, I recognize him! – approaches the table.

“The usual?” he smiles.

I nod, glad, too, that I can remember what “the usual” is. A personal-sized Pizza Margherita and a good glass of the local cabernet. 

I open my laptop and find the blog that I worked on that morning. I still don’t recognize the words – pages of them – and wonder again if I’d been hacked. It doesn’t matter, I tell myself. Whether I can remember writing the text or not, I can work with what is already there and begin adding to it from my interview notes with Rifat. I write, eat, drink for an hour, pay my bill and leave a 15 shekel tip for the server. 

On my way to the lobby door, I say goodbye to the young female receptionist whom I also recognize. But for the first time I notice something about the small gold plaque sitting on the reception desk. It doesn’t say “RECEPTION.” It says “REJECTION.”

God love you, Banksy.

The brain fog gradually clears throughout the rest of the afternoon as I run through the paces of my two English classes – 3:00 pm for the staff, 4:30 for my regular students. The two lesson plans I do remember writing, perhaps because they’re part of the sequence from my previous classes. Go figure.

By 6:35 pm, when the last of my regular students straggle out of the classroom and kindly thank me, I’m more than ready for a visit to the grotto. I pack up my bag and head out to face the demonic traffic along the way. There’s no forgetting how to get to my favorite bar and bartender.

When I arrive, Asim greets me from behind the bar with a smile and a hearty hello. As luck would have it, so does Issa, the medical resident. He’s sitting at the very end of the bar nursing a beer. Both men are smoking rolled cigarettes, but with the door and window behind the bar open to the evening breeze outside. Somehow, the smoke at the grotto has never bothered me. Intercultural tolerance, I suppose. I grab a stool next to Issa.

As usual, Asim asks how my day was as he drains the tap of Shepherd’s lager into a frosted glass, the mouth tilted at just the right angle to control the foam. I consider whether I should tell the two about my bizarre memory loss that day, balancing the possibility of sounding crazy against the free medical advice I’ll likely get from Issa. From our past conversations at the grotto, I know Issa to be bright, compassionate, and well-informed. I decide to go for it.

“Something really strange happened to me today, and I’m not sure what to think of it.”

Asim and Issa immediately turn toward me. Now I’m on the spot.

“Strange?” Asim asks with some concern. “How?”

“It’s hard to explain.”

“Try,” Asim says.

“I wrote in my diary for several hours this morning, took a long nap, and when I woke up, I didn’t recognize anything I’d written.”

Asim’s mouth turns down. Issa blows a stream of smoke high into the air.

“Is that the only thing you noticed?” Issa asks.

I tell him about the brain fog and the unfamiliarity of my surroundings.

Issa is in full physician mode now, examining me intently from his stool.

“Could it be a stroke?” I ask, getting to my secret worry.

Issa shakes his head. “You walked all the way here. No problems, right?”

“Right.”

“I think you had some kind of temporary dissociative experience. I wouldn’t worry.”

“But it’s never happened before in my life. It’s like I lost a couple hours of my life.”

Issa draws again on his cigarette, ruminates a while and says, “Many people have experiences like that. It’s no big problem. I wouldn’t worry.”

“Really? But what could have caused it?”

Issa shrugs. “A seizure maybe.”

“But I don’t remember a seizure.”

“You can have a seizure in your sleep.”

“You’re kidding?”

“If this is your first time, I wouldn’t worry about it at all. Drink your beer.”

“Is that doctor’s orders?”

Issa laughs and lifts his glass. 

“Yes!”

Trust in God. Trust in your friends. Trust in beer. It’s the way of the divine.

Losing It

Tuesday, Oct. 25, 2022

The next morning, with a local boycott in effect against the past two days of Israeli army arrests and home invasions, Hebron road is relatively free of traffic. I take advantage of the blessed quiet to do some writing and reading and long-delayed cleaning in my room.

That evening at five, I head off to meet David and Trudy MacIntosh – the volunteer couple from Canada and my new friends – at our favorite kabob restaurant (Palestinians call it barbecue, not “kabob,” which is perhaps one more Western Orientalism). The storefront diner is a tiny, three-table affair just a block north of campus on Hebron Road. The signage and menu are in Arabic only, always an indication the food will be cheap and locally authentic, not the more expensive imitations served to tourists. The young Palestinian owner is friendly and okay with our pointing to the items in the display case to be grilled. The lamb barbecue is what I always look forward to – tender, fresh chunks of lamb, marinated in subltle Palestinian spices, and removed from the wood-fired oven at the precise moment when they are crispy on the outside and still juicy in the middle.

But when I arrive, David and Trudy are waiting outside on the street. The restaurant is closed.

“I guess they’re part of the boycott today,” David says sadly.

“Do you know another place?” says Trudy, deferring to my more veteran status as someone who has been in Bethlehem seven weeks instead of their three. She and David met 50 years ago while doing mission work in Chicago and now live in Sarnia, Ontario. Both are gentle, thoughtful people looking for ways to serve others and the cause of justice in their retirement. They are the kind of quietly progressive evangelicals the media have forgotten in all the attention given to the antics of right-wing evangelicals.

I tell David and Trudy about a decent shawarma restaurant just a few blocks in the opposite direction on Hebron Road. They say fine and we head off.

But the shawarma place, too, is closed, and so are the other two restaurants I suggest up the hill near Bethlehem University. After all of our fruitless walking, I feel like one of the street con artists who pose as tour guides. Then, on our way back to Hebron Road, David notices that the Alexander Hotel across Ma’laf Street is open. “If they have a restaurant, I bet it’s open, too,” he says.

He’s right. Once we enter the hotel lobby, an older man with a cane greets us in non-accented American English. “Come on in,” he says, pointing to our left, “the buffet is about to be served.” It turns out the man is from Michigan. The two of us trade a few friendly Michigan vs. Ohio barbs and, still laughing, I head off with Trudy and Dave to one of the many empty long tables in the dining room. 

Moments after we sit down, the restaurant floods with passengers from several tourist buses eager for a place to eat. We converse with a few of them who sit down at our table and discover they’re part of a church-sponsored Holy Land tour from Washington, D.C. We welcome them to Bethlehem and offer a few suggestions on places they should visit on their own. Later, though, we share our doubts they’ll be able to leave the cocoon of their tour group to discover the real Holy Land and the suffering of its Palestinian inhabitants.

When the buffet line finally opens, we fill our plates and return to our table. The food is decent, but not so reasonably priced by Palestinian standards ($25 per person, plus drinks). But after all, it’s the only game in town. 

On the walk back to campus, the sun has already set and the mosque tower that looms over the neighborhood glows a soft neon green in the floodlights. The streets are now more crowded with traffic and pedestrians – mostly younger Palestinian men, many in cars or in small groups on foot, with apparently nowhere else to go during the boycott. The boys on bikes are back again, weaving in and out of the traffic without fear.

But the vibe in the air that evening isn’t all that friendly. Voices are just a little louder, just a little more on edge, as greetings and conversation are exchanged between carloads of passengers and pedestrians on the street. The young bike riders, too, seem agitated, but in a festive school-is-out kind of way. Perhaps as part of the boycott, the boys aren’t hawking their usual bottled water and packages of napkins, but simply picking up on the defiance in the air as they daredevil their way through traffic on Moradeh Street.

David, Trudy and I are almost to the intersection at Hebron Road when the first half-filled water and soda bottles land around us on the narrow sidewalk. I look behind and see from the defiant smiles on the faces of the young bike riders the source of the barrage. None of us was hit, and boys will be boys, so we continue walking. But David and I make sure Trudy is inside of us, away from the street, as we round the corner from Moradeh Street onto Hebron Road. Surprisingly, perhaps because of an Israeli roadblock, the road is still free of traffic.

We are only a short distance up the road when we hear more bottles sploshing on the sidewalk behind us. I turn and face a group of four boys standing on their bikes in the middle of Hebron Road, about five yards away. 

“Go home to your parents!” I yell, wishing I knew more Arabic. All but one of them scatter again around the corner. 

The remaining boy is about nine or 10, obese and probably the victim of bullying himself. He lets fly another bottle that lands at my feet and splatters water across my shoes and pants legs.

For most of my adult life I’ve struggled with the hair-trigger temper I inherited from my father. I had thought from my time in Bethlehem, and among people of peace and goodwill at the Bible college, that I had learned at last how to control that temper. But suddenly, in the fraction of a second that the bottle lands at my feet, the adrenaline surges to my brain and I am my old self again.

I pick up the sloshing bottle and fling it with all my angry might just as the boy on the bike turns away. It lands harmlessly in the wake of his speeding wheels and skitters along the asphalt all the way to the intersection with Moradeh Street.

I turn to see David and Trudy standing on the sidewalk in front of the Bible college. They look a bit shocked at what they’ve just witnessed, and I feel the heat of guilt and embarrassment run up my neck. They are both pacifists who would have never lost it the way I did with a sad annoying little boy. Nor certainly would have Christ.

I start walking toward them, ready to apologize for my outburst. But before I can cross the empty road, three young Palestinian men intercept me just short of the narrow concrete divider. 

“Hey,” I tell them, my arms stretched pleadingly at my sides and my body braced for the punches I feel I deserve, “I’m a friend of Palestine. Why are you attacking me?”

One of the young men, not much more than a teenager, places his hand gently on my left shoulder and says in broken English, “We are sorry what happened here. Palestinians are not like that.”

There’s genuine contrition in his eyes and those of the other two young men standing on either side of him. Once again, I’m gobsmacked by the Palestinian mindset, but I recover in time to say, “I’m sorry I lost my temper.”

We nod and shake hands all around and the other two young men finally speak up in the little English they know. “Sorry. Sorry.” 

The four boys are standing at their bikes and watching a safe distance away. 

The three teenagers start walking in their direction, perhaps to give the boys some big brotherly advice. 

I finish crossing the street and find Trudy smiling on the sidewalk with Dave, who still seems a bit shaken.

“It’s been an exciting night, hasn’t it?” Trudy says. 

We all laugh in relief and start down the street to the guesthouse.

Tent of Nations: “We Refuse to be Enemies”

Oct. 26, 2022

At our dinner the night before, David and Trudy told me about a nearby farm I should not miss visiting before leaving Palestine – The Tent of Nations. Our favorite taxi driver, Ishmael, took them there for just 30 shekels. After they give me a quick rundown on the story behind the farm – how it’s surrounded by Jewish settlements, how the Palestinian family there has been fighting for decades in court to keep their land, how their roads have been blocked and their trees destroyed, how volunteers from around the world have come to their aid – I can’t believe I haven’t heard of the farm before. With no time to call ahead and make arrangements for interviews, I decide simply to go there the next morning and learn what I can.

The day starts with the first rain I’ve witnessed in Bethlehem – an early morning thundershower that cools the air fluttering through my curtains and brings with it the smell of dusty pavement. It’s a sign that winter and the rainy season are approaching. By noon, though, the skies will be mostly clear and the temperature will reach 84 degrees.

The taxi driver who meets me at 10 a.m. on Hebron-Jerusalem Road isn’t Ishmael but someone named Ali who says he’s Ishmael’s brother. I suspect “brother” is a loosely-used term in Palestine. Ali is at least 30 years older than Ishmael, with neatly-cropped white hair, a craggy tanned face and an unflappable demeanor behind his gentle smile. He pulls away and snakes expertly through the backstreets of Bethlehem and then onto the country back roads leading to the Tent of Nations. The farm is just 9 miles southeast of the college campus, but it can’t be reached directly from Highway 60 because soldiers have blocked the access.

Access from farm to main road is blocked by dirt and boulders left by settlers.

We arrive almost 30 minutes later at the top of a hill where we find the entrance gate to the farm. The gate is closed to traffic but there’s a side opening for walk-ins. Ali pulls a little up the street and parks and says he’ll wait for me there.

“I’m not sure how long I’ll be,” I tell him.

“That’s okay. I’ll wait.”

“All right. I’ll be back in a couple of hours for sure.” 

But I’m not sure at all.

I walk through the open door in the metal gate and find a small stone tablet on the ground to the right. Engraved in English and German are the words: “We refuse to be enemies.” 

From the farm’s website, I know this to be just one of the doctrines that guide the Tent of Nations. In all, there are four:

We refuse to be victims.

We refuse to hate, and no one can force us to hate.

We act based on our Christian faith.

We believe in justice.

I begin the ascent up the dusty curving road toward a one-story structure at the top of the hill. On either side of the road volunteers are harvesting olives from rows of trees. Some are on ladders half-hidden in the gnarled branches, shaking branches and plucking at the olives they can reach. The ripe green bounty drops onto the plastic tarps on the ground in a varying staccato pattern. Plunk, plunk… Plunk… Plunk, plunk, plunk. Other volunteers are gathering up the fallen olives, corralling them in the tarp by lifting one side and then the other to form a crease and then funneling the captured olives into large plastic buckets.

The temperatures are in the high 70s, pleasant in the dry heat, with only a few strips of thin clouds high in the air. I look up the hill and see that the small one-story house is fronted by an inviting verandah. I head that way, thinking I’ll find someone in charge. But within several footsteps, a tall young man with a wispy blonde mustache and goatee emerges from a row of olive trees.

“Can I help you?” he says with a smile. 

We shake hands and introduce ourselves. His name is Drew Boggs, a 24-year-old volunteer from Concordia University, a Lutheran college in Nebraska. I explain that I’m a journalist from Ohio looking to write something about the farm.

“Do you know where I can find Daoud?” I ask. 

I had enough time the night before to at least read through the farm’s website. Daoud is Daoud Nassar, who along with his brother Daher own and operate the farm established by their grandfather in 1916. The Nassar family holds a legitimate deed to the land, which is encircled on all sides by five Israeli settlements, all of them illegal under international law. The family has been fighting in Israeli courts to be recognized as legal owners of the 100-acre farm for 32 years, racking up more than $250,000 in legal fees. In that time, the Nassars have faced 28 demolition orders. Each one has had to be fought in court. 

The farm is located in Area C of the West Bank, a designation created by the 1995 Oslo Accords that place the land and its buildings under Israeli military control. Construction of any kind in Area C requires a building permit from the Israelis but few are granted to Palestinians, according to the UN. An estimated 300,000 Palestinians live in 532 residential areas in Area C, along with some 400,000 Jewish settlers in an estimated 230 settlements. The exact number is unknown because the settlements are not publicly registered with the Israeli government.

To honor their grandfather, family members lovingly refer to the land as “Daher’s Vineyard.” Today, it is officially called the “Tent of Nations,” a Biblical reference that implies all are welcome there who come in peace, regardless of their religion or national origin.

“Daoud isn’t here right now,” Drew says. “He’s spending the morning in court but he should be back by noon or so.” 

I think now about Ali waiting in the cab. I’ll have to try to reach Daoud later. 

“Do you have a few minutes to talk,” I ask Drew, “or am I keeping you from your work?”

“No. We were just about to take a break anyway. We started at like 7 this morning.”

I ask Drew how he got interested in volunteering at Tent of Nations.

“Through an organization called Experience Mission. We have local partners on the ground that connected us with Daoud. That’s how we got started here.”

Drew says he’s been working at the farm for two weeks. Today, they’re beginning the olive harvest, which should take them several days more. There are thousands of trees on the farm’s hundred acres – olive, almond, apple and fig – along with wheat fields and grape vineyards. The bounty is planted on narrow terraces along the hillside and buttressed by walls of stacked limestone, the way land has been cultivated here for centuries. 

Drew says he was drawn to the farm’s message of non-violent resistance and Christian steadfastness against the Israeli occupation. “It’s very encouraging to hear about a group that’s peacefully fighting back. It sounds like an oxymoron but their main slogan is, ‘We refuse to be enemies.’ It’s a way to recognize the (injustice of the) situation and oppose it by simply staying alive. They continue to cultivate the land and harvest the area and do all this work while they are continually resisting (legal orders to vacate) imposed on them.”

From the ridgetop road where we stand, we can see three of the five Jewish settlements on hillstops surrounding the farm. Closest is Neve Daniel, less than a half mile away to the east. Under the late morning sun, the settlements gleam white and uniform in their cubicle-like construction, like Lego villages in the distance. The settlements seem innocent, harmless, until you learn the history of their treatment of the Nassar family.  

One of five illegal settlements surrounding Tent of Nations.

Starting in 1991, when Israel declared state ownership of the farm, settlers began harassing the family with physical attacks and destruction of their property, culminating in 2002 when they “cut down our trees and tried to build roads on our land, which we managed to stop legally. But they damaged hundreds of olive trees,” Daoud tells me later by phone. The Israeli army, however, has wreaked the worst damage. “The biggest destruction we had was in 2014 – over a thousand fruit trees in the valley were destroyed and burned.”

I ask Drew if he has personally witnessed any harassment from settlers in the time he’s volunteered here. “No, because one of the reasons volunteering is so important is the probability of a clash (with settlers) decreases when there’s international people on the property.” 

Daoud later confirms that attacks from settlers ceased after 2002 when volunteers – mostly from Germany, UK, Canada and the U.S. – began working on the farm. Still, it took Daoud 11 years of recruiting efforts through church groups and travel agents to find the first two people willing to help his cause. He says the struggle was understandable. In the 1990s, many people outside Palestine had no idea of the suffering imposed by the occupation. The farm also had the barest of amenities to offer at the time – sleeping in caves or tents and dealing with the unpredictability of water and power. But interest has steadily grown over the last two decades, and so has the farm’s infrastructure, which is now served by its own systems of solar power and recycled water. In 2019, the year before the pandemic, the farm hosted 13,000 international guests and hundreds of working volunteers. 

Drew and I are met by a group of a half dozen or so Arab teenagers on a tour of the farm coming down the hill. They ask where we’re from. The four girls in the group are obviously smitten with Drew, glancing shyly at him and then teasing and laughing among themselves. One asks in English how old Drew is.

When he answers 24, they all start giggling. Drew asks how old they are. One of them answers 21, and the rest start giggling again. 

When the group leaves to catch their school bus, I ask Drew if he can spare 10 minutes or so to show me around.

“It will probably take a little more time than 10 minutes. I’ll let my team know real quick.” And he disappears a moment into the rows of olive trees.

I look around at the settlements I can see on the other three hilltops, in particular the one due east of the farm, Neve Daniel. Where I’m standing, the farm feels like an embattled outpost with nowhere to hide. Hilltop locations are the preference for settlers, and not just for their views. Strategically, they are easier to defend against attack. Both are reasons the Israelis covet the Nassar farm, the last Palestinian hilltop in the area and the only land buffer between the settlers and the Palestinian village of Nahalin in the valley to the northwest.

“You can almost see the people in that huge settlement across the valley,” I say to Drew when he returns, pointing to Neve Daniel.

“Oh yeah,” he says. “That works both ways.”

Just then a new Toyota pickup truck enters through the open gate and ascends the road, kicking up clouds of white dust as it approaches. There’s Arabic lettering on the door panels and two men with beards in the cab.

“I wonder what they want?” Drew says, watching the truck carefully as it passes us and continues up the hill.

“Who are they?”

“They’re from the (Palestinian) municipality.” 

Health and housing inspectors from the PA are one more challenge the farm has to face, Drew says. With Israeli law preventing the farm from building anything above ground, it uses a system of tents and caves for housing and storage. The farm and the Nassars, however, are still held to the same Palestinian housing and health codes as any other development, Drew explains.

“Are you staying in one of the caves?”

Drew says he’s living with a host family in Bethlehem. Most volunteers, he says, choose to commute rather than sleeping in a cave or a tent.

We head up the road to the house and verandah. Drew explains the building is the dining and break area for workers at the farm. When we arrive, we find other young volunteers sitting at the three picnic tables under the verandah. 

A large kettle of Palestinian spiced tea – black tea with a touch of sage and a little honey – is warming on a burner atop the verandah’s stone railing. Drew and I both grab nearby cups and fill them from a ladle in the pot. The aromatic brew is warm but not steaming.

Drew says hi to an older couple, both in their 60s or 70s, as they arrive for their break. They go first to the kettle and bring back cups of tea to sit at our picnic table. 

The couple introduces themselves as Jane and Max Carter, retired faculty from Guilford University, a Quaker college in North Carolina. By the way they smile in tandem and sit comfortably next to each other at the table, you can tell they have been happily married for many years. Jane, 69, is a bit hippie-ish, with wireframe glasses and thick silver hair down to her shoulders. Max, 74, sports a straw sun hat and a flowing white beard whose length would be the envy of ZZ Top guitarists. Both are witty and outgoing.

When I reveal I’m a journalist from Cincinnati, Jane has a moment of what Kurt Vonnegart would call “granfalloon.” 

“Cincin-naughty!” she chuckles. “I went to school at Earlham (a Quaker college in nearby Indiana). And my brother was at Dennison. We’ve both been out to that area.”

Max asks if I write for the Cincinnati Enquirer. I tell him I’m retired, but freelance for the monthly magazine there.

“And you’re not covering the Bengals?” he quips.

I laugh. “That’s about all that gets covered there, unfortunately.”

“We’re just here for the week,” Jane says. “We bring groups (of Quaker college students) in the summer to Ramallah – to the Friends School there. And then we do education from the extremes of both sides – Israelis and Palestinians. But we always come here when we visit and we wanted to do the olive harvest. It’s our first time. It’s hard work but I’m having a blast.”

Max chuckles. He’s not so sure climbing ladders and handling heavy tarps is a blast at their ages.

Max, who retired as head of the Friends Center at Guilford in 2015, has made 38 trips in all to Palestine – including a dozen to the Tent of Nations – starting in 1970 as his alternative service during the Vietnam War. In their 48 years of marriage, Jane has joined him for about 10 of the trips, her first in 1979 with their ten-month-old and three-year-old children. “Our three-year-old is now 46,” Jane says proudly, and rightfully so. “She’s a professor of international relations with an emphasis on Middle Eastern studies.”

Each year, the couple brings at least 10 to 15 students to Palestine. “What you see on the ground, you can’t unchange that. And once you see that, you see the two-state solution is dead. You’ve got to have some other options.” 

Next year they plan to bring a group of students to volunteer in Palestine but also to study the impact of the occupation on the indigenous Christian community, “which, of course, has been decimated,” Max says. In 1947, prior to the Arab-Israeli War, about 9 percent of Palestine was Christian. Today the figure is between 1 and 2 percent.

“Everyone assumes it’s because of the tensions with the Muslims,” Max says. “It’s not. It’s economics and politics. The Christians are just better educated” than Muslims (thanks to Western-sponsored private schools) and find more opportunities abroad.

“They want their kids to have a better life, so they send them away,” Jane says. 

I recall, though, the owner of the Bon Appetit restaurant in Bethlehem, who was disheartened because his teenage children were determined to leave.

“We have a bunch of graduates from the Friends School in Ramallah who came to Guilford through their Quaker connection and they ended up staying” in the U.S., Max says. “They have a good life. They established businesses…”

Jane interrupts, “And we also had people who came back to Palestine.” 

True, some do, such as Rifat Kassis’ children. But they seem to be the exceptions these days.

I tell Max and Jane how much I’ve come to admire the work of Quakers and Mennonites in Palestine. 

“We got no sense,” Max jokes. “We’re proud to be obedient (to God). Not necessarily successful. We’ll actually go back (to the States) and tell people what we saw. And they say, ‘No, that’s not true. That’s not true.’ Because they’ve learned other narratives. And anything contrary to that is not fact, unless they see it. And so we just try to bring them here and, when they see it, they can’t deny it.”

I ask Max to explain what he said earlier, that there’s no longer hope for a two-state solution. His answer is much the same as Yahav, my Jerusalem tour guide, who called the map of Palestine “a Jackson Pollock painting.”

“If the Palestinians are to have a state, it needs to have borders, it needs to be contiguous. And they need to have access to their own resources and control over their own destinies,” Max explains. “Well, contiguous is gone. And Israel insists that they will maintain control over both borders. And they have lost most of their resources to the Israelis. The World Bank estimates that if the Palestinians had control of their own resources – the limestone quarries, the water, the agriculture – they would add about $7 billion to their Gross Domestic Product.” In 2021, the World Bank estimated Palestine’s GDP at just over $18 billion. 

“Here in area C, which is over 60 percent of the West Bank, Israel has total control over everything,” Max continues. “Where (Palestinians) own the land, where they have title to it, they can’t get permission from Israel to do anything. There are demolition orders on everything above ground.

“But even if you’re in Area A (under the Palestinian Authority), you don’t have control of your resources or your border. In Ramallah, which is the de facto capital of Palestine, you’re allowed water twice a week, and everyone stores it in those tanks (on building rooftops) while the settlements get unlimited resources. If you’re a Palestinian, of course, you can’t define the borders because you can’t travel. You can have limited control within Area A but you have to have permission from Israel to travel outside Area A.”

“We have friends who have not been outside the borders of Ramallah for many, many years,” Jane adds.

Other solutions to the military occupation are being discussed by peace activists on both sides, Max says. One such proposal, he says, is “one homeland, two nations. So live wherever you want. If you’re a settler over there (he points to a settlement on one of the hills), you’re a citizen of Israel. If you live in Nahalin (he points to the Palestinian town in the valley), you’re a citizen of Palestine. 

“You live wherever you want – Israel or British-mandate Palestine – but with co-equal rights. Your regulations and your laws define your nationality. Switzerland figured it out centuries ago. They’ve got Italians, French and Germans all living there, and they have these cantons” where each jurisdiction has its own constitution, legislature, executive, police, and courts under a federal umbrella. 

“You know, we’re intelligent people,” Max says. “We can figure it out.”

He adds that one of the biggest obstacles to the U.S. pressing for a compromise are the Christian Zionists who believe the Second Coming of Christ can’t occur until Jews again control all of the Biblical Holy Land.

Christian and Jewish Zionists have a complicated relationship, to put it mildly. By way of illustration, Max says they took a study group 20 years ago to Carnation Row, one of the biggest settlements in the northern West Bank, where the group was given a tour by an Israeli guide. “It was the headquarters for an organization called Christian Friends of Jewish Communities. The Christian Zionists in America send millions of dollars to the settlement colonies to make sure these are not going to be given back to the Arabs.” 

A member of their tour asked the guide if she were aware of the theology of Christian Zionists, who believe that when Jesus does return, everyone who hasn’t converted to Christianity, including the Jews. will be slaughtered during the Battle of Armageddon.

“The guide laughed and said, ‘Oh, we know all about that. We can’t be that choosy about who our friends are. And besides,’ she said, ‘Among those of us in the settlement, we have a little in-joke. When the Messiah comes, we will ask him just one question, ‘Is this your first or second visit?’” 

Jane says they used to call their trips to Palestine “the ministry of recognition” because, in the 1970s and ‘80s, few others in the U.S. were traveling to Palestine or acknowledging the existence of Palestinians.

In 1972, after finishing his two years of alternative service, Max says, “I went back (to the States) and was describing Palestinians in the simple terms of the hospitality you experience here. People back home, their jaws just dropped. Why, they sound like humans! Their understanding of Palestinians was that they’re all terrorists. There were people who simply would not believe our stories about their generosity. So a lot of our early work was just humanizing the Palestinians.”

When we’ve finished our tea, Drew and I say our goodbyes to the Carters and resume our tour. We head farther uphill toward the animals kept at the farm. I can hear a donkey braying and a rooster crowing.

The donkey is free to range behind a tall metal wire fence and munch on scrub brush gathered from the farm. The hens are in a large wooden coop of their own. They come out to peck at the bits of seed scattered on the ground. Toward the back of the lot is a wall of smaller shelters for pigeons. 

We pass by the farm’s compost toilets, a series of four wooden stalls and a shared sink at the end. Composting saves water and provides fertilizer for the farm as well. Throughout the farm acreage, you see drain holes and pipes that collect rain water and funnel it into separate cisterns for watering the crops and for cleaning and drinking.

As we walk the smaller pathways through the farm, volunteers are working all around us. “Yeah, it’s a big volunteer week,” Drew says. “I’ve never seen so many volunteers here. The olive harvest really brings people out of the woodwork. My team has been picking for the past four weeks. It’s just different people from different organizations.” 

Farther down the hill is a long plateau – the length of two football fields and half as wide – just before the hillside plunges into the valley below. The first half of the plateau is a herb and vegetable garden for feeding the farm workers as well as serving as an education and activities center for children who come to summer camp at the farm.

By the garden fence stands a metal shield with an olive tree painted on it and this passage from Romans: “In all these things we are more than conquerors through Him who loved us.”

Beyond the garden is a soccer field, empty at this time of day. The Hebrew school at the Neve Daniel settlement across the valley is so close you can hear the excited voices of children on the playground.

“Being here engages all of the senses in experiencing the occupation,” Drew says, and goes on to explain. 

There’s the smell of smoke from the farm’s burn pile. The view of the settlements on the surrounding hilltops. The sound of heavy machinery carving inexorably into the hillsides to create more accommodations for the settlers. And, of course, the sound of playing children who might someday grow up to be at peace with their Palestinian neighbors. Who knows? In children there is always hope.

Drew says the soccer field and garden education center were placed purposely in view of the Hebrew School and its students. “So while they’re in school being brainwashed and told that Palestinians are less than people and need to be pushed out, the kids are looking out the window at this field and seeing kids that are just like them playing. So hopefully then they ask their teachers, ‘Oh, what about those kids? What are they doing? Do they need to be expelled?’ So that’s one of the non-violent ways (the Nassars) are trying to fight for their land.”

We arrive at the bottom of the hill where another access road comes into the farm from Route 60. Down that road about a half mile you can see a chest-high pile of boulders and dirt blocking its width. “Whenever we come from Bethlehem,” Drew says, “we have to walk up the road because of the roadblock down there. It makes it less appealing to come here because you have to drive all the way around and come in from the back of the farm (where the gate is). So the ride is like 20 or 30 minutes from Bethlehem instead of about 10 minutes. It’s a kind of mental persecution, making things harder, trying to break people down.”

We continue our loop toward the entrance gate and, from there, the main road up to the verandah.

The Israelis have also tried more positive tactics to take over the farm. When settler harassment and legal challenges failed to move the Nassars off their land, Daher received a phone call from a man who wanted to remain anonymous. “His offer was an open check,” Daoud says. “I don’t know from whom, actually, because this was received by phone. Somebody who wouldn’t mention his name called my brother and said, ‘Well, what are you doing there? It’s a hopeless case, and so on. Why not sell the land and we offer you a blank check.’ We assumed this was from the Israelis but this guy did not mention his name and where he was coming from.” 

The family more recently has been the victim of anonymous attacks as well. In January 2022, Daoud and Daher were hospitalized after 15 men in masks and armed with iron bars and large sticks beat them and destroyed trees on the farm before vanishing again. Daoud won’t speculate on who the attackers may have been.

As we head back along the path to the main gate, Daher, taking a break from the olive harvest, emerges from the grove and introduces himself. He’s a gentle bear of a man in his late 50s with a drooping mustache, broad shoulders and a round belly over his jeans. As the elder of the two brothers, Daher is the hands-on farming half of the duo while Daoud is the spokesman and legal representative. Daher tells me his brother is on the way but may not be available until later that afternoon. “He usually comes with a tour group for lunch and gives them a talk afterwards,” he says.

Daher Nassar, who was hospitalized in 2022 after he was beaten by masked intruders.

We are almost to the main road when I ask Drew if he has time to show me the caves on the farm. From the Tent of Nation’s website, I know that the Nassar family once lived in those caves while farming the land. But Drew tells me the caves are no longer used as living quarters but have been turned into conference rooms and education centers.

The three caves were first developed by Daher and Daoud’s grandfather, also named Daher, who bought the land and registered it in 1924-25 when Palestine was still ruled by Britain – a period known as the British Mandate. Back then it wasn’t unusual for Palestinian farmers to live in caves. The hillsides are honeycombed with natural dwellings that offer the advantage of being cool in summer and warm in winter. In a later interview by phone, Daoud tells me, “This is what my grandfather said: his children should grow up there in order to protect the land, to make the earth their home, not just a farm, but their home. My grandfather believed we all belonged to the earth and that there was no need to build a house.”

Daoud’s father and uncle grew up in the caves and worked the land with their parents and continued the work after they died. The brothers spent all their lives on the farm until Daoud’s father died in 1976 and his uncle died in 1987. It was that year that Daoud and his brother Daher moved to Bethlehem to start their schooling. But on days off and on holidays and vacations, they returned to the farm and continued the work there.

When Drew and I start up the hill again to the verandah, a black Nissan sedan enters the gate and stops beside us on the road. Daoud steps out of the passenger side and smiles as he extends a hand. He’s still dressed in a dark suit and white shirt with open collar from his court appearance that morning. At 52, Daoud’s hair looks a bit like a salt-and-pepper Chia Pet – a shorter version of a Jewish ‘fro. Gleaming white teeth show from a neatly-trimmed beard and broad, tanned face. His wide-shouldered frame is a smaller, less rotund version of his older brother.

Daoud Nassar talking to volunteers.

I tell Daoud I’m a journalist from Cincinnati, Ohio and, without my realizing it, I immediately establish a personal connection. I learn later that the parents of Daoud’s wife live there and Daoud has visited the Cincinnati area on a number of occasions. 

In the little time that he has, Daoud tells me he spent the morning in an Israeli military court only to learn that his case has once again been delayed. We agree to a later interview by phone when he has more time.

The legal struggle for the Nassars began in 1991 when military authorities declared their farm Israeli state land. But the authorities were caught off guard when the Nassars produced numerous documents to prove their ownership. Unlike many Palestinians who sought to avoid property taxes, the Nassars never failed to register their land – from the original registration under the British Mandate and continuous re-registrations under Jordanian rule of the West Bank after 1948 and again under Israeli rule following the 1967 Six-Day War. But instead of closing the case in 1991, the court simply postponed it repeatedly, counting on harassment of the Nassar family to force them into moving. 

It didn’t work.

Finally, in 2002, the military court ruled against the family. So the Nassars took their case to the Israeli Supreme Court. “Like the old widow,” Daoud says, “we keep knocking at the door, keep exhausting the system, keep embarrassing the system, even though the system is unjust for us.” 

In 2007, the Israeli Supreme Court couldn’t ignore the fact that the family had thorough documentation of their ownership. But rather than rule in the Nassars’ favor, the court pushed the case back to the military authorities – with one positive ruling. The military authorities could not stop the Nassars from re-registering their land as a private farm. So the family began anew the expensive and tedious process of preparing documents, filing paperwork, conducting another land survey and gathering signatures of agreement from their neighbors. 

After several more postponements, the military court claimed the family had not submitted enough documents and ordered the process to start yet again. When the family resubmitted their documents in 2013, the military court said they lost the family’s file.

The whole application process was repeated anew in 2015 and finally, in 2019, the family got a positive answer from the military court that the next steps could proceed. An Israeli re-registration committee had to inspect the farm to confirm the boundaries themselves and all the neighbors had to be there to sign again. That process was successfully completed in July 2020. 

And that’s when the delays began yet again. 

The re-registration committee did not meet until September of 2021. Court hearing dates were postponed on Dec. 13, 2021; Jan. 16, 2022; May 2, 2022; and Oct. 22, 2022, the day of my visit to the farm. On Nov. 21, 2022, the Nassars finally had their day in court – and the representative from the Israeli military failed to show up.

Then in January of 2023, Netanyahu’s new government of right-wing extremists announced a plan to allow parliament to overturn some Supreme Court rulings and grant the government more say in nominations to the bench. Curtailing the powers of Israel’s highest court not only threatens the rights of Israeli citizens, hundreds of thousands of whom have taken to the streets in protest, but the few remaining rights of Palestinians perhaps even more so. Daoud won’t comment on the implications of the so-called “judicial reform” plan but it’s clear that, without the veto power of Israel’s highest court, the family farm is totally at the mercy of settlers and the Israeli military.

Throughout the decades of hurdles and abuses that would test the patience of a modern-day Job, Daoud has kept a positive outlook. “So far we are still here and we haven’t lost any part of the land. Which makes it, if not the only case, one of the rare cases that are still in court since 1991.”

Daoud says it’s the family’s Christian faith that has kept them persevering, both in the protection of their land and in hope for a solution to the Israeli military occupation of Palestine.

“As Christians, we are the people of the Resurrection. We are the people of hope,” he says. “And that’s why it’s important to show that the situation here is very tough, very difficult. But we are called to make a difference. So we are living in that hope, trying to change the reality. It’s important to me that we lift people up with our message, with our story, and that they are inspired to seek changes in their own communities, no matter how hopeless it may seem. 

“That is what we have to give the world.”

Departure

Friday, Oct. 29, 2022

The goodbyes are over. Gifts and hugs and handshakes all given by my students and colleagues at the college. Then a final drink with Asim. A last dinner with the Bushes and the McIntoshes.

Students pose with their “diplomas” on the last day of classes.

A “thank you” poster from the author’s students.

The college will have a taxi waiting for me at 3 a.m. for the ride to Tel Aviv airport, where my plane leaves at 6:25 a.m. Then on to London, Atlanta, and finally Cincinnati at midnight the same day. I’m packed and ready to go. I’ve left my room as clean as possible. Bed stripped, floor swept, bathroom scoured, improvised toilet seat “holder” removed. 

There’s not much I can do about the wine stain on the white wall in front of my computer table, where I tipped over my glass one evening while trying to write and eat dinner at the same time. I vow again to drink less, something that will perhaps be easier to do once I leave the stress here behind.

After weeks of typing in a straightback chair and failing to keep up with my floor exercises, my recurring sciatica has caught up with me, this time my left hip and leg. I’m dreading the agony of twelve hours in flight strapped down to an airline seat. But I’m looking forward to seeing my daughter Maddy again, my Cincinnati friends, and Karen, although we still want to take things slowly, she as much as me.

Waiting alone under a streetlamp for the taxi, my suitcase and backpack close by my feet, I take another look at my phone and the most recent exchange with Karen. Two days before, I’d sent her a link to a story in The Times of Israel about the escalating violence in Nablus, “IDF: Lion’s Den leader, 4 other gunmen killed, bomb factory destroyed in Nablus raid”

Karen: Glad to have read your diary entry before this article. But it’s what I’d expect from the Times of Israel—“terrorists,” “bomb factory.”

Me: I can’t wait to meet one of those “theological terrorists.” Wait a minute. I think I did. They’re called nuns!

Karen: That merits a 😂

Karen: Here’s how NYT reported on Nablus. (She includes the link)

Me: Whoa! Much less biased. Maybe America is learning.

Karen: Or the NYT caught flak one time too many for its longstanding Zionist bias 😉I was pleased to see greater balance, as well.

Karen: Op-Ed by an Israeli comic and pro-Palestinian peace activist. (Another NYT link.)

Me: Powerful piece. And I get the Coke Zero reference completely. I used to ask for Diet Coke when I first got here. Like the old SNL routine, the answer was always, “No diet. Coke Zero.”

Karen: LOL!

Me: I’ll miss the people here but not the living conditions. Hurt my lower back from not having a computer chair. And I’m dying to ride my bike again. I’ll have to. I think I’ve regained all my lost weight from pita. It’s absolutely delicious here and served in abundance with every meal.

Karen: Well, the weather has been chilly but mostly sunny in our little region, so you should be able to bike pre-surgery. And fresh pita is nothing like the hard cardboard stuff in American groceries! But you’ll be back to your keto ways soon😉

Me: Don’t know if I can go back to keto. Not after the killer pita. 😂

Afterword – Whither Palestine? Whither Israel?

I fell back into The Pattern less than a week after my return, scouring Match for someone like Karen, only without the long-distance commute. The problem was, if I were being honest with myself, there was no one quite like Karen. Smart, witty, attractive, supportive. Someone who shared both my love of words and my political views. Someone who, in fact, had much to teach me about the world and myself.

The sudden “ghosting” by Olivia, the Match candidate who cut me off the moment she realized I supported the Palestinian cause, finally brought that message home to me. I couldn’t hope for a better partner than Karen. And since my return, we have grown only closer – deeper in our trust, deeper in our love. I’m even getting used to sleeping with her two adorable felines. (Well, maybe not ON me.) I’m happy to report that Karen and I are life partners in the making – the details yet to be worked out. Stay tuned.

So where am I in my spiritual journey? As I enter my 70s, I’m on quite a different trajectory than the earlier times in my life when I went seeking faith in a higher power. The growing awareness of mortality brings so many things in our lives into focus – a cataractal lens, if you will, that filters out the extraneous, the unessential, the fleeting, the illusory. What’s left? Only one thing – love. Love of God, love of others. Whether Christ was divine or divinely inspired is not a debate that much interests me, and I don’t mean to be flippant in a way to disrespect anyone who has made that choice one way or the other in their own faith journey. I found enough evidence of both God and Christ during my time in Palestine – in its people, in its rich history, in its very ambience – to buoy my own faith to the end of my life. After that, it’s in God’s hands. My only hope is that I would have done enough in this life to help advance whatever plan that high power has in mind.

True liberation comes from being connected to something larger than our own lives. Some would call it grace, “the peace beyond understanding.” It’s with that grace that I’ve learned better ways to control and channel my temper. Despite my setback in the streets of Bethlehem, my cooler head has prevailed now over these many months. I no longer own my anger in the sense that I can lay claim to its righteousness, that somehow I have a right to it. I leave those things to God, and, in turn, my anger no longer owns me.

But as I write this nearly six months after leaving Bethlehem, things have gotten far worse for the people and the land I left behind. Israel has taken a hard turn to the Right, marked by the return of Benjamin Netanyahu after a year-long hiatus. A coalition of right-wing and religious zealots threatens to turn Israel into what so many Americans now fear for our own country – an authoritarian government intolerant of diversity and ready to impose its iron will on any group of people who do not share the same identity or religious beliefs.

Soon after the Israeli fanatics took power in November, they began fast-tracking legislation that limits the powers of the judiciary and subordinates the country’s Supreme Court to the ruling coalition’s bare majority in parliament. Besides the attack on the judiciary, cabinet appointees have taken aim at freedom of the press and speech. The communications minister has threatened to funnel money away from Israel’s public broadcast system to a media channel favoring the government. Likewise, the minister of heritage has accused Reform Jewish organizations of endangering Jewish identity.

Opponents in Israel have taken to the streets in many thousands to protest. Joining them to warn against Israel’s descent into autocracy are members of the Israeli military establishment and even the powerful American Jewish community that has long supported Israel as a “Jewish democracy.”

But any compromise between protestors and the new right-wing coalition – a compromise that President Biden has tried to facilitate – has dangers of its own. In the words of Marwan Bishara, the senior political analyst for Al Jazeera:

The more sinister and dangerous ramification of such compromise lies in its focusing on Israel’s liberal democracy for the Jews while ignoring its tyranny towards the Palestinians. In fact, reaching any sort of compromise on domestic affairs is sure to free the government’s hand to widen its oppression, deepen its occupation and multiply its illegal settlement.

Why?

Because neither the protesters nor the former generals and the current ranking military clamoring to lead them have shown any interest in reversing or curtailing the government’s expansionist and segregationist policies in Palestine. They don’t or won’t recognise the synergy between the expanding appeal of Jewish supremacy and the sprawling apartheid in Palestine they helped create.

Israeli democracy is under threat but there has never been anything close to democracy for the 5 million inhabitants of Palestine. Like many others living inside and outside of Palestine, I believe there is only one tactic that has any chance of working against Israel’s apartheid system – BDS, or Boycott, Divest and Sanction. And to be effective, BDS must be practiced by Israel’s strongest ally, the United States of America. 

Boycotts have been part of America’s system of free speech since colonial times, a right affirmed during the Civil Rights era by the nation’s highest court. But despite the First Amendment protections, 35 states have passed laws punishing citizens and corporations who dare to boycott Israel. The U.S. Supreme Court, dominated by right-wing conservatives, so far refuses to overturn or, even address, the state bans against BDS. These are the same “patriotic” constitutional “originalists” who glory in the American rebels who boycotted English tea “as taxation without representation” and dumped 342 chests of the stuff into Boston Harbor just to make their point.

In April of 2023, I attended a rally in Cincinnati in support of Palestinian freedom. Fifty or so people showed up to march with signs and flags and to chant protests through the busy streets of Cincinnati’s Over-the-Rhine business district. But fewer than a dozen of those protestors were non-Palestinians. That disappoints me because I know that spending time in Palestine, as I did, would persuade many Americans of the urgency and worthiness of the cause. I know, too, that many Americans who might support Palestinian freedom – progressives who would go to the mat for any other oppressed group –  are simply afraid. Afraid to offend their Jewish friends, afraid to risk their jobs, their careers, their business connections. Again, we need only look to Christ as an example, someone who, after moments of doubt and agony, gave his life to the cause of peace, justice, and fellowship among all humanity.

Sadly, one of those non-Palestinian protestors, a student at a local university, asked me before the march if she risked hurting her future by joining us in the protest. It nearly broke my heart. I told her simply to do what was right and that she would never be alone. But why in America, in a country where freedom of speech supposedly reigns, must good people fear expressing what they feel is right and just? 

In the weeks following my return from Palestine, I wanted to see the big picture, to hear the opposing points of view and to measure those views against what I saw on the ground. I sought interviews with local representatives on both sides of the Palestinian-Israeli issue. The first was over a friendly evening of dinner and drinks with Brian Jaffee, chief executive of the Jewish Foundation of Cincinnati and former director of the national youth program for the American Israel Public Affairs Committee (AIPAC). Jaffee also volunteers as the board chair of Heart of a Nation, a non-profit group that brings together “thought leaders and activists” from America, Israel and Palestine to find ways to better each of their countries and develop a mutual respect for their respective challenges.

A native of Oberlin, Ohio, where both of his parents were school teachers, Jaffee has been to Israel 16 times, beginning with an academic “gap” year after high school working on an Israeli kibbutz and volunteering and studying in Jerusalem. He believes Israel “is still a work in progress, like our country is, like you and I are as human beings. Who among is perfect? We all have work to do. Israel has a lot of work to do.”

But while Jaffee agrees that the Israeli military occupation and its restriction on the rights of Palestinian people “must change,” he doesn’t offer much practical insight or hope as to how that might happen. He admits that “you can’t make a state out of Palestine the way it exists now” and, with the growing number of Jewish settlements, a two-state solution “gets harder and harder year by year.” 

A one-state solution? That wouldn’t work either, he says, because of a lack of trust on both sides. “There are not enough reasons for Palestinians to trust Israelis based on the occupation and the way the Palestinians are treated. And I think there’s a lot of legitimacy as to why Israelis wouldn’t trust a one-state solution either, or that the Jewish character of that state would be respected” by Palestinians.

The settler problem? Jaffee says he doesn’t think the Israeli government can justify a legal recognition of the settlements but he doesn’t see how they can be stopped now either. “I don’t know what that (opposition) would be. Like you said yourself, the map has changed dramatically in the last 50 years.”

This gist of what Jaffee tells me is this: the occupation amounts to a fait accompli for the millions of Palestinians being denied their human rights and driven from their land. 

Will BDS, if given a chance under U.S. law, lead to a change in Israel’s treatment of Palestinians? “I just don’t think that’s a practical or helpful tool to use for peacemaking,” Jaffee says. “If you’re singling out and demonizing one side or the other, or leveraging people through tools in a one-sided way, it’s not engendering any confidence in a partnership. And it’s not going to get the Israeli government to dismantle settlements or change any of the other policies it needs to change. So it’s just not effective.”

Supporters of BDS counter that the occupation is one-sided to begin with – stacked against any future for a Palestinian state or self-governance. To argue that there is an equivalency between the experiences of Palestinians and Israelis is to deny history and truth itself.

My friend John Wagner believes BDS can still be an effective tool for change. He’s been at the national forefront among U.S. Christian Churches to adopt BDS as part of their commitment to Christian values. A long-time United Method pastor, Wagner retired in 2022 after 12 years of leadership in UMC for Kairos Response, the church’s national advocacy movement for justice in Palestine.

“I keep going back to the example of South Africa,” Wagner says. International boycotts and sanctions against white colonial rule in that country played a key role in ending its racial apartheid in 1990. “I’m sure (the South African colonial leaders) said the same thing. ‘We will resist. You will not pressure us.’ The business community there finally said, ‘We have to be part of the community of nations and (ending apartheid) is part of that.’”

The goal of BDS is not solely economic, Wagner says. “It’s a non-violent moral action to highlight an injustice. We know we’re not going to impact Israel’s economy any time soon, but actions speak louder than words. Our organization says that actions plus words equal hope. Action is like oxygen to the blood. People have to feel like there is something they can do, and it can be incremental as long as it’s part of a longer solution.”

My own action in Palestine falls short of true activism. But I don’t regret my small bit in helping my students learn English and perhaps find their way to better lives, either in what’s left of their homeland or abroad. My two months in Bethlehem not only opened my eyes to the severity and intricacies of suffering among Palestinians, but taught me by their example the power of faith, hope, peaceful resistance and, most of all, trust – trust in the goodness of our fellow humanity and in the ultimate goodness of God.

On every piece of American currency are the words “In God We Trust.” But that trust should never be blind or uninformed. We were given the ability to reason – from whatever higher power – as a means to protect each other and our planet. That reasoning power instructs us to live moral, productive lives of peace and goodwill toward others. Add the element of love – for each other, for our planet, for something larger and more meaningful than ourselves – and anything is possible.

Perhaps it’s true, as both Muslims and Jews believe, that a connectedness exists in the Holy Land between Earth and heaven, whether that connection lies deep in our collective consciousness or in some unknown dimension “out there.” If either is true, the land should be shared in freedom and equality by all those who live there. Certainly, the God of all religions would want it that way.

Peace begins and ends with each of us. As for my own journey, I trust I will continue to find peace within myself and in my partnership with Karen. Like America, like Israel, like Palestine, all of us – alone and together – are works in progress as well. 

May we trust in the goodness God for all our futures.