GHETTO MENTALITY
By Zvi Bar’el
Ha’aretz
es/976074.html
April 17 2008
Israel
"Have a peaceful Shabbat," says the soldier in a helmet covering his
forehead, the brim extending to his eyes. He is sitting in a guard
post in the center of Hebron, at the entrance to "Shapira Street,"
which leads to another narrow alley once known as "Tnuva Lane."
Historians of the occupation would do well to start by collecting the
exotic names the Israel Defense Forces has given its sites. "Sheep
Junction," "Glass Junction," "Gross Square," "Policeman Square"
and "Tnuva Lane" are milestones that belong to the generations that
devised them during the decades of occupation. They denote a kind of
geographical intimacy accruing to those who "belong" to the experience
that engendered the names. They began as random code names used by
the soldiers on the two-way radio, but always embody the memory of
an event. Over time, they become meaningless place markers for the
generations after the "first conquerors." Forty years after the
first settlers came to celebrate a first Pesach in Hebron, at the
Park Hotel owned by Fahd Kawasmeh, who became the city’s mayor and
was later assassinated in Jordan, Hebron is an encyclopedia of such
place markers.
"Where are you from?" the soldier asks. This is a question that is
repeated a number of times as we walked the few hundred meters that
separate the Tomb of the Patriarchs from the Hadassah building at the
top of Shuhada Street. The question is accompanied by a puzzled look
at the sight of two characters who are clearly not from the "Jewish
settlement." Neither of us – photographer Dan Keinan or I – wears
a skullcap or has a beard. We do not have a tallit (prayer shawl)
or a tzizit (fringed undergarment). We do not sport black trousers
and a white shirt, and we do not mumble prayers while walking down
the street. On the other hand, neither of us wears a kaffiyeh, a
faded checked shirt or striped polyester pants – ruling us out as
belonging to the population that is in any case forbidden to take a
Shabbat stroll in the world’s most heavily guarded Jewish ghetto.
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The soldiers’ dilemma is understandable: Should they greet us or
arrest us? The safest thing is to ask for an ID card, which there is
no need to demand from the "regular residents": either those who look
as if they are in their element in the silent wasteland of what is
known as the "Jewish community of Hebron" – or an Arab who somehow
reached this guard post by mistake and will regret it. The ID card
is shown four times, and four times the static-ridden two-way radio
spews out the names. All told, about a dozen soldiers engage in this
vital action. Once we are almost arrested.
"’Jewish quarter’ should be used in quotation marks, because in
the Land of Israel there are no Jewish quarters. They exist in the
Diaspora. In Warsaw, in Casablanca, Jewish quarters existed at the
edge of the city, a sign of isolation and humiliation. In the Land of
Israel there are Jewish cities, and if quarters exist they are Muslim,
Christian or Armenian. This applies to all the cities in the Land of
Israel, such as Hebron." These words are those of Dr. Yossi Sharvit,
from the "Book of Haggai," published by the Haggai Foundation and
Nir Yeshiva in Kiryat Arba.
There is no more fitting term for the area inhabited by Jews in the
heart of Hebron than "ghetto."
"Do you know why this street is called Shapira Street?" the soldier
asks. On the wall behind him is a plaque commemorating Rabbi Shlomo
Yitzhak Shapira, who was killed by a terrorist in September 2002. The
soldier, who is familiar with the details of the incident, explains
that the Hebroni terrorist came out of "Gate 5" – an opening on which
the numeral 5 was spray-painted in black – and shot and killed the
rabbi, wounding his children. It was a tragic event which led to the
invasion of another building on the street.
"Now the street is called Shapira Street," the soldier says, concluding
the explanation. But at the far end of the huge stone wall, at the
corner, a few meters from the commemorative plaque for Rabbi Shapira,
I see a faded inscription in the same black spray.
"Ben Tzion Tavger Street," it says, without his title of professor.
"Do you know who Ben Tzion Tavger is?" I ask the soldier.
"No," he replies. "All I know is that that was the name of the street
before it was changed to Shapira Street."
Sic transit gloria mundi. I met Prof. Ben Tzion Tavger in 1976, when
I was still a nuisance – that is, a young officer of the Military
Government in Hebron who was certain that the IDF ran things around
here. At the time the population was between 75,000 and 80,000,
including a few dozen Jewish families, and they lived in the then
new ghetto established in Kiryat Arba, the Jewish settlement abutting
Hebron. No one yet dreamed of living inside the city. The wrangling
between the Military Government and the settlers was confined to the
Tomb of the Patriarchs. True, a few years earlier, when the settlers
moved from mobile homes in the courtyard of Military Government
headquarters to the permanent homes in Kiryat Arba, the deputy
governor had taken a ringing slap in the face from Miriam Levinger,
wife of settler leader Rabbi Moshe Levinger, for trying to prevent
the family’s entry before the building was completed. But at that
time all was forgiven. After all, this was a respected family that
was upset by the usual stress of moving.
Similarly, when I was ordered, one night that same year, to arrest
a few settlers who were causing a disturbance in the Tomb of the
Patriarchs, and arrived with a squad of reserve soldiers to execute
the mission, it did not seem peculiar that the neighbors decided to
lock the gates of Kiryat Arba and imprison us inside until we would
decide to abort the mission. A few brief conversations on the two-way
radio with the brigade commander, then between brigade commander
and regional commander, then between regional commander and defense
minister – and the arrest order was canceled and the gate was unlocked.
Everything was so quick and simple back then.
‘Hadassah patrol’
A hundred meters further along we encounter another jeep and three
soldiers, another observation point and closed-circuit television,
a soldier guarding the entrance to the Muslim cemetery on Shuhada
Street, an Arab child peeking at us from behind the grating on
a window as though he were a dangerous animal, five Jewish girls
giggling next to the cemetery wall and a light breeze that blows a
few scraps of paper along the street. On the wall is a faded painting,
in gray-black, depicting symbolically the massacre that occurred here
in 1929, and next to it colorful graffiti portraying the "redeemers"
of the Hebron city center: children and yeshiva students and a new
synagogue. Neither in the painting nor on the street is there an Arab
to be seen. Another few steps, another entryway blocked by garbage
and barbed wire between Shuhada Street and old Shalala Street, another
sealed-off alley that prevents Arabs from accessing the streets below –
and we are opposite the Hadassah building.
The happy shouts of children in the courtyard of this old building –
it dates from 1893 – and of English-speaking Haredim (ultra-Orthodox
Jews) reminding the youngsters that "they will bring redemption,"
shakes the dust off the memory of a violent struggle between the army
and the settlers which ended, as expected, with the army’s defeat.
Eight years after that first Pesach at the Park Hotel and five years
after the move to Kiryat Arba, "Beit Hadassah" became a code word
for a daily mission in the operations room at Military Government
headquarters in Hebron. The structure’s conquest by the settlers
was not simple – and not because of legal issues, which were never
problematic. Two rabbis, Moshe Levinger and Meir Kahane, waged a
struggle over the "commandment of redemption." Each would bring in
his followers, who scuffled with one another while the army acted as
a kind of linesman, detaining and releasing people from both sides.
Levinger’s method was more effective. At first a minyan (prayer quorum
of 10 men) recited the shaharit (morning prayers) every day on the
main street opposite the building. The IDF immediately dispatched
soldiers to the site: Jewish worshipers in the bustling center of
Hebron had to be guarded. After half an hour the worshipers went
on their way and the army was able to resume its regular security
missions. This went on for days, until it emerged that not only were
the prayers taking longer to recite, but the number of worshipers had
grown to the point where they had spilled outside and were blocking
the passage of vehicles on the main street.
So every day between 8 and 9 A.M., the peak hour for trucks and
vans delivering merchandise, buses packed with workers and school
children, and physicians and teachers in private cars – all traffic
had to stop at the busiest intersection in Hebron until the prayers
ended. The worshipers ignored the military governor’s request to
show consideration, answered his demand that they stop praying on
the street with a smile, and in the end the soldiers who were sent
to remove the worshipers were resisted with force.
Oddly, every time the "Hadassah patrol," as those involved in the
mission were dubbed, was sent to remove the worshipers, they were in
the middle of the "Shemoneh Esrei" prayer, during which the worshiper
must not move. It took a few days before we understood that this
prayer was also a code, and the order was given to remove the settlers,
no matter what prayer they were reciting.
"You are the father of all abomination," Moshe Levinger growled at me
when he understood that we did not intend to call off the mission in
honor of the "Shemoneh Esrei." While uttering the word "abomination,"
he also spit a little saliva out of his mouth. Some of the worshipers
were unceremoniously hustled onto trucks and taken to the police
station; the others ran off. As expected, no one was arrested.
The next day the street prayers resumed, and a few weeks later we
were surprised to find a group of women and children in the courtyard
of the Hadassah building. Within a short time the routine order from
the "political echelon" also arrived: Prayers were to be allowed at
the site. Afterward a veritable palace was built above the original
structure. And the army? It bit its lip. Today, lip-biting is passe.
You only had to hear the heated discussion last Shabbat between the
young yeshiva student who came out of the Hadassah building and the
officer in the patrol jeep about Maccabi Tel Aviv, or maybe it was
Hapoel, or to see the candies another yeshiva student, on his way to
the settlers’ Tel Rumeida site, gave the two sentries at the Hadassah
building to understand who is working for whom.
On Shabbat we also saw an original Hebron invention: a one-way street
for pedestrians. For example, a Jew walks from the city of Hebron to
the Tomb of the Patriarchs via the Casbah. No one stops the Jew from
entering the city along the main street or through one of the many
alleys. But a little before the mosque situated above the Tomb of the
Patriarchs is a revolving gate in front of which is a metal detector.
A soldier stands at the entrance and checks those passing through. So
far, this seems normal. But then comes a surprise: If you go through
the gate and enter the plaza of the tomb compound and afterward want
to return to the city – you will not be able to. Why? Just because.
The only logical reason is that the IDF wants to prevent Jews from
wandering about in the city of Hebron itself. But wait a minute: The
visitor just came from the city, so where is the logic here? "It’s
so the settlers will not enter the city," a soldier tells me. "They
could cause problems."
Interesting. And what have they been doing for the past 40 years? And
what are they doing around the Hadassah building? In the "Avraham
Avinu" (the patriarch Abraham) neighborhood, for instance?
Ah, the Avrahami Avinu neighborhood. That is certainly a fitting name
for the collection of residential structures that sprang up on top
of the goat pen that once hid the remnants of the ancient synagogue
named for Abraham. Here, too, the IDF cannot take pride in its battle
heritage in the face of the settlers.
Furor over every stone
This time the method was different. First came the bait. An old map
of the Old City of Hebron was placed solemnly on the governor’s desk.
Settler activist Hanan Porat and the staff officer for archaeology
in the Military Government invited us to look at the map and observe
the Star of David inscribed on it, indicating that this was a Jewish
site. Maybe a synagogue. Porat requested just one small, reasonable
thing – it’s always a small, reasonable thing – to remove the goat
pen and clear away the considerable refuse that had accumulated at
the site. And one more small thing – for a small sign to be put up,
saying "holy place." That’s all.
Urgent letters were fired off to the command post and from there,
as usual, to the defense minister, as this was a beneficent Military
Government, which knew that to move a stone in Hebron meant a public
furor, so every decision about every stone was a matter of state
policy. The adviser on Arab affairs, an officer with the rank of
colonel, came to Hebron. His was the final word when it came to the
"population," meaning the Arabs. After some wallowing in the goat pen,
a positive decision was made.
Summoning up our routine naivete, we thought we would assign the
cleaning job to the Public Works Department, put up a sign, and that
would be that. But that was only the bait. Then came the proposal.
Why should Public Works do the cleanup – they will just employ Arabs,
who might lack sensitivity for the place. And more important, there
are quite a few unemployed Jews in Kiryat Arba – why not let them do
the work and that way everyone will gain something. You won’t even
have to come up with a special budget, because we have donors.
The Military Government concurred and two excavators went off to the
goat pen. One was a physics professor named Ben Tzion Tavger, who
had done solid-state research in Russia; the other, Eliezer Bruaris,
was his assistant. Thus stage No. 2 of the plan was launched. Tavger
and his sidekick not only excavated and cleaned, not only dumped
wheelbarrows of refuse into the yards of the Arab neighbors – they
also decided to sleep at the site in order to guard it. The operations
room at Military Government headquarters duly added another crucial
mission to its list: the "Tavger patrol." Its job was to visit the
excavation site and ensure that the two were still alive.
The two treated the IDF patrols as a nuisance at best. One day I
asked Tavger not to empty the wheelbarrow into the Arab neighbors’
yard, and the next thing I knew it was heading straight for me.
"You’re in my way," he snapped, looking through me. On subsequent
occasions he didn’t bother talking to me or to anyone else from
the Military Government. Between him and us was a worthy mediator:
Moshe Levinger. Levinger agreed with us that we were dealing with a
"tough man," but explained that his goal was meritorious and that we
should be patient. Bruaris, in contrast, was a loquacious fellow who
never failed to remind us that we were Arab lovers and Jew haters,
and that we were like the KGB only worse, because they were goys.
Bruaris had a hobby for his non-excavating hours: He liked to wander
about Hebron brandishing an ax at passersby. Sometimes he punched
people in the face or "just happened" to knock over merchandise
in a market stall. On Purim he stuck a threatening set of teeth
into his mouth and stalked the city streets. The "Bruaris patrol,"
another mission that was added to the chart, was assigned to burly
reservists, because Bruaris was strong and it took four or five
soldiers to arrest him.
"Shame on you," he reprimanded us, "to arrest a Jew in front of all
these Arabs. Now they are happy." Levinger gave us the same line. He
understood that we were having a hard time with Bruaris, but persisted
in asking, "Why arrest a Jew in the street?" He promised that he would
bring him to the police station whenever he was wanted for questioning.
In the meantime, the excavations at Avraham Avinu synagogue proceeded
apace. That is, the plan to move from "cleaning up plus a sign" into
a compound was advancing nicely. The synagogue’s foundations were
uncovered, and a temporary cover, a kind of camouflage net and canvas,
was placed over them. The time had come to move to the next stage:
a foothold.
As Rosh Hashanah approached, the expected written request arrived:
to permit prayer in the newly uncovered synagogue. We always fell
into the same trap when these requests arrived. We believed we had
the power to say "No," or at least to bargain. The Military Government
had not yet fully assimilated the fact that a letter of request from
the settlers was tantamount to an order.
We were apprehensive about permitting the prayers. The command post
was just as leery, and as a compromise wanted to authorize a minyan
on Rosh Hashanah morning. We set up a meeting with Rabbi Levinger to
tell him about our compromise proposal. Levinger shifted nervously
in his chair. "I cannot be responsible for the congregation," he
explained. "What if more than a minyan come? Or if they will want to
stay for minha [the afternoon prayer]?" Suddenly Levinger could not
be responsible – and we realized we were in trouble.
Then came a turning point: The "political echelon" – then defense
minister Shimon Peres – had decided to be as firm as a rock. "Do
not authorize more than a minyan, and only for shaharit," was his
directive. At last a sharp, clear order. We could hardly remember
the last time we received this kind of political backing.
Exploding minister
Two companies of reservists were deployed around the synagogue. A
war room was set up on the roof of the vegetable market overlooking
the compound; command cars and jeeps patrolled the area energetically.
Everything was ready for a military victory. The defense minister
honored the occasion with his presence and, standing next to the
commander-in-chief, we felt more confident than ever.
The flood soon began. Jews draped in prayer shawls arrived from
every direction. From the Casbah and from the area of the Tomb of the
Patriarchs, from the hills and from the main street. The synagogue
filled up with worshipers who had no intention of heeding any order.
I looked at Peres. The habitually calm man was ashen and on the brink
of exploding. "Remove them immediately," he demanded. Two soldiers
went over to the worshipers and asked them to leave the site. The
soldiers were pushed away roughly. "Can’t you see that we are in the
middle of prayer?"
Peres blew his stack: "Remove them by force." The order was given.
The reservists lunged at the worshipers, pulling them and dragging them
from the plaza, as they tried to carry out the order. Rosh Hashanah
or not, the soldiers were struck and pushed, but within an hour the
synagogue was emptied. The frustration of the past few weeks, the
settlers’ contempt for the soldiers, the curses they hurled at them –
all of that was vented in the evacuation.
And then came the Knesset debate. "Who gave the order for the
worshipers to be removed by force during prayer?" MKs close to the
settlers demanded to know. "Who dragged worshipers in their tallit?"
they fumed. We waited for our minister to have his say, for him to
stand firm and defend the army’s honor. "No one ordered the worshipers
to be removed in their tallit," he lied. He had stood next to me on
the roof of the market; with his own mouth he gave the order and with
his own eyes he saw the events and did not stop them.
Last Saturday I returned to the vegetable market, which is now
completely shut down. On the wall facing the street is a sign in
Hebrew and English that says: "These buildings were constructed on
land purchased by the Hebron Jewish community in 1807. This land was
stolen by Arabs following the murder of 67 Hebron Jews in 1929. We
demand justice! Return our property!" Since then, hundreds of shops
belonging to Hebron residents have been shut, sealed and abandoned.
The Jewish ghetto has turned Hebron into an Arab ghetto. The vegetable
market has moved to the edge of the city, and the Arab families that
remain in the area of the Jewish quarter are now prisoners in homes
to which there is no access, closed behind windows covered by iron
grating. The 116 checkpoints within Hebron prevent free passage and
make life in the city a story of ongoing suffering.
Only the exultant shouts of the children – "We will bring
redemption!" – shatter this wasteland.
"Can I see an ID card?" asks/demands the Ethiopian soldier at the
passage on "King David Street" – the magnificent name of the lane
that leads from the Tomb of the Patriarchs to the Avraham Avinu
neighborhood. I am reminded of Ben Tzion Tavger. What would he have
done if we had asked him to show an ID card? Shoved us? Cursed us?
No. He would just have looked through us. I try the same stunt.
"Stop, sir," says the soldier’s buddy, who is of Russian origin. "ID
card, please."
I keep walking. Just once, I want to feel like a settler.
"Sir, please stop!"
"Arrest me if you want," I reply. "Issue an arrest warrant for me."
His radio-telephone crackles and I remember what I felt when Levinger
and his pals had guffawed at army orders. Suddenly I have no pity
for the soldier. This is my moment to be a settler. He invokes the
Doomsday weapon: "I can hold you for 20 minutes without an arrest
warrant." Then I get it: This is the army’s weapon in the face of
settlers who run amok. A 20-minute delay. I keep walking. What a
wonderful feeling to be a settler.W