On my way home a week ago, I traveled from Bethlehem and the checkpoint there to West Jerusalem,
and then by bus to an area close to Gaza where I met a young Israeli and former combatant in
the Israeli Defense Force's special unit, the famed Golani Brigade. This experience with him which
lasted only a few hours because of my scheduled flight home, but I think a good representative sample
of this trip for me.
This is my message this Thanksgiving morning
to each of you, faithful friends. "Thinking about the Other". A letter to Yaniv. Love, Bill
Good day, Yaniv.
In our country, this is the day we set aside to thank God for the blessings of our lives in a world
faced with scarcity, and where we have plenty. I have much to be thankful for, including friends old and
young. When I reflect on our few hours together a week ago in your community on the edge
of the Negev Desert in Israel, I realize the irony with which we both live in our world together.
We used, several times in our conversations, the phrase "the other". In fact,
it was you from whom I first heard the poem of Maqmood Darwish, "Thinking
About the Other". I recite it often, and still carry the audio of your recitation with me.
I also reflected on three places that you took me to that afternoon, a week ago. First,
to the herb stand, operated by this lone Bedouin young man, when I observed that you not
only interacted with him personally in Arabic, but I could also sense by the tone of your
voices that you both did so out of mutual respect. On your suggestion, I also purchased a bar
of homemade olive oil soap, and an herbal pomade for massaging my wife's aching
feet. Last night when I applied the pomade on her feet, I reflected on the interaction between the two
of you, and for me, I would imagine that will be the case over the next several months, or until the jar
is empty, and beyond perhaps.
The second place you took me, was to the back of an empty store front parking lot where there is
an Arab market, and off to the right, a lone store front with an open air sliding door. Under
the protection of the roof of that building, was a woman who was roasting kabob over
a smoking charcoal fire. You again, in your quiet, gentle way, ordered in the native tongue of the
woman, two chicken schwarmas for us. She was openly pleasant and hospitable, though wearing the
traditional scarf of the Arab woman. She was "The Other" referred by us several
times that evening, and whom, Darwish spoke of in his poem, I suspect. We then
proceeded yet to another location in that village that offered sweets by a young Arab
from the Nablis area. I had to shake my head again. Where was I but in the
realm of Israel. This was not suppose to be!
And lastly, you shared your efforts in the new job with the local school, predominately
Arab and Bedouins, most likely, and how you were working with the young elementary
students there on "environmental education" helping them define projects in which they
invested in themselves. These students were also "The Other".
So, in a land of ironies, which I found not only in your community, but in several places
where I traveled in my recent pilgrimage to Israel and the occupied territories, "unanticipated
possibilities". The prospect of your coming together to work on the Nassar Family farm with the
contingency of the Combatants for Peace members you coordinate (combined former
Israeli soldiers, and Palestinian resistance men), also keeps hope alive for me,
even in the midst of the darkness. I am grateful for your friendship
and for your active ways of engaging with "The Others' in your world.
"................When you think about the others, the distant others, think about your self
and say, "I wish I were a candle in the dark." Maqmood Darwish, Palestinian National Poet
Faithfully, Bill
Thanksgiving Day in America, Nov. 25, 2010
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