See No Evil: "The Night In Question"

Twenty years ago today our Prime Minister Yitzhak Rabin was murdered.

A year earlier we returned to Israel after a long stay in the US. From distant Texas the summer of 1994 seemed like a wonderful time to be back in Israel. No one could have guessed that all that would end on October 4th 1995.

I recently took part in “the Narratives Project,” an initiative organized by The Parents Circle-Families Forum (PCFF). It brings together 15 Palestinians and 15 Israelis for several meetings in order to get to know each other and to promote understanding and peace.

The first meeting was for an intensive weekend in Beit Jala. In one of the organized activities we were asked to write down dates with special meaning and to stick the notes on  a rug at the center of the room. 

Please keep reading in the Times of Israel

http://blogs.timesofisrael.com/see-no-evil-the-night-in-question/

About 'My brother wanted to be a jihadi' by Robb Leech

Reading Robb Leech‘s poignant article about his stepbrother: “My brother wanted to be a jihadi – and society is creating many more like him” in The Guardian this morning, one paragraph has struck me as particularly significant .

After his brother Rich had converted to Islam, he constantly talked about fighting Western oppression, but according to Leech:

“I never saw Rich as a terrorist, and didn’t see any of the people he surrounded himself with as terrorists either. What I saw were, and I hate to say it – vulnerable young men – with massive great chips on their shoulders. With their radical new status they felt empowered, superior and perhaps most annoyingly for me, righteous”

Please read more in The Times Of Israel

http://blogs.timesofisrael.com/about-my-brother-wanted-to-be-a-jihadi-by-robb-leech/

How I Became The Enemy Of Peace, Or 28 Minutes’ Drive From Tel Aviv

 JUN.06.2013 

Reflecting upon Barbara Pym’s blindness (which I discuss in my previous post "I don't want to spoil the party") became an opportunity for self-examination; it made me revisit a period in my own life when I too was blind to what was going on around me.

After spending almost 14 years in the US where we lived the American dream -- a lovely family, two daughters, a good job, a house in the suburbs, a garden, and a  car-- we went back to Israel.  There we lived, for several years, in a small apartment in the center of Tel Aviv. Although it was convenient and centrally located, we longed to get away from all the noise and the pollution of  the big city and hoped to recapture our old life in the suburb. 

The “solution” came when I was at the hairdresser's; another client told us about a beautiful community called Oranit only a 28 minutes’ drive from Tel Aviv. Tzvi, my husband and I drove to see it. We loved the location and the community; it was hilly and reminded me of the Carmel mountains in Haifa where I grew up. We drove a little further and saw the border control station about 6 km to the east . Seeing that station we just assumed that Oranit was well within the borders of what is termed “the Green Line” (the pre 1967 borders of Israel). Soon we found a house that we both loved. The owners, a very nice family with two daughters, just like ours, were going to be our next-door neighbors. We made an offer on the house and met to sign the papers at the lawyer's office. Then to our dismay we discovered that we had  just committed ourselves to buying a house in the occupied territories. It transpired that although Oranit was on the Green Line  it was still considered a settlement.

Because of my political beliefs, had I known that Oranit was on the Green Line I would not have bought a house there. Our blindness could be explained in the fact that we have been away for many years and out of touch (pre-internet days). Thus, we were unfamiliar with the specific details and the differences between communities inside,  on, or outside the green line.  We had seen  the border station several kilometers away and were convinced that we were at a safe distance within the green line.

We lived in Oranit for 7 years and although I loved the place  I always felt uneasy and was apologetic about residing there. In addition,  the political situation in Israel didn’t make things easier. I was used to volunteering and offered to teach at the school in the neighboring Arab village Kefar Kasem. However although we were always welcome there as customers at the stores,  my offer was declined. Also as a settler I was not  welcome as a volunteer in an educational  project of Arabs and Israelis.

 I live now in the area of Tel Aviv; many people have  since moved to Oranit, and it is a prosperous community. I don't know if the newcomers had beem  aware of its “settlement” status before they bought a house there. Many errors happen because we are not in a position to ask the right questions, we can’t imagine what we don’t know until it is too late.

For  me Oranit will always be a symbol of my blindness; a humbling experience.  

p.s. I added a map you could find Oranit on the green line

There Is Always More To The Story

Normally we have certain expectations from our friends, and if those are not met we reconsider the relationship and reach our own conclusions. Earlier this week I was discussing the issue of expectations with a friend and to illustrate a point I gave the example of a remarkable woman I once knew.

We met during the late 70s as graduate students at the University of Toronto Drama Center. She was involved in puppet theater and it became her chosen field of study. Like me she was a foreigner, but she was older than me, and already had a school-age daughter. 

We became good friends, actually she impressed me so much that I even took a workshop in puppetry to  get to know her world better. And she told me about her life, how, in the dark days of Communism,  she escaped from Rumania on her own. She shared her experience at a refugee camp  in Austria where she stayed for several months. Luckily her story had a happy ending, she was granted a political asylum in Sweden where she met her Canadian future husband and he brought her to Toronto.

I had never met such a strong and brave woman, I used to read about women like her in books.

In spite of our plans to stay in town, it transpired that the University of Toronto was not the best fit for my husband and I, and we had to move away. On our last night there we were invited to my friend’s home for dinner. We had a lovely time with her family and when we parted I expressed my wishes that we would keep in touch.

To my dismay my friend said no, that this was it: she explained that although she enjoyed being my friend, as a refugee who had left her family behind, she just never kept in touch. She added that it wasn't personal, those words stung,  I was sad that she didn't make an exception in my case. Still I appreciated her honesty.

Although I listened  to my friend's stories, obviously I never really understood what she has been through and was not aware of the implications of her past experience. How could I?

The impossibility of seeing the big picture was recently demonstrated in a scene from the excellent film Prisoners (2013). The film tells the story of the disappearance of two young girls and the enormous difficulties in locating them. At one point a suspect is held hostage by the fathers of the two girls. In order to get information out of that suspect one of the fathers  psychically tortures him, but to no avail.  What the fathers do not know is that the suspect fears something  much greater  than just physical pain, thus breaking down and talking is not considered an option for him. 

This is an extreme example of a certain kind of blindness, but even in our daily life it is easy to forget that what we see is only partial, and that there is always so much more which we don't know.

Throughout the years I remembered my friend's courage and determination, but her refusal to keep me in her life was even more significant as it taught me an important lesson about my limitations and about  humility.