Happy happy New Year darlings. A quick memory: some friends of ours in threads below explained that Israeli or Jewish friends of theirs were sure that if they ventured into Palestinian neighborhoods they would be torn to shreds. They were amazed when they took the baby step as the poster rightly put it, of venturing in anyway and found kind welcoming interested people. I relate to this since as I often write, if I had not encountered my many Muslim and Palestinian friends personally and if I had to rely on Israeli (when I lived in Israel) and US depictions of them I would still be living in fear and ignorance. So I share the memory of New Years Day 1997 when our toddler daughter, my childrens father and I were visiting Ramallah from Jerusalem… and we spent New Years Eve in a convent that offered housing -- I remember the mystery of these very cheerful nuns from all parts of the globe playing with our child and hosting us…the simple room with a low bed and a stone floor…the ancient convent with Arabic architecture (the pointed stone windows)….our anxiety as we sought to venture out for dinner not knowing what we would find, if we would be attacked kidnapped torn apart…not sure if we were being good parents…the nuns gently smilingly nudging us out the door…then into the cool dark streets of Ramallah and my surprise at all the colored lights… open restaurants at midnight...the families out peacefully celebrating the New Year…the serene welcome in a modest restaurant full of families…it was perfectly clear that we were a Jewish family out with our toddler and we joined the other families with their kids and ate and could not have been more comfortable…but even as I was surprised that normal life a normal celebration a peaceful evening was unfolding I felt the tension the sadness the constraint -- not at us at all but at the reality of this ancient complex historic city locked in/locked down…the sense of no dimension of time that we call the future. Then back to our little room in the convent and the smiling tolerant multiracial nuns in white habits…our world view somewhat rocked somewhat changed…a shadow of peace on earth…and my certainty as the year turned that everything precious in the world was right where I was. Here is to baby steps in 2015.
Posted on: Thu, 01 Jan 2015 15:20:51 +0000
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