Intensive Arabic Semester

Text and Photos by Lydia Aisenberg

Traveling through the northern portion of the Jordan Valley (Syrian-African Rift) and visiting the heights of the Golan mountain range in springtime is a pretty awesome experience as the fourth group undertaking the 5-month duration MASA-Givat Haviva Intensive Arabic Semester recently discovered.

On a particularly hot spring day preceded by a few days of rain, the undulating hills on the Israeli side of River Jordan wending its way through the valley are nowadays covered in green undergrowth, carpets of colorful flowers and orchards of purple blossomed nectarine fruit orchards.  On the other side of the River Jordan and valley floor, the Gilead mountain range equally as green and peppered with Jordan villages large and small the success of their agricultural efforts as evident as those of the Israeli farmers on the east bank of the river.

Old Gesher was the first port of call for the day.  The site of the original Kibbutz Gesher, the first settlement to withstand an attack by the Arab Legion in April, 1948 is an important geopolitical and historical site attracting thousands of Israelis and overseas visitors annually.

The new Kibbutz Gesher stands a short distance away on a hilltop overlooking the original settlement, the River Jordan and the remains of three bridges, Roman, Turkish and British built, straddling the waters.  Kibbutz born Nirit Bagron, whose grandparents Ruth and Ayli Kapp were founder members of Gesher (bridge in Hebrew) welcomed the students to the place her grandparents built, defended and eventually abandoned in order to rebuild at a nearby location easier to defend.

Nirit explains that when the Arab army attacked the 120 member kibbutz in 1948, the communities 50 children were kept in an underground bunker but later smuggled in the middle of the night to the neighboring kibbutz of Ashdod Yaacov and from there to an abandoned monastery in Haifa – nowadays renovated and to be found in the courtyard of the Rambam Medical Center in Haifa.

Following a 15-minute audio-visual film (screened in the reconstructed dining hall) describing the founding of Old Gesher, the fighting in the 1948 War of Independence and background of the historical three bridges and railway line that crossed the River Jordan and continued on to Damascus in pre-1948 days, Nirit accompanied the students to the underground bunker where the children had been sheltering and that also served as a center to treat the wounded and safe place for the radio operator to transmit from.

In the section of the bunker – only in recent years rediscovered under mounds of earth and renovated – used to treat the wounded, Nirit shows where kibbutz member and then nurse Leah Kremer (nowadays 92 years of age) worked under the most difficult of circumstances.

Standing next to a plaster model of Leah Kremer at work, Nirit shows the actual book that Nurse Leah recorded the dates, names, injuries and treatment given in her portion of the bunker, shared with the communications officer, the original radio equipment sitting on a table opposite the treatment bed. 

Back above ground and a short walk to the present day security fence and on a hilltop a short distance away, over the river and the three bridges, a Jordanian Army sentry box.

A one-hundred year old engine which was rescued from the demilitarized zone has been restored and stands by the fence under the old dining hall.  

Nirit unlocks the gate in the fence after checking with the Jordanian soldiers it is okay to enter the demilitarized zone - adhering to the agreement brokered with regard the site.  Right: a basalt built khan in a photo as it was many decades ago and prior to recent renovation in the zone.

Once permission was given for the Israelis to work uncovering remains in the area over the fence but hugging the east bank of the River Jordan, many artifacts of various periods of rule, whether the Roman or Ottoman Empires or the British Mandate. 

The Roman bridge became to be called the “Bridge of the Meeting Place” due to the convergence of the rivers Jordan and Yarmuk a short distance upstream.

The 1904 Turkish bridge was built as part of the famous Hedjaz Railway Valley Line from Haifa to Damascus and the British constructed the third bridge in 1925.

All three bridges were blown up by members of the Hagana during the 1948 Independence War in order to put pay to the invasion plans of the Arab armies at that time. 

NAHARAYIM – The ISLAND of PEACE – The PICKED FLOWERS HILL

A unique agreement was reached with the Emir Abdullah of Transjordan in 1927.  That agreement enabled engineer Pinchas Rutenberg, founder of the Palestine Electric Company, to build the company’s main power station at nearby Naharayim, Hebrew play on words meaning where two rivers meet – the Jordan and the Yarmuk.

Later to become the Israel Electric Corporation, the Emir agreed to give the rights to use 6,000 dunams of land that at the time was under the control of Transjordan and the building of 3 dams got under way in the early 1930s.  The Naharayim plant began to supply electricity to communities both sides of the border until it was blown up by the Arab Legion during the War of Independence.

The story of Naharayim and the opening of the ‘Peace Island’ following a peace accord with the Jordanians in 1994 and the founding of the ‘Picked Flowers Hill’ in memory of seven Israeli high school girls murdered by a Jordanian soldier visiting the ‘Peace Island’ were dealt with by local guide and member of Kibbutz Ashdot Yaacov, Ran Amitai.

Passing through the security fence to the Peace Island, stopping at the point where the Jordan and Yarmuk rivers join and for papers to be inspected by Jordanian soldiers stationed in a sentry box in the form of a large arch with portraits of the late King Hussein and his son, the present day king Abdullah, the IAS students arrive at the Peace Island where another large portrait of King Abdullah graces an observation platform.

After a detailed description of the terrain and background to agreements made between Israel and Jordan, Ran accompanies the group deeper along the banks of the Jordan to the remains of the main portion of the Naharayim Power Station and an old Hedjaz Railway Station, the latter covered in fascinating graffiti from the 1930s to later periods.  A number of signatures were from Jewish workers employed by Rutenberg and also one left by a British serviceman in 1943.

Next port of call:
THE GAVRIEL SHEROVER CENTER at TZEMACH on the shores of Lake Kinneret

A visit to Beit Gavriel on the shores of the Kinneret en route to the Golan Heights was a welcome break and opportunity to not only admire the innovative architecture and Jerusalem stone used to construct the cultural center in memory of Gavriel Sherover but accommodating staff agreed to open up the ‘Peace Room’ incorporated in the design of the center by Gavriel’s mother, Gita Sherover.

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.