Last post

It's been a busy few days with little time for writing. Tomorrow, Saturday, is our last full day here - we leave Sunday morning.

On Tuesday I went to visit Rutie Atsmon from Windows (http://www.win-peace.org/). I have known Rutie for about 7 years; she is an absolutely amazing woman who runs Windows (she was one of the people featured in Encounter Point). One of the things I spoke with her about is how she lives here, how she stays sane etc, esp bringing up two kids here. Of course she admits that this is not easy. She said that she could not stay here if she was not doing the work she does, and that even though she realizes that it is a drop in the bucket, every drop counts and every drop helps and doing what she and everyone at Windows does it what keeps her sane and functioning. She also said that at times she feels very alone and isolated. Windows is a truly special organization and I am glad to hear that they have been more successful in their fundraising and have recently received budget from the EU to move to a bigger office (they are working out of a tiny space) and to hire a full time fundraiser. Hearing this of course only added to my great feelings of ambivilence towards ever living here, as of course this would be a dream job for me! (For those who do not know, I am a professional fundraiser).

Wednesday morning I took Golan, my 12 year old son, to Jerusalem where we first visited Yad Vashem, the Holocaust Memorial Museum. I have not been there in probably 25 years. It was, obviously, a very difficult morning. It was very crowded and we had to stand behind lots of groups of visitors. We ended up getting stuck for quite some time at the section where they described some of the medical experimentation on Jewish prisoners. This included cutting out muscles and bones on Jewish womens' legs to test different medications; placing Jews in ice-baths for up to 90 minutes at a time to test ways of warming up a human body; hanging Jews in parachute-like apparatuses and depriving them of oxygen to see how long it would take for damage to occur. The human capacity for doing evil is truly astounding and sickening.

Being at Yad Vashem really reminded me of the incredible importance of Israel for Jews and how huge an impact the Holocaust has had on Jewish people. A friend of mine told me that he has a problem with Holocaust memorials bc it focuses too much on victims who are gone and not on people who are in the here and now. I understand his perspective but I disagree with him. Remembering what was should help us focus on the here and now and build a better world. This is, unfortunately, where the gap is. Look all around us.

After Yad Vashem, my friend Ram Rahat, a Yesh Gvul activist (http://www.yeshgvul.org/) took us to see the wall in three places. The first was in Abu Dis, a suburb of Jerusalem. We got very close and by mistake we ended up at a place called the Zeitim (Olives) Terminal. The 'terminal' is a new name for the checkpoints. It sounds so nice, like you're going on a trip with Air Canada out of Terminal 3 at Pearson International Airport. The terminals are huge complexes which look like little military posts. They are completely gated. The women from Machsom Watch cannot view what is going on anymore. We also saw the wall from just outside Bethlehem. However what was really interesting was to see the settlements of Har Homa and Gilo. Picture a big 'U'. At the upper right are Sur Baher and Umm Tuba, Palestinian suburbs of Jerusalem. Then going down the U is Beit Sahour, Bethlehem and Beit Jalla - all Palestinian neighbourhoods/towns/cities that flow naturally into one another and are very close to each other. Now picture Har Homa and Gilo as two settlements that have completely cut these towns off from each other. I have not been to this part of the West Bank since my army service (my head base was it Beit Sahour). It was very depressing to see this.

After visiting Abu Dis, Ram got lost and we ended up going in the wrong direction, past Maale Adumim, another settlement. I could not belive how HUGE it is. You cannot imagine. On the way back into Jerusalem we had to go through a checkpoint, which was really quite bizarre bc this road is really a "Jewish only" road (and what a road, beautiful). Palestinians (from the West Bank) are not allowed to use this road, except for a few taxis. This road is meant for the people of Maale Adumim as a convenient way to get into Jerusalem.

From Jerusalem we went to visit friends in the Tel Aviv area. It was a lovely evening, but sort of surreal after that heavy day. I did not tell them where we had been (other than Yad Vashem). I wonder how much I could handle not talking about it. The whole evening nobody talked politics. Last night my sister had all her girlfriends over and nobody talked politics. Tonight we went out with friends of hers and again - no politics. Is it a topic that people are avoiding around me bc they know my opinions? Or are people just tired of politics? I think (I know) it is the latter. And I find it so amazing that people live with all this going on aroudn them and don't talk about it. Again - the bubble. If you had to deal with this every day you'd go insane.

It's funny, I have heard several people say they don't watch the news, or read newspapers or talk politics bc it makes them crazy and they are just much calmer when they don't know. How nice to have the choice. The Palestinians cannot turn off the occupation by switching off the cable. We have the choice of tuning out so we can stay sane. But you cannot tune out your house being bulldozed. You cannot tune out a monstrosity of a wall cutting through your backyard. You cannot tune out arrests and curfews. And for sure you cannot stay sane. Wow, I must be so smart in order to have figured this out.

One last thing before I end. Tonight we ate at a restaurant in old Jaffa. It was in what was obviously an old, impressive Arab building. At one point I asked the waiter if he knew the history of the building. He told me it had been built during the Ottoman era and at one point had been used as an Officers' Club for British Soldiers as well as a commercial building. Nobody else at the table was really interested (or perhaps they did not hear me). But it is so important to remember, and to keep the memories of the history alive. This history is also a victim of tragedy, and we have to bear witness. It is not likely that this building will ever return to its former owners. But we have to at least remember where this building came from and remember its' former name. (Note: in case it's not obvious, I'm talking about all buildings, villages etc :) )

It must be 2am now. I'm tired. Tomorrow is another long day.
Thanks again so much to everyone who took the time to comment or send me an email. Your responses overwhelmed me (in the good sense!). Thank you for giving me the space to share this difficult time with you and for listening. Knowing that someone is 'listening' has made this a lot easier.

This will be my last post, but I hope to put some pictures up in the coming days (the camera cable is back home). I'll send out a link.

Let's hope for some miracles in 2008.