Intensive Arabic Semester

Even after a few hours of walking around the Givat Haviva campus, Intensive Arabic Semester students still did not get to see a great deal of what can be found in the various departments, exhibition halls and archives of the 1949 founded institute in Wadi Ara.

Although the IAS program is under the joint auspices of MASA and Givat Haviva, students are based in the nearby Hashomer Hatzair kibbutz of Barkai where they reside and attend classes in spoken Arabic, Arab history, Middle Eastern studies, Israel studies in the context of Arab relations, Hebrew and much more.

During the recent visit to the campus students learned about the story of Haviva Reik – after whom the campus is named – whilst sitting around the memorial unveiled in her honor in November, 2009 – the 65th anniversary since her death.  They also visited the Art Center and Peace Gallery, viewed the Peace Tree project of 2003 on the main lawn as well as the Peace Pole situated between the old and new buildings of the Peace Library, and were taken around one of the main exhibitions of Moreshet, The Mordechai Anielewicz Holocaust Study and Research Center situated on campus.

Alighting from the bus in Sderot Rothschild – a first lesson, looking up as much of Tel Aviv’s most interesting creative tiles, stonework and figurines are on second or third floor level. The point of disembarkation 96, Rothschild Boulevard, the capital ventures building of Evergreen House with 3 silent singers and their music books up on a second floor balcony serenaded the visitors of the day down below.

A short walk to Shenkin and the home of Zeev and Diana Rubanenko where the Israeli born Zeev and British born Diana shared the fascinating histories of their families with the students. Tel Aviv born and educated Zeev took the students on a trip to the past (whilst sitting in the comfort of his lounge) to the days when his Rubanenko forefathers produced vodka in Dvinsk, Latvia and after immigration to Palestine switching to selling soda and other soft drinks, first of all from a handcart and when more successful, from a horse drawn wagon.

Zeev showed photographs of the Rubanenko’s with their wagons on the streets of Tel Aviv of yore and also of the first kiosk of its kind where the Rubanenko brothers Yosef and Yitzhak sold soda drinks in Rothschild Boulevard. In modern times such ‘kiosks’ still exist in the center of the Boulevard but are now trendy coffee stations whose main customers are yuppie office workers from the high rise blocks of business premises interspersed between attractive buildings that have been renovated and radiate the culture and style of yesteryear.

It was in the mid‐19th century that the Rubanenko family produced vodka in Latvia. Zeev explained that according to family legend the vodka produced by his grandfather and family was very popular with the Russian czar. “He didn’t care too much for the family name on the label though, sounded too Jewish apparently,” said Zeev. “It would seem this was the reason why we ended up with the name Rubanenko which is not Jewish but Ukrainian!”

His grandfather and great uncle arrived in Palestine in the early 1920s and immediately began to make and sell soft drinks. “They sold drinks not only in Tel Aviv but also in Jaffa and when they upgraded to the horse drawn wagon the wagon was decorated with a sign proclaiming: “We have sworn from this day forward to drink only the fine beverages of Rubanenko Brothers and Co.” Showing grainy photographs of the family business on wheels, Zeev also points out a letter that was missing and later added, squashed in between others “as they obviously didn’t want to have to make a totally new sign.” Once established in Rothschild the Rubanenko’s became popular merchants on the Boulevard block selling their soft drinks and soda’s, known as ‘gzoz’ and in the Sixties and Seventies and found on almost every Tel Avivian street corner.

“The Rubanenko brothers closed the kiosk in the fifties branching out in manufacturing soda and siphons,” explains Zeev whilst pointing to a silver colored siphon sitting on top of a cupboard in the nearby kitchen area. Such siphons were found in most Israeli households in the Sixties (when this writer made aliya). “I found that one in the Jaffa flea market,” laughs Zeev. “My grandfather and his brother were not successful businessmen unfortunately,” says Zeev with a smile and points out that many big enterprises in Israel today such as Strauss dairy products started as small family businesses around the same time.

“There are so many family tales but one of them is particularly interesting although I have to admit in the past I equated it with a fairly tale until I found this letter,” and up pops a letter from the management of Coca Cola on his computer screen.“We were told that the brothers were offered the franchise for Coco‐Cola in Palestine and turned it down because they said the drink tasted bad,” laughs Zeev of his grandfather and great‐uncles bad business judgment. “Their business operations were closed in the 1960s and that tale stayed just that until I recently discovered this letter – and they apparently approached Coca Cola offering to be their agents in Palestine and this letter states that the company would look in to it – but nothing came of it.”

Zeev’s wife Diana, who hails from England, explained about her family roots and as with Zeev, students poured over family photograph albums as she explained about her paternal family in Britain and maternal in British Mandate Palestine. Diana’s father, Conan Allingham was an officer in the British Army during the Second World War. He helped train Haviva Reik, Hanna Senesh and other Jewish volunteers from Palestine serving in the British Army Jewish Brigade. He is buried in the kibbutz cemetery just meters from a large cave that was headquarters to the Palmach ‐ the strike force of the Haganah and predominantly made up of soldiers from kibbutzim.

The kibbutz is Mishmar HaEmek and the Intensive Arabic Semester students had paid a visit to that kibbutz – and cemetery – the previous week with kibbutz member and Intensive Arabic Semester staffer Lydia. It was at this kibbutz both she and Diana volunteered during the 1967 war and remained friends since. Diana’s father, an officer in the Tank Corps ‐ fought with the seventh armored division of Desert Rats fame and was seriously wounded in the Battle of Knightsbridge in the Western Desert.

Following 6 months of hospitalization in Egypt the young officer was transferred to Palestine for further recuperation and met his future wife Yael Weizman on an outing to the beach explained Diana. The father of Yael and brother Ezer Weizman (a former commander of the Israel Air Force and President of the State of Israel) was Yechiel ‐ an agronomist and one of the 11 siblings of the first president of the State of Israel Chaim Weizman.

Conan Allingham helped train Haganah fighters for their ill‐fated mission behind enemy lines in Europe in the mid-l940's. Some of that training took place in the forest behind Mishmar HaEmek where both he and his wife Yael are buried. “My parents left Palestine for Britain in 1944. They first travelled to Egypt where they joined a naval convoy sailing to Britain and it was many years before they told us of that harrowing experience as the convoy tried to avoid depth‐charges and enemy submarines,” Diana told the IAS students.

Conan Allingham only told his family of his involvement with the Haganah and Palmach fighters when one of Diana's Israeli born children began to write a roots project for school. Having a grandma who was a Weizman meant he didn't have to go far to find out about the family roots with scores of books chronicling the family on the maternal side and it was only when he asked his British grandfather about his family history – by which time the Allingham’s were living in Israel – did Conan tell the family of his contribution to the training of the Jewish fighters.

Looking through the photo albums of the Rubanenko, Weizman and Allingham families with Diana and Zeev was an experience the students said they found extremely interesting, highly educational and a history lesson of a totally different kind and were very appreciative of the opportunity offered by the Rubanenko’s.
The couple then joined the students for the few minute walk to the day’s next port of call MUSEUM HA’IR in Rehov Bialik.

The recently opened museum is based on exhibitions of photographs taken from family albums of Tel Aviv folk – such as those viewed in the Rubanenko home. Zeev had mentioned remembering the first – and up to present times only – snowfall of 1953 in Tel Aviv. One of the first photographs viewed was the snow covered streets of Tel Aviv!

The three storey museum also contains the renovated office of the first mayor of Tel Aviv, Meir Dizengoff and exhibition of modern art as well as a stunning floor made up of decorative tiles rescued from demolished Tel Aviv buildings.

Walking around the museum some of the students listened to more explanations of life as a child in Tel Aviv from Zeev as he progressed from one display to another, the photographs jogging the corners of his memory box of the fifties and sixties in the city that never stops! Zeev shares memories with Mary Kay Liotta at a display board – the saved tiles of Tel Aviv and tiled sign on the outside of the building, constructed by architect M. Czerner in 1925.

CARMEL MARKET & NAHLAT BINYAMIN

Strolling in the sunshine along Allenby Street to Carmel Market and Nahlat Binyamin students commented on the creative graffiti of Tel Aviv and the pulse of the city. At the entrance to the Carmel Market and Nahlat Binyamin, as she does every Tuesday and Friday, Israeli singer Miri Aloni was entertaining passersby. When Miri saw the students she asked if they were a Birthright group. 

Told they were on a 5‐month MASA Givat‐Haviva Arabic language study program, Miri had the students stand alongside and sing with her for those gathered around. The musician singer, who stood alongside assassinated Prime Minister Yitzhak Rabin the night he was murdered by Yigal Amir – just a short time after singing with her ‘Shir HaShalom’ on the balcony of the Tel Aviv municipality building – bade the IAS students farewell and wished them well in their studies.

“Be good ambassadors for Israel,” she called out as they began to mix with the crowds entering the street market of Nahlat Binyamin and the Carmel Market to meet up with the bus by the Hasan Bek mosque and memorials to the Israeli teens murdered by a suicide bomber whilst standing outside the Dolphinarium complex on the other side of the street.

A quick photo by a Rami Meiri wall painting, on the bus and traffic jams all the way home. A stop to watch sunset on the beach at Beit Yanai and summation of a very special day spent with special people in special places and plenty more to explore in the future.

Diana Rubanenko emailed: “Thanks for brining such a lovely group to visit us and Tel Aviv. It was so refreshing to meet bright‐eyed, interested and interesting young people. A real shot in the arm.”

Mary Kay Liotta summed up the day with: “Thanks for another lovely day! I had a wonderful time and so enjoyed meeting Diana and Zeev – another tile to add to the mosaic of my experience of Israel through this program. So far it is a wonderful, complex beautiful mosaic indeed!"

Photos and Text by Lydia Aisenberg
A visit to Kibbutz Mishmar HaEmek on a very warm day in February was the first portion of a seminar for the Intensive Arabic Semester students dealing with the relationship between the founder members of the kibbutz and the surrounding Arab Muslim villages and the Wadi Ara area in general.

Elisha Linn (84) one of the first born to the founders of Mishmar HaEmek spoke with the students about the Jewish kibbutzniks rocky relationship with their Arab neighbors – of as children how he and his generation interacted with the children from the Arab villages and about the emphasis at that time on learning Arabic not only to be able to communicate with the neighbors but to also learn about their culture. 

“There was an understanding that we were going to have to get on together and great efforts were made by my parents and the other founder members who believed in co-existence between Arabs and Jews,” said Elisha.

“We had sport lessons together a few times a week,” reminisced the octogenarian.  “There was a big metal bar hanging on a rope and whoever was responsible for the lessons would bang on the bar with a smaller one and the Arab kids would hear it and come to the kibbutz.”

The same system was used if and when necessary to call the members from their work places during a security situation. The distance between the kibbutz and closest village was a matter of a minute or two walk he explained and pointed to a nearby hill from where the students were sitting on the patio of kibbutz member and Givat Haviva staff member, Lydia Aisenberg.

“There, that little hill was where some of them lived.  Between them and us a small wadi and of course a fence around the kibbutz,” said Elisha who speaks fluent Arabic and for many years worked with Arab laborers in construction sites around the Polish founded Hashomer Hatzair kibbutz.

The relationship had its ups and downs and he touched on the events of 1929 and 1936 when many Jews were killed by Arabs during the British Mandate period.  Elisha, who possesses an incredible memory, detailed incidents involving the kibbutz and told the students of the day he was shot in 1948 by a local Palestinian after having been called to the perimeter fence by one of his Arab friends.

Badly wounded having been shot in the face, Elisha was transferred from the kibbutz to hospital in Afula by a roundabout route as was impossible to go any other way.  Put on a stretcher with wooden handles, Elisha recalls that the stretcher was too long to be able to fit into the vehicle and so kibbutz folk sawed off the handles but the vehicle still traveled with the door ajar!

“When we got to Kibbutz Sarid across the valley, the vehicle having to push aside big rocks put on the road by the Arabs, I was transferred to a waiting ambulance.  In those days we were using either field telephones or Morse code to contact each other and a message was got back to my kibbutz that I was on my way!”

The students accompanied Elisha and Dafna Govrin, kibbutz born daughter of parents who came to pre-State Israel from Eastern Europe, to the in-house museum of Mishmar HaEmek of which Dafna is one of the co-founders.

The museum, on two floors of a small building that was an guard post during the War of Independence, is divided into artifacts of the kibbutz of yore on the top floor – and also contains a model of the kibbutz as it was in the early 1930s – and on the ground floor an exhibition of photographs and artifacts telling the story of the battle against a large Arab army in the mountains surrounding Mishmar HaEmek and in which the kibbutz suffered heavy losses as well as a model of the kibbutz as it was at that time.

“We decided to make the museum so that our children and grandchildren would be able to continue to learn about the beginnings of the kibbutz, the relationship during periods that were sometimes good and sometimes not so between our grandparents, parents and the Arab neighbors and as much as we could exhibit from the photographs of that time so that they would learn of our past, the struggle for survival and everything that was fought for and why,” Dafna told the students.

Leaving the museum, Dafna and Elisha, the students expressed how interesting it had been to hear Elisha recap on his younger days and felt the importance of the museum for the education of not only kibbutz children but also for students like themselves.

After lunch in the kibbutz dining-room as guests of the kibbutz which is still very much a cooperative unlike many kibbutzim that have privatized over the last few decades, the students visited Mishmar HaEmek’s Holocaust memorial, the first memorial in the country in memory of over a million children who perished in the Shoah.  Completed in 1947 the memorial bears the scars of the War of Independence, bullet holes in the figure of a mother protecting her child and other areas of the impressive memorial.

The kibbutz decided not to repair the damage done by those bullet holes as they also represent the continued struggle for survival of the Jewish people,” the students were told by Lydia, their guide for the day and member of the kibbutz since the 1960sThe last port of call for the students in the kibbutz was the local cemetery where they visited the graves of Conan and Yael Allingham.  

A strong connection between the British Army officer and his Israeli wife, the sister of the former President of Israel Ezer Weizman, Mishmar HaEmek and Haviva Reik – after whom Givat Haviva is named – was explained to the group who will shortly on another day outing will be visiting the British born daughter of the Allingham’s who nowadays lives in Tel Aviv and from whom they will hear more about her family in Israel and the connection to the kibbutz and the training of Haviva Reik and Hannah Senesh in the forest of Mishmar HaEmek.

Five minutes down the road from the kibbutz and over the other side of the Megiddo junction, the security fence built in 2003, crosses over what was once the main road to the nowadays autonomous Palestinian city of Jenin.  An army base, small checkpoint known as the Salem checkpoint named after the neighboring Israeli Arab Muslim village of the same name, sits on the Green Line.

Taking a short walk around the back of the base and toward the Jezreel Valley floor, the IAS students were able to stand on a hilltop overlooking a large portion of the Valley, the town of Afula, Nazareth on a mountain range in the near distance, Mt. Tabor and the Gilboa range of mountains.  At the same time they could look across the rooftops of a Palestinian village (Zabuba) to Jenin in the nearby distance.  Palestinian taxis moving around the village, the call to prayer from one of the village mosques echoes around the hills and a loudspeaker being used by a fruit vendor as he drove between the buildings all clearly heard.

The course of the security fence coming down the Gilboa mountains, across the Jezreel Valley between the moshavim of the Tanakhim and Palestinian villages on the right hand side of what was once the road to Jenin from Megiddo, all clearly seen from above as well as the security fence passing twenty meters from the spot where the students and guide Lydia Aisenberg were standing.  The path of the fence continuing up the Amir mountain range to Umm al-Fahm also all clearly visible on such a clear February sunny day after a few days of rain.

From Salem the journey continued to Umm al-Fahm, an overview of the city and on the other side of the security fence passing around the outskirts, the Palestinian village of Anin and superb view of the Jezreel Valley from the Amir mountain range.

Continuing on to the village of Barta’a the IAS students met with local businessman Allam Abu Abead, a Palestinian from Jenin who runs a perfume and textile shop in the divided village of Barta’a.

The students had previously visited Barta’a but as there had not been enough time to engage in conversation with the locals the opportunity arose to rectify that fact and the time spent with Allam – was invaluable for the students to realize just how complex the situation is – and how much had been seen, heard, learned, experienced that very long but special day, which finished with an incredible downpour of much needed rain.

At the Barta’a checkpoint students met with Hitham Kabha who told of how he had left the village of East Barta’a some years before and joined members of the clan now settled in Sydney, Australia where he had a wife and two children. Working temporarily as a taxi driver in the area, Hitham Kabha said he was planning to take another wife from one of the Palestinian villages in the area! The students are seen on the left chatting with donkey riding elderly Palestinian Mahmood Yehiya from the Dotan Valley through the open door of the bus.

Photos and Text by Lydia Aisenberg

When Dr. David Mendelsohn offered to teach a short course in hieroglyphics as an extra-curriculum activity during the third MASA-Givat Haviva Intensive Arabic Semester – the students not only jumped at the opportunity but also at the end of the course decided to travel with him to Egypt so as to read for themselves the originals!

The enthusiasm of both students and teaching staff, David and history teacher Yisrael Neeman, spilled over to encompass others and became somewhat of a family affair with two mothers, two sisters, one brother and his partner coming from the United States to join the Israel based students for the 9-day trip to Egypt.

One of the stops was the Step Pyramid and here the students gathered in a pose reminiscent of a famous photo – being held by one of the students in the photo above – that was taken in the 1940s of Jews from Palestine who joined the British Army, trained as parachutists, partially in Egypt, before being sent on dangerous missions behind enemy lines in Europe. Among them Hannah Senesh and Haviva Reik, both of whom captured and killed, and after the latter in 1949 the Givat Haviva Institute was named.

“Gathered together at the Step Pyramid and discussing the actions of Haviva and her comrades made us understand even deeper just what a sacrifice they made for Israel,” said David Mendelsohn recapping on his second journey to the known – and unknown – guiding Intensive Arabic Semester graduates.

Paying honor to Haviva and the other parachutists at the very spot where she had been – in her British Army uniform – so many years before was a very emotional experience,” said David who found the photograph in the Givat Haviva archives and asked for a copy to be made so as to take with them.

The tour, organized by David Mendelsohn, began in Cairo with visits to Memphis, Saqqara and the pyramids of Giza. “Tracing the history of Egypt and our Jewish connection to it – for example dispelling the myth that the Jews built the pyramids when in fact they were already ancient monuments before the Israelites became slaves – is fascinating and was hugely thought provoking for the students and their family members who joined us all the way from America,” said David, who originates from Montreal and made aliya with his young family in recent years.

“It is quite amazing to watch the students faces as they read hieroglyphics for themselves and – as with the first group of IAS students I took last year – the most meaningful thing for me is taking in their facial expressions as they stand in awe in front of the mummified remains of Ramses ll,” explained David, jokingly calling Ramses ll “Moses mate.”

The group flew to Luxor where they explored the Valley of the Kings both from the ground and a few hours up, up and away in a hot air balloon over the valley, followed by a Nile cruise. An overnight train along the Nile back to Giza and car journey to Alexandria to visit the Jewish area of the city as well as a visit to the National Museum of Alexandria to see artifacts from the Red Sea Library of Alexandria after which they returned to Cairo for a visit to the Archaeological Museum and more.

For Intensive Arabic Semester history teacher Yisrael Neeman, who is also a much sought after qualified study tour guide in Israel, this was his first visit to Egypt and when asked what it meant to him Yisrael enthusiastically described the experience as “life impacting.”

“Rare is the place on earth where one finds a people, a culture and a history reaching back further than the Jewish People and the Land of Israel. Egypt holds such a distinction,” explained Yisrael. “For me our trip to the Land of the Nile with students and guests at the end of the Intensive Arabic Semester was a life impacting experience, firstly as a Jew descendant from the Israelites seeing the land where one’s ancestors lived, were enslaved and eventually fled, was inspiring,” said Yisrael, a resident of the Western Galilee community of Eshchar, a village where both religious and secular families live together.

“Personally, having a visual image of a 3500 year-old defining moment when conducting the Passover Seder is invaluable for Jewish understanding,” said Yisrael, a secular Jew who originates from the United States. “Beyond the Jewish context Egypt is fascinating in its own right. Hieroglyphics came alive as our Scholar in Residence, David Mendelsohn, read and interpreted stories found in the millennium old burial chambers of the pharaohs. Most gripping is the historical continuity of Egypt featuring Greco-Roman influences, the advent of Coptic Christianity and its preservation of ancient Egyptian language, customs and understandings within its theological confines.

Yisrael also commented that local Egyptians were amazed at the ability of David to read the hieroglyphics and stood by amazed as the Arabic speaking sociolinguist and archaeologist explained also to them. “Today’s Egypt is of no less interest and quite possibly is the fulcrum for conflict or peace in today’s world. Nowadays secularism and Islamist understandings clash in the Arab world’s most populous society and particularly in its capital Cairo. Mosques and night clubs exist side by side in the heartland of Islam and one feels that a certain tenuous balance has been reached. But is it permanent?” he asks.

“Egypt is a pulsating society, one at peace with Israel now for other thirty years in defiance of the skeptics. And despite the harshness of our clash with the pharaohs and particularly Ramses ll, the Tanakh (Hebrew Bible) is very clear there should be no enmity towards the Egyptian people as in Deuteronomy 23:8) ‘Thou shalt not abhor an Edomite; for he is thy brother; thou shalt not abhor an Egyptian; because thou wast a stranger in his land’ – in other words despite being strangers, the Egyptians took in Jacob and his descendents (remember Joseph and his brothers?) in time of severe famine. Let’s say we have a bit of a debt,” he says with a laugh.

Summing up his first visit to Egypt, Yisrael says that it helped him take the Biblical verse a step further towards understanding through an invaluable hands on experience and that he certainly will be back – probably together with David Mendelsohn and more eager Intensive Arabic Semester students from the next semester due to start January, 16th, 2011.

INTENSIVE ARABIC SEMESTER students recently visited an Arab Muslim citizen of Israel who encouraged his sons to go against the mainstream – volunteering to serve in the Israel Defense Forces.  Following the death of one of his sons while on active duty in Gaza, he recently constructed the first memorial to non-Bedouin Muslim soldiers in his village, again incurring the wrath of many of his fellow villagers.

In an honest and emotional meeting, Yousef Jujah explained to the extremely appreciative Intensive Arabic Semester students, IAS academic director Dr. David Mendelsohn, International Department staff member Lydia Aisenberg, his views on many sensitive issues  and important topics as described in the article below.

“There are so many extraordinary people out there but their stories are not being told,” commented Dr. Mendelsohn following the visit to Arara.  “Yousef expresses in a very personal and extraordinary way some of the complexities that we are well aware of many that we aren’t.  His views on democracy, the attitude of some of the Arab leaders in Israel and so much more made this meeting unforgettable and exactly what it is we are striving to provide IAS students with – opportunities to meet with and hear the stories of people from all sides of the Jewish-Arab and inter-community divide.” It would take some doing to find an Israeli flag flying in an Arab Muslim village in Israel.

However, in the Wadi Ara village of Arara there are two - and if one knows where to look they are visible, a few meters apart, from the heavily trafficked Route 65 that cuts between the Menashe Hills and Amir mountain range.Arara village is sprawled across the steep, wide slopes of the Amir mountain range and just a few undulating hills away from the city of Umm al-Fahm.  In Arara, perched three-quarters up the steep slope, a small white building with a red-tiled roof supports two large Israeli flags and those of an IDF unit and the Yad Labanim organization that deals with IDF commemoration and heritage.

Inside the building, one wall contains black plaques showing images and details of 8 Arab Muslim soldiers who died whilst serving in the IDF or Border Police.  A large Israeli flag is nailed to another. White plastic chairs are stacked high in one corner, another four or five placed around a green plastic table in the center of the one room building erected by the father of Sa’id Jujah, one of the memorialized soldiers. 

Many of the 14,000 Arab citizens of Israel who reside in Arara are perturbed at the sight of the Israeli flags flying on tall masts above their houses – but none have attempted to take them down.  Very few came to the funeral in Arara – or mourning tent – when Yousef’s son Sa’id fell in the line of duty, blown up by explosives packed in a tunnel dug by Palestinian terrorists under a sentry box in Rafiah, Gaza in December, 2004.  Sa’id died alongside 4 other IDF soldiers, all of whom Muslims.Sa’id Jujah, his twin brother Walid and older brother Hisham were all inducted into the IDF on the same day.  Walid and Hisham have since become career soldiers and are building homes next door to the memorial to their brother Sa’id and other Muslim soldiers. On the veranda, a tiny cup of strong coffee in one hand, a cigarette in the other, sits Yousef Jujah.  One of the black plaques containing lazier images of the fallen soldiers on the wall behind him is a young man from the Israeli Arab village of Meiser, a 10 minute drive along the Green Line from Arara.  Judat Abu Rakia was ostracized by fellow villagers when he decided to volunteer for the IDF.

“He was a friend of my son’s and so I decided to adopt him as well,” explained Yousef.  Two years after the death of Sa’id, Judat Abu Rakia died of a heart attack whilst still in the army. Squinting against the sun, Yousef stares out across the rooftops of Arara down below and across to the Menashe Hills in the near distance. The view from the veranda is stupendous, especially on a sunny day after the previous day’s rain washed away the accumulated summer dust and rid the air of the excruciating heat and humidity that for months reduced visibility to a mere few kilometers.

The rows of houses built on the steep slopes of the mountain create gigantic steps down to the main road where scores of vehicles can be seen but hardly heard.  On the other side of the road, on the lower slopes of the Menashe Hills nestle the villages of Ara and Kfar Kara, open areas dotted with olive orchards and a small cluster of a houses here and there.  With no effort one sees across the Menashe Hills plateau and the ever-expanding town of Yoken’am creeping up and over where the Menashe Hills meet the slopes of the Carmel Mountain range.

Haifa University sticks out like a sore thumb up on the top of the Carmel, the Druze communities also clearly visible as is, in the near distance, the town of Zichron Yaacov, the kibbutzim of the Menashe mountain range. Standing out starkly against the deep blue sky are the 3 chimney stacks of the Hadera power station.  The sun reflects on the Mediterranean highlighting the power station and Israeli coastline.
It is all so absolutely breathtaking.

Youssef sits quietly, sips his coffee and calmly explains as to why he built this room with the stupendous view, Israeli flags, one the size of a double bed sheet, flying for all to see far and wide – the first memorial to Israeli Arab Muslims who died whilst serving in Israel’s armed forces. “The Bedouin and Druze have their own memorials as do the Jews.  There was not one dedicated to the non-Bedouin Muslims until now,” says Yousef of the place he has built on land that was originally owned by his late father.

“The sentry post where Sa’id and the other four soldiers were stationed was overlooking fields worked by Palestinian fellahin.  Before Sa’id and the other Muslim soldiers were stationed there it had been manned by soldiers that were mostly new immigrants from the former Soviet Union.  The Palestinian farmers asked that the soldiers be changed for Arabic speakers.  It was because of their request that my son and the others died and I am pretty sure that the terrorists took the risk to carry out that operation because they were Muslims serving in the Israeli army,” says Yousef, pointing to the plaques on the wall.

Sa’id Jujah was buried in a military funeral in Arara.  Scores of soldiers, men in suits from the various Israeli ministries, the President of the State of Israel, Jewish friends and acquaintances, either attended the funeral or came to visit the family over the following weeks.  Yousef says that 80% of the local Arara folk didn’t come during that time either and the local corner shop refused to serve him.  Other locals pointed fingers and made hurtful comments including calling him a traitor.  He was accused of having brought shame on the whole community. 

“That was the first six months, now its just a fact on the ground but there are those who still don’t speak to me - that’s their problem, let them deal with it, I believe in what I believe.” Answering the question of where he gets his physical and emotional strength from, Yousef settles down to telling the story of his life and his hopes for the future.  A marble plaque at the entrance to the site proclaims that peace begins with equality.  He has a great deal to say, tells a fascinating tale of being the odd man out in areas where so many other Arab citizens of Israel fear to tread and the price paid for adhering to his beliefs. 

Practically born with the State of Israel, when 62 year-old Yousef finished junior high the nearest senior high-school was in Nazareth or Taibe. “We were a fellahin (farming) family with no money and so I went to work with my father when I was 14 years-old.  The area where the Diamond Exchange stands today in Ramat Gan was then full of undergrowth on either side of the wadi and we worked clearing all of that.  It was extremely hard physical work and when my father saw how I was struggling he asked the municipality to give me lighter work.”

After a period of being employed as a cleaner at the then just opened fire station, the young lad from Arara found employment as gardener and maintenance man for the family home of the mayor, living with and being treated as one of the family.  He returned home once every two weeks to Arara. “I realized that there was money to be made in gardening and general maintenance of buildings and so I bought tools and hired myself out.  It didn’t take long before I had a tidy income from the buildings in my care,” he explains. With business booming, the young entrepreneur decided to get married.

Worried as to how people would know he had taken holiday to get married, one of the ladies helped out by writing a few notices in Hebrew which he put up on all the ‘house committee’ notice boards. “She had written that I was taking time off to get married, the date of the actual wedding and underneath jotted down that I invited everybody,” explains Yousef with a big grin.  “I didn’t know she had written that.”He soon found out though.  These days it is almost impossible to believe that during the course of the day of the wedding in the summer of 1970, scores of Jewish families from Ramat Gan turned up at the Jujah wedding in Wadi Ara.

“I was in my early twenties and that was the first day I ever smoked a cigarette in front of my father,” he says with a laugh – and lights up another.  “We spent our honeymoon in Ramat Gan going around all the houses thanking people for coming to our wedding!”

Some years later Yousef’s entrepreneur streak kicked in again and he went to study to be a barber, opened a business in Arara village.  Eleven years later he had to close the business when the tax authorities fined him heavily for not paying his dues.  By now the father of six sons and 2 daughters, Yousef Jajah began working as a security guard.
“My son-in-law is an Egged bus driver and so he arranged for me to have a free travel pass.  I worked a lot at night and would fall asleep on the bus coming home in the mornings and one day as the bus approached Karkur – some four stops from where I normally got off at Arara – the driver woke me up and said that the road was blocked and he was going to take a different route and that I should get off.

“I got off and just couldn’t fathom what was going on.  It was eerie – no traffic, the stillness.  I waited for some time and then decided to walk home.  As I approached Arara I saw an Egged bus burning, the traffic lights ripped up and on the ground, burning tires and hundreds of people milling around.” The second intifada had broken out.

“I walked through the village to my house in a daze.  It was impossible to get to work the next day and when I phoned they just said they understood.  From that day on all we heard on the radio and television when they spoke about Wadi Ara was how dangerous it was.  It just went together, Wadi Ara, dangerous for Jews – and they just kept stressing that and so people drove north or from the north to the south through Wadi Milik, taking the long way around to avoid Wadi Ara.  It remained like that for a long time,” he said, sadness in his voice.
       
Glancing down at the Wadi Ara highway – Route 65 – the suns rays glistening on the glass and metal of the vehicles slowly moving along bumper to bumper, the days of the intifada of September/October, 2000 and the 5 suicide bombings of public buses there 2001-2002, almost seem a life time ago.

“Look, the West Bank is only a few kilometers from here.  Now there is a security fence and all those Palestinians who came to work freely every day in Israel cannot do so anymore – and look at that traffic down there.  The majority of people in Wadi Ara work out of the area, mostly in central Israel.  The acts of terror brought about suspicion on every Arab in Israel and this terrible stigma for Wadi Ara.  I want to change that and ready to pay the price to do so.” He is not alone.  After Sa’id died, the army asked both his brothers if they would prefer to transfer to a non-combat unit.  They refused, finished their regular 3 years of service and then became career soldiers.  There are between 40-50 Israeli Arab Muslims volunteering every year for the IDF and from the nearby city of Umm al-Fahm there are 4 presently serving in the IDF and almost 40 serving in the Border Police as well as others serving in the regular police.

“Look, for sure there are dilemmas but when I look in the mirror what do I see?  Do I see an Egyptian, Jordanian or Lebanese? No, I see an Israeli citizen who goes abroad on an Israeli passport.  I am an Arab Muslim citizen of Israel and as such I, my sons and all other Arab citizens in this country, should be given equal rights and they in turn should take equal responsibilities.  The Palestinians only want to involve us in the conflict.  We need to organize ourselves to get our rights and I personally do not agree with showing ones frustrations by using violence, there are other ways to demonstrate and make rightful demands in a democratic country.  We need to fight for our rights.  This is my state and I do not know a different place.

“I am not interested in what Avigdor Lieberman (Minister of Foreign Affairs of Israel) has to say about transferring Israeli Arabs.  It is all paka-paka (talk-talk), just a waste of time.” Yousef carries a great deal of anger and pain toward certain Arab leaders in Israel whom he says spend a great deal of time talking about democracy, how the country acts undemocratic to the Arab citizens but behave in a totally undemocratic manner themselves.

“Freedom of choice is one of the mainstays of a democratic country.  I and my sons made our choices, they disagree with them – okay – but for an Arab leader in the Galilee to say that Israeli Arabs serving in the IDF are rubbish and should be thrown in a garbage dump is totally unacceptable, as is a Bedouin member of Knesset who speaks vehemently against Arab Israelis serving in the army when half of his own tribe in the Negev are in uniform, also unacceptable.”

Another of Yousef Jujah’s sons is religious and wears a traditional jalabiya and head dress.  He tells of the day one of his soldier sons returned from the army and was collected by his religious sibling.  On the way back to Arara they stopped off at the Gan Shmuel shopping precinct. “When my sons came home they told me that they had been walking around the shops, chatting, laughing and banging each other on the back and then realized why people were staring at them, the gun-toting soldier and the kadi in religious Muslim garb,” he reminisces with a laugh.

Another incident he tells about is when his wife returned from Haj to Mecca. “My wife was with a group of Muslims from Israel.  When they returned through Jordan they came back over the Allenby Bridge.  Because one of the boys was serving in that area he and some of his army buddies went to meet her.  You can imagine how surprised everybody was when they saw Arab and Jewish soldiers hugging my wife!”

One of the first settlers on the Golan Heights after the Six-Day-War of 1967, Ramona Bar-Lev is a passionate and dedicated activist on behalf of the Golan residents. Ramona readily admitted to a group of visiting MASA-Givat Haviva Intensive Arabic Semester students that she didn’t leave her home town of Haifa in the sixties to stake a claim on the Golan because of political leanings – but because of her love for her Baghdad born husband Sammy Bar-Lev, one of the most prominent of activists living on the Golan and mayor of Qatzrin for many years. “You have no idea how desolate the Golan was.  Why would I want to leave the comfort of the city – Haifa is a beautiful city – and live here?” she asked the students but almost as if she is asking herself the same question...

“I moved here for love.  I wanted to be with Sammy and he only wanted to live on the Golan.  Now I couldn’t think of living anywhere else. I love the Golan, the scenery, the quietness, walking my dogs in the gullies and hills.  It is a very deep attachment that has expanded, grown immensely over the years.  We belong here and we shall not be moved,” said Ramona one of the founder members of the Golan Residents Committee.The committee is nowadays incorporated into the local Qatzrin municipality.  Being as part of the Jewish population on the Golan come under two other Israeli municipalities, the Qatrin municipality contains a representative body of all rural Golan communities that include moshavim, kibbutzim and religious communities.

Originally Ramona and Sammy’s group moved in to empty houses in Quneitra – a largely destroyed and abandoned Syrian city that was returned to the Syrians in 1974 but never rebuilt and in present times a sort of demilitarized zone between Israeli held Golan and Syria.  The United Nations have a strong presence in the area and the Syrians have built a new city with the same name a few kilometers away.

“When we arrived in Quneitra there were 15 Syrian families still living there, two of the families Christian by the way,” Ramona recalls.  “We developed a relationship.  I am not going to say that that relationship was a close one but definitely one of correctness between people living in close proximity to each other. “The majority of the buildings in the town had been destroyed and it was a little eerie.  Quneitra didn’t look like an attractive place to live by any means but the Circassian villages in the area were absolutely beautiful.”

In 1969 the settlers moved to the site of present day Kibbutz Merom Golan at the foot of Mount Ben-Tal. “Kibbutz didn’t appeal to me, didn’t suit my character or ambitions,” admitted the very individualistic Ramona, “and so we came to settle Qatzrin.” Ramona enthuses the development of the town of 8,000 residents and refers to Qatzrin constantly as a city, emphasizes ancient Qatzrin and the fact that a short distance up the road from the municipality are the remains of a Jewish village from the Byzantine period, in the center of which was a large synagogue.  Parts of the village and synagogue have been reconstructed.

Across the road from those remains stands the recently opened Ohelo Teachers’ Training College. “A tender was put out by Ohelo when they decided to move from their old site on the shores of the Kinneret at Tzemach.  There were many places that wanted the college, but we won the bidding,” exclaimed Ramona with great enthusiasm. “Qatzrin today has 8,000 residents.  Some 30% are Russian immigrant families and there are also 120 families originally from South America.  The rest of the population is Israeli born.  There are very good relationships between the different groups in Qatzrin and people on the whole have done well here, unemployment is below that of the national level and we are now working with Nefesh B’Nefesh to bring more immigrant families to the city.

“Many of the immigrants opened up small businesses here.  Quite a few were artists, writers and one gentleman a music writer.  They feel the Golan is inspirational, enhancing their talents and motivation to make a living from their natural talents and possibly could not have done that had they lived in a different environment.” Ramona also quashed the myth that living on the Golan was a golden tax break. “Unlike Kiryat Shmona and other areas of the Upper and Western Galilee we get no tax breaks whatsoever.  The Golan Heights has enjoyed peace for over three decades unlike those Galilee regions that suffered terrorist and rocket attacks from Lebanon.

“Some of former residents of Qatzrin moved to Kiryat Shmona because of the tax breaks but continue to commute to work here in this city,” she said with a wry smile. Attracting local youth to return to Qatzrin after army service, travels and studies has been a struggle she admits but hopes this will be rectified with the building of new houses to offer young families and maybe some of the graduates of the college – who hail from all over the country – will also fall in love with the Golan and want to stay when the have completed their studies. Ramona’s two sons both live in Tel Aviv but she said, there are those who lived out of the area for a long period but have returned in recent years.

“The original pioneers of Qatzrin are now in their sixties and seventies and so being able to attract young people is of great importance to the future of the city as with any other- only here, maybe more,” she added wistfully. Ramona dealt with the strategic importance of the Golan to Israel, water issues as well as that of the deep historical connection to the region, mentioning also the ancient and much revered site of Gamla.  A bold headline stands out from literature on the table in front of us.  Published in 2008 by The Golan Resident Committee it reads: ‘Fact: Of 106 ancient synagogues in Israel – 32 are on the Golan.’

“The Golan has enjoyed peace now for over thirty years – it is the quietest border and we shall stay here in order that it remains that way.  We are not going anywhere and as we struggled against notions in the past to return the Golan – including a 19 day hunger strike - we will continue to do so in the future.  We shall not be moved.” Heads buzzing with so much information and printed material to read at their leisure, the group thank Ramona for receiving them so warmly … and head back to the more or less center of the country, Kibbutz Barkai and Givat Haviva, carrying the load of yet another complex topic to delve into further. 

A field trip to the Jordan Valley and Golan proved to be quite an adventure for the IAS students who were somewhat perplexed as to why they needed to give Lydia - their guide for the day - their passport numbers. Unbeknownst to them they were to be taken through the security fence at the remains of the Naharayim hydro-electric plant where the Yarmuk and Jordan rivers meet, practice their Arabic with Jordanian soldiers hiding from the relentless noon heat in a small guard post to the side of an impressive archway (both sides of which adorned with enormous portraits of King Hussein and his son Abdullah, the present king of the Hashemite Kingdom of Jordan), and try to decipher Arabic graffiti in an abandoned Turkish built railway station, a left over from the Rakevet HaEmek (the Valley Train) from Haifa to Damascus.

All that and so much more, so maybe we should start at the beginning of the day – one that saw 40 degrees pounding down on one’s head and almost impossible to be out of the air-conditioned but for more than a short period – giving even more sympathy to the Jordanian soldiers in their sentry boxes by the way!

FIRST PORT OF CALL:  The Old Courtyard at Gesher.

IAS students heard Avraham Zohar who was born and raised at Kibbutz Gesher and still lives there.   Avraham explained about the Naharayim hydro-electric plant, the dream that became reality of Pinhas Rutenberg a German born engineer who harnessed the Yarmuk and Jordan rivers by diverting the Jordan from its natural course to pour into the Yarmuk – hence Naharayim (two rivers); the history of Kibbutz Gesher and the Old Courtyard where the original kibbutz stood and where members withstood heavy fighting in the War of Independence; the three bridges below the observation platform – Roman, Turkish and British – and their being blown up by Jewish forces in the late 40s as there was fear the Iraqi troops on the other side of the River Jordan would break through and over-run the Jewish defenses in the area.

A working model of the complex known as Naharaim, a feature only opened in recent years at the site, explained in depth about Rutenberg, his relationship with King Abdullah and their joint belief in the project that when inaugurated provided a large supply of electricity in Palestine and areas of Trans-Jordan.  The story of the village of Tel Or (the Hill of Light) built and lived in by the Jewish workers of Naharayim (and visible from the Old Courtyard sitting on a hill in the Jordanian controlled territory and today a Jordanian army base) and of the Jordanians destruction of the hydro-electric plant at a great loss to both Israel and Jordan and crushing the dreams of Rutenberg and the workers.

Avraham also told of how the children from the original kibbutz were smuggled out at night, each child accompanied by one of their parents, to Kibbutz Ashdot Yaacov from where they were taken to a monastery in Haifa – the building of which recently renovated and situated within the grounds of the Rambam Medical Center. “The decision was first made to somehow get the children out, then that one parent should accompany each child.  They then decided which of the parents was the most needed to defend Gesher and so in some instances it was the father who went with the child, maybe because the mother was a nurse or knew how to send Morse code, something like that,” explained Avraham whose parents were founder members of the kibbutz.

SECOND PORT OF CALL: Naharayim – The Island of Peace at Ashdot Yaacov. 

Following the diversion of the Jordan River to the Yarmuk, an enormous lake or reservoir and dam was formed in order to provide the hydro-electric station with what was necessary to produce electricity.  The building began in 1927 and continued until 1932 and supplied electricity until 1948.

The meandering river – there is no longer a lake as in the late 60’s the dam was blown up by Palestinian terrorists who had come from deeper inside Jordan – created an island.  The land on the Jordanian side of the security fence in the area is actually owned by the kibbutzim of Ashdot Yaacov (Ichud & Meuchad) and under the Peace Treaty with Jordan, the kibbutzniks are allowed to continue to tend their date and banana plantations and other crops in those fields.  They work every day under the watchful eyes of Jordanian soldiers in sentry boxes and a number of Jordanian army bases perched high on hills overlooking the area.  The Israeli farmers must be out of the area by 17.00 we are told by local guide Ro’ee Baron from Ashdot Yaacov Ichud.

The kibbutz born and educated Baron is a mine of information, much of which already heard in the Old Courtyard presentation with regard Rutenberg and the hydro-electric facility but was good to hear again when looking not at a model but the remains of the real thing, judging the course of the Jordan River, Jordanian soldiers and both Israeli and Jordanian flags visible all around – in some cases, one opposite the other on the sides of the Bailey bridge crossed in order to get to the Island of Peace before continuing on to the other places of interest in the vicinity.

Jordanian soldiers were certainly happy to see some young people and break a little of the monotony of sitting, sweating and swatting flies all day.  They were interested to hear that the students were studying Arabic and after a quick inspection, photographs snapped under the mounted monarchs on the wall, the bus allowed to continue on to the derelict remains of the main part of the hydro-electric plant and to see Tel Or from closer quarters.  Only one of the original houses built for the workers at Tel Or remains nowadays.

The walls of the railway station are covered in graffiti most of which in Arabic.  Here and there are also dates from the 1930s and 1940s.  Ro’ee assures us that they are genuine – that of a British soldier particularly catches the eye.  Joseph Valery of the Royal Engineers carved his name, date (7.4.43) in to the brick of the station roof.  There is also an inscription penned by a Jewish woman in May, 1946 – some Arabic graffiti in a felt pen scrawled over the Hebrew.  Ro’ee says that the lady, nowadays in her 90s, verified her historic inscription and was recently interviewed about life in Tel Or where she had lived with her family.

The return journey to the Peace Island, last wave to the Jordanian soldiers and back under the archway, through the security fence to Naharayim and the memorial site to seven Israeli high-school girls who were killed in 1997 by a crazed Jordanian soldier as they and their classmates from Bet Shemesh were visiting the island.  The ‘Plucked Flowers’ site was created by Orna Shimoni, a member of the near by kibbutz Ashdot Yaacov, a bereaved mother of a son who fell in the line of duty in Lebanon.  Orna is one of the founders of the Four Mother’s Movement attributed with bringing about the eventual pullout of the IDF from Southern Lebanon. A great deal to see and learn but the day still not over – the Golan waits and a meeting with Ramona Bar-Lev at Katzrin, one of the first settlers on the Golan, still on the itinerary.

With the emphasis on the relationship between the members of the kibbutz and their Arab neighbors until 1948, students of the Intensive Arabic Semester visited Kibbutz Mishmar HaEmek. Founded 88 years ago Mishmar HaEmek (Guardian of the Valley in Hebrew) is one of the flagship kibbutzim of the Hashomer Hatzair movement.  The then pioneers and their first-born became neighbors to four Arab villages sharing the lower slopes of the Menashe Hills as they drop down in to the Jezreel Valley.

An in-house museum created in what was once a guard post on the perimeter of the kibbutz depicts the bitter fighting between the kibbutz member and the invading Arab army under Iraqi leader Kauji who intended taking over the kibbutz and moving on to Haifa. “The relationship between the founder members and their children with the local Arab population was good – obviously it had its ups and downs but for the better part it was a good one,” kibbutz born museum curator Dafna Govrin told the students.

The pioneers were not farmers and learned a great deal from the local Arabs and they in return learned about more advanced methods of agriculture in return. “There are many records and photographs here in the kibbutz archives from all of those years prior to the War of Independence and they show Arab and Jewish children playing together, the Arab children attending sporting activities with the kibbutz children and so on,” she said.  Many of the kibbutz children, now in their eighties, speak fluent Arabic because of the close proximity of the kibbutz to the villages and one of the founders, who was one of the signatories of Israel’s Declaration of Independence – Mordecai Bentov – became a Minister of Housing and Infrastructure and he encouraged the learning of Arabic by the kibbutzniks in order to strengthen the relationship with their Arab neighbors.

After the War of Independence the local Arab population was gone – told to leave by Kauji with a promise they would return after the battle was won.  Most of them became refugees in Jenin and others went to the near by village (then) of Umm al-Fahm where they have remained until this day. The two storey building is divided in to the kibbutz up until 1948 – upper level – and the battle of 1948 on the lower level where a ‘slick’ – a place of concealment for weapons banned by the British Mandate – can also be seen.

MICHA LINN is one of the first born of Kibbutz Mishmar HaEmek.  He speaks fluent Arabic and speaking with the IAS students, declared his love for the language and much of the Arabic culture. “I grew up playing with the local Arab children and made some very good friends.  They ended up after 1948 in Jenin and following the 1967 war I went with a few others from Mishmar HaEmek to Jenin to look for them,” reminisced Micha. When he, his cousin Elisha and another of their contemporaries found their friends in the refugee camp in Jenin there was great excitement explained Micha.  They stayed for 3 days in the home of one of the friends, visited others but although they were welcomed they felt great hatred from the others in the camp. “We stayed with a good friend and although we realized how those around them felt about us we knew that our friends would protect us, and they did.”

During the War of Independence Micha was shot in the stomach whilst serving as a soldier, his cousin Elisha was shot in the face standing next to the outer fence around his kibbutz. “War is war,” he says when describing those events. “We were brought up in Hashomer Hatzair and that meant trying in every way possible to get on with, nurture a good relationship with, our Arab neighbors and learning the Arabic language was encouraged.  In those years the Arabs in this area didn’t speak Hebrew, Arabic was our only way of communicating really. “I still believe in the Hashomer Hatzair ideology but am sorry to say that my owns sons don’t feel that same way – all of them served in the army through difficult periods of our history – and my grandsons feel very strongly about the Arabs and in a none-too positive way,” he adds bitterly.

For many years Micha was a farmer, plowing, sowing seeds and reaping wheat, cotton and more – and when he retired turned his hand to the making of mandrake liqueur.  Today he is making liqueurs from many different fruits but the mandrake is the most popular.  The Arabic speaking fighting farmer and serious amateur archaeologist, harmonica player and seasoned storyteller, is also participating in scientific research about the medicinal qualities of the mandrake being carried out by an American institute. 

Winding up with a tasting session of each of the bottles on Micha’s table, the IAS students bade farewell to Micha before heading back to their base – Kibbutz Barkai – with a small bottle of the real McCoy (Mandrake liqueur) each.
And another IAS study day hits the ground … or the bottle one could say!

During the Ramadan holiday educator Samiya Mahamid invited the third term of the MASA-Givat Haviva Intensive Arabic Semester students to visit her home in the Wadi Ara village of Mu’awiya. Perched on high, situated in the middle of the extensive plateau atop the Menashe Hills, Mu’awiya is a sprawling village very much out of sight and mind of those traveling the main Wadi Ara highway below.

Turning off Route 65 at Ein Ibrahim and passing through that village, the road continues in a series of twists and turns until reaching Mu’awiya.  Views of the villages, the Amir mountain range and city of Umm al-Fahm en-route to Mu’awiya interchange as the bus bobs along and when eventually reaching Samiya’s palatial Menashe Hills villa, the coastline visible in the near distance. Although it is Ramadan and the adults of the household fasting, the table is laden with food for the students.

When one of them points out that it is more than a little uncomfortable to eat and drink in front of someone who is fasting, Samiya laughs and with a wide sweeping two handed gesture invites the IAS students to tuck in. Born in Mu’awiya and married to a fellow villager, Samiya’s house is surrounded with the equally spacious abodes of her husband’s parents, his brothers and their families.  A large courtyard is all that separates Samiya from her in-laws.  Although she would like a little more privacy she does mention that her children play in the courtyard with their cousins and are always under the watchful eye of family.

Like all other villages in the area there is little to do in Mu’awiya village and so children and youth when not at school spend a great deal of time hanging out in each others homes.  The Mahamid clan is one of the main extended families to be found in the region, the majority resident in the nearby city of Umm al-Fahm.

Samiya discusses the holy month of Ramadan, the tradition of receiving guests, the relationship between her village and that of the city of Umm al-Fahm, a stronghold of the Islamic Movement’s northern branch and radical leader Sheikh Raed Salah.“I have a great deal of respect for Sheikh Salah as a religious leader but not so with regard some of his political activities,” she tells the students, some of whom aware that Sheikh Salah was aboard the Gaza flotilla ship ‘Marmara’ where 9 Turkish activists died.

“We are Palestinians in Israel and I believe we should do what we can in a peaceful way to achieve equality with the Jewish population in this country,” said Samiya who also explained that some of local Arabs did not see being involved in projects embracing encounters between Jewish and Arab youth (such as at Givat Haviva) as positive.

“There are those who think that if you work among Jewish Israelis then you are going against your own, but on the other hand there are those who support this kind of work, each one has to decide for themselves,” she says. Although an extremely hot day and no air-conditioning unit in the Mahamid household, a strong breeze wafts through the open living room windows.  The room is huge with a number of couches, armchairs and coffee tables and the artwork on the walls of an Islamic theme including an enormous dark blue and gold lettered wall hanging with portions of the Koran almost fills a wall opposite the main entrance to the home.

Samiya’s two young sons play in another room but shyly peek out every now and then.  The older boy gets a little adventurous, approaches the seated students and within minutes is throwing ‘high fives’ with them. An educator with two university degrees notched up to her credit, Samiya Mahamid looks forward to continuing to work in her field and has also taken upon herself organizing community work for the IAS students and finding adoptive families for them in Kfar Kara.

Within the framework of their studies, Intensive Arabic Semester students visited a very special project – and to date not very well known about – in the Old City of Acre whereby two enormous derelict buildings are being brought back to their former glory and intended to become a boutique hotel in the near future.

Bringing back to life much of the opulence of years long gone was the dream and brainchild of local restaurant owner Uri Yermias whose URI BURI restaurant by the Old Lighthouse and port of the city is almost a legend of its own.

In an atmosphere filled building constructed in Acre by master builders of the Ottoman Empire, the Uri Buri restaurant dishes up culinary delights with a large portion of exotic blast from the past.

With the light-house across the road and the sound of waves crashing over rocks and ancient sea wall just meters away, the fish restaurant on the edge of the Old City of Acre, offers a simplistic but attractive natural and truly authentic décor and one cannot but help ponder over who lived and possibly dined there hundreds of years before.

In the late 1980s Uri Yermias, a self-taught master chef, opened up a restaurant on the beach at Nahariya, eventually moving to the Acre port in 1997.  A larger than life character with a flowing white beard, Uri Yermias is equally acquainted with history and archaeology as he is with producing mouth watering dishes that have earned him and his restaurant a solid reputation not only among Israelis but also folks from abroad.

Down the road, around the corner and through a narrow alleyway from the restraint  is a true adventure down the backstreets of Acre history – what were the remains of the impressive buildings known as the Abdul Pasha Palace that Uri Yermias is bringing back to life.

A team of 10 Italian art restorers spent months of meticulous and back breaking restoration work on intricate, colorful and breathtakingly beautiful ceiling and cornice designs incorporating themes of nature and fine design. The ceilings of the high arched spacious rooms and halls, balconies and stairwells have ones eyes darting from place to place, and mouthing 'wow' every few seconds!A huge, incredibly detailed painting of Istanbul from 1878 has been remarkably restored by the Italian specialists from Venice who have successfully brought back to life the paintings and decorations of the sumptuous buildings. 

Menachem Shani, the project manager for the restoration, told the Intensive Arabic Semester students that two layers of paint had had to be peeled away to reach the original painting of Istanbul."It was an incredibly difficult and intricate feat that these artisans carried out," Menachem explained.  He also pointed out the decorative wrought iron balconies and window decorations that were the originals and those that had been meticulously copied by experts.

Tall arched windows, the iron work of both balconies and stairways, artistic stonework carving – all quite awesome and making one appreciate what had been created by men with the most basic of tools hundreds of years ago.  Also being renovated is the Turkish bath and future guests will have the chance to 'chill out' in hot steam as did Turkish gentry living in the palace all those years ago.

Left: Larger than life Uri Yermias outside the URI BURI restaurant in Acre Port

Right: Students enjoy fresh cups of juice from a local on the streets of Acre