{"id":66943,"date":"2019-01-25T17:05:56","date_gmt":"2019-01-25T15:05:56","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/www.reunion68.se\/?p=66943"},"modified":"2019-01-20T10:13:54","modified_gmt":"2019-01-20T08:13:54","slug":"25-05-32","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.reunion68.se\/?p=66943","title":{"rendered":"THE GOOD, THE BAD, THE INAPPROPRIATE AND THE UGLY"},"content":{"rendered":"
\"\"<\/a>THE GOOD, THE BAD, THE INAPPROPRIATE AND THE UGLY: SHABBAT IN HEBRON<\/a><\/strong><\/span><\/span><\/h5>\n

SHIRLEY FINKELSTEIN<\/strong><\/span><\/p>\n

\n

\u201cParticipants are encouraged to go through a difficult process and come to their own conclusions.”<\/strong>
\nSTUDENTS FROM the ATID student leadership program visit the Cave of the Patriarchs in Hebron<\/span>. . (photo credit: SHIRLEY FINKELSTEIN)<\/em><\/span><\/p>\n

Not everyone would consider spending Shabbat in Hebron, let alone a group of Anglo post-high school students trying to enjoy their gap year (a year between high school and college) in Israel.\u00a0<\/span><\/p>\n

Students from the ATID student leadership program, however, boarded a bus at 6:40 a.m. on a recent Friday morning to learn about the Jewish and Palestinian communities in Hebron over the course of a Shabbat. While there, some cried during prayer services at the Cave of the Patriarchs, some fumed with anger during political discussions and many asked questions during discussions and talks with activists from both the far-left and far-right sides of the Israeli-Palestinian conflict. Program organizers extended the invitation to non-ATID participants, bringing in a handful of young professionals to the mix.<\/span><\/p>\n

\u201cA lot of times, people are either very stuck in their ways, or they\u2019re completely swayed in one direction and dismiss anything else they hear. I think that most people on this trip were able to internalize something from everyone, even though it was difficult,\u201d said Danit Felber, the program\u2019s managing director.<\/span>
\n\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0<\/span>
\nATID\u2019s head educator, Rabbi Yehuda HaKohen, said that the weekend aimed to deepen participants\u2019 sense of Jewish identity and connection to Hebron while exposing them to how Palestinians are experiencing life in the 20% of Hebron under full Israeli control known as H2.\u00a0<\/span><\/p>\n

HaKohen stressed that the goal of the weekend was to empower students to create their own unique ideologies.\u00a0<\/span>
\n\u201cATID is about creating the intellectual leadership of a 21st century Jewish liberation movement that can clean up Zionism\u2019s mess while safeguarding its positive achievements,\u201d he said.<\/span><\/p>\n

\u201cParticipants are encouraged to go through a difficult process and come to their own conclusions.\u00a0<\/span><\/p>\n

\u201cOne of the greatest barriers to peace, in my opinion, is the fact that both Jews and Palestinians feel threatened by each other\u2019s stories. We\u2019re both afraid that if the narrative of the \u2018other\u2019 is true, it makes our own narrative less true. I see it differently. I think both peoples are correct when we talk about ourselves and our experiences but tend to get it wrong when talking about the \u2018other,\u2019 which leads to us each superimposing identities and motivations on the \u2018other\u2019 that have little in common with how we each actually experience it ourselves. We\u2019re both playing fantasy antagonists in one another\u2019s stories and this leads to very counterproductive methods of struggle on both sides.\u201d<\/span><\/p>\n

IN ORDER to give people the opportunity to draw a conclusion, the group listened to a handful of speakers after setting up camp at the Hebron guest house.\u00a0<\/span><\/p>\n

After conducting morning prayers at the Cave of the Patriarchs, the program picked up. First was a talk with Palestinian tour guide Mohammed al-Mohtaseb. The group then followed him to the rooftop of his family\u2019s home in H2, which is above a souvenir store. It was an extremely brisk day and the group listened patiently as hail fell from the sky.\u00a0<\/span><\/p>\n

Mohtaseb told the group about his life experiences. In under 20 minutes, the guide explained the difference between the Hebron territories, shared his view on military law versus civilian law, and expressed his experience that while Israeli citizens are innocent until proven guilty, he and his community are guilty until proven innocent. The guide shared a personal anecdote, detailing a time when he was arrested and jailed for throwing stones \u2013 before being able to prove he was innocent, as the man in the photo that the authorities offered him as evidence was 50 kilograms heavier than Mohtaseb.<\/span><\/p>\n

Following the stories, students asked questions while Mohtaseb\u2019s father brought up a large pot of tea, which made its rounds rather quickly as students warmed their hands.\u00a0<\/span><\/p>\n

\u201cWhat do you think of BDS?\u201d\u00a0<\/span><\/p>\n

\u201cDo you think their language is extreme or helpful?\u201d\u00a0<\/span><\/p>\n

\u201cShould people boycott Israeli companies that employ Palestinians?\u201d\u00a0<\/span><\/p>\n

The questions snowballed and Mohtaseb answered graciously, explaining that while he follows his own unique path, boycotting products is a nonviolent form of protest.<\/span><\/p>\n

The tour continued. HaKohen stopped to show students monuments of Jews who had been killed in Hebron, providing details about the events. The group also stopped at the site of the ancient Roman markets, where Jews were taken, sold off as slaves and marched off to Europe. That spot, HaKohen explained, is the birthplace of Ashkenazi Jewry. HaKohen also led the students to a synagogue that dates back to 1540 and that is still operational.<\/span><\/p>\n

These stories and stops were all on the way to a visit with Tzipi Schlissel, a woman who knows about the conflict firsthand. Her long ties to Hebron and her far-right views made her the perfect candidate to follow Mohtaseb.\u00a0<\/span>
\nSchlissel recounted to the students the details of the 1929 Hebron massacre, in which nearly 70 Jews in Hebron were murdered, and how her grandmother was saved by an Arab family.<\/span><\/p>\n

Schlissel painted the scene. Hebron was a mixed city at the time, with 18,000 Arabs and a small community of less than 1,000 Jews. Just 21 Arabs are known to have protected Jews during the riot.<\/span><\/p>\n

\u201cThis was very hard for the community \u2013 the feeling that their friends killed them. This was all before there was any excuse of occupation. Before this was Israel\u2019s state. Every time they find a different excuse why to incite the people of the Arab society to go and kill Jewish people,\u201d Schlissel said.\u00a0<\/span><\/p>\n

She then moved to the tragic story of how her father was murdered in 1998 in his own home at the hands of an Arab terrorist who came through his window with a knife and a Molotov cocktail.<\/span><\/p>\n

\u201cOnly after they killed my father did the government give us permission to build. The Jews in Hebron don\u2019t have the rights to build, to buy, to go to their own houses they owned from before the massacre. We have a strong connection to this place. There\u2019s no other place in the world that we can see buildings 2,000 years old \u2013 big ones that are used for the same thing it was built for. And everyone knows this is where the Patriarchs \u2013 the fathers and the mothers of this nation \u2013 are buried.\u201d<\/span><\/p>\n

Immediately after listening to the painful story of Schlissel, the tour moved across the street to visit a Palestinian activist named Issa Amro, who seated the group in his backyard and spoke about the lack of human rights for his people. Similarly and yet oppositely to Schlissel, Amro said that the Jews had been violent to the Palestinians.<\/span>
\n\u201cYou are not allowed to practice any kind of general assembly, you are not allowed to have visitors and there\u2019s settler violence all the time. And people are completely alone and isolated and nobody hears about them. Nobody really knows what\u2019s happening here in Hebron,\u201d he opened.<\/span><\/p>\n

During Amro\u2019s speech, soldiers passed through his yard. Some yelled. Some laughed and some showed the lay of the land. Amro told the group that the soldiers were simply explaining to the newcomers how to proceed during Shabbat. Many of the students were visibly uncomfortable by the presence of the soldiers, turning around to watch them. Some bit their nails. Some stared at the floor.<\/span><\/p>\n

One of the participants asked a question: \u201cIf you had to choose to live with Hamas, the PA (Palestinian Authority) or Israel, who would you choose?\u201d<\/span><\/p>\n

\u201cI am for a country with full civil rights and democracy. And none of them is doing that right now. Let me say that I don\u2019t want to see those soldiers there. During an attack, if somebody was attacking me and I would see a soldier and tell him to protect me. He would say I am with them. Not with you. I am against you, not against them,\u201d Amro said.<\/span><\/p>\n

Later, the activist talked about his Jewish neighbors, including Schlissel, who he referred to as \u201cthat angel,\u201d but told the tour she had struck him using her hands earlier in the week during a dispute in which Amro said he would construct a low wall beside his house.\u00a0<\/span><\/p>\n

After the discussion, I returned to Schlissel\u2019s home and asked her if she had laid hands on Amro. She said the construction had been illegally done on property that didn\u2019t belong to him and then asked me if I thought she looked like a woman who would attack a man twice her size.<\/span><\/p>\n

At this point, the group headed back to the guest house for a talk about spirituality before having time to wash up for Shabbat. Friday evening services were held at the Cave of the Patriarchs.\u00a0<\/span><\/p>\n

After the Shabbat dinner, a right-wing speaker addressed the room. Coming from Efrat, Yishai Fleisher expressed to the crowd that in order to gain respect in the Middle East, the Israeli army needs to be strong and feared. He added that in this world, the option is to be the oppressor or to be oppressed. For Fleisher, the best option is a one-state solution, in which all Palestinians become Israeli Arabs, living under Israeli law as citizens \u2013 without the right to vote. Fleisher got lots of comments from his speech, but as the night dwindled on, people stopped questioning politics and started making their way up the stairs to bed.<\/span><\/p>\n

On Saturday morning, some slept in and some returned to pray near the Cave of the Patriarchs before an early lunch. Chris Whitman, a pro-Palestinian activist, spoke to the refreshed group. He went over how he became involved in the conflict, moving from the US to study at the Hebrew University of Jerusalem, before moving to Ramallah for a more authentic experience that would relate him to what he had studied.\u00a0<\/span><\/p>\n

He described the long journeys by car on roads that were meant only for Palestinians. He described being hit in the head with a tear-gas canister fired by an Israeli soldier from 15 meters away during a protest. He painted a picture of what life is like on the other side. He did all this with a touch of humor.<\/span><\/p>\n

What was his solution for the problem? For the Israeli government to begin making up for the way Israel was born \u2013 on the heels of removing Palestinians from land and leaving them to live in an area that is not a state. Instead, he suggested that Jews should have moved in seamlessly among the Arabs in 1948, and questioned the need for Jews to have identified the area as a Jewish state at all. \u201cDo Kurds have a country?\u201d he asked, answering \u201cno.\u201d<\/span>
\nLater in the afternoon, the group had a debriefing. It had been an intense couple of days and HaKohen thought it was necessary to let participants get some of their feelings and their new views off their chests. Each person came away with a different viewpoint. One offered that there\u2019s no way for Jews to properly work with Palestinians because \u201cthey have a sh*t culture.\u201d One said she couldn\u2019t face her friends anymore, who repeatedly choose to ignore the problems of Palestinians and blindly defend Israel. Another said he felt more committed to both furthering the Jewish presence in Hebron as well as to bettering the situation for Palestinians in the area.<\/span><\/p>\n

Dan Amroussi from London is studying at Hebrew University. He joined ATID, where he hears from political speakers and activists every other week.<\/span><\/p>\n

\u201cI came here obviously with an opinion about the conflict. But coming here with ATID and with the university, I gained a wider perspective and realized how ignorant I was and how ignorant other people are as well. I\u2019ve always wanted to come to Hebron. This weekend showed the conflict in such a small area. You can see the tension in just this tiny place,\u201d Amroussi said.<\/span><\/p>\n

Another participant shared her opinion about the weekend, but wanted to withhold her name in order not to hinder her chance of gaining entrance to her desired university, which has a reputation for being antisemitic.<\/span><\/p>\n

\u201cIt was eye-opening really. Some of it was very, very disturbing and sad and heartbreaking. But at the same time there was a lot of important stuff I think that I gained over the weekend. Hebron is an intense place. There\u2019s really a lot of animosity between the two groups. And a lot of the people who live here \u2013 they seem to be really, really intense people with a little bit of a violent side to them, which on the one hand is kind of scary to see, but on the other hand proves itself to be necessary given the circumstances they\u2019re living in. But one thing that I did notice that was kind of beautiful to see was that there was some kind of a brotherhood between some of the Arabs and Jews.\u201d<\/span><\/p>\n

Another student participant, Yeshaya Shapiro, asked if he could give his thoughts about the weekend.<\/span><\/p>\n

\u201cIt really got deep into your bones about how complex the situation is here. I would say I already had a diverse opinion, but it seemed that I didn\u2019t. It tickled that part of my brain \u2013 and made me think more.\u201d<\/span><\/p>\n

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THE GOOD, THE BAD, THE INAPPROPRIATE AND THE UGLY: SHABBAT IN HEBRON SHIRLEY FINKELSTEIN \u201cParticipants are encouraged to go through a difficult process and come to their own conclusions.” STUDENTS FROM the ATID student leadership program visit the Cave of the Patriarchs in Hebron. . (photo credit: SHIRLEY FINKELSTEIN) Not everyone would consider spending Shabbat […]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"closed","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":[],"categories":[6],"tags":[26,24],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.reunion68.se\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/66943"}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.reunion68.se\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.reunion68.se\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.reunion68.se\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/users\/1"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.reunion68.se\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcomments&post=66943"}],"version-history":[{"count":4,"href":"https:\/\/www.reunion68.se\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/66943\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":66960,"href":"https:\/\/www.reunion68.se\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/66943\/revisions\/66960"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.reunion68.se\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fmedia&parent=66943"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.reunion68.se\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcategories&post=66943"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.reunion68.se\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Ftags&post=66943"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}