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ILDA
Dear Hili,
I couldn’t sleep last night after what you said yesterday about how difficult it is to be a German in the modern world. Daniel will tell you how difficult it is to be a Jew, and I can tell you what it’s like being an Arab. Especially if you’re a Christian by faith and an Israeli by citizenship.
It’s fine being German. Germans live in shame and penitence. It’s not too bad being a Jew. The whole world hates them, but everybody knows they are the chosen people. They amaze the world with their Israel, built among rocks and ruins, their tenacious brains and many talents which put all other peoples in the shade. There are any number of Jews in prominent positions all over the world: scholars, musicians, writers, lawyers, and bankers. This annoys the majority.
But what’s it like being an Arab? There are 1,000 times more of us than there are Jews but who does the world know? Nasreddin Tusi? Avicenna? Imagine belonging to a people which always feels slighted and is always right. Islam gives the Arabs confidence and a sense of superiority. Arab Muslims are underestimated by the outside world and praise themselves. An Arab Christian is an unfortunate creature: the Jews barely notice the difference between an Arab Muslim and an Arab Christian. For them, both are their historical sworn enemies, except that a Muslim is a more reliable enemy.
The Jews do not trust us, even though we have chosen Israel and become its citizens in the hope that it will be our shared home. We are not trusted by the Muslims either. For them we are worse enemies than the Jews.
I would emigrate to Europe or America, but being an Arab I am bound by extremely strong family and tribal ties. My family does not see me as a separate unit. I live subject to all my relatives: the elder because it is my duty to respect them, and the younger because it is my duty to support them. It is almost impossible to escape from this. I would divorce Miriam if only I could, and you and I would immigrate to Cyprus, get married there, and live in any country where trees and flowers grow and people need parks and orchards. For that, though, I would need to stop being an Arab, which is impossible. You will remain a German, lamenting the aberration and brutality of your forebears, Daniel will remain a Jew with his crazy idea of making all people the children of God, and I will remain an Arab, longing for liberation from the oppressive Arab tradition of not belonging to myself but always to someone above me, be that my father, God, or Allah.
Dear Hili, when I am with you, just your presence is enough to free me from these burdensome thoughts and the hopelessness of our situation. Only when I am with you do I feel happy, and believe me there are very few Arab men in the world who could bring themselves to say such words to a woman. I love you, and I love the freedom which stands behind you, although both of us suffer from knowing it is not for us, that we are stealing it, although I do not know from whom. I am, nevertheless, profoundly convinced that God is on our side.
Do not leave me.
Musa
26. 1969, Haifa
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ILDA’S DIARY
Daniel brought me a branch of flowering almond yesterday. I can’t believe he cut it. I looked at him in astonishment and he said, “Hilda, we have been together for five years.” Daniel is right, it is precisely five years since I came to Haifa. The flowers are somehow only half real, as if made of mist or vapor, and they smell of something nice which is not in them. Perhaps the germ of the almonds which will come later? No, almonds have a much more definite and edible smell. This smell is not at all culinary.
Daniel celebrated the Mass. I was the only person there. He is disappointed that almost none of our residents are much bothered about the church but, as he says, “We are not feeding them with an ulterior motive. Who knows, perhaps they will come and pray with us sometime.”
Actually, that is not really fair. On Saturdays and Sundays quite a lot of people come together here. In the evening, after Daniel had gone, I decided to write down how many of us there are. Here’s the list: Daniel, me, Vera, Kasia and her children, Irena and her children, Olaf, Shimon, Yosef and his family, the sisters Susanna and Cecile, Bo
We have also lost people. Samuel and Lydia emigrated to America. Miriam died, poor Anton was killed, and Edmund and his family went back to Europe. Aaron and Vita and their children and a few other people have left us for the synagogue.
Daniel is very upset when he loses a person, but also always repeats that, “Every person should seek their own way to God. The path is personal, otherwise we would not be a community of volunteers in the Lord but an army led by generals.”
We have most difficulty with the transients. Daniel insists nobody should be sent away, so we sometimes get homeless people coming here. In Israel there are fewer of them than in Europe, but they are drawn to us like a magnet. Since the night shelter was built we always have a few people settling there for several days, or even for up to a month. Daniel said they should pay by bringing a bucket of water up from the spring. It has wonderful drinking water but the stream is very weak. The water we get from the Druze does not taste so good.
Now my German experience is proving unexpectedly useful. There are certain rules for treating homeless people which really do help us to find a common language. We currently have a pair of junkies, a very pleasant girl and a young man from Hungary, and they smoke some kind of trash. They are spaced-out, slowed down, and good humored. The girl, Lora, is Jewish, a hippie, and covered in flowers.
She is a real musician and plays the flute marvelously. I told her how good she is and she laughed and said that she is really a violinist but doesn’t have a violin anymore. She has such a vivid personality that her young man, a gypsy called Giga, rather pales in comparison. They have been living here for two months already. I have heard that Lora plays in the street near the market. She sometimes even brings money for the church funds, and Giga washes the dishes very conscientiously.
Last week a terrible drunkard wandered in. He was really ill, made everything filthy, and I spent two days cleaning up after him. Then I persuaded him to go to the hospital and drove him there. I went to visit two days later only to find he had run away. We can’t afford a cleaner or a cook and do everything with our own hands. It’s lucky Daniel earns money with his guided tours, and we get donations from abroad.
Daniel works very hard. Now that he has his own corner in the church he often stays until late. He is translating the New Testament and other texts from Greek into Hebrew. Actually, there have long been translations but Daniel considers them to be full of inaccuracies and even downright mistakes. I once asked him how many languages he knows. He said he knows three well, Polish, German, and Hebrew, and thinks he speaks others very badly. That is simply not the case. He conducts tour groups in Italian, Spanish, Greek, French, English, and Romanian, and I have heard him speak with Czechs, Bulgarians, and Arabs in their languages. That he has conducted services in Latin all his life goes without saying. It seems to me he has the gift of speaking in tongues which once descended on the apostles. He does have textbooks of various languages on his bookshelf, so some things God has given him but others he has learnt himself! Where did he find the time to learn all these languages? I asked him one time and he said, “Do you remember the Pentecost?” and laughed.