Everyone and Everything in Hebron (Just to See part 1)

“So, why are you here?” the soldier asked curiously, not threateningly.
“Oh, just to see,” I said in that gentle voice I had learned to employ when speaking with anyone who is regularly threatened or mocked or bothered—which is everyone in Hebron.

Every single person in and around that old city has been threatened whether ideologically, spiritually, psychologically, or physically. The soldiers in Hebron have been stoned by Palestinian kids and called oppressive for following orders. The international observers and NGO workers in Hebron have endured physical violence and structural opposition to their well-meaning work. The Palestinian elders in Hebron have struggled awkwardly to maintain some level of economic viability even as their ancient home is systematically shut down in the name of security. The settlers in Hebron have been deemed “the crazy ones” for their ideologies, understanding of history, and radical (often violent and illegal) implementation of their ideals. The tourists in Hebron have been nerve-wrecked by warnings from everyone as they pilgrimaged to the burial site of the Matriarchs and Patriarchs of the faith. The school children in Hebron have grown up around literal cages, checkpoints, identification cards and barriers communicating nothing but criminality to their vulnerable minds. The very walls and archways of the place have been spray painted with directives in Hebrew, they crumble in disrepair, or they are stopped up by spiraling barbed wires and cement. Everyone and everything in Hebron feels affronted.

I have developed a new sort of behavior that might be helpful—naiveté, innocence, interest, confusion, and concern. Those things are not threatening. And every bit of it is genuine. I speak with honest wonder in my voice and emulate the kindness I’ve seen demonstrated by the other international Peacemakers here in Hebron.

This is why it made sense when the soldiers would approach me, as they often did, and ask the usual questions: What are you doing? How long are you here? Where are you staying? Where are you from? Why are you here? Our interaction would usually start with their slow approach toward me or a bit of purposeful eye contact. When the soldier was close enough I would say “Shalom” and smile or nod.

Of course, my presence makes things awkward—who ever wants to be watched? And who wants to be watched in the midst of what some might call a national scandal.

A 22 Year Old Spanish-Speaking Nun

The sister hadn’t really responded to me when I arrived in the elderly home on the edge of Taybeh. To almost everyone else my arrival was quite the stir; I had lived and worked there for 4 1/2 weeks in 2008, cleaning, visiting, talking, sleeping, praying.

The young male kitchen staff remembered me and reminded me of the times I worked in the garden. “Remember when you were there? You like to work there...” Lu’ay said smiling openly and pointing to the dirt in front of the entrance, laughing.

“Yes, yes. That was fun for me, gardening and pulling weeds” I said, crouching down to demonstrate what I meant.

When the elderly women saw me, the smiles in their eyes brightened their tired faces so that even now when I think of them tears of appreciation from my heart half fill my throat.

I took a walk with Adlene. We shuffled down the path as she told me in her broken, awkwardly pronoun-ed English about how she fell when she was walking alone a few months ago, “You want to walk, walk, walk up the hill” (there’s a rhythm, childish and lovely in her voice) “but the he gets this far and—” she smacks her hands together, indicating the moment she fell. “Where is my present? From America?”

“What present?” I ask her, a little embarrassed because I don’t actually have a present for her.

“Oh! You my present.” She says smiling and patting my arm wrapped around her own.

I had her stand alone while I gathered flowers, the beautiful little gems scattered about the Palestinian countryside this time of the year. I picked a long, strong strip of grass and tied the colored things together. “Here’s your present!” I said, smiling. We walked back together.

The young nun was new. She had recently been assigned to work with the elderly in Beit Efraim. I saw her silently pushing the wheelchairs from from room to room, but she did not really even acknowledge me beyond a quick smile.

When I returned the next day to visit again, I tried introducing myself in Arabic: “Marhaba. Ismii Rifqa bil arabii, Rebecca bil...”

But she shook her head from behind the man in the wheelchair. “No...”

“Oh, you don’t speak Arabic?”

She looked at me blankly and stuttered something in Spanish. Turns out she only speaks Spanish. I fumbled about in Spanish mixed accidentally with Arabic for the next few minutes, surprising her immensely with my ability to speak at all. Her young face and dark features framed in white habit softened into a smile; I think it had been awhile since she’d spoken with someone in Spanish.

“Cuantos años tienes?” She asked me after a minute of introduction.

“Veinte dos. 22.” The recognition in her face immediately told me she, too, is 22 years old. At 22 she has submitted the entirety of her life to an order that sent her from South America to Palestine for an undetermined amount of time. She has surrendered to Jesus. “Why did you come here?” She asks in Spanish and we try to speak for a few more minutes but not only is my Spanish horrible when I have been speaking Arabic, but the man in the wheelchair wanted water.

“Mucho gusto.”

“Yes, so nice to meet you.”

She amazed me.

Bony-hand knuckles

The sound of bony-hand knuckle flinging awkwardly into bony skull side is not the crisp “bampt” as in the movies. Watching the causes of these awkward sounds of violence has never pleased me.

The first time I heard a punch was in seventh grade. I was practically alone in the lifeless, tile and cinderblock space. I walked out of the bathroom just as Abed, a short dark haired boy, swung up toward his giant friend Clint’s face—his feet actually leaving the ground to make up for the middle school height difference. There was a brief shuffle after that, a small thud when Clint shoved Abed against a wall, and a couple moans.

Windows drowned my high school commons in sunlight. Over the balcony railing I could see a ring of people five thick around a white WWF female teacher and the curly haired little principal struggling between two large black students who yelled back and forth. In the scuffle one student hit the teacher. I could hear only the barn-like ruckus of a crowd. I gawked not at the fight, but at the gathered students. “Why are you watching this in support?”

My first year in Chicago. Three against one in an alley exposed to all of us standing on the El platform. They threw the man on the ground and shoved him, gravel sticking in his knee, I am sure. The train roared behind me. All I did was stare. My train approached and the beating became a stop motion silent movie through the train windows.

That spring I heard how Daley Plaza, with it’s concrete everything, does not forgive. Holding my cell phone to my ear, “Um, yes, please, there’s a fight. There are like 15 people out here.” Less than a foot away from me boney kuckle on jaw or shoulder or chest: Thud. Ahg! Thud. Umf. Thud. Drop. Shuffle. Uuuuggh! Cry. Isak and Ben ran into the fray bravely. Later Isak: “I don’t know why I jumped in there. Any one of those guys could’ve had a knife.” And some of them did.

The noisy Irish crowd ebbed back and forth as the drunken boys swung and flailed about. Jeers and puns hid the thud of knees meeting concrete and tearing jeans. Distraught and weak and tipsy I situated myself on the railing. A new confrontation was about to begin but small firey boned Melissa stood right between the two lads, “Back off! Let him alone.” Wee Rachel spoke with an agitator and told me: “He asked me ‘What was I supposed to do?’” I thought, Northern Ireland will tell you and I’ll pray.

I could only understand that one word, in Arabic: “Maksuraa-AAh!!!” Broken. The pained voice cracked and cries of struggle interrupted his speech as it spilled over the barrier of the police station wall next to the synagogue. The rest of the words were too mingled and distressed to catch, confused by the shouts between approaching Israeli Defense Force soldiers and the young, hidden Palestinian man. I watched alongside the other international observers. And then I wrote about it.

Sunflowers in Palestine

Welcome

I stood outside the tiny chapel watching the priest with a grey streaked beard in gold-embroidered robes lead the faithful, dark, serious women in prayers to God and words of adoration of Mary, Theotokos, God-bearer. Lent is an especially important time in the Greek Orthodox church. Not only is the lenten fast real and great, there are numerous additional services and devotions during the 46 days. Candles were the only light in the little space; they created small orbs of light on the frayed and dirty prayer books and the faces of the worshippers.

Young men of 8, 10, 15 years old gathered outside wearing their jackets, peering through the windows smudged with smoke from the years of lit incense in side the chapel. The youth were only partly distracted by me, careful to keep their attention on the prayers. Beautiful devotion. No one has to come to this service, but even though they don’t fit inside on this chilly night, they listen and watch from the other side of the windows propped open with sticks.

Who is this random young woman arriving in our little church courtyard at dusk?

I thought I recognized Maria Khoury's dark hair and her thin frame standing in the open doorway to the chapel. She had a scarf wrapped around her shoulders over her coat.

“Hiyye Maria Khoury?” I whispered to the boys nearest the door, pointing to my host, Maria. The young man I thought I might recognize from my last visit nodded his head.

I touched her back, causing her to turn. The moment she saw me she scrunched her eyebrows together, raising them in the middle with a look of sincere, deeply felt welcome and sympathy: “Rebecca. You made it all the way here. Did you just arrive? Where are your things?" The smile on her face, tired but peaceful, quickly reminded me of her life’s work of advocating for the possibility of Palestinian entrepreneurship and leadership in the context of her little Christian village, Taybeh.

“Is that all you brought?” She asked.

"Oh, it is easier to bring less. Is it okay to leave it there for now?” I indicated my bag sitting on the stone bench connected to the outside construction of the old church.

“It’ll be safe. Come inside, come inside. You must be freezing.”

I was a little cold, but the excitement of fumbling through Arabic vocabulary and driving through the town that, to me, barely existed outside of my memory warmed my heart. As I stepped into the dark room the melodies (and unintentional, off-key harmonies) of the chanted prayers and sung blessings soaked the space around me. The fog of deep, mystic and sweet incense lay in the air as if the very atmospheric composition of a church included the scent. The candles lit the faces of the older women with shadows in their wrinkles and they the smooth faces of the young with the radiance of devotion.

“Welcome to Palestine!” Maria whispered to me from behind, her prayer book in hand. I looked up and met the darks eyes of a Palestinian woman standing across the chapel from me. Welcome.

Flying Standby

"Life at it's best is a creative synthesis of opposites in fruitful harmony."

-Martin Luther King Jr., Strength to Love-

Tomorrow at this time I should be on a flight to Tel Aviv, Israel.

I'm flying standby. Chicago to Philly, Philly to Tel Aviv.
Let me tell you, flexibility paired with tenacity is a hard combo to beat and there's little better training for those two qualities than flying standby internationally. You see, as a standby flyer I fly last. If nearly anyone else wants to get on the plane before me, they will.

First, I carefully pack every object I need for the next 10 days in one bag—the risk of loosing luggage on standby is exponentially higher than regular flying. The bag is my blue backpack fading to white on it's edges (Thank you, Joe Davis. I carry that bag with me everywhere).

Tomorrow I will stand in a line and check in with my airline before I go through security. I'll keep my only bag with me. At this point I'll find out how very likely (or unlikely) it is that I will board my flight. Regardless of the news about my flight, I'll head for my gate.

I will walk to security; place my plastic bag of liquids, old belt, cell phone, borrowed watch, little shoes, metal hair clip, thrift store scarf, and backpack onto the conveyor belt. I'll stand, with my arms up, in between some big wall-like security screening thing, being careful to place my feet as far apart as the yellow foot-shaped markings on the ground are. Then, as long as I don't get selected for extra security checks, I will re-gather my things and get dressed again (unless I'm late for my flight. In that case I'll shove all my clothes back in my backpack and sprint while awkwardly holding up my pants).

When I arrive at the gate I will assess the situation. If all's calm and the usual scattered looking crowd is sitting patiently (or impatiently) in the divided airport seats, luggage sprawled, kindles blazing, then I breathe gently, check in with the attendants and they'll tell me to take a seat, "You'll be called once we've boarded."

If there's a mass of people gathered around the airline attendant, however, I might feel like crying. "Weather's bad. Our flights were cancelled this morning. Everyone's trying to get on this flight." Remember: standby.

When all looks hopeless for me I try to remember: this is an adventure. Trust. Maybe there's someone on the next flight I'm supposed to talk to. Flying standby has done more to build my faith than nearly anything else.

Tomorrow it's supposed to rain. We're talkin torrential downpour. I've decided to try and get on an earlier flight out of Chicago which means I will spend an extra 6 hours at an airport somewhere (either here or in Philly) but it's worth it. If I can't fit on the 9:40 flight, I'll take the 12:00 flight. If I can't take the 12:00 flight, I'll take the 4:05 one. I can't miss that flight to Israel.

I'm going to Israel. (!)

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Paradoxical virtues are important. We followers of Jesus must be toughminded and tenderhearted, as Martin Luther King said. That means we think well and we love well.

Though those two qualities seem contradictory, they are a perfect combo. One without the other is, in the end, deadly. Taking the complexity of this world's realities seriously will always leave us with mysteries.

I pray that, as I travel, I see more of what God sees. Including the paradoxes.

Placement: a note on subversion

I sat down near him on the cold tile floor, but not too near. Placement is an important thing. Placement around strangers communicates more than silence or a cluster bomb of words. Placing one’s self around strangers is a communication art of the most delicate—and powerful—kind. Most people forget and don’t utilize the opportunities to communicate to the world with intentional placement.

The old man wearing all black—black coat, black pants, black hat, black skin—had established himself there on the third step of Chicago’s Union Station west side concourse. It was too bitter cold to be outside. He had his small black duffle zipped open on his right side and his feet spread wide down on the first step. Every once in a while I could hear him rustling in plastic bags holding some kind of food. His frizzy black beard with white hairs weaving sporadically through it was at least 10 inches long and if he stood up I’m sure his tall frame would intimidate most strong men.

So there I sat about 15 feet away wearing Finnish boots, keeping warm under a green Italian coat gifted to me by a Danish friend, my outfit decorated by a Palestinian kofia, writing in a homemade journal with an Irish pen, snacking on M&Ms with a well traveled Taiwanese backpack beside me. I looked like a hodge-podge of nations, if anything coherent.

I didn’t know this gentle-faced homeless man, but all I wanted for him to know was that I trust him. I am in his line of vision and when I sit there I say “I know you see me. I want you to see me. It doesn’t matter to me that you’re homeless. You are a man worthy of honor and I am asking for your protection.” This sort of communication is unexpected. Hopefully it is also encouraging.

I didn’t want to sit directly next to him because, well, that would require a great amount of effort on both of our parts. Conversation, awkward and probably halting, would ensue after forced introductions... And I wasn’t invited. When I walked by the first time he did not look up to make either friendly or hostile eye contact. Maybe he noticed me anyways and wondered about my life. He might have thought up a story or made all kinds of assumptions. Or maybe he was entirely disinterested. Either way, by sitting on his side of the foyer I am asking to commune with him. I was communicating: “Hello. I see you.”

Noticing the humanness and existence of others can and will subvert power structures. The black man next to me had an unkempt beard, as do many (or even most) homeless men. Think: how frustrating would it be to try and shave regularly as a homeless person? Is there humiliation involved in walking into a public restroom to shave? And most homeless women have scraggly hair and dirty hands with hangnails and dry, cracking skin in the winter. To notice and to to acknowledge—if even just by sitting my world-traveled white rear in close proximity—is a powerful thing.

As George Orwell keenly noted and “as dictators seem to agree, such a bypassing of abstractions, such an insistence on the concrete, is a politically subversive act.” Sitting down next to a stranger when there are plenty of other options says, “I see you. Do you see me?” Though small and vastly insignificant, this momentary encounter with another human on the cold floor of a train station on a cold cold Chicago day made tandem our humanity. We shared a space and I chose to set my young, white, privileged presence near this older, darker, poorer presence. And we were both human.

And I got to thinking, We are America, this old man and I. For what is a nation but blood running through veins and songs spurring from lips? It is this, ultimately. Any nation that forgets this and thinks it is independent of its people is operating under false pretense. What is the United States but the immigrant, the mother, the soldier, the lead in the school play, the old kitschy couple, and the souls of our feet? We are the United States.

When this country ceases to be our own place it becomes a farce. Upon further thought I realized that, for my black comrade, this nation may have already become a farce. I have traveled and seen many places. All human. All nations. I am not owned by the United States, a product to be bought and sold. I make this nation alongside the homeless man sharing a seat with me.

Human placement can and does evoke revolutions: Tahrir Square, Cairo 2011. Strangers refused to go home—even in the face of violent opposition—and they ended a 3-decade-long presidency. Subversion is most powerful in its most human forms. You see, because structures normally set themselves above individuals. And governments forget that they only exist because of the people they serve. But Egypt is reminding her government she will not be harassed any longer.

Ultimately, choosing to be in an essential human state with others, sharing space and persevering in placement, disrupts systems because it forces the system to acknowledge its dependence on human existence. That is why people sit in. That is why people march. That’s why people protest in streets and refuse to go home. A nation stops without its citizens and does not exist apart from their imagination and participation.

So there we sat for about 50 minutes. He ate his food out of a crinkly bag and I scribbled words in my journal. On my way out I passed so near him that I could have touched the skin pulled tightly on his dry old hands. I tried to see his eyes, to let him see mine, but, stubbornly, he did not look up. So I walked on and out into the cold and the wind.

My Small Moment of Defiance. A difficult post.

The ancient streets of Jerusalem stretch 12 feet across in the widest sections—no cars allowed in the Old City where I was staying with one of my friends from university, Maggie Hovhenessian. The paths are lined with doorways opening to labyrinth-like churches and nunneries, “famous” hummus restaurants and shops strung wall-to-wall with beaded jewelry. There seems to be little or no pattern to the street design. For all of its history, Jerusalem has been sought after, fought for and traveled to. She has been destroyed and rebuilt over again. The city is more complex and layered than a budding young romance growing into a deep, true love.

Jerusalem’s convoluted construction is further complicated by her population. The Old City is organized in four quarters. There’s the Armenian quarter where, on one warm, heavy night, my host walked me beneath small spheres of light cast on the school’s courtyard. There she showed me her childhood schoolgirl places. Beautiful, exotic Armenian designs with bright blue peacocks made of smooth stone, decorated doorways and fountains.

There’s also the Muslim quarter. I saw much of this quarter on my own as I shopped for a leather purse and various gifts for home. Twice there I lost my way on the weaving road maze and felt threatened. Twice I enjoyed the warmth of Arab hospitality and openness to a stranger. The comparable poverty there was not quite surprising, though I wanted to wish it away.

In the Christian quarter we walked from shop to shop. We made side stops into twisty staircases of hidden Greek chapels. Leafy green and bits of natural light decorated the walls. My friend introduced me to her friends and we talked long with each one, laughing much. This quarter is predominantly Arabic speaking Palestinians, excepting some of the nuns and the monks and the ever-present tourists.

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Just before sunrise I stood on the porch of a rooftop flat above many other Jerusalem rooftops. What seemed like endless layers of square houses and apartments jutted up in the foreground without rhyme or reason. For generations Maggie’s family has lived in a sporadically designed set of close-knit, multi-level apartments that are hidden from view on the street (as are the rest of the homes in the Old City). Her door is only feet from station 8 on the Villa Dolorosa.

The morning mist obscured TV satellites and wires lined with drying laundry and I cried softly wondering if true hope could ever come to the people of this city.

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Kneeling on one knee I flicked through a basket of different plastic-wrapped prints of 5x7 paintings of Jerusalem. Pretty little things, those prints. The large stones of the street beneath me had divots and waves and ruts in them from the hundreds of years of travelers’ walking pilgrimages. I had been in The Old City for 24 hours and in Palestine for 32 days.

The constant traffic of shoppers, mothers, tourists, nuns, and small boys moved around me as I knelt next to the basket, trying to determine the best print for each cousin back home. Then, interrupting my very focused search for the perfect souvenir, a black pair of shoes stopped about three feet away, indicating a man was facing me, waiting for my attention. Then an indistinguishable male voice from above said, “Shalom!”

Shalom? I questioned with resentment in my mind, Hebrew? I’m in the Christian quarter where everyone speaks Arabic. Who says Shalom here? Looking up I saw a pale but strong elderly man with a big white beard, round hat, black ankle-length cloak, hands held behind his back. Behind him, hanging cloths of colorful woven fabric and traditional black Palestinian dresses with red stitching waved gently in the breezed created by the passersby. He smiled a kind, small smile.

“Hello,” I replied cooly with neither consideration nor interest.

I was frustrated that he assumed I would speak Hebrew. Looking away from him, I began shuffling through the prints again.

He kept still but for a knowing nod, “Ahhh,” looking down at me he asked “Are you here from America?”

“Yes.”

“How are you? Are you here for long?”

Curtly I replied, “I’m fine, thank you.”

I began to feel both of my knees resting on the ground and I intentionally remained in a knelt position. I did not feel like standing up to talk to this stranger. This man who had the gumption to assume I should speak Hebrew though I was in the Arabic-speaking quarter. I resented him and everything he stood for, everything he brought.

Within a few more seconds the tense encounter ended, the Jewish elder recognized my disinterestedness and he walked quietly on. It wasn’t until months after this encounter that, in my small moment of defiance, I had hated this man. Not because he did anything particular to me, but because he was a Jew in Israel.

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Maggie and I visited the fourth quarter, the Jewish quarter, on Shabbat. We entered the spacious, well kept area and Maggie explained excitedly, “Shabbat is a special time for you to be here. It’s different and people are quiet on the streets and happy.” As she explained this, there was a family of Jews dressed almost completely in black walking across the courtyard. The girls wore long skirts and the boys wore dress pants with small ringlet curls swinging gently on their cheeks, as they crossed the courtyard together. From there we proceeded toward the Western Wall.

The ancient wall is an area of significant history and fame. We wandered there, observing the circles of dancing and singing Zionists from a short distance. I leaned over to Maggie and whispered “It’s so hard. Their joy is at the expense of the lives of our friends.” At one point I was alone and had a question. I looked around trying to decide who to ask.

From far off I chose to walk carefully but purposefully up to two Israeli soldiers. They looked kind enough. A little unsure, I approached them and stuttered slightly “Excuse me... Shalom. Could you tell me what the hours of this place are? I mean, does it close or open at a certain time?”

Without even a hint of an accent—faded, corrupted, or otherwise—the soldier said to me, “I don’t speak English.” The look in his beautiful dark eyes and chiseled face, browned evenly by the semitic sun, filled me with shame. I looked away for a moment toward the space swarming with tourists and locals then I looked toward his softer, less arrogant comrade, and then back at him.

“But you just—” I started. Then I saw the large automatic weapon strapped across his broad, strong chest. A few pockets and a belt with a soldier’s equipment embellished simply the olive and khaki uniform. This man was an IDF soldier, part of one of the best trained and equipped armies in the world. Somehow I had forgotten that. In that moment I remembered I stopped seeing him as a man and my heart shifted. This is probably a zionist, fighting for Israel, his people’s homeland. In doing this, he has maimed Palestinian lives.

When he looked down at my nervous face and said, “I don’t speak English,” with pristine pronunciation his angry eyes and stubbornness communicated much more than his unwillingness to help a foreigner, especially an American. He was proud of Israel and served as her protector. Any intrusions—cultural or otherwise—were not welcome. Israel is a Jewish state, after all.

After my moment of hesitation I re-awoke my situation. I held his handsome eyes in mine for a second longer than felt comfortable—it was my small moment of defiance—and I then moved away in submission and exhaustion. The past month of my life I watched my friends submit and contort their lives to the Israeli occupation. Such a close encounter with any of that occupation’s perpetrators felt either like betrayal or weakness. And I hated that soldier for that feeling.

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