Another update from Palestine

Krista Johnson – Israel/Palestine
Marhaba! I hope you are all well. I’m sorry that it has taken so long to send another e-mail update! I wrote an entire e-mail to send out, and then it was lost…and for the last week I’ve had trouble typing because of an injury. Unfortunately, last Saturday I was cleaning my apartment and a glass shelf broke in half and fell on my hand. It cut really deeply, down to the bone on my knuckles, and I had to go to the hospital to get stitches.  I had an interesting little adventure a couple weekends ago that I want to describe to you. I joined together with other peace workers to take a tour of unrecognized Bedouin villages in the Negev desert.

Marhaba! I hope you are all well. I’m sorry that it has taken so long to send another e-mail update! I wrote an entire e-mail to send out, and then it was lost…and for the last week I’ve had trouble typing because of an injury. Unfortunately, last Saturday I was cleaning my apartment and a glass shelf broke in half and fell on my hand. It cut really deeply, down to the bone on my knuckles, and I had to go to the hospital to get stitches.  I had an interesting little adventure a couple weekends ago that I want to describe to you. I joined together with other peace workers to take a tour of unrecognized Bedouin villages in the Negev desert.

On Friday afternoon I went down to Hebron to spend the night at the Christian Peacemaker Team (CPT) apartment, so we could leave early the next morning for the south. It wasn’t difficult to get there from Jerusalem. Tracy and I took two buses and arrived in Hebron in less than an hour. The CPT apartment is in the old city, and you get there by walking through a bustling fruit and vegetable market. However, it was Friday and most of the vendors are Muslim, so the old city looked like a ghost town. (Friday is holy day for Muslims, as Saturday is for Jews, and Sunday is for Christians) As we walked through nearly empty fruit market, some young boys decided to start pelting us with rotten fruit and vegetables, and unfortunately they had fairly good aim. Needless to say, I spent part of the afternoon washing tomato out of my clothes. I’m not sure why they did it….sport, because I was dressed in western clothes, because they thought I might be a settler… I don’t know. It was definitely something I’ve never experienced before!

Once we got back to the apartment, I had a chance to go on a tour/CPT patrol of Hebron with a delightful Quaker CPTer in his 70s named John. I had been to Hebron once before with the young adult conference, but I was so busy making sure the group stayed together, that I really didn’t have a chance to absorb the tour. Though Hebron is located in the West Bank, it is the home of one of the holiest sites in Judaism.

Actually the tomb of the patriarchs is a holy place for Jew, Christians, and Muslims. It is where Abraham, Sarah, Isaac, Rebecca, Jacob, and all his wives (except Rachel) are buried. The tomb of the patriarchs has been housed inside a mosque, a church, a synagogue, flipping back and forth over the years. Currently it is half mosque and half synagogue. I can only describe Hebron as a rather intense place- a place of extremes, and this day was no exception. Walking through the streets of the Old City of Hebron, you walk under nets full of trash, that settlers throw down toward the Arab shops…young Palestinian boys were harassing us…walking past the sites of massacres…not knowing in the settlers around the corner are going to start throwing rocks at you or just take a chance to practice their English… With all that said – it is a holy place as well. I’ve had a chance to visit loads of holy sites since I’ve been here. Churches and monasteries built over the sites of the stories of the bible and other holy books. I have to say that my favorite…the one that seemed most genuine and gave me butterflies in my stomach…was in Hebron. After we finished the more political part of the tour, John and I walked up an ancient path up to where the city of Hebron used to be, up on a hill. It is said that this is the path that Abraham would have walked, from the city on a hill; to the land he bought to be the family burial site. At the top of the hill you can see the large square stones, which show us where the walls of the old city used to be, and where the gate to the city was. In the bible, it describes when Abraham bought the land, witnessed by men standing at the gate. It’s likely that we were standing in the spot where Abraham stood, bought the land, and looked down the hill and the land that he had just bought. WOW…this place is just dense with history. And this felt genuine, because it was just a natural landscape, not full of tourists snapping the customary picture. It was powerful.

Back to Jerusalem… My apartment is on the bottom level of a three story building. I live in the bottom and my landlord’s family lives on the top two floors. The father of the family has been battling cancer, and this week he died. He was only in his late 60s when he died- a pharmacist who was obviously a very well-loved and respected member of the community. Because the family is Muslim, he was buried the day that he died and then for the next three days visitors came to the house to pay respects to the family. There are different times when men and women will come – women during the day and men at night. There is a constant stream of visitors. It is a neat tradition. I went today with two of my co-workers who know the family well. We came into the room, the traditional Arab room with couches and chairs lining the walls- ready for visitors. We walked around the circle shaking hands with the women and kissing them on both cheeks. The widow was sitting at the front of the room, surrounded by the women of her family. We sat in silence, except for the qua’ran being sung over a loudspeaker, and were offered small cups of Arab coffee and dates. After we finished our coffee we got up, made the round of handshakes one more time and left.

Leaving the neighborhood was much more difficult than usual because I was driving with my Palestinian friends. I live behind a checkpoint that I have to walk through everyday. However, it is embarrassingly easy for me to pass though the checkpoint because of my American passport. It took my Palestinian co-workers and me about ten minutes to drive to the house from work, but about a half hour to get back to work after that. The soldiers don’t really care who passes through the checkpoint when they’re heading toward the West Bank. However, as I understand it, the only people who are able to pass back out through the checkpoint toward Jerusalem are Israelis, internationals, or people in the neighborhood immediately after the checkpoint that live on the right side of the wall and are able to get a special permit to pass through the checkpoint. Since my co-workers don’t fit into any of those categories we had to take back roads to bypass all the roadblocks and drive toward Ramallah and then through a checkpoint way on the northeast side of Jerusalem, through the a settlement, and then finally back to the road (that is only about 5 minutes away from the first checkpoint) that will take us back to work. It made me realize again that I may be living here and witnessing some of the realities that Palestinians deal with- but sometimes it is difficult to see the true extent of the occupation.

As an American, I am constantly frustrated by my country’s Middle East policy. It was refreshing to have a chance to spend time with one of our congressmen visiting Jerusalem last week. Ohio Rep. Dennis Kucinich was in the region visiting both Lebanon and Israel, and he and his new wife spent the last two days of their visit in Jerusalem. I had a chance to join a group of NGO representatives and to meet with them about how the situation is affecting Jerusalem specifically. He was very interested and pretty soon we were spreading maps out on the table and telling stories. Eventually, the whole group just went out into the Old City for a hands-on tour. It is interesting, and rather frustrating, that a congressmen who is so progressive and makes a point of being interested in this place, and who has made speeches on the floor of congress on behalf of the Palestinian people- really knows so very little about some of the most basic elements of the situation here. Things like the fact that the West Bank and the Gaza trip are so isolated from one another… He took a look at the map and said “this is diabolical!” He didn’t know that there was a West and East Jerusalem, and couldn’t understand why it was so significant that with settlements there were more Jews than Arabs living in East Jerusalem… Anyway, it was a good meeting, and it gave me hope that he was here, even with the state department warnings about traveling here, and that we was really trying to be intentional about hearing both sides of the story. We all ended up having dinner together at the Jerusalem Hotel…continuing the conversation.

I’m sorry that this has been such a long e-mail. I’ll try to write more often and more concisely in the future! Personally, things are going well. I’m really starting to slip into the routine of living here. It’s starting to sink in that this isn’t just another summer job- this place will be home for the next couple years. I’m still studying Arabic and next week I’m going to start taking dabka (traditional Palestinian dancing) lessons.

Thanks for reading, and I hope to hear back from you about all the things going on in your corner of the world as well! Your support means so much to me!

Salaam,
Krista

Krista Johnson is a Global Mission Intern with the Sabeel Ecumenical Liberation Theology Center in Jerusalem. She serves as a Program Assistant. Her ministry is possible because of funds provided by the Week of Compassion of the Christian Church (Disciples of Christ).