By Joshua Rosenstein, Special to JTNews
This is the first in a series of stories about growing up in the Galilee. Joshua Rosenstein, a former JTNews intern and occasional writer, gives an account of parts of Israel that, with the difficult military and political situations in the Jewish State, are not often written about.
Spring in the Galilee is the most beautiful time of year. During the summers, the hot, dry, Hamsin blows out of the east, scorching the land and giving everyone headaches. The winters are chilly and damp, with a cold that gets in your bones. But in mid-April the winter rains raise a legacy
of wildflowers and birdsong. The gentle domed hills explode with buds and blossoms of every hue. The air is soft and heavy with the smells of orange blossom and sage, rosemary and jasmine.
Shorashim, the moshav on which I grew up, is located in Israel’s Misgav region, situated in the lower Galilee, equidistant between the Mediterranean to the west and the Kinneret to the east. The closest Jewish town is Carmiel, a 40-minute drive from Haifa.
When we moved to Shorashim in 1990, Carmiel was a 10-minute drive from our gate, but now the city creeps over the hill and you can drive to the first of several malls in three minutes. Over the past 10 years,
the city has exploded with perpetual construction: shopping centers, apartment complexes, villas of red-shingled roofs. Maybe most strikingly, the small city abounds in meticulously landscaped gardens. Every traffic circle boasts rows of lush color and sculptures.
Much has changed here in this little corner of the Galilee since I grew up here in the early ‘90s. The world has shifted since I hiked these valleys as a teen, hitched rides through the curving Galilee roads, drank cheap vodka in the moshav bomb shelters with my new immigrant Russian classmates. The forces of privatization and economics, plus the endless work to achieve a better life, all have worked their changes on this place as much as the delicate and
multi-faceted relations between the Jews and the Arabs that share this land. Here in the Galilee, fear and pain mingle with hope and coexistence.
One of the stories I used to tell groups of American teens that would come to stay at my father’s seminar center to learn about the Galilee was of the first Tu B’shevat on the hill.
Shorashim had been established in the early ‘80s, and this small group of American idealists moved into their little square boxes overlooking the valley of olive trees and the Arab village of Sha’ab. On Tu B’shevat, someone spotted a procession of Arabs making their way across the valley, carrying what appeared to be implements of destruction. The moshav members gathered fearfully awaiting the conflict. But when the Arabs reached the top of the hill, they had come bearing shovels, pick axes and saplings to help plant trees on the land.
Growing up on the moshav, with no public transportation, no kids my age, and a good four years from receiving my driver’s license, I spent a lot of time hitchhiking. In Sachnin, a sprawling Arab city just over the hill, two Jewish brothers from the nearby town of Yuvalim had opened a pizza place and I delivered for them driving delivery around the area. I tore around the Galilee back roads on a DR 250 spreading pizza and salad around the different settlements. It didn’t seem strange to be working in an Arab village or to hitch rides with Arabs around the area.
In the early ‘90s many members of my moshav were involved with co-existence programs. Some of these programs still exist, but many have slowly lost momentum. One of them, an after-school program called Shemesh, brought Jewish and Arab kids together for cross-cultural programming in the afternoons. The man who ran it gave up some time in the late ‘90s and moved back to the States.
I was a member of Re’ut, a cross-cultural youth group which would meet in the mixed city of Acre. I was conscious of the strong difference in culture: things which meant one thing to Jews meant something entirely different to Arabs. My long hair, for instance, was to me a symbol of hippie culture, but to most Arabs had heavily homosexual connotations. But these were clearly issues of cultural misunderstanding – not hatred.
What I was never conscious of, at that point, was the immense wall of racism and discrimination that separates the two cultures. The riots of 2000 brought those issues to a head and changed things for most people that live in the Galilee in ways that are slow to heal.
The Galilee is a unique part of Israel for several reasons. In most places in Israel, Jews and Arabs are separated by the same sensationalist media and demographic distance that Americans tend to see when watching CNN. In the Galilee, however, the Jewish and Arab sectors are much more closely intertwined.
The Arab villages; Sachnin, Sha’ab, Kaukab, A’e’ebelin, run down the slopes of the hills as they have for thousands of years. The Jewish developments, called moshavim or mitzpim, dot the hilltops. Most of the homes boast red tile roofs and lush gardens. If the meticulous landscaping of Carmiel and the rich greenery of the moshavim define the Jewish settlements, the Arab villages seem to be perpetually flooded in garbage. Trash fires burn on the outskirts, sidewalks are often nonexistent, and there is a noticeable lack of infrastructure.
“Here in Sachnin, we have no conditions,” says Yehuda Ganiy, a falafel stand owner from the small Arab town. “Every aspect of the infrastructure here is a mess. If the garbage truck comes once it doesn’t come for a week. We have no parks for the kids to play in. The kids play in
the streets, they use stones for goal posts to play soccer; it’s dangerous, but what can they do? They have no fields, no where to go.”
Before opening his falafel stand, Ganiy used to work as a taxi driver. He remembers well the lushness and beauty of the Jewish towns.
“Look at Carmiel: gardens, swimming pools, whatever you want. Once I took my family up to one of the Jewish moshavim to let my kids play in the grass and on the playground. They asked us to leave. What can I say, I want my kids to play on a playground, to have some fun.”
As many Arabs do, Ganiy lives above his parents in an illegal add-on to their house. Every year he pays a 20,000-shekel fine to the government for living in an illegal structure.
Yasmin Dekel, a 27-year-old Jewish nursery worker from Mitzpe Amirim says she understands Arab frustration.
“They have no conditions, they are discriminated against in the work place, and with the economy so bad, it is almost impossible for them to get jobs in the Jewish sector. This country has created a hard situation for them, they have no industry in their villages, the government won’t give them any funding, and they don’t get enough allocations to develop anything. They’ve left their agricultural lifestyle behind but haven’t developed anything to replace it with.”