the exile within

The so-called conflict between Israel and the Palestinians is anything but symmetric. This is something that comes into stark focus this morning as I take a jog around my new home away from home here in Israel: the Abu Tor neighburhood in Jerusalem. It is a 15 minute walk south of the Old City and one of the only mixed areas in the municipality. By “mixed” I mean to say that in the high places sit the more expensive, white-washed Jewish houses (often adorned these days with stringed Israeli flags) while in the lower areas there is the more haphazard Arab buildings with their grocery stores and hair salons and broken pavements. Topography becomes very important when you come to a place like Jerusalem. On the roads in you can hear the strain of all the Japanese cars as they insistently climb to reach a city that is supposed to be holy. But then they say wars can be holy, so I guess Jerusalem can be too. All the Israeli Jews I told my plans to move to Jerusalem responded in the same way: “Jerusalem? But why?!”. For many of them, Jerusalem is a city that had been left behind, a kind of sacrifice made to tourists and religious fanatics so that the rest of us can live in peace. “Jerusalem of Gold”, one of the most famous Israeli songs by Naomi Shemer, is like a postcard from the previous owners of a greatly-loved coffeeshop, now turned another branch of a corporate chain… or to make the analogy more accurate, a worn out bridal gown shop.

In Abu Tor, Jewish Israelis don’t really go down to the Arab streets, and vice versa. But what the hell, I think as I stretch my legs, I’m practically a tourist. As I descend the stairs and turn around to face the road, a lot comes into view. In the distance I can see the Separation Wall, confirming our suspicion about its silhouette from last night. Just south of our street there is the Peace Forest, a small grove of pine trees. As I run downhill into the Arab area, I can see the Old City coming into view, the outer walls and the golden Dome of the Rock, where the prophet Muhammad allegedly ascended into heaven one night for a rendevouz with the angel Gabriel, Abraham and Moses. The street runs through the valley of Arab shops and houses and then climbs again to reach a well-kempt vantage point with grass, some benches and an abstract statue in stone. Israeli Jews like to remind tourists that the city council in Jerusalem requires every house to be built with original Jerusalem stone, so that facing every street are blocks of yellowish, jagged limestone, keeping the old and sacred appearance alive. Arab citizens are obviously not so bothered, using cheaper and smaller blocks of limestone if they do at all. What with clearly discriminatory council policy that’s as fussy and obscure as limiting the number of days a month the garbage trucks do their rounds between the Jewish and Arab neighbourhoods, I can hardly blame them.

As my knees are starting to complain for all these ups and downs, I stop to catch my breath and buy a few groceries for brunch. The store is small but well-equipped, with lots of canned food, dairy, various pickles in big plastic tubs and even huge chunks of Halwa (a sweet Middle Eastern delicacy made of sesame paste). The shopkeeper greets me with the only word that allows ethnic anonymity in these regions: “Ahlan”, Arabic for ‘hello’, or ‘welcome’. It is one of many words that over the years assimilated completely into Hebrew, and is used interchangeably with ‘hi’ or ’shalom’. When tourists come back from Jerusalem they like to say something like this: “you know, I was walking around and it’s amazing that you cannot even tell who is Arab and who is Jewish. I hope I don’t sound offensive but to me you all look exactly the same.” I’ve heard at least 5 different people tell me a version of this. That is all well and good, but of course the reason they say that is because they are not familiar with the local languages. This is what gives everyone but the native bilinguals away. When you drive into the Ben Gurion airport, there are security guards with uzis in every entry lane whose sole purpose is to bend down to your car window and ask “how you doing?”. A simple nod will not do: they need to hear you speak. If you come back with “ok” in an even slightly Arab accent, you will be detained for extra check-ups. So there is some significance for this shopkeeper choosing the word ‘Ahlan’, though he probably already knows that I’m not Palestinian from the way I conduct myself in his shop. Inevitably, we come to the issue of payment, and his young helper considers my humble loot of hummus, eggs and pickles, and says: “Arbaa-tash”. My Arabic is criminally weak and I hardly trust myself to understand anything I hear; at the same time, asking him to speak in Hebrew just feels too damn colonial. His boss who recognises my confusion says: “oh, let’s see… this and that… 1000 shekel!”. We both laugh briefly, almost sadly. “Fourteen, fourteen shekels.” I pay and make for the door. “Bye, thank you”, I say, in Hebrew.