The Search for 1948

Part 1:

“Where do you want to go?” asked the taxi driver, expecting to give me a short ride and collect a few shekels.

“Baqa’a,” I replied, “but it’s a bit of a project.”

The West Jerusalem neighborhood of Baqa’a is only a 10 minute drive from the place in East Jerusalem where we were, but time travel takes somewhat more imagination.

“I’m looking for a house from 1948,” I told him, and handed him a diagram of a house that looked similar to hundreds of other old houses in the Jerusalem area.

“Is it yours?” he asked.

“No, a friend’s.”

Only a few months ago I found out that a friend of mine in Boston, who I’d always known as Lebanese, was actually born in Jerusalem. In 1948, at the age of four, he and his family, along with 800,000 Palestinian people, were forced out of their home by pre-Israeli forces. They fled to Lebanon, where his father had lived before moving to Jerusalem 20 years earlier. Nobody in the family has been back to Palestine since 1948, so I asked my friend if he would like me to try to find his house. He gathered some information, including a few nearby landmarks and a diagram of the house, and I set off on my search.

This brings me back to Abed’s taxi, where I sat hoping he knew the neighborhoods well enough to help me. I had planned to seek out an older taxi driver, and possibly someone who spoke English so I could make sure to communicate every little detail I knew. Abed is a young guy who speaks very little English, but he seemed interested in and moved by the project, and immediately began to call all the older people he knew.

“Do you know where the Jordanian embassy was before 1948?” he would ask, as this was our major landmark.

“Yes,” one man told him, “but it wasn’t in Baqa’a.”

“No,” said a couple people, “there was barely a Jordan at that time. How could there be a Jordanian embassy?”

So we began to drive, looking for the other smaller landmarks, or for people who might recognize the name of my friend’s father. Abed would pull over next to every older person he saw (Palestinian or Israeli), and ask about the Ummah school, the Jordanian embassy, and the British army women’s headquarters. Some people were vaguely helpful, some not, and some would inform us in a slightly insulted way that they weren’t alive in 1948.

We left Baqa’a and crossed the street to another neighborhood that is still mostly Palestinian, thinking we would have a better chance of finding both people who wanted to help and people who could help. Not two minutes later, we passed an old man and Abed stopped. We got out of the car, said hello, and explained what we were doing. “You’re in luck,” replied the old man, “I know more about these neighborhoods than anyone else in the area.”

Before I knew it, his wife was serving me coffee in the middle of the street and the man was telling his wife and daughters to go ahead to the hospital because he would come in the car with us as long as Abed agreed to drive him to the hospital afterwards. Abed agreed, and we continued on our journey, this time with a new passenger.

We drove for about a half hour with little success, and then the man (whose name I never learned) suggested we stop at an old house on the corner. We knocked on the door, and an old Israeli man answered. He took one look at us and asked, “Are you looking for someone who used to live here?” as he opened the door and let us in. “You’re in luck,” he said, “I know more about these neighborhoods than anyone else in the area.”

So here I was inside a house with Abed the taxi driver, and two older men, one Palestinian and one Israeli, who said they knew everything about the area. They talked for a few minutes and argued amiably for a few more in a combination of Hebrew, Arabic, and English. The interaction had an air of pre-Zionism to it that is difficult to explain. The men were interacting like any two older men would, both trying to be helpful and both trying to prove what they knew. They used language of “Arab” and “Jew” instead of “Palestinian” and “Israeli”, which many people do, but it just seemed right in this situation. Like nationalism and the way it has played out had nothing to do with this simple human search for an old home.

I had started the trip too late, so by this time it was getting dark and I was running late for a meeting. We had gotten some information that might help us for next time, I had a few questions to go back to my friend with, and we took the name and phone number of the Israeli man so we could try again another day.

Part 2:

Two weeks later, the only day out of several that wasn’t pouring rain, I met Abed in Jerusalem. I had received more precise directions from my friend in Boston, including names of other people who lived and worked in the area and, most importantly, a photograph taken from the house in 1940.

Abed met me and told me he knew where the house was, that he had gone back there after our last search. I showed him the photograph and we drove towards the area where he thought the house was. We parked and began to walk around, holding up the photograph to each gate and entrance. We found one house that looked quite similar and currently has a huge construction project going on directly on top of it. The managers were Israeli, the workers Palestinian. We went in and asked the workers what they knew about the house, which wasn’t much. We were stopped on the way out by a manager. Abed explained in Hebrew that we were trying to find a house. The man
glanced at the photo and said, “Yes, this looks like the house.” Another manager came out and ordered us off the property. “This isn’t the house,” he said. “There was nothing here before 1948.”

We stood outside for a few minutes as Abed explained to me (as though explanation was needed) that the Israeli man felt threatened by us. “We need to find an Israeli to help us,” said Abed. “They think you and I are here to claim the house because I’m Arab and you have papers in your hand. They don’t know we’re only here to look and photograph.”

“We should take the house,” I replied, only half joking.

By that time we had realized this was probably not the house we were looking for. The gate looked the same but we couldn’t figure out the angles in the photograph and it just didn’t seem right. Another older Israeli man on the street asked if he could help. Abed explained that we were searching for a house, and the man joined us for the next 20 minutes as we walked around the neighborhood. We kept finding similar sights, but none of them fit together right. Finally he asked, “Are you sure the house is in the German Colony?”

“No,” I replied, “it’s in Baqa’a.”

Apparently the older Israeli man who had helped us the first time had convinced Abed to come to this area. So we got back into the car and headed back up to his house. He answered the door and I shared all my new information with him. It’s near the Trans-Jordanian consulate, I told him, not the Jordanian embassy. There’s a road that goes down from the main street towards their house. Well, these two pieces of information were all he needed. He followed me out to the street, pointed, and said, “Go two more traffic lights. The Allenby building is probably what you mean, and
that’s on your left. There’s a street that goes down from there on the right.”

Something felt right about this, so I got back in the car excitedly and we drove those two blocks, turned right, and got out and started walking. The streets were different than they were described to me, and the building supposedly on the corner wasn’t there. But sure enough, after a few minutes of meandering, I found myself in front of a large building that was in the background of the photo I was holding. I positioned myself exactly at the angle that the photo was taken from, and looked around. One street continued to go down, so I took it. To my right was a synagogue that I guessed was either my friend’s property or his neighbor’s. I hoped it was
not his, that his house had not been completely destroyed and replaced by a synagogue.

We passed the synagogue and stopped in front of the gate to the next house. This was it. Different from the photo, but with the same dimensions, and seemingly the right distance from the larger building up the street. We entered and found ourselves on the stone path described in the e-mail I had in my hand from my friend’s older brother:

“…continue along the stone-paved path… some 8 meters, you reach the level of the house… Move some 10 more meters and you will have the six stone steps (to the left) that lead up to the veranda and you will then be facing the main door, entrance to the house.”

I was facing the main door, the entrance to the house. I wanted to knock on the door, but wanted to take in as much as possible first. I walked around the house, wondering which plants and trees had been there when my friend lived there and which were new.

Finally Abed knocked. No answer. We waited a few minutes and then left. I came back about five minutes later to photograph more and the door to the house was open.

I went to the entrance, knocked, and said “hello?” A man appeared.

“Do you speak English?” I asked.

“A little,” he replied, which turned out to mean a lot.

“My name is Hannah, I’m from the United States, and I have a friend who I think used to live in this house before 1948. Can I come in and look?”

He seemed hesitant but let me in. I asked if I could photograph and he was slightly more hesitant, but again agreed. He asked if I was sure this was the house, and I told him about the description of the path, stairs, and entrance. I asked how long he’d lived there, and he told me only a couple years. He rents the place from a French Israeli man who has owned it for about five years. Before that, the building was owned by a Moroccan Israeli family.

“Since 1948?” I asked.

“Well, the Israeli government probably had it first and then gave it to them, but yes, for a long time.”

I kept photographing. I was a bit hesitant to have any meaningful conversation with him because I was afraid it might spoil my ability to be filming. As I was getting ready to leave, though, he began a conversation:

“The reason I let you in,” he told me, “is that one time my sister went back to Morocco to find our family house. The man currently living there wouldn’t let her in. She cried and cried, and finally he let her in, but he wouldn’t let her photograph. This is why I let you in and let you photograph.”

“Do you want to return to Morocco?” I asked.

“No,” he said, almost laughing at the suggestion.

“If the situation changed?”

“No, Morocco is for the Moroccans and Israel is for the Israelis.”

“What about the Palestinians?”

“We were here first,” he said, “thousands of years ago. This is our land, it says so in the bible.” I had noticed all the torahs and other religious texts in the house, so it did not surprise me that he was religious.

“Sixty years ago my friend was living here,” I said.

“History doesn’t start in 1948,” he answered.

There was no use arguing with religion. We said an awkward goodbye (what I would usually say when someone has let me into his house would be “thank you,” but it didn’t seem right in this situation), and I left.

My search for 1948 was over, and amazingly, it was a success. As I returned to East Jerusalem with Abed, I thought about how many people we had involved in this project, and how important a project it is, both on personal and national levels. I thought about some of those people, and how their names suited the story perfectly:

The sweet and helpful taxi driver is Abed, “one who serves.”

The man currently living in my friend’s house is named Israel.

The old Israeli man who helped us find the house is named Shalom.

Perhaps if more people named Shalom helped refugees find their homes, the word “peace” would have true meaning.

the blood of the people

Just a quick note about the incredibly sad internal Palestinian violence... and a hopeful response. I probably don't know more about the fighting than you all do, because Gaza is just as inaccessible from the West Bank as from the US, where most of you are. Perhaps I hear news with less sensationalism and more emotion, though - people here are really sad and frustrated. So yesterday, at 10 am, I got a call that there would be a demonstration and human chain in Ramallah at 11. I was already in Ramallah, so I decided to go, thinking it would be tiny.

The event was organized by the Farmers' Union and the idea was to include farmers and workers in the political process and involve people in a grassroots process to take back Palestine from those who seek power at the expense of the people. I arrived and saw hundreds of women and men of all ages, girls from school groups, etc.

We began at the parliament building (Hamas-controlled) and the idea was to make a human chain to the PA headquarters (Fatah-controlled). We didn't quite reach it, but we did reach to the center of town, after which time the crowd just started marching and chanting.

"Ya Haniye, w ya rais, dam ilshab mush rhiis" (Hey Haniyeh, and hey president [Abbas], the blood of the people isn't cheap)

"Wahde wahde wataniye, Fatah, Hamas w'shiuiye" (one one nation, Fatah, Hamas, and the communists)

We marched to the PA headquarters and went inside. The guards in their uniforms and guns shook people's hands as we walked by and let us in without protest. I said to a friend, "This is amazing that they're just letting us in."

"They have to," he replied, "We elected them, we put them there." Can you imagine that happening in the US? A group of people marching to the Whitehouse and the guards letting us in...

I felt a little strange going as an international, since I think there's enough foreign meddling in (and foreign reasons for) the internal violence. But as soon as I arrived it was clear it was Palestinian-led, I was one of only a few internationals, and several people thanked me for being there with them. In that moment, being there felt like solidarity. And like an important story to share.

There was tons of press there, but I worry that it was all Arab press. I'm curious if it got any Western press.