March 2006
Dear Birthright Unplugged friends and supporters,
We are writing to you because we have successfully completed our second season of Birthright Unplugged trips!
This winter we again took two groups of mostly young, Jewish North American people on 6-day trips into the West Bank, in order for them to have a firsthand experience of Palestinian daily life under occupation. This is our Unplugged trip. We are also proud to let you know about our Re-plugged trip, a new program that we began this winter, in which we take children from Palestinian refugee camps on two-day trips to Jerusalem and their holy sites, to the sea, to stay with Palestinian citizens of Israel, and to visit the villages that their grandparents fled in 1948. The children documented their trips with digital cameras and audio recorders, and the experience culminated in a celebration and exhibit in Dheisheh refugee camp.
Without exception, the Jewish North American participants on our Unplugged trips continue to be deeply moved by their experiences. Most have told us that it has been a life-changing journey and even a turning point for them. One of the most wrenching sights we witnessed was a rural Palestinian family completely surrounded by Israeli walls and fences. Our participants were also profoundly affected by seeing settler attacks perpetrated by teenage girls against Palestinian shop-owners, neighborhood residents, and human rights workers.
The program for each Unplugged group was similar, but as always, the functioning of the occupation and the composition of the groups provided for distinct experiences. This was reflected in the groups’ daily discussions as well as in our closing dinner, during which the participants evaluated the program and thought about how to engage in the future with the issues they encountered over the week. Participants’ commitments for the coming months include: inviting a speaker from our trip to give a talk at a university in Israel; hosting house parties, film screenings, photography exhibits, concerts, and Shabbat dinners related to Palestine; developing a fund for Jewish people to support Palestinian organizations; integrating new knowledge into Sunday school curricula at synagogues; doing outreach and media interviews for Birthright Unplugged; being present where tough questions about Israel/Palestine need to be asked and asking them; getting involved in community groups at home; and continuing to learn about the issues brought up during the trip.
Our Re-plugged trips with children living in a West Bank refugee camp complement our Unplugged trips described above. As Jewish people, the participants on our Unplugged trips have an open invitation by the Israeli government to move to a nation that has been superimposed on the lands of displaced people. These displaced people, Palestinian refugees, are denied their internationally recognized right to return to their land. Strict movement restrictions require Palestinians to obtain permits for themselves and their cars if they want to move from place to place. Most Palestinian people do not have these permits and are unable to enter Israel, which for refugees means they cannot even visit the villages they were expelled from in 1948.
Israel controls Palestinian movement through the ID card system, which begins at age 16 for Palestinian people. Until that age, children are able to move with fewer constraints, but rarely do because their parents, grandparents, and older siblings are unable to do so. This is where we come in. As internationals with foreign passports, we can move with relative freedom, and we can escort the children our of their refugee camp in the West Bank, through checkpoints, and to the places they always talk about but are rarely able to visit.
We ran two Re-plugged trips, one for 8 girls and one for 8 boys. Some of the most moving experiences we had with the children included their first sight of the sea, discovering their ancestral villages and connecting with the land, and seeing their community come together to share and celebrate during the exhibit.
The girls’ trip was first, and we had not emphasized the importance of bringing towels and changes of clothing. When we arrived at the sea, the girls ran straight into the water, despite the mid-January weather. They played, danced, and ran around for an hour or two, and came out of the water soaking wet. At this point, they realized they would have to share towels, and many of the girls had to wear pajamas for the rest of the day, not having any dry clothes.
The host families they met later, through the Yaffa-based Palestinian organization Al-Rabita, took good care of them and their wet clothes. Many of the children do not know Palestinian people who live inside Israel, and vice versa, since Israeli travel restrictions prevent West Bank Palestinians from entering Israel and Israeli citizens from entering Areas “A” (or urban centers) of the West Bank and Gaza Strip. The experience was moving for both parties, and the kids invited their host families to the exhibit in Dheisheh two weeks later.
Most profound for all the children was experiencing the villages they have heard their grandparents talk about since they were born. The boys ran around picking flowers and plants for each other, rolling around on the land, and kissing the earth they have never touched before. The girls dressed in traditional embroidered dresses in preparation for the visit. In one village, they climbed the minaret of the mosque that still stands amidst a newly built Jewish Israeli community, its prayer space now filled with trash. In another village, they ran up a hillside to find the remains of their grandparents’ houses, old water wells, and olive and fig trees probably planted by their ancestors. Their exuberance at discovering these things turned into a kind of hysteria as they laughed and screamed, and then decided they wanted to stay and sleep on the land, refusing to leave.
We finally boarded the van to return to the camp, the girls still angry and upset about what they had seen and having to be pulled away from it. Our driver, Rimon, tried to appease the girls with, “Next time we’ll stay longer.” Twelve-year-old Lana responded: “There is no next time. You know that, and we know that. We’re going back to Dheisheh now and we will die in Dheisheh.”
We had anticipated painful moments like this, and in preparation for the program, had spoken with people who had gone to their villages as children. We were assured that the kids would carry this once-in-a-lifetime experience with them always, making it well worth it. The organizations we worked with in Dheisheh camp, Shiraa’ and Ibdaa’, also had follow-up meetings with the children, helping to support them upon their return.
After the trip, we helped the children curate an exhibit of their photographs and objects they had collected. The planning and carrying out of the exhibit gave the children the opportunity to reflect on their experiences, as well as a way to make a tangible contribution to the collective memory in the camp, where the photographs still hang.
The opening day of the exhibit was a huge success. Close to two hundred people attended the children’s presentation, including relatives and friends of the children, some of the host families from Yaffa, our colleagues from the International Women’s Peace Service, and friends from a neighboring refugee camp. That morning, we had met with the children to figure out who would be describing different aspects of the trip to the community that evening. One of the quietest boys took out a book and said, “There’s a poem I like that I want to read.” As he began to read, we were shocked by his booming melodic voice that is typical of Arabic poetry reading. The other children began suggesting further components of the presentation, and at the end had designed a program including trip description, poetry, dancing, singing, and even a juggling performance on a unicycle.
The exhibit included its poignant moments as well. A few of the kids had photographed the wall of the only remaining house in the village of Jerash, which turned out to belong to the grandparents of three of the children. When this couple arrived at the exhibit, they saw the photograph and the man began to kiss the picture of his old house, explaining to his grandchildren what life was like when he lived there before 1948. Fourteen-year-old Hitham was in tears as he listened to his grandfather speak.
All of the people involved in the trip and exhibit have expressed their support for our doing the trips again. We are hoping to run our summer Re-plugged trips out of Jenin refugee camp, so we can get to know this community and explore some of the destroyed and depopulated Palestinian villages of northern Israel. In addition, the children of Dheisheh have photographed life in their camp so that we can bring a version of their exhibit to the United States, including photographs of where their families are from in addition to where they now live. Our Unplugged trip dates are set for the summer, and we are beginning to recruit people for these trips. Please visit our updated website (www.birthrightunplugged.org) for more details about both of our programs, and for information on how to donate to help us continue them.
Thank you for your support, past, present, and future!
Much love,
Dunya and Hannah
