I've been with this delegation from Boston for almost a week now, and it's been incredibly intense, incredibly stressful, and incredibly wonderful. We're taking a day off in Jerusalem today to catch up on sleep and gather our thoughts together. The group is a fascinating mix of people with a high level of creative energy, and I've felt my emotions open and my creative juices flow more in the past couple days than in a long time. And so, I will share with you two poems that I've written, and hope that you can read them out loud (I wrote them with this intention).
The first is called "Khalil," the Arabic name for the city that in Hebrew and English is usually called "Hebron." The second is a response to a very painful (for me) visit to the settlement of Bat Ayin, a right-wing ideological settlement strategically placed in the Gush Etzion block between Bethlehem and Hebron (and still referred to as 'the Jerusalem area'). One of our delegates has family living there because her cousin's husband is studying at the yeshiva on the settlement. We met with the rabbi of the yeshiva, and my poem is a response to him. In the third poem, I refer to Yad Vashem, which is Israel's Holocaust museum, and to Al Naqba, meaning 'the catastrophe' in Arabic and referring to the killing and displacement of hundreds of thousands of Palestinians during the war of 1948 (what to Israel is the 'war of independence'). And I think that's all you need to know.
Khalil
"What's the difference between an Arab and a trampoline?"
the question, the set up, the joke begins
in Hebrew, on the wall of a Palestinian home
or a Palestinian store
where once there were people
where once there was life
and how can the people not hate in response?
but somehow they don't
somehow the Arabic words on the walls say instead
"Congratulations to you on your pilgrimage to Mecca"
and "My store has moved to the market outside"
sometimes the truth is so clear that it hurts
sometimes no response is necessary
the answer, the punch line, the joke ends
"On a trampoline you jump without shoes."
To Rabbi Natan Greenberg of Bat Ayin settlement
Why do you think there are armed guards outside our kindergartens?
you asked it rhetorically, Rabbi
you asked it so you could answer it
so you, who have never set foot in your Palestinian neighbor's village, could tell me that if you did, you would be dead in an hour
so you could tell me that if a Palestinian came to your colony, he would be fine, and in the next breath tell me that if a Palestinian came to your door, you would have to assume he was there to kill you and thus take appropriate action
Why do I think there are armed guards outside your kindergartens?
I think there are armed guards outside your kindergartens
because it helps to feed your myth of fear
because it helps to feed your fear of reality
Do you feel safer with the guns?
Do you tell me Jews are not a warlike people?
Do you tell me you hope you have never killed an innocent person but you can't be sure?
Do you believe there are innocent people?
Do you believe there are any other kind?
Why do I think there are armed guards outside your kindergartens?
I think there are armed guards outside your kindergartens
because it is easier to demonize the victims than to stop victimizing them
because you feel more powerful with an illusion of control than a reality of trust
because you cannot see beyond the walls of your own ghetto and the limitations of your own understanding
because "never again" means only one thing to you and you've copyrighted the phrase and stolen the experience of suffering from every other group of people on this earth
in your mind
because you don't know quite what to do with power but you're damn glad you have it and you have no intention of sharing it
or dismantling it
because myth creates privilege
and privilege creates blindness
and blindness creates you
because when myth becomes reality
it is that much more difficult to disarm
Why do I think there are armed guards outside your kindergartens?
because the view from Bat Ayin is beautiful
and you don't know your neighbor's name.
A poem with no name
street signs marking settlements
Hebrew, English, and
when not crossed out or faded,
Arabic
crossed out or faded
crossed out or faded
whitewashing street signs
whitewashing history
a mockery of the land
a mockery of the people
i'm starting to understand the importance of naming
i'm starting to understand why every refugee can tell me the name of her family's prior village and why this is often the answer to "where are you from?"
i'm starting to understand why every mother of every prisoner wants to tell me her son's name, his age, the details of his arrest, the prison where he is being held
the prison where he is being held
the prison that she most likely does not have permission to visit
i'm starting to understand why every martyr has a poster in his name, with his photograph, on the walls of every city, village and camp
the same cities, villages, and camps that the street signs forget
the same cities, villages, and camps that have been erased from the Israeli consciousness as quickly as you can say 1948
the same cities, villages, and camps that have been forgotten by history because thus far, history has been written by the winners
and thus far, justice has not won
i imagine a new permanent exhibit at Yad Vashem like the one they have now
the room of mirrors and candles
(or is it one candle reflected hundreds, thousands, six million, twelve million times?)
the room where, as you walk through, you hear the reciting of names
victims of the Nazi holocaust
names that are so many that the tape has yet to repeat itself
i imagine a room a bit like this
but a room instead in which every destroyed village is named
and every victim of Al Naqba is named
and every refugee is named
and every prisoner is named
and every prison is named
and every uprooted tree is named
and every demolished home is named
and every town trapped behind the Wall is named
and every victim of the Jewish psychosis of fear and particularism is named
including ourselves
and i imagine every Israeli, every Zionist, every Jew walking through that room
and seeing herself
and seeing himself
reflected in the mirrors, in the names, in the light of the candle
reflected in hundreds, thousands, millions
as many times as it takes
until there is not one more rabbi who can look me in the eye and say
"this settlement was built on empty land"
