Amir Or

Poetics of Conflict and Vision:

Hebrew Poetry at the Beginning of the Millennium

1
We are used to regard the Old Testament as religious scripture, which was translated to in the
past to European languages and is read today in archaic vernaculars. But this is not the case for
the Hebrew speaker. Since Hebrew was revived as an every-day spoken language at the
beginning of the 20th century, a linguistic gap of 2000 years was bridged. On the one hand,
nowadays an Israeli school kid can read and understand the Old Testament in its original tongue,
and on the other hand, if King David could have leafed through a contemporary Hebrew poetry
book, he would have little difficulty with its language.
Beside the spiritual and historical contents, for the Hebrew reader the Bible is a cultural and
literary heritage, rich with rhythm, music, and forms of speech. Most of the Bible books are pure
poetry of various styles and themes: the stories of creation and of the patriarchs, victory and love
songs, prophecies, hymns, etc. In short, the beginning of the Old Testament is also the beginning
of documented Hebrew poetry, about 4000 years ago.
Nevertheless Hebrew poetry didnt cease with the canonization of the Bible, and even after the
destruction of Judea by the Romans at the beginning of the first millennium a.d., Hebrew
literature has been created continuously in the Jewish Diaspora. The ancient language of the
scriptures hasnt been spoken in everyday life for two millennia but went on being studied and
used in prayer even by laymen in every Jewish community. Religious and secular Hebrew poetry
has been composed throughout these generations in the east and in the west, in far and near
countries, in regions located now in Iraq, Spain, Italy, Yemen, Russia or Germany. Some of the
first sonnets in Europe were written in Hebrew by Emmanuel the Roman in 13th century Italy,
whereas Hebrew poetry written by Yehuda Halevi and Iben Gabbirol in Moorish Spain was
influenced by Arabic poetics. Hebrew poetic forms were introduced into Christian lithurgy by
Romanos Melodos as early as the 6th century A.D. and on the other hand for centuries Hebrew
poetic tradition has been enriched by other traditions in style, theme, and lyrical forms. Yet not
unlike Latin, it lacked the vivid aspect of everyday colloquial speech. But this was to change
with the rise of Zionism at the turn of the 19th century and with the return of Jews to Israel.
There is no other example in human history of a successful revival of an unspoken semifossilized language such as Hebrew was. Linguists like Eliezer Ben Yehuda and David Yelin
reconstructed the language and innovated or brought back into use thousands of Hebrew words.

But it took three more generations until Hebrew became a truly modern language. Fierce debates
were taking place: should modern Hebrew speech adopt Ashkenazi pronounciation or
Sepharadic? Should we base modern Hebrew on Biblical syntax or a later one? Many loan
words were replaced by Hebrew ones, slang and various grades of speech had to be introduced.
Poets like Byalik, Shlonski and many others were the leading force in putting the renewal of
Hebrew speech into practice, and until the middle of the last century their works were celebrated
both for their poetical merit and as a national achievement.
These immigrant poets who started writing in Hebrew in the beginning of the 20th century had a
huge task of bridging traditional poetry and modern poetry, exploring free verse, tonal meter etc.,
and making them an organic part of Hebrew verse. To a large extent, they had to adapt
European models in order to create modern poetry in Hebrew. For them and their generation,
creating a fluent poetic expression in an acquired language was the main challenge. I will not go
here into lecturing you about Hebrew poetry in detail, but it will suffice to say that our linguistic
and poetic condition has changed considerably since then. But thanks to these poets, what was a
terra incognita at their time is our natural inheritance today. In this ongoing creative work of
Israeli poets, the language is continuously unveiled through poetic expression.
Nowadays, even though immigration to Israel is still taking place on a large scale, most of the
writers in Israel are natives-of-the-country and their mother tongue is Hebrew. No wonder,
contemporary poetry in Israel feels free to embrace and even mix a large variety of styles and
forms, both traditional and modern to answer the needs of specific themes or atmospheres. For
example, in my own generation we wouldnt hesitate to mix biblical connotations and
contemporary slang in our poems. To the native poet, the Israeli reality and the unique
possibilities and limitations of Hebrew are the unquestionable basic condition. Nevertheless,
Israel is still a mixing pot of cultures, is a conflict area, and contains an Arab speaking
Palestinian minority. Now, lets have a look at that mixing pot.

2
The unique complexity of Israeli society and culture seems at times fascinating, and at times
unbearable. It seems to be a bridge, or sometimes a limbo at the point where East and West meet.
Israel has about 3 milion inhabitants whose parents or grandparents have been expelled or
emigrated from Arab countries only half a century ago. Hebrew is a semitic language, akin to
Arabic and Kurdish more than to any other modern Languages. For example words are based on
consonants that form roots, whereas vowels serve to express shades of the different meanings.
So, where in Enlgish LIVE, LOVE and LEAVE have different meanings, in Hebrew LEV
(meaning heart) and LIVLEV (meaning flowered) share a common root meaning. Unlike
Indo-European languages Hebrew often relies on the single word or root rather than the syntax
and phrase. Each word may contain several meanings depending on the context, and diverse

meanings are all connected through the logic of symbol and metaphor. For instance the words
hypocrite and painted are the same word in Hebrew, that tells us the hypocrites face is
painted, hiding its truth. So is the case with the words abstract and stripped or unclothed:
to Hebrew, abstraction is simply stripping off our mental image from material perception.
However, because of the common Judeo-Christian tradition and dialogue, because of Biblical
imagery and narratives, and because of literary, philosophical and even social changes that
affected both Jews and Christians in Europe, Israeli culture is more than anything European. In
the Israeli mixing pot, the majority of Israelis and certainly the majority of poets and writers are
European by origin. Moreover, historically, the founders of Israel were European - by origin,
upbringing ideology and mentality.
The first Zionists have come to Israel as pioneers. These fairly young people were dreamers,
visionaries, adventurers. In more than one way they were the first hippies of the 20th century:
they left their European middle class homes to create a new society, to cultivate a land, and to
experiment with new ideologies. They formed communes, created a new culture in a new
language, and on the whole they tried to transform mentally and to re-invent themselves.
Historically the Zionist vision has so far succeeded tremendously, but these pioneers felt to a
large extent disillusioned and deceived when the huge waves of immigration came in after the
founding of the Israeli state. Israel has become one big refugee camp. People from the Arab
world side by side with Holocaust survivors had now to live there together, to create new lives
for themselves, new identities, new common values and agreements that had very little to do
with the ideals and ideologies of the founding pioneer generation. To a large extent the holocaust
was the most important founder of the independent state of Israel.
But in spite of the suffering of the Jewish people in the 2nd world war, the new state of Israel was
hardly welcome by Europe, and created a lot of enmity in the 3rd world, where it was seen as if
the European final solution for the Jews was at the expense of the Arabs.
War and isolation, as well as loss of income, dignity and identity, disillusioned many. More than
1 million Isrealis have emigrated from Israel between the fifties and the eighties of the last
century, most of them to the United States. Europe, that has been their home for almost two
millenia, has masacred the Jews, and later locked its gates to the next generation of European
Jews that have settled in Israel.
However the majority of Isrelis, have chosen to stay. They went on developing their country and
fighting for its existence. People whose Israeli existence is one or two genrations old, whereas
their European history and lineage can be traced at least 50 generations back. They feel
connected to European culture, and yet betrayed by European politics. They feel antisemitism
has risen again, supported politically by the Muslem immigration to Europe, and by cold
economical and political calculation of Eruopean governments. To a large extant Israelis feel that
for many Europeans that have no clue of what Middle-Eastern mentality-and-culture is the

Israeli-Palestinian conflict has become a popular passtime discussion at their expense: a debate
where European interests in our region are cumoflaged by pseudo ethical standpoints. They feel
victims of the European guilt of colonialism, and European wish to get rid of the holocaust guilt
by presenting an implicit equals-sign between the Nazi regime and the Israeli rule in the Gaza
strip and West bank, in order to justify something by this gortesque equation. This is done by the
media too: the endless terrorist attacks on Jews are hardly to be seen on European TV channels,
but every Palestinian casualty is being focused on - without any care for the context and
complexity of the situation.
Jews have been part of, and contributed to European culture-and-development for centuries, but
at last theyre out politically, culturally - but not psychologically. I think many of us, who feel
like European exiles see it as a new chapter of Judephobic syndrom.
Neverthelss this is not to say the Jewish psyche came out intact and healthy out of the Nazi
concentration camps and crematoria. At times it seems the Israeli mind is stuck somewhere
between Massada and Aushwitz, but if one considers that these refugees arrived to a heavily
threatened state, a small Western island in a sea of Muslem Arabic nations, hell find it perhaps
easier to understand the situation and the mentality that has evolved therefrom.
The Israeli condition seems much more ambivalent and complex in real life. Israelis and
Palestinians fight, but at the same time have a lot in common. Palestinian society and culture is
still to a large extent tribal, and not modern or democratic. On the other hand Israeli Palestinians
are gradually interiorizing these free democratic values, more than anywhere in the Arab world.
Have you noticed? Often the two side of a conflict become more and more similar over the years,
like a husband and wife. Paliestinians are called by othe Arabs the Jews of the Arab world.
I must say they do suffer from discrimination in Israel, but a discrimination of Eruopean
standards, not Middle-Eastern. To this, one must add the Jewish wish to have A Jewish state,
which in fact isolates and alienates the different ethnic group of the country. We can go on
talking about the conflict forever, and some people even make a good living out of it, but to me it
seems the only possible answer to this conflict is true understanding and integration. We need a
true secular and civil state, where national and religious groups are more like clubs rather than
separate enemy camps, and where culture is enriched by diversity rather than serves to mark
borders and separations.

3
Now, how all this has to do with poetry? Well, not much if you look at poetry as an old-fashioned
form of artistic amusement. But this is not the case if you look at poetry as an art that deals
primarily with speech and thought. Throughout the ages, poetry has been providing human
society with the sense of existential meaning beyond the dry facts, and the ability to touch the

essence of our life. I would like to declare poetry and art in general as a basic set of things we
have in common: thought and feeling, creativity, imagination, and sense of freedom and beauty.

Its attitude towards artistic creativity is an important factor in widening or narrowing the
spiritual capacities of a society, and enhancing or weakening its creative imagination and vital
powers. Philosophy, the famous authorized professional of our culture about wisdom, becomes
less convincing when one considers "wisdom". Philosophy is speaking about wisdom and
insight, but it holds thought with thick pliers. Plenty of heavy slow words that clumsily catch
hold of ideas that wisdom grasps in the blink of an eye. Only rare philosophers like Heraclitus,
Plato or Nietzsche, who had poetic talent, could deal with this electric intensity of thought. It
seems only poetry does to words what thought is doing to them, in their full power and scope:
hears them, tastes them, understands and mis-understands them, combines them in strange ways,
gets carried away by them, beats them against each other, tells. Poetry truly tells through words
everything they can grasp and more. Poetry holds words alive in the moment they're formed.

A society that fails in the field of art and literature is perhaps a society that has become
mentally fossilized and harmed its own capacity for self -renewal and rejuvenation. After all, the
history of human evolution is in fact the history of creative ideas: every achievement of
humanity is an achievement of the human mind. Somehow a poet seems to create with the most
primal materials, in the mental mass of life and possible realities. His works serve to enhance and
reshape the world in which we live. A poetic insight can serve as a renewed perception of reality,
and draw new sketches or blue prints for its future development. A writer just sits there and
dreams the world anew, but in this very action he gives validity and meaning to this reality we
live; whether he is conscious of it or not, by his creative adventure the poet goes on creating the
mental future from which our civilization of tomorrow will grow.

AMIR OR

POEMS OF ANOTHER CENTURY

A seed sown in sand waits years for rain.

-1-

This poem will be a poem of another century, not different from ours.
This poem will be safely hidden under heaps of words until,
among the last grains in the hourglass,
like a ship in a bottle, it gets seen. This poem

that will speak of innocence. And ordinary people,

who seem thrown up by the course of events, like late-coming gods,

will listen to it for no reason that wasnt there before,

raising their backs like snakes

out of the junk, and there wont be anywhere else

to hurry from, and it wont have an end

different from its beginning. It wont be rich

and wont be poor. Wont bother anymore to keep promises

or carry out what it says

and wont understate or puff itself from here to there.
This poem, if it speaks to you, woman, wont call you
muse-babe, and wont sleep with you like its fathers did;

or if to you, man, wont kneel or kill, wont apply make-up

and wont take off its words and flesh, as it has not

has not -

what? Maybe now Ill summon it, the bad poem

of the century: here, sick with health

its barely walking

drags its legs in the sticky current

of contemporary thought

or gets stopped to show its papers

and have its trivia counted

on an abacus. The inventory: flowers and staples,

corpses (yes, no worry), tall glasses. After staples -

also butterflies and many footprints

and other hooks and shelves

for the arguments of scholarly criticism, and also just to fool around, teeth

against teeth, with the chaotic smiles of a chameleon

that doesnt know

its colors long since turned into a parable. Or in incomprehensible tranquility

to try someone elses luck in games of to and fro

that have no goal other than, lets say,

a bit of fun the length of a line. Spread orange on the blue

of evening sky: now, plaster on a little cloud. Climb

on, look down: sea of sea, sand of sand.

Or fingers. Ten jointed worms

move with inexplicable charm. Now they encircle

a sphere whose curve is faulty, wonderful, fleshy, furthermore

you can say a word (its a fruit, its called

a peach). And these words

their taste is full of the taste

of being, of a tone that accompanies the sight with wonder

and not with a thought-slamming din. And this is the poem:

it sings, lets say, to the tar that stuck to your foot at the beach,
to plastic bottles, to its own words. All it sees

is black on white, transparent or grainy.

It is no less naked than you. Also no more. Only through this exactness

that has no measure except the curves of a bitchs body,

a pot of cyclamen or a hair on a bath rail.

Creatures here dont want to know. Creatures

there, wanting only that, are, for now, the possibility

of becoming creatures here, of becoming this antiquity

that has nothing to say other than me, me, without limit

without you. A dog lies on a step in the afternoon

sun and does not distinguish itself from the flies.

Rain. Hes torn out from himself.

-2-

You bite, swallow, actually crack line after line

in front of this screen, spit the spaces as if theyre

a Hungarian sound track. And its OK by me, because its OK

by you: to live between walls, to be covered by them and move

into a fetal rhythm: eat and drink, fill up a petrol tank,

order groceries, read poems, sleep. Faster:

a filmed commercial, video clips,

a microwave, peep booths at a porno movie. Faster:

capsules, transfusion, electrodes. Faster:

dont be born. You are not and you dont have an existence now

outside this poem. It doesnt begin and doesnt end

in a page, a line or a comma. This full stop is a point

that floats in infinite space

just because you distance your gaze from it.
Look, there are clouds on it, orange on the blue evening sky,

sea of sea, sand of sand, and people walking,

sitting, lying, swimming or making love. Choose for yourself

a place and time. Where are you? Now youve found a way
into a point of view. Perhaps youd like to be born? In this here,

now is called by a number:

twenty second

of the first, one thousand nine hundred and ninety-five,

twelve thirty, in the afternoon, Sunday. And good that you came.
Tomorrow Ill write the poem youll live in. Here: this home[1]

- solely yours. And its location, size, colors and furniture

- your perspective

a home or homes

also its windows, which face

on the outskirts of the poem, in its centre or above it:

see its trees pass by, its inhabitants, cafes, and flying saucers,

cavalry, elephants, parchments from which the sea has just withdrawn,
they all flicker between there-is and there-isnt, between a gaze and its focus,

between being and me, between this and its names, (me,
me and more me: a pot of cyclamen, a hair

on a bath rail etc.). So go out and see: this poem, given over
to meaningless murmurs, it and I have nothing

but what is between here and I am. (This is not an end-line, here
I wrote another one.) Now

Tendril gropes / coils / on groping tendril.

-4-

Already too late to go back and dangerous to stop

what we spoke and so existed, actions like these.

Help yourself. A glass of liqueur, a cigarette, a TV

or any alibi you want (if you dont mind, Ill

continue to write: inside of a thigh, texture of lips, one palm

gathering a handful of a convex reality, a nipple in its middle). True,

this poem repeats what is impossible to repeat

and, as from a door in a desert, its impossible to leave

without meeting it outside. Look: roads and pavements

air and seaports, communication satellites. Look: outer

space from here; in a poem like this thats

a question of relationships like anything else

and not only that, every there is already here. Window

gapes toward window

and memories -

devour the whole room: sea shore, palm trees, her boyish body
is stooped over the notebook, her head inclined and her hair, black, smooth, falls

and covers the universe. Lips, inside of a thigh, breasts

that are budding now, a Japanese nose, buttocks.

The one who said and was this order - has no fear, or at least
has forgetfulness, while each moment his gaze buds

Ill write it now: Ill let it disappear word by word

and not be so much; and each line will begin and end

like a fly landing in a room of mirrors. Once more:

sea of sea, sand of sand. Look and create them,

on what he sees.

hold them for a moment between wandering boundaries,

fix them in letters like an orderly cry

to say what there isnt, wasnt, wont be,

and dont bother more than that. Now let go. And again

Poems of Don Quixotes

Ronny Someck
This

This whose brain is the Commander of the body

This whose body conceals desire in the cave of genitals
This whose genitals moisten the lips of the hostages
This whose hostage is the broken tooth in the mouth shouting commands
This whose command knows no borders
This whose border is stretched like a sock
This whose sock is silent
This whose silence crumbles threads from the gnarl of words
This in whose brains words are stuck like a fence
And after which nothing is left to say.

Translated by Karen Alkalay-Gut

Ronny Someck
I am a lot of Don Quixotes.

I am a lot of Don Quixotes.

Don Quixote who with one eye sees how Don Quixote
draws with the tip of his fingers a womans head
on the wall built by Don Quixote from his imagination.
The imagination fantasizes about a horse and receives a donkey.
The donkey imagines the Messiah and gets the brush of wings
of the windmills.
The wind brushes the roofs of houses,
is sheared by the drawing out of a word
And slams the window shutters where Dulcinea gazes.
Don Quixote who in his blood steers her
to the Don Quixote of the lips.
There she takes off her dress and dissolves
like a kiss.

Tr: Karen Alkalay-Gut

Ronny Someck
Nails

In memory of Yizhak Zohar

To save his life in that war,

He sewed for the SS officers the very boots that kicked him.
"Look," he once showed me his hands,
and I thought he wanted me to admire
the tough skin of a craftsman,
"Look," he almost wept, "with these fingers
I would have strangled them, but every boot I made
saved me a brother. "
He never stopped hammering,
and if theyd given him a chair at the Academy of Language,
the nails would have had names like
Hitler, Eichmann or Mengele.
His pleasure would grow as he smashed their heads
and bent down their backs
until their complete surrender
into the darkness of soles.
Oh Revenge, if only because of this story
its possible sometimes to fall in love with you.

Tr:Karen Alkalay-Gut

Ronny Someck

Uncle Salim

In the days when there was respect for train tickets

And they were printed on no less than green cardboard,
Uncle Salim would produce from his jacket pocket
A little stack hed gathered at the Haifa Station
And helped us to imagine a steering wheel as wide
as the width between our hands.
We closed one eye, held the hole in the ticket close
for a second, and saw through it
a red tie sharp as a sword, that he wore
to diminish the shame of the rail workers khaki.
Then he would breathe in the memory
of the locomotive of another country,
And the cars full of stories from the Tigris and Euphrates ,
They would breathe air cleaner than the moth ball atmosphere,
That clung to the suitcases of memory of the new immigrants

The train to Eden, he heard

before he died,
Leaves in three minutes,
Just in time to load the cars
With the 99 years of his life,

The top hat he loved to move from side to side

And the leftover applause
he always saved for the voice of Abdel Al-Wahab.

Tr:Karen Alkalay-Gut

Ronny Someck

One line on Bessie Smith

Her voice is the eyelash shed from the eyes of God at the moment he roared Let there be light.

Tr: Karen Alkalay-Gut

RONNY SOMECK

RONNY SOMECK was born in Baghdad in 1951 and came to Israel as a young child. He
studied Hebrew literature and philosophy at Tel Aviv University and drawing at the Avni
Academy of Art. He has worked with street gangs, and currently teaches literature and leads
creative writing workshops.
He has published 11 volumes of poetry (The last called horse power" )and two book for
children with his daughter Shirly (The last called monkey tough, monkey bluff).
He has been translated into 41 languages.
Selections of his poems have appeared in Arabic translation, French, Catalan, Albanian, Italian,
Macedonian, Yiddish, Coroatian, Napali, Dutch, Danish, Portuguese ,Spenish,Greamn and
English.
He is recipient of the Prime Minister's Award, Yehuda Amichai Award for Hebrew poetry,
'Ramat Gan prize for poetry, The "Wine poem award" in Struga Poetry Evenings, Macedonia,
2005 and Hans Berghhuis prize for poetry 2006 in the Maastricht International Poetry Nights,
Holand.
In 2012, he has been awarded the Cross of The Order of The Knights for a Distinguished Service
OF Poland
In 2014, he has been awarded the knight of the Order of Arts and Letters of France

He recorded with the musician Elliott Sharp 3 CD's : revenge of the stuttering child, Poverty
Line and Short History of Vodka.
In 1998 he made an exhibition natures Factory, winter 2046with Beny Efrat in Israel
museum .
In 2004 made "Hawadja Bialik" , in 2007 made "Rehal Madrid" in 2010 made "napkin", in 2012
made "Swan Lake"and in 2014made "hall of fame"-5 exhibitions in "The Museum of Israeli Art,
Ramat-Gan".

WRITING on WATER ... Maggie Harris

Dolly would have made a thing of it. Would have flown into the airport dolled up to the nines or
rode into town on the back of a cattle-truck after thumbing her way from Rosslaire wearing the
cut-off jeans and the biker jacket. No-one would have dared hijack her, harass her, or not given
her a ride. She would have had that Caribbean lip curled ripe and ready. She would have had
lodgings right in town, last-minute, even in this busiest of weeks in this small town now waking
up to its annual invasion of writers.
Her appearance at Reception in The Irish Arms would have occasioned wide white smiles of
recognition, and ripples would have oscillated round the bar as her butt found either a bar-stool
or the wing of a leatherette armchair.
Of course Miss Dolly! Room 19 has just become available. Room Service?
Dolly wasnt afraid of anything, land, sea or sky.
But this wasnt Dolly, this was Marlee, and try as hard as she might to summon her, Dolly would
not put in an appearance. Instead the black-cloud child was driven sullen but safely into town in
the beat-up old Escort with hubby Daniel at the wheel.
Boats and planes filled her with fear. She was the dream-walker, the pre-planner who endlessly
negotiated N routes and B roads, small village main streets and country
WRITING on WATER ... Maggie Harris
crossroads with no place-names, for 14 hours rather than come on her own, or fly. And of course,
the self-catering was five miles out of town.

Before she even crossed that damn water, things had gone wrong. Arrived at Fishguard in driving
wind and rain to find the ferry cancelled. Her damp heart and low spirits had never lifted, not
even with the promise of an extra day in Pembrokeshire. But then the sun had come out, and
theyd gone climbing the cliffs; or rather Dan had and she followed, him cheery as usual,
pointing out the benefit of an extra day at no cost.

But of course there was cost, there always was. Sixty-five quid at The Ferrymans Inn, cutting
into their holiday money, leaving them as usual, to count coppers and cents and this time euros.
For Marlee sixty-five had a kind of ring to it; the number of loss.

It was Dolly who had opened her big mouth about wanting to write a novel. Im going to try a
novel, she had declared. Poetry doesnt pay, no-one wants it. A whopping yarn, lots of sex, and
tragedy, beautiful people, maybe the fashion world! She had all the ideas; they floated round in
her head all the time.
WRITING on WATER ... Maggie Harris

It was her who came up with all the beautiful lines in the useless poetry. She had names and
places, family stories from way back that were too true to ever be fiction; sugar plantations, lost
wives, even murder. All she needed was a kick-start. Novelists had to do it different from poets
or else poets would be rich too. Would be swimming in advances and film rights, wouldnt have
time to feel as sick as a toddler every time they had to catch a flight or a ferry. They lived in
places like Welsh mountainsides and sat in proper studies with proper computers and did
research, writing consistently each day inbetween annoying telephone calls from their editors demanding they see the manuscript right
now, this minute, this weekend, the final deadline or they would cull the next advance
immediately. Dolly had no patience with small terraced houses and no night life. She insisted she
was a South American woman, Caribbean and Black British. Marlee had listened her out,
thinking of all the open mics she did, the odd poem accepted in a magazine, the small class she
taught; cast her eye at the dining-table and the lap-top she shared with Dan. Think big, Dolly had
yawned, you silly little shore bird.

That had settled it; a novel writing workshop it would be.

That was why she had not, could not enjoy the unforeseen and unplanned day in Pembrokeshire.
She had business to be getting on with, and the Irish Sea the first of her
WRITING on WATER ... Maggie Harris

hurdles. She hadnt bargained on coastal paths too. But shed waited in her walking boots by the
car as Dan fidgeted about with binoculars and raincoats, rucksacks, the first-aid box. The
Englishness of it never failed to stump her; as a child, walking was strolling, window-shopping,
or taking the breeze; no-one in their right minds walked
precipitous miles for pleasure. Bacoo would get you, jiggers and thief-man choke and rob;
obeah, fever, sun.

Shed followed him out to the lighthouse, hugging the cliff, crossing stiles, liking the sun on her
back.
Kept an eye out for nutters, you could never tell. There was no telling her not to worry, things
happened; like that poor couple last year, washed up on the rocks. Shed tried to block it out, turn
her face to the sun, breathe in audibly like Dan, hands on hips, binoculars at the ready. Focused
on the black-backed gulls and cormorants and Christ knows whatever else bobbing out there. But
when it came to scrambling up a tilting path with nothing to grab on to but a steady tread and a
trusting heart, shed bottled out. Sat firmly on the flattest rock with her face turned away from
the jeering sea and steadied
her gaze onto one solitary pissed-off sheep. No amount of persuading would shift her, no
kindness, no practise run by Dan down the track backwards to show how easy it was. So back
down they had gone, passing nimble children on the way up in trainers and women in sandals all
happy and smiling like idiots. One even had a blade of grass

WRITING on WATER ... Maggie Harris

in her teeth.

But then theyd seen the seals, and that had saved the day, rinsing out her worries in a bright pink
haze to be plucked out from memory when they were sitting in the Roseland Retirement Home.

Shed been sure one of the seals was dead. It hadnt moved all the time they watched. Just lay
with its head back, chest up to the sky.

Just basking, Dan had informed her.

Of course the sea had been rough. It had to be. Their wait on the dockside had been alight with
raucous Munster fans re-enacting a victory over Wales at Cardiff. Faced with more of the same
for four hours on an uptight sea, they had blown twenty-five quid on a cabin, and for all the
hours rolled up against each other whilst the sea rolled like a tumbledee.

Her mind had been alive with blackness. The black rocks of Pembrokeshire had followed the
ferry, creeping with the delicacy of giants along the floor of the Irish Sea. They offered her
cinematic visions of The Herald of Free Enterprise, French Napoleonic Fleets, an English galleon
filled with merchants and soldiers and a Captain who looked
WRITING on WATER ... Maggie Harris

suspiciously like Charles Hawthrey. Bringing up the rear, a Viking longboat dangled a small
black boy on a chain.

Girl I cant wait to see you guys again! Dolly had told Marie on the phone. I love yall
country so much! Cant wait to get there!

We cant wait to see you too girl!

So here she was, in Ireland.

The workshop she wanted was full. Everyone, it seemed, wanted to write novels.

Theres a place on the Poetry, the smiley woman said.

I dont want to do Poetry, Marlee said, I am a poet. I dont need to do a Poetry workshop! I run
them myself, for Gods sake. Poetry is my shadow; it wakes me up in the middle of the night.
Ive reams and reams of the useless stuff. Im tired of introspection and internal torment, do you
get me woman? Tired!

WRITING on WATER ... Maggie Harris

I want to write a fecking novel. Something big and grand thatll get me noticed and buy me a
ranch in California and a place on the bookshelves of Waterstones. I want to sign books in the
marquee at Dartington!

She felt she was waving her arms about madly as she spoke, but of course she wasnt. She never
said a word. Just stood there her usual sullen self and said, Ill guess thatll have to do then.

Behind her Dolly sucked her teeth, loudly, and full of disgust.

There was, she had to admit, something quite cool about meeting her Irish friends in their Irish
town and going to a writing workshop during an Irish Festival. A good tutor too, the best. She
taught his work in her Creative Writing class, could quote his poetry off by heart. And if she
wanted to enjoy this second-home feeling, there was no place else that would give it her. The

other writers were from the length and breadth of Ireland, even a property developer from
Dublin.

Her post-colonial profile fitted in just right.

WRITING on WATER ... Maggie Harris

The writers were all at varying stages, from first-time to published, from the too busy-to-write to
the waiting-for-inspiration brigade. If she wanted to know Ireland, here is where it started, with
her peers and all their Irishness to be drunk up. She wasnt just a holiday-maker, she was a
Writer. She remembered the first time she had put Writer instead of housewife in her passport,
that time they went to St Lucia. Dan was the only one who had spoilt things there, hob-nobbing
with the sailors on the pretend-pirate ship,
fist-shakes the lot. Youre just a tourist to them, she had told him coldly. Just like Im a Red
Girl.

Yes she was a griot, history had given her this pen dammit, she never asked. Seamus, Walcott,
there ya go. She felt herself warming, enjoying, taking part. The group had bonded by coffeetime but by lunch the gremlin was on her shoulder again.

Here you go again, Dolly said, you silly bitch. Poetrys reeling you in like a marlin! Thats you
sorted then, fish-bones on a bloody plate.

She paused at the bottom of the stairs and read details of the other workshops. Dammit, she had
to stick to her plans. Novelists were different to poets, were more manly about

WRITING on WATER ... Maggie Harris

things; faint heart never won fair maid and all that. She mustnt forget she was a whole-country
woman, come a long way from de backdam. Whuh she grand-mother with she calabash would
think eh?

She bit her lip and plucked up the courage, found the tutor she wanted, asked.

Sure, and thats fine, the tutor said. Were one short anyway.

So why did she feel like shit?

Its not you, its me, she told the Poet tutor lamely. I just wanted to try a Novel, thats all.

She felt like a hick lover. His troubled poet-soul searched her eyes for the truth. But maybe she
was only being fanciful.

She met the girls in The Irish Arms for a stew and large glasses of red wine.

You did what?! Never! You bloody didnt. By Christ youre a woman you are! And so, hows
the new one like?

WRITING on WATER ... Maggie Harris

Dolly sang out: Full o rass, we jus reading one heap o stupidness after another.

So hang on girl, lets get this right you dont like this one either! For fecks sake!!

Kristy leaned over the table and pointed her cigarette at Marlee.

You know what you are, dontcha? A fecking workshop groupie!

She and Marie fell about laughing.

She looks the type, right Kirst? With the hair and all!

What I want to know is, where you going next?!

Marlee found herself laughing along but lost the joke half-way. The Poet came into the bar and
she tried to smile but he wouldnt catch her eye.

She and Dan lay in bed at the self-catering. The rain was drawing to a trickle. When she sat up,
the fields crawled low and hazy under the belly of the horses.

WRITING on WATER ... Maggie Harris

Whats it like out there?

Shit, she replied.

He opened his eyes.

Youre a cheery one, first thing. Whats up?

She was tired of hearing him ask whats up. Hadnt he realised yet that the all-singing all-dancing
Dolly he had met in the wine bar all those years back wasnt real? The girls hadnt yet, she was
sure. They thought her a badass Caribbean post-col sister with the bledy English History in
common and an awright poet too. But they didnt have to wake up with her or sleep with her and
her tossing and turning of ships weighed down sailing for islands and black boys on the ocean.
She felt sure they caught planes and ships only glad they hadnt missed it.

Shouldnt you be getting ready for your workshop?

Im not going.

What?
WRITING on WATER ... Maggie Harris

I dont want to talk about it, she said briskly and clambered out of bed.

But youve paid for it! Besides youve got the one you wanted havent you?

She couldnt explain. Just knew how bad she felt about the whole thing and wanted to tune into
her feelings, follow her mind, like her mother always said.

Lets go to Dingle, Kells Bay. Lets drive round the Ring of Kerry!

Its not exactly the day for it, is it?

For Chrissake! Are we on fucking holiday or not? Sod the weather, doesnt it always rain?
Weve only got a few days, lets make the most of it!

But I thought you...

Never mind what you think I thought. Get out of bed. Lets go.

WRITING on WATER ... Maggie Harris

They hadnt chosen a good day. A famous writer had died and the town was out, cars and people
gathered full in the square and right up to the church. There was TV and all. Marlee turned her
head as the Guards waved their Escort on. For a hard moment she burned to stop and stand
outside the church too. This was history. But, what is the point, Daniel said. Theres nowhere to
park plus I thought you wanted to do The Ring of Kerry.

The rain had cleared by the time they drove out of Tralee and bright sunshine accompanied the
drive.

Before she knew it, her own clouds lifted. Like so many before them, they stopped at the beauty
spots, struck by the sea and the light, the mountains. At what point did she begin to think of
nature as beautiful? Never, in her childhood, with mosquitoes and the burning sun and no-go
areas where, she was told, our sort of people dont wander.

At Kells Bay, there was a house for sale, a white fishermans cottage just up from the beach. Her
heart was full in her chest as they drove round the crescent of the bay, and their conversation ran
on house prices and writing spaces and the sea and its apparent

WRITING on WATER ... Maggie Harris

tranquillity. Lies, Dolly whispered beneath her breath, you and I both know the truth about the
sea.

At the Coomakista Viewing Point, Dan stopped and got out with his binoculars. The clouds were
spinning fast like those speeded up films. Marlee thought about the dead writer and the people
lining up in the street. And the burning dark eyes of the poet in the bar. Was following their soul
the most important thing? Were they as haunted as she was? Of course she couldnt imagine
their angst, was too confused with hers. But the words lived on, the words lived on! Her heart
slowed at the thought. She thought of the land she was born floating away, and the words
following it, sprinkling all their phrases like foam. Who was she to think the word home meant
a place? This ... in-between-ness, this was it.

Herein dwell the life she be. The thought hit her like a stone. Without thinking she reached in her
bag, pulled out her notebook and begun to write. From somewhere the words of Pablo Neruda
came,

And it was at that moment Poetry arrived in search of me ...

The words spilled from her pen as if they were writing themselves. Her own words:

WRITING on WATER ... Maggie Harris

...arrived like a new Yamaha spilling dust and stones/up from the unpaved road ...

By the time Dan returned, flush-faced and windswept, she had the bones of a new poem.
Its no good, I have no control, she thought. Poetrys found me, made me. They are the stones
that link me to the causeway. The words came like breakers over the shore, the Caribbean and
Ireland, her loss in 1965; the migrant soul, poetry the unifying element. She could dream of a
destination, a safe place, as long as she liked, be it the ranch in California, the Welsh mountain, a
piece of Ireland. But none of it would fill her. Neither sleep, nor dreams, cliff-paths, nor ships
would anchor her. Her stomach was a cargo hold where the black boy would sing and sing until

his throat was sore; whilst Dan snored and dreamed of oystercatchers. She wrote her name at the
end of the poem. Dorothy Marley. Dorothy Marley.

Another Night
By: Taleb Alrefai

Children's voices and noise filled the hall; you raise your voice screaming loudly:
"Ahmad, I will hit you!"
You look at them in a stern way. All your children become silent. Ahmad looks at you furtively
and looks at his brother and sisters. You go back again to read the newspaper. Slowly, your
scream's effect is fading away, and your children start whispering again.
"Dad, dad"
You daughter Boshra puts her hand on your shoulder. You turn to her. She asks you:
"When are you going to buy a new bag for me?"
You smile at her and reply:
"Oh baby".
She continues looking at you with her small,eight years old. Some dissatisfaction colored her
lovely voice:
"You said when I succeed / achieve success".
"Right".
You nod your head approving her sentences, while she continues speaking to you:
"I have passed the exam, so, when will you buy it?"
"When I get my salary"
You tried to evade her question by saying:
"Go and help your mom in the kitchen"
"Okay"
You go back to read your newspaper, and then you hear your wife Hannaa's voice:

"Zeyad, spread the newspaper on the floor"

After a while Hannaa comes from the kitchen carrying food for me to try. She bends down to put
the food on the floor, and you glance at her breasts. She catches you, and you smile at her,
saying:
"Welcome dinner".
She smiles at you. Both of you arrange the dishes on the newspaper. Your children gather around
the newspaper. Ahmad tries to avoid you, sitting next to his mother. You smile at him, and you all
start eating eagerly.

***

***

***

***

Silence surrounds the hall, the childrens talk becomes quiet as well as their movements. Their
little bodies become comfortably numb. Ahmad looks sleepy (ili tako neto)neck tend sleepy,
while you call him:
"Ahmad, come here".
He moves lazily, approaching you, you hug him and kiss him, before you say:
"Go to your bed".
"Good night dad".
"Good night darling".
Your children go to their bedroom leaving you alone. You light a cigarrette. looking for your wife
and calling her:
"Hannaa".
She does not reply. You repeat a little bit loudly:
"Hannaa".
"Here I am".
You stand up, go to your kids room to be sure that they have covered themselves with the quilt,
then you go to your wife in the kitchen. She is washing the dishes, you stand next to her saying:
"When will you finish with the dishes?"

You stick to her and kiss her neck. She moves away from you a little bit, saying with softly:
"Zeyad!"
"What?"
"Not here".
"I love you".
"You leave me alone every night and fall asleep before I finish my work".
"Oh".
You say and promise her:
"Tonight I will not sleep, I will wait for you".
"Are you sure?"
She asks and adds with laugh:
"I will kill you if you fall asleep".
"I can hardly wait till you come. I will stay awake".
"We will see".
She says and takes promise from your eyes. You tell her:
"I am going to have a shower".
"Then you will fall asleep!"
You pinch her butt and say:
"I promised I will wait for you and I will not fall ssleep".
She smiles at you and gives you a wink happily.

***

***

You want out from the bedroom, calling her:

"Hannaa".

***

***

She is still in the kitchen, you call her loudly:

"Havent you finished yet?"
And call her again:
"Hannaa".
"I am coming".
"Please leave everything and come".
"I will prepare children's clothes for tomorrows school"
"I am waiting".
"Dont fall sleep".
She talks to you from the children.

***

***

***

***

You put the alarm clock beside your head, to make sure you will wake up early as usual. You
work from six in the morning until seven in the evening. Thirteen hours of continuous work.
Your job and your problems eat the rest of your family. You are in exile here and your family is
at home waiting for you to help them. When you come back home in the evening , you cant wait
to sit between your children.
Hannaas steps speeded up sweeping away your thoughts, and she asks you:
"Are you asleep?"
"No".
"I want you tonight".
"I love you".
She says, and rushes to get rid of her dress on her way to the bedroom.
***

***

***

***

You relax you in bed, the past twoweeks you havent made love. You are sure that Hannaa would
not be late in the bedroom. You feel that fatigue applies in your shoulders and your back. You
think that the ceiling is going to fall onto you, thus becoming your cover.

***

***

***

***

The alarm clock rings loudly, you jump afraid not to be late. Hannaa is sleeping alone on the
other side of the bed. It is five oclock in the morning. You look at her with a sigh. Another night
has passed away and you did not made love to each other. Before you go to work, you give her a
kiss on her forehead, as usual.

Kuwait, July, 1987

====================
Translated by: Taleb Alrefai /

Applied Theatre:
Authors Tim Prentki and Paul Murray

We believe that the purpose of theatre is defined in relation to an application. Serious theatre has
always applied itself to the state of the world and to the relations between people striving to
survive in that world. Therefore it offers its audiences an opportunity to analyse the personal,
social and political conditions pertinent to a given historical moment. Applied Theatre the term
most commonly used today to describe the types of theatre which occur outside formal theatre
buildings renders overt that which is usually covert in traditional theatre practice. The purpose
of a particular theatre process is declared at the outset: a workshop to teach children about the
dangers of drugs; a project to enable prisoners to be rehabilitated into society; a workshop to
support victims of domestic abuse; etc., etc. There is an intended outcome which can be
measured in non-theatrical terms. Are fewer prisoners reoffending? Have numbers of teenage
drug users declined? Are instances of domestic abuse lessening? In other words has the

application of the theatre process to a perceived social problem been successful? Agencies that
are prepared to fund these kinds of applications therefore pay more attention to their outcomes
than to the quality or nature of the theatre process itself. The first question to ask when
embarking upon such a process is: what is its intention?
In the modern period Bertolt Brecht was the theatre practitioner who declared a deliberate
intention to use theatre for the purpose of analysing social conditions and to produce theatre in
such a way as to require its audiences to take decisions about how to change it. A century earlier
Karl Marx had declared that the philosophers have only interpreted the world in various ways;
the point is, to change it.1 Reflecting on his own practice Brecht reiterates the importance of the
intention for social change in his politics and poetics: I wanted to take the principle that it was
not just a matter of interpreting the world but of changing it, and apply that to the theatre.2 In
Brechts practice and theory lie the origins of contemporary Applied Theatre. However, given the
global dominance of the neoliberal model of capitalism, it is usual to discover that most
applications have more to do with an agenda of domestication than of social change. Those with
access to the funds to sponsor projects are commonly those with an interest in resisting rather
than promoting change. Most projects are located among the victims of the prevailing social
structures and the hope of those running these projects is that a dose of Applied Theatre will help
participants back into that same society which has already victimised them. In Britain the phrase
in common use is social inclusion. The issue that is not discussed is why these victims would
want to be included in a society so marked by inequality and so scarred by the ravages of
neoliberalism. Working in such a context the facilitator of Applied Theatre assumes a role
comparable to that of a therapist. The participants in a workshop or project have something
wrong with them and the facilitators job is to improve their ability to overcome the problem
in order that they can function more effectively within the system. The individual must change in
order to cope with an unchanging social situation. Properly understood Applied Theatre is the
opposite: a process whereby the individual or group can use theatre in order to find ways of
making interventions into society, based on an understanding of the contradictions lurking in its
structures.
There are many motives for intervention and many ways of constructing them but the typical
approach in Applied Theatre is through story-telling. The personal story often works well as the
starting point because it is the means by which each of us makes sense of our world. In
organising our experiences into a narrative we all function as artists creating order out of the
chaos of our thoughts, emotions, actions and encounters. Everyone faces pressures to conform to
roles within systems imposed by others: family, nationality, race, religion, class, etc. Our
1 David McLellan (1980) The Thought of Karl Marx, London & Basingstoke:
Macmillan, p.35.
2 John Willett (1978) Brecht on Theatre, London: Eyre Methuen, p.248.

experience of life is the means through which we judge the value of such systems and, in seeking
to make changes, we are guided by what our lives have shown us. So in Applied Theatre the raw
material from which we forge our interventions is provided by lived experience. A vital part of
the process is to create the conditions in which participants can feel confident to offer their
stories, to put their experiences forward to the group without fear of manipulation, ridicule or
marginalisation. Each person needs to be free to say what she thinks and feels rather than what
she thinks the facilitator or agency might want to hear. This again follows Brechts dictum that
taught only by reality, can reality be changed.3 If the process is to avoid falling prey to fantasies
and magical solutions, it must always be grounded in this reality. However, it is grounded not
bounded by reality. An utopian perspective is an essential part of a process of change. Theatre is
an art form that constantly asks: what if? To be useful as a means for social change Applied
Theatre must be a dialectical process where the contradictions of social living produce the
imaginative resolutions which are in turn qualified by the paradoxes and ironies of lived
experience. There is no end point to the dialectic because we are not human beings but human
becomings. Each resolution of a conflict produces the next contradiction which is the motor of
social and political change. Close to the end of his life Brecht celebrated the unfinished,
contradictory nature of existence:
The theatre of the scientific age is in a position to make dialectics into a source of enjoyment.
The unexpectedness of logically progressive or zigzag development, the instability of every
circumstance, the joke of contradiction and so forth: all these are ways of enjoying the liveliness
of men [sic], things and processes, and they heighten both our capacity for life and our pleasure
in it.4
The joke of contradiction is a key phrase in understanding the function of the facilitator who
must challenge participants to explore the contradictions in their own lives and in the world
around them. Being theatre, this challenge is offered playfully through irony, wit and the
interplay of masks. Prentki has explored elsewhere the history of the fool in the theatre, showing
how this figure has been used at many different times to tell truth to power through the exposure
of contradictions.5 The facilitation of Applied Theatre involves playing the fool with the
participants, for folly shakes the rigid social structures so that they can be formed anew in
response to human need and desire.

3 Bertolt Brecht (1977), The Measures Taken and Other Lehrstcke, London: Eyre
Methuen, p.34.
4 John Willett (1978), Brecht on Theatre, London: Eyre Methuen, p.277.
5 Tim Prentki (2012), The Fool in European Theatre, Basingstoke: Palgrave
Macmillan.

This kind of theatre takes all those involved in it to the heart of an educational process where
education is conceived as a dialectical encounter between the experience of the learner and a
wider understanding and knowledge of the learners world. It is not a training to take up a place
in the current system but a means of equipping people to be active citizens in a changing world
which they help to make. The contradictions produced by the present, dominant system,
particularly in the areas of planetary exhaustion and social inequality, are not sustainable. To
resolve these we need the ingenuity, critical understanding and capacity for collective action
which can be discovered by engaging in the process of Applied Theatre.
Diary (before the last war)
A trip to Ramallah from Tel Aviv, a 28-mile journey, is a big deal for Israelis. Most Israelis have
never visited Ramallah, except those who were there in IDF uniforms. Israel and the Palestinian
territories are so close together that they can be compared to different rooms in the same house.
While the territorial borders were open, before the first Intifada, I never made it there, especially
because I had left-wing parents. One day, Yojy, a friend of my parents, took us for a trip from my
hometown of Beer Sheba to the Gaza beach, the nearest beach geographically. I remember my
mother getting very angry at him at the time. According to my calculation this was before 1987,
meaning that I was under the age of 11.
I kept the trip to Ramallah a secret from my mother, as in the cases of my trips to Sinai, Cairo
and Jordan, I am aware of the fact that she would have had a heart attack if she had known about
them back then. But it's not just my mother (who worried about me when I travelled to Tokyo
while the buses were exploding in Tel Aviv). Israeli law is a panic stricken mother who forbids
its citizens to enter the Palestinian militarily conquered territories, called area A, according to the
Oslo Agreement. This decree is based on British Mandate emergency law dating back to 1945,
which, ironically, was designed to help the British hide the activities of the Jewish underground.
The situation created a strange Israeli law twist. The IDF doesn't let Jews into Ramallah, but
approves the arrival of Israeli Muslims there. After all, there is no point in refusing to let them
into Ramallah. Meanwhile, Israeli law plays the racist game like many times before, but this time
their racist pledge is used against the Jews like me.
Obviously, the situation is much more complicated for the Palestinians in the Palestinian
Authority. Most of them haven't seen the sea for years. The consequence for trying to find a job
in Israel in order to feed your Palestinian family is a prison sentence. Many have no alternative
and face multiple arrests. Some years back a leftist Israeli initiative bravely hid Palestinian
women in cars and drove them illegally to the beach in Tel Aviv. Prime Minister, Netanyahu
issues more and more Palestinians short-term entry permits to Israel, mainly for holidays.
Contrary to the leftist romantic Israelis, most of the Palestinians who enter Israel prefer
Jerusalem's cheesy malls. Thereby many West Jerusalem businesses earn millions from
Palestinians who tend to spend large amounts of money, especially during the month of

Ramadan. Netanyahu's gesture was considered so strangely generous that FadiAsalla suggested
to the left-wing website "Haoketz" that it was a conspiracy conceived to bring Palestinians to
Haifa and other cities in order to show them that way too much had changed for them to even
dream of ever returning there. This exaggeration proves the degree of mistrust between
Palestinians and Israeli, which is often justified.
Yet my reason for coming here was neither political nor professional, but rather purely social.
I'm friends with Chris Alami who owns a hostel. An additional motivating factor was my
arrogance. I wanted to be the first Israeli to visit the Ramallah hostel, less than a month since it
was opened. On the day I booked, two friends of mine cancelled. I was afraid to travel there
alone and at first informed that I was going to cancel the trip, but Chris said there was no reason
to fear anything. The negotiations between Israel and the Palestinians had resumed the same
week and even though they never lead anywhere, as most Palestinians and Israelis agree, there
was still a calm front on the horizon.
Israelis are a curiously adventurous bunch with a knack for distant lands. In certain areas of
Nepal, India and Bolivia, Israeli tourists make up a significant percentage of those who travel
there. Israeli tourists seldom hesitate to take dangerous routes or cross jungles. However, nearby
challenges either leave them uninspired or cause them doubts. When I suggest going to see a
neighbouring Arab village or town, they often respond by saying the phrase "What have I lost
there?" in a typical Israeli macho style. For most Israelis, Ramallah represents basically the
Ramallah lynch, even though that happened 13 years ago. In the early stages of the second
Intifada, two IDF soldiers mistakenly entered the city and were killed by local policemen and
residents. The frightening images of policemen showing bloody hands became a traumatic
memory in the collective national legacy for already-paranoid Israelis convinced that all
Palestinians wish to murder them.
Due to a wrong plan, I reached the Palestinian central bus station near Damascus Gate in East
Jerusalem at the worst possible time, on a Friday after Al-Aqsa Mosque prayers. A thousand
Palestinians waited for transportation to Ramallah, and I was desperate. It was hot and people put
wet towels on their heads. Others protected their heads with prayer mats they had just purchased.
I had no idea how to bypass the crowd. Suddenly the hundreds of them started running toward
the Sheikh Jarrah neighborhood where there used to be weekly vigils against the settlers'
takeover of buildings inhabited by East Jerusalem Arabs. In fact, several buses were waiting
there, five of them already full of people when I arrived. Finally I found a seat on the sixth bus
but after a while I stood up to let an elderly woman sit down instead. Since there were many old
women around I continued standing in the crowded bus.
The bus let us off at the Kalandia Junction checkpoint. Even though entry into Palestinian Area A
is prohibited, the soldiers don't check those arriving at Kalandia, but only those leaving it for
Jerusalem.

Kalandia is a symbol of the Israeli occupation, surrounded by an ugly grey wall of separation
reminiscent of the snakes tourist traps offer to be photographed with. It's a place full of peddlers
selling toys, little but tempting zucchini, mango and shiny plastic necklaces. On the bus someone
asked me where I'm from. In order to avoid trouble, I mumbled "Croatia". When we met again at
Kalandia, he greeted me with a big smile and "Hello, Mister Croatia!". Many small shops like
green grocers granted the worshippers a sprinkle of water after fasting from dawn until dusk.
I quickly reached Al Manara, the main square in Ramallah, famous for its stone lion sculptures.
There is a mysterious watch on the paw of one of them. From there I proceeded to the hostel near
Arafat Square with the statue of the Palestinian raising PLO's flag by the fountain. This
commemorates the days when Palestinians fought for the right to fly the Palestinian flag and
some paid for that with their lives.
I left my bag at the cheerful hostel, which is actually a four-room apartment that Chris and his
brother Bobo rent for a thousand dollars, and I went out sightseeing. Due to Ramadan most of
the stores were closed, and in order to eat something you had to hide in a back room. I felt like a
colonialist with my money and my hunger, especially because I am an Israeli citizen. I made a
point of at least paying decently or trying to be as generous as possible. Some leftists, braver
than me, come each week to demonstrate with Palestinians against the Israeli occupation but they
insist on not going to eat humus so as not to feel like colonialists. Palestinian proprietors need
this income so much. Whoever refuses to go out for humus may sleep well at night but they are
doing nobody a service. The Middle East needs fewer ideological stoics with a self-righteous
anger and more people who bring joy to others.
The weather in Ramallah is far better than that of Tel Aviv with its summer heat and humidity
even at night. In Ramallah I had to buy another shirt in order not to freeze. Ramallah is a lively
city, for positive and negative reasons. Much of the international financial aid to reach Ramallah
gets stuck there, and since few people have a chance of getting away, great sums of money are
being spent on locally induced commercials and structural initiatives never to hit the Palestinian
outlying villages. Tel Aviv has been called "an unstoppable city" since the 1989 municipal
advertising campaign, and it really is a wonderful place, but Ramallah's Al Manara Square during
Ramadan at two o'clock after midnight is busier than many Tel Aviv's main streets are at noon.
Yet the Israeli occupation can be felt immediately. I was interested in the tiniest details. Emil, a
photo journalist sent by my paper, came to Ramallah on a motorcycle. I asked Chris why more
people don't ride motorcycles or scooters in Ramallah, so as to avoid traffic jams and deal with
narrow alleys. He claimed that Israeli authorities forbid the purchase of motorcycles because
they are considered to be weapons of Israel exclusively.
Even though our two countries share the same rain and water, and Israel dont have problem with
water this year, Chris tells me that three days a week there is no running water in Palestine. Since
the faucet dries up so often, Chris has to save water in a tank. Many young Israelis complain

about the cost of alcoholic beverages like the popular Arak, because of a new and infamous tax
recently imposed. Yet, each absurd tax imposed effects the Palestinians as well. Even the use of
the new Israeli shekel as the Palestinian currency is hard to fathom. They may be patriotic, but
twenty years after the Oslo Accord, they are still paying with pictures of Israeli politicians. A
local guy said to me in Caf La Vie, "Israelis must have brought lovely girls to the negotiations,
otherwise why would such a stupid agreement have been signed with you?"
Chris has Israeli citizenship of East Jerusalem which Israel annexed, meaning that he can legally
go from Ramallah to Tel Aviv in less than two hours. Chris takes me on a bar tour to compare
with the round of bars I took him on in Tel Aviv. None of the bars in Ramallah were crowded,
since most of the young Palestinians don't drink alcohol during Ramadan. In a posh restaurant I
met a waiter who lives in a refugee camp, and he told me how much he hates the Palestinian
Authority leaders who have become snobby customers spending NIS 2000 a night for a table and
a luxurious meal, which costs the equivalent of 400 pounds, or a monthly salary in his case for
working from morning til evening, in best case.
In many places I explained that I came from Tel Aviv, and everywhere people were either happy,
or showed some indifference to see an Israeli who is not a soldier. Even though Chris believes
that a third Intifada will occur if the Palestinians wont be free, he believes that people are fed up
with the political situation, while most Ramallah residents want a normal life. The young
generation I met there reminded me of my Tel Aviv (or Dalston) friends. Mainly they were
describing their poor working conditions and telling me of their low wages, way too lower than
the Israeli minimum wage. One guy said he has a clean record and wants to visit Israel, but the
Israeli authorities did not allow him to since he refused to deliver them information that would be
useful to the IDF. He claims that the regional problem are the politicians who trade in blood and
send the young ones to war in order to earn money from it. Like in Israel, the younger folks try to
analyze the world according to economic conspiracy theories.
The only one who attacked me politically was actually a British tourist who was in a good
mood , drunk of a single malt and kept a stash of big cigars. Like some other Europeans or
Palestinians who studied in European institutions, he supports the one-state solution as the only
viable alternative. I argued that a Palestinian state to exist alongside Israel, peacefully and
friendly, would also be a plausible option. I maintained that it might take several years to adjust
and relax after all the bloodshed and fear.
He didn't like this. When he got up to go to the lavatory I spoke with his blonde Palestinian wife.
She told me they live in a small English town and that she finds it difficult to meet new friends.
We got along fine. I have often observed that an Israeli can establish a natural relationship with a
Palestinian easily enough, while the western guest may offer solutions that make sense in theory
but really help nobody to get anywhere. Another guest at Hostel in Ramallah was a Swiss
convert to Islam who had flown a hang glider over Nablus, frightening the local police force. He
told us about a demonstration he had attended and expressed his disappointment because the

soldiers didn't open fire. I said I was happy that the solders didn't shoot. Chris mentioned that as
soon as the Swiss guest arrived he showed him a film on Youtube of his open-heart surgery. Most
of the political activists do important work and they certainly have good intentions. But some of
them have come from far away and have taken the long route here while anticipating "action" on
the "conflict tourism" even though the region actually needs tranquility, appeasement and
compromise.
While a demonstration took place in Ramallah, In Jerusalem there was a protest rally against the
release of Palestinian prisoners some of whom had been incarcerated since before the Oslo
Agreement was signed. The demonstration in Ramallah came out in favor. An Italian girl
complained on Twitter that many people stayed in the coffee shops instead of coming to the local
demonstration. Activists against stabilisation also attacked my article published in Haaretz
Newspaper about the hostel. Some of them may have been critical of any description that did not
consistently portrayed the Palestinians as victims as the Europeans do. Although there are some
valid points taken by the anti-normalization stance, I believe that together with the opposition to
the occupation, there must be friendship and a reconciliation between Israelis and Palestinians.
Both sides are here to stay forever.
Many Israelis fantasize of the day when they would wake to discover the vanished Palestinian
people. The same is true to a certain extent for the other side. Neighborly relations with the
Palestinians comprise a part of my complex identity which is no longer strictly of European or
Jewish origin. Even when my grandmother Ada came here from Poland, as a pharmacist, in the
1930's she started working as an employee of an Arab-run pharmacy in Haifa.
I had planned to return to Tel Aviv on Saturday night, but I found it hard to leave so abruptly and
ended up staying from Friday until Tuesday. Chris is a generous friend and took me and four
Danish guests to Ramallah's famous Attie Bakery where even at 2:30 AM there is a long line of
cars waiting their turn to be served. This place has achieved star quality because of a a baker who
is also a member of the local champion basketball team. Afterwards, we climbed the hill
overlooking Israel. That was a sad moment: we were watching so many lights on the horizon
which for many Palestinians symbolize the yearning for freedom and a ticket out of the ghetto
surrounded by the Israeli army and the separation wall, but the view from Ramallah showed us
the city of Modiin, one of Israel's dull towns.
On Tuesday I took Chris' advice and travelled to Nablus. According to the biblical tale I told him,
Jacob's daughter Dina was raped by Shechem, which is the Hebrew name for the city of Nablus.
Shechem fell in love with her and wanted to marry her. Dina's brothers said they would agree to
the wedding plans, on the condition that he and his fellow citizens undergo circumcision. While
they were in pains after the circumcision was duly performed, two of Jacob's sons slaughtered all
the city's men. Chris promised to enter the saga on the hostel's Facebook page.

We leave by Ramallah's central bus station, where it's nearly impossible to enter without getting
run over. The collective taxi drivers past Beit El settlement. At some point the driver requests
that our seat belts be buckled up while the minibus travels along an excellent Israeli paved road
belonging to Area C. I recalled a leftist political campaign that showed the settlers' high quality
road conditions. Upon returning to the Palestinian Area everyone unbuckled their seat belts.
Nablus is very impressive. There are miles of open market and then another open market,
stocked with plenty of products in weird stores. As an Israeli I must admit I was a bit startled by
many shahids portraits stuck on the walls of the shops. Only afterwards I remembered that Israel
had demolished much of the city with bulldozers during the second Intifada, which resulted in
many casualties. I noticed a sign advertising the Abu Hanna bathhouse. When I got there, the
place was being renovated. The construction workers didn't speak English and so we conversed
in my broken Arabic. The proprietor described the new tiles he was about to lay on the floors and
walls. For a minute I was in shock when I noticed the bullet necklace, probably built from the
remains of a clash with IDF soldiers, around the neck of the guy scraping dry skin off of me and
showing me the dirt revealed. Then I recalled the bullets my childhood friend Ofer had kept in a
basement.
Nablus is more traditional than Ramallah. At the market I met two religious Muslims, one of
whom commented about my short pants, which I didn't know Islam forbade. After all, Chris
wears shorts too. The other one, who seemed even more religious, said it was perfectly alright. I
apologised because of that and they shook my hand cordially.
In keeping with the Ramadan month, I ate a take-away meal so as not to offend those who fasted
and rode away in a taxi cab to eat atop Mount Gerizim. This mountain is especially sacred to the
Samaritans, a congregation consisting of 700 members the world over, mainly concentrated in
two cities Holon and Nablus. In the course of more than 2000 years, since the construction of
the second temple, the Samaritans struggled against the Jews, since the former consider
themselves pure Israelis. Today the reasons seem unclear. The best known celebrity representing
them now in Israel is a TV personality and a game show host Sophie Tzedakah. The remaining
population has dwindled, and the group currently live between the Israelis and the Palestinians.
People spoke to me in Hebrew, but I ate in a great hurry on the mountain top. Perhaps as a
punishment for my sins from the gods of one of the faiths, Judaism, Islam or the Samaritans, I
spilled the food on my shorts and I must have looked strange. Soldiers stopped their Jeep and
asked where I am from.
When I returned to Nablus, the city looked deserted. It was like watching a sea where a whale
had just swum by and not a wave was left after the storm. Everyone was at home eating the Iftar
fast-breaking Ramadan evening meal. No cars drove by, nobody was seen walking the streets and
the stores were all closed. Not knowing what to do, I sat down in an empty coffee shop that had
obviously purchased McDonalds chairs from an Israeli McDonalds branch that had closed. I

waited until 8.30 and then I found the coffee shop open under the vines, near the central bus
station. I watched a Syrian soap opera until the minibus filled up and we took to the road.
On the way to Ramallah an aggressive soldier stopped the minibus and spoke rudely to the
elderly driver, as though he were a little kid, scolding him and instructing him to slow down,
while he stared at the passengers as though we were all suspected of something. Even though
nothing exceptional or special took place, I was left with the sour taste of the occupation and its
accompanying condescension.
The next day I went to see Jifna, a Christian village which had been a large town called Gophna
during the Roman imperial siege and ensuing rebellion. There are ruins of a church in Jifna, and I
don't like looking at ruins or visiting churches so much. In the evening, Chris took me to an Iftar
supper with his family, in a building resembling many of the West Jerusalem homes I know. The
apartment was very nice, but the building itself is still under construction.. The Alamis are a
distinguished family in public Palestinian life. The most prominent of them is the grandfather,
Musa Alami, who had been a Palestinian political leader known for his continuous dialog with
the Zionist community before 1948, and on the way home I went down a street in Jerusalem that
bears his name. Unfortunately I had eaten too much at Jifna, but I was eager to taste everything
in sight. Finally we relaxed with an Egyptian candid camera TV show and I played with his
adorable nephew Muhammad who remained busy with his ipad. His mother, Chris' sister, said,
"he could say I-pi for i-pad even before he could say Papa" as we spoke about computers we had
as children, my Apple II+ and Chris' Commodore 64. I thought of Finance Minister YairLapid,
once a popular television show host, wishing the process, in a radio interview, to be "equitable
divorce proceedings".
In the end, I had to return to Tel Aviv. I could have taken a long and winding rout, but I preferred
the challenge of beating the stupid law by passing through Kalandia. A soldier girl got on the
number 18 bus and politely escorted a woman with two children off the bus, since their permit
was no longer valid. After that she made me get off when she saw I had an Israeli ID. The
soldiers seemed shocked to discover that I was Jewish, except for one Druze soldier who asked
me about life in Ramallah and told me he fell in love with a girl in that very city. He said he was
afraid to go there because he would be identified as an IDF soldier who serves at a local
checkpoint. It all sounds like a low budget film plot subsidized by a joint Israeli-German venture.
To sum up, an officer with a speech impediment explained that I had jeopardized myself and will
be booked accordingly. In general the solders treated me with respect and they were frightened
more than they scared me. I thanked them, asked them what to do then, because bus 18 had left,
and I could no longer go to Jerusalem. They reprimanded me and sent me back to the Palestinian
bus station.

Roy Chicky Arad