Tourists

Reflections by Mary Male
27 October 2011
From Jerusalem and the West Bank

"Tourists" by Yehuda Amichai

Visits of condolence is all we get from them.
They squat at the Holocaust Memorial,
They put on grave faces at the Wailing Wall
And they laugh behind heavy curtains
In their hotels.
They have their pictures taken
Together with our famous dead
At Rachel's Tomb and Herzl's Tomb
And on Ammunition Hill.
They weep over our sweet boys
And lust after our tough girls
And hang up their underwear
To dry quickly
In cool, blue bathrooms.

Once I sat on the steps by agate at David's Tower,
I placed my two heavy baskets at my side.
A group of tourists was standing around their guide
and I became their target marker.
"You see that man with the baskets?
Just right of his head there's an arch from the Roman period.
Just right of his head."
"But he's moving, he's moving!"
I said to myself: redemption will come only if their guide tells them,
"You see that arch from the Roman period?
It's not important: but next to it,
left and down a bit,
there sits a man who's bought fruit and vegetables for his family."

Last night we met with Roni, an Israeli grandmother whose husband was instrumental in refining drip technology for irrigation and who had lived in a village in the Sinai for a number of years, before being removed to a new village near Sderot, just opposite Gaza.  She is part of Other Voice (http://www.othervoice.org/welcome-eng.htm), an organization of Israelis and Palestinians who are finding ways to listen to each other, resolve differences, and become friends, in spite of incredible obstacles and challenges. 

 This morning we went to Yad Vashem, the holocaust museum, that reminds us all that throughout all of the horror, there were ordinary people doing heroic things every day to save a life, to take a single step toward humanity over violence, and at very great risks to themselves. This is the entrance to the Children's Memorial, with its unfinished stones and its rebar reminders of the lives snuffed out before the chance to be completed. 

This afternoon, we went to the West Bank and picked olives in solidarity with Palestinians who are fighting to have access to their own olive groves and the water to enable them to grow.  We were with a rabbi and a Palestinian leader who have become friends as they've worked together over years to help protect the rights of those who have no other voice.  Rabbis for Human Rights stands with these people in court, in difficult confrontations with settlers, and with the army.  Many of these Palestinians have never met a Jew who they perceived to be compassionate or interested in their plight. 

And of course, many Israelis have never met a Palestinian who was not a suicide bomber.  So much fear on both sides!  And at the same time, so much heroism, for ordinary people, in their daily lives, just taking a simple stand, making a choice to speak up for those who are not being heard.