Friday, December 31, 2010

Young girl Leek farmer in Afghanistan

For the last several years, a group of young Afghani’s in the Bamyan province of Afghanistan have been on “Our Journey To Smile” (http://ourjourneytosmile.com/blog/).  This journey to smile is their effort to bring about peaceful nonviolent solutions to conflicts in Afghanistan using the principles taught by Jesus, Gandhi, Martin Luther King, Jr. and others.

Who We Are



Who we are-
students-1v11
Afghan college students and youth who started this journey in 2008.
International volunteer for Journey to smile
International volunteer for Journey to smile
International volunteeers who will participate in support of Our Journey to Smile.
To date, we have volunteeers from Singapore, Egypt, Italy and Nepal.
smiling-boy-v16
VENUE World Heritage Bamiyan Buddhas
LOCATION Bamiyan Afghanistan    DATE 21 September 2009
Our Journey to Smile in 2009 wishes to gather Afghan college students and Afghan youth from every ethnicity, as well as international volunteers from every country, to come together at the World Heritage Bamiyan Buddhas in Afghanistan on International Peace Day, 21st September 2009, to be an example and encouragement to the world that wide-scale humane relations based on a humane love is possible, however in-humane our current global situation may be.
So, we ask every one of you, to join or support Our Journey to Smile, knowing that the cumulative hope and conscience of humanity, once communally expressed on a wide enough scale, would demonstrate a love that inspires Mankind to grow and to be compassionately humane.
In 2009 AD, Afghanistan is in the depth of world conflict and self-interest.
Whatever our fellow humans, Obama or Osama or others, decide, the college students and youth of Afghanistan, together with all of humanity, wish to to encourage ourselves and others to SMILE.
By smiling, we are grieving over Mankind’s proud, in-humane and self-absorbed behavior. We seek to raise the possibility of a humane love by building wide scale humane relationships and thus enjoy the growth of a majority public practice of humanity’s shared hopes.
We hope to put courage and dignity into our lives and our world, to put delight into the hearts of children and all of Mankind, to suggest that whatever our shared condition, a HUMANE LOVE is possible.
While the US, NATO, Taliban and all other players decide what to do with a country that is not theirs and with a world that does not belong only to them, is there ANY ONE PERSON who understands what the common, average citizen of Afghanistan or citizen of the world wishes for?
Some say realistically but sadly, ‘this Journey will NOT happen….
What they are saying is ,’ Genuine love, humanity and peace belong only to the poets and the fables. Humanity doesn’t have what it takes.’
It’s sad because both Afghans and the world need encouragement.
It’s sad because reality, perhaps life itself, seems keen for us to remain frozen in the timid beliefs that humanity cannot have the HUMANE RELATIONS which the majority of us want, that the small minority of decision-makers must always have their self-interested ways.
We want to address our own cynicism, to try, to face disappointment, to take our small steps, believing that when we embark on Our Journey to Smile, humanity has to grow and will not shrink back to its unsure and undignified days.

Afghan Youth Peace Volunteer’s Journey To Smile Bringing the Reality of the War In Afghanistan to the United States

For the last several years, a group of young Afghani’s in the Bamyan province of Afghanistan have been on “Our Journey To Smile” (http://ourjourneytosmile.com/blog/).  This journey to smile is their effort to bring about peaceful nonviolent solutions to conflicts in Afghanistan using the principles taught by Jesus, Gandhi, Martin Luther King, Jr. and others.
These brave young Afghani men (and women) are aided by a humanitarian medical doctor from Singapore, Hakim, who previously worked for a Christian based NGO in Afghanistan, in the universal quest to promote nonviolence in a region that has been racked by almost constant violence since the 1970’s.  Douglas Mackey, from the FOR affiliate in the Olympia, WA area has been working with this group for well over one year.
Christian Peace Witness and other organizations have joined the effort to bring a few of the Afghan Youth Peace Volunteers to the United States this summer to share their story and their journey for nonviolence.  Unfortunately, their request for Visa’s has been denied by the United States government on the basis that the U.S. government feels that they are risks to over stay their visas and not return to Afghanistan.
While attempts are still being made to get them Visa’s, there are still plans being made for a “virtual” tour of the United States for the Afghan Youth Peace Volunteers this summer if the Visa’s are not obtained in a timely manner.  This virtual tour would consist of Josh Steiber, a young Iraq war veteran who became a Conscientious Objector, and others touring the U.S. and showing powerful films made by the Afghan youth, to various U.S. audiences and linking live to some of the Afghan youth so U.S. citizens attending these events have the opportunity to interact directly with these brave Afghan Youths who are working for non-violence.
Please go to “Our Journey to Smile” site (http://ourjourneytosmile.com/blog/) to learn more about these young Afghani’s and view some of their videos.  Also consider doing one or more of the following:
  • Contacting your Congress person, Senator, the State Department or White House and ask them to provide Visa’s for these young Afghani’s to come to the United States either this summer (or sometime else in the near future);
  • Considering hosting Josh and his traveling partners for an event to talk with the Afghani Youth from Afghanistan (or possibly another country they may visit this summer if the U.S. government continues to deny their VISA request).
  • If the tour does not come by to your geographical area, consider hosting a live interaction from your area during a time that the Afghan Youth Peace Volunteers will be speaking to another group in this country where Josh Steiber will be.  Your group would be able to ask questions and speak to the Afghan Youth and the other U.S. location live.
  • Consider helping to pay for this effort.  Fellowship of Reconciliation is collecting donations for Christian Peace Witness for this event.  Online donations can be made through the FOR website (http://www.forusa.org/) or checks can be mailed to FOR noting that the donation is for helping to fund the visit of the Afghan Youth Peace Fellowship to the United States (either physically or virtually).
Also, please pray for an end to United States military involvement in Afghanistan and for the success of the Afghan Youth Peace Volunteers in their journey to smile.

Tuesday, December 28, 2010

Christmas in Beit Sahour, Palestine

  From Mazin Qumsiyeh
I have spent 26 Christmases in our homeland but never had a more meaningful one than this one.   In the traditional 12 days of the holiday season, we finished with class work at Bethlehem University.  My masters' students and my undergraduate students did very well throughout the semester as they evolved their critical thinking and analytical skills and developed admirable self-confidence.  Then the holidays came and with them came people from around the world to join in our struggle for freedom.  In particular 73 French activists joined with others to attend and participate in a number of direct actions that challenge the colonial structure.  Starting on 22-23 December in Jerusalem, the group participated in direct action and other events in Shaikh Jarrah, Silwan, and ethnically cleansed villages behind the green line. After two nights in Jerusalem focusing on the increased pressures to isolate and destroy life for the remaining inhabitants of this Palestinian city, the activists were to come to Al-Walaja village (a village that suffers from colonial settlement activities on the small percentage of its land that remains after Israel took over 75%).  The Israeli apartheid army tried in vain to prevent the event from happening from preventing a bus company from transporting activists to blocking the road to the village to threatening people in the village.  Strong will and creative on-the-spot triumphed maneuvers frustrated the army's maneuver and all did in through other means to hold a huge demonstration of at least 200 people (Palestinians and Internationals including some Israelis). Not allowing empty buses to come to pick the demonstrators, we still managed to get everyone out safely to go the manger square for the traditional Christmas procession. With over 50 volunteers wearing bright yellow vests (Handala and Free Palestine prominently printed on them), we distributed over 2000 'Christmas Cards' to the Christian pilgrims.  The cards referred to the wish for peace with justice and linked to the Kairos document, a call by Palestinian Christians issued a year ago (see http://www.kairospalestine.ps)

Later in the afternoon, we traveled to Beit Jala where we shared putting-up a Christmas tree at the home of Abu Michel, a Christian whose land was taken over for the apartheid wall.  Then onto Aida refugee camp for a meaningful Christmas Eve with refugees. Christmas day was spent mostly in Hebron old city including in a demonstration against the racist settlers who continue to attempt to destroy the old city.  The occupation authorities used tear gas and stun grenades and kidnapped two internationals (French and a Scottish, both released later at night). Some Internationals joined us in the candle light march in the Shepherds' field that evening (over 2000 attended, a marvelous event; Above is a video of it
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=34HiwC75MCU ). The next morning, activists went to Qalandia checkpoint and protested the Israeli army preventing Palestinians from entering Jerusalem.  A Palestinian and nine French activists were detained and many were beaten and injured (video here:
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=VCpB54gcvUc ).  That afternoon, a tree planting event near the wall in Bil'in was met with Israeli tear gas and stun grenades (video here http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=L6uqb9ZuuCY ).
Later in the evening, we had an evening of camaraderie and solidarity despite attempts to politicize the event by some. The next day, the delegation visited Nablus (see photos at
http://www.europalestine.com/spip.php?article5724 ) and on the way back
stopped by Beitil and had a demonstration against the closure of roads
inside the west bank to Palestinian travel (photos at http://www.europalestine.com/spip.php?article5721 ). Two were detained and several injuries were reported due to the Israeli assault on the peaceful demonstration.  All detained in these various demonstrations were mistreated
but were eventually released.  

I urge all to come visit us and see what is happening in the "little town of Bethlehem": 170,000 people nearly half of them are refugees crowded into 13% of the original district size of Bethlehem and surrounded by 27 ft high walls and electrified fences.   Many people describe it as a Ghetto or a Bantustan (and the Israeli government calls such remaining Palestinian areas in the Negev and elsewhere as concentration areas).  But on the positive side, the pressure of the occupation and the test of us make us better human beings. The hundreds of internationals that participated in these activities told us how honored and leased they were by having shared a meaningful holiday season with us. Energized, we now planned much bigger activities for this summer (stay tuned).  Similarly, the Palestinians who participated in
the demonstrations or who even simply hosted internationals in their homes or who even saw us on TV or read about us in newspapers all felt a sense of hope and empowerment.  For me personally, having a house full of internationals sleeping everywhere eating together, working together, being attacked by occupation authorities together was the best Christmas gift. Come to think of it, that is what the message of that prince of peace born over two millennia years ago was about. We are the descendents of those first believing Shepherds who saw the star and believed in Jesus. Jesus born in a country called Palestine was thus Palestinian by birth but when he grew up he also challenged a Jewish ruler (Herod) put in place by a Western government.  History does repeat itself although with some variation but the message of love and peace will eventually triumph. This Christmas from here din the Shepherds' field just down the hill from the Church of Nativity, we sang "this in my heart, I do believe.we shall overcome someday" .. Merry Christmas.  by Mazin Qumsiyeh

Sunday, December 19, 2010

Veterans for Peace Are Arrested at the White House


Videos and other stuff from the action at the White House. To be clear, the organizers had no expectation of stopping the wars, changing government policy or even influencing public opinion. What we wanted was to keep the spirit of resistance alive and well, empower and encourage solidarity, which we did - and we had a good time doing it, arrests non-withstanding. Read Chris Hedges superb article for more on that.

No Act of Rebellion is Wasted http://www.truthdig.com/report/item/no_act_of_rebellion_is_wasted_20101213/

Ellen Davidson's pictures: http://picasaweb.google.com/ellen.rachel.davidson/CivilResistanceToWarsAtTheWhiteHouseOn121610#

http://www.allvoices.com/contributed-news/7642244-video-135-choose-arrest-at-white-house-as-veteranled-civil-resistance-demands-stop-these-wars/video/68878861-the-real-news-report-on-war-protest-at-white-house

http://www.allvoices.com/contributed-news/7642244-video-135-choose-arrest-at-white-house-as-veteranled-civil-resistance-demands-stop-these-wars

Democracy Now! http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=dfCaqqMyAfc

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=3YQoydgMXkU

UPI http://www.upi.com/News_Photos/News/Veterans-For-Peace-protest-war-in-Afghanistan/4342/1/

Bill Perry's pics http://www.facebook.com/album.php?aid=338596&id=744057563&l=dc00ed2c77

Huffington Post
http://www.huffingtonpost.com/2010/12/15/ellsberg-antiwar-protesters-white-house-fence_n_797410.html

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=n-S4SIre3kk

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=WS6nPSOLyw4

http://rt.com/news/afghan-protests-white-house-obama/

Andrew Courtney's photo album: DC,VFP demo 12.16.10

http://www.opednews.com/articles/Daniel-Ellsberg-Ray-McGov-by-Rob-Kall-101218-333.html

www. stopthesewars.org

__._,_.___

Monday, December 13, 2010

Inmates in Georgia Prisons Use Contraband Phones to Coordinate Protest

By SARAH WHEATON  Published: December 13, 2010 U.S. NEWS
http://mobile.nytimes.com/article?a=713691&f=21

The prison protest has entered the wireless age.

Inmates in at least seven Georgia prisons have used contraband cellphones to coordinate a nonviolent strike this weekend, saying they want better living conditions and to be paid for work they do in the prisons.

Inmates said they would not perform chores, work for the Corrections Department's industrial arm or shop at prison commissaries until a list of demands are addressed, including compensation for their work, more educational opportunities, better food and sentencing rules changes.  The protest began Thursday, but inmates said that organizers had spent months building a web of disparate factions and gangs - groups not known to cooperate - into a unified coalition using text messaging and word of mouth.  Officials at the Georgia Department of Corrections said Monday that four facilities remain in a lockdown status and there have been no major incidents or issues reported.

Inmates complained of scattered clashes with guards.

Smuggled cellphones have been commonplace in prisons for years; Charles Manson was caught with one in a California penitentiary this month. Officials worry that inmates will use them to issue orders to accomplices on the outside or to plan escape attempts.

But the Georgia protest appears to be the first use of the technology to orchestrate a grass-roots movement behind bars.  Reached on their cellphones inside several prisons, six participants in the strike described a feat of social networking more reminiscent of Capitol Hill vote-whipping than jailhouse rebellion.

Conditions at the state prisons have been in decline, the inmates said. But "they took the cigarettes away in August or September, and a bunch of us just got to talking, and that was a big factor," said Mike, an inmate at the Smith State Prison in Downing who declined to give his full name.

The organizers set a date for the start and, using contact numbers from time spent at other prisons or connections from the outside, began sending text messages to inmates known to hold sway."  Anybody that has some sort of dictatorship or leadership amongst the crowds," said Mike, one of several prisoners who contacted The New York Times to publicize their strike.  "We have to come together and set aside all differences, whites, blacks, those of us that are affiliated in gangs."  Now, Mike said, every dormitory at participating prisons has at least one point man with a phone who can keep the other inmates in the loop.

Miguel, another prisoner at Smith who also declined to give his full name, estimated that about 10 percent of all inmates had phones." We text very frequently," he said. "We try and keep up with what's going on in the news and what's going on at other facilities. Those are our voices."

They are also a source of profit to the people providing the contraband. Miguel said he paid $400 for a phone that would have cost $20 on the street.  Mike said he bought his through a guard. "That's how a lot of us get our phones," Mike said.  Inmates said guards had started confiscating the phones, and they complained that hot water and heat had been turned off.

The Corrections Department placed several of the facilities where inmates planned to strike under indefinite lockdown on Thursday, according to local news reports.  "We're hearing in the news they're putting it down as we're starting a riot, so they locked all the prison down," said an inmate at Hays State Prison in Trion who refused to give his name.  But, he said, "We locked ourselves down."

The inmates contend that if they have a source of income in the prison and better educational
opportunities to prepare them for release, violence and recidivism will go down.  But the Department of Corrections has not publicly acknowledged the protest.

Mike said that the leaders were focused on telling inmates to remain patient, and not to consider resorting to violence.

The inmates' closest adviser outside prison walls is Elaine Brown, a longtime advocate for prisoners whose son is incarcerated at Macon State Prison, one of the other major protest sites.  A former Black Panther leader who is based in Oakland, Calif., Ms. Brown helped distill the inmate complaints into a list of demands.

She held a conference call on Sunday evening to develop a strategy with various groups, including the Georgia chapter of the National Association for the Advancement of Colored People and the Nation of Islam.
_______________________________________________ 

Sunday, December 12, 2010

The Writer's Almanac by Garrison Keillor, December 11, 2010

It's the birthday of writer Grace Paley, (books by this author) born in the Bronx (1922). Her parents were Jewish Socialist immigrants from Ukraine, Isaac and Manya Gutseit (which they changed to Goodside). They spoke Yiddish and Russian at home, and English in public; her father learned English by reading Dickens. Her family was affectionate and noisy — they loved to sing and to argue about politics. Young Grace absorbed different immigrant languages in the streets of the Bronx, and she loved listening to the gossip of family and friends and neighbors. She said: "The word gossip, which is considered so terrible, is really just another way of storytelling. And it's the way women tell stories, and it's kind of denigrated, 'cause its women who do it." And she said, "It is the responsibility of the poet to listen to gossip and pass it on in the way storytellers decant the story of life."
After high school, she took a class on English literature from W.H. Auden, who was her hero. During a lecture, he asked if there were any poets in the class who would like to meet with him and discuss their work. Out of 250 people, only five raised their hands, including Grace. She arranged to meet with Auden, and after an initial setback because she went to the wrong café, she did meet him and he read her poems, which she had written in his style, using British phrases and formal language. She said: "You understand I was a Bronx kid. We went through a few poems, and he kept asking me, do you really talk like that? And I kept saying, Oh yeah, well, sometimes. That was the great thing I learned from Auden: that you'd better talk your own language. Then I asked him what young writers now ask me — and I always tell them this story — I said to Auden, Well, do you think I should keep writing? He laughed and then became very solemn. If you're a writer, he said, you'll keep writing no matter what. That's not a question a writer should ask."
So she kept on writing poems, but she had plenty of other things in her life — she did occasional work as a typist, she was active in community projects, and she took care of her two young children. She had moved to Greenwich Village when she got married, and she spent many afternoons in Washington Square Park, hanging out with other mothers, hearing their stories. She would write down poems on scraps of paper, but she was too busy to think of writing anything much longer. Then she got sick, and she sent her kids to daycare so that she could recover. She had several days a week all to herself, so she started to write stories, drawing on the voices of the women she spent time with in the park every afternoon, writing about the kinds of events and characters that filled their lives.
She wrote three stories, and she showed them to a couple of people, including her friend Tibby McCormick, whose kids played with her kids. Tibby had just separated from her husband Kenneth McCormick, an editor at Doubleday, and Tibby guilt-tripped him into reading Paley's stories by telling him that their kids spent a lot of time hanging out at Paley's house and it was the least he could do. So he read them, and he came to see Paley and told that if she would write seven more stories, he would publish a book. And that was The Little Disturbances of Man (1959). Her first story in the collection, "Goodbye and Good Luck," begins: "I was popular in certain circles, says Aunt Rose. I wasn't no thinner then, only more stationary in the flesh. In time to come, Lillie, don't be surprised — change is a fact of God. From this no one is excused." The whole story had sprung from that single phrase, "I was popular in certain circles," which one of her aunts had said many years earlier. Paley said that she often based a story around a single line or phrase or way of speaking that rattled around in her head until she created a story for it.
She published just two more collections of stories, Enormous Changes at the Last Minute (1974) and Later the Same Day (1985). But she gained a devoted following, and when her Collected Stories was released in 1994, it was a finalist for the Pulitzer Prize and the National Book Award. She knew each story inside and out, and when someone would tell her that they loved one of her specific stories, her response was: "What's wrong with the rest?"
She never made her living as a writer alone. She taught at Sarah Lawrence and the City College of New York. And she was a passionate activist for social causes, protesting against nuclear proliferation and against wars from Vietnam to Iraq, and lobbying for women's rights. She said: "I think that any life that's interesting, lived, has a lot of pulls in it. It seems to me natural that I'd be pulled in those ways. [...] And you are privileged somehow to do as much as you can. I wouldn't give any of it up. And I've talked a lot about this with women's groups because I think that in whatever is gained, that everything, that the world should be gained. But that nothing should be given up. I think a good hard greed is the way to approach life."
She said: "You can't write without a lot of pressure. Sometimes the pressure comes from anger, which then changes into a pressure to write. It's not so much a matter of getting distance as simply a translation. I felt a lot of pressure writing some of those stories about women. Writers are lucky because when they're angry, the anger — by habit almost — I wouldn't say transcends but becomes an acute pressure to write, to tell. Some guy, he's angry, he wants to take a poke at someone — or he kicks a can, or sets fire to the house, or hits his wife, or the wife smacks the kid. Then again, it's not always violent. Some people go out and run for three hours. Some people go shopping. The pressure from anger is an energy that can be violent or useful or useless. Also the pressure doesn't have to be anger. It could be love. One could be overcome with feelings of lifetime love or justice. Why not?"

TO HEAR THE ENTIRE PROGRAM GO TO:
http://download.publicradio.org/podcast/writers_almanac/2010/12/twa_20101211_64.mp3?_kip_ipx=1245338883-1292186464

Wednesday, November 24, 2010

Village punished for non-violent demonstrations

Nov 19. 2010
This Friday in Nabi Saleh the Israeli border police used its stink water
tank in the center of the village, as a clear and gross collective
punishment measure against the entire village for Friday demonstrations.
Nabi Saleh residents and demonstrators in the village center, where the
stink water was squirted.

The stink water is a foul-smelling liquid that makes it unbearable to
live in the place where it is squirted on for at least one week. It is
not officially intended for use inside a populated area, but that has
been its use against Nabi Saleh residents and demonstration in the past,
and this gross attack is now being retained.

The demonstration in Nabi Saleh against the creeping annexation of land
by the Halamish settlement started with an immediate unprovoked attack
by Israeli border police on a peaceful and non-violent march. Following
this attack, clashes erupted, with some stone-throwers attempting to
ward off the army incursion. Nevertheless the army manage to position
itself just outside the village`s built area and shot its tear gas
canisters towards the village, repressing also non-protesting civilians.

Throughout the demonstration the Israeli army has shot tear gas
canisters directly at the protesters, a dangerous conduct which violates
even the army`s own regulations. Rubber-coated still bullets were also
widely used by the army. As a result at least 10 protesters suffered
injuries.

Sunday, October 17, 2010

Robert Nichols Died on October 14, 2010

Grace Paley's partner, Bob Nichols passed away this week.  They had lived together in Thetford, Vermont for decades.  He was 92 years old. Here is a clip, from several years ago, speaking about his concern for Washington Square, which he had helped to preserve in the sixties.

Nichols, a poet and novelist born in Worcester, Massachusetts, left home when he was young and became a landscape architect. He ... has published several volumes, including a collection of short stories published by the Johns Hopkins University Press,  In the Air.  Nichols’ other books include Slow Newsreel of Man Riding Train, Address to the Smaller Animals, Red Shift, and numerous essays on economics and politics, among other subjects. A graduate of the Harvard School of Design, he described himself as an “activist and sometime organizer, involved in the anti-war, anti-nuclear and conservation movements."                         -from a Dartmouth College announcement.




Bob was a farmer, a poet, a playwright, a landscape architect and a community activist.
This winter there will be a staging of several of his short plays in New York City and hopefully this presentation will be repeated in Vermont in the early summer.

This is a tape that Liza Bear made with Bob Nichols about Washington Square.


This is alao by Liza Bear-- tape with Bob at a Grace Paley memorial.


Here is an article from 2006 in The Villager about Washington Square:
Square’s fountain to be moved; water jets will move musicians

Luther Harris, author of a definitive book on the history of Washington Square, displayed a large photo of Frederick Law Olmstead, the “father of American landscape design,” as he read his statement at the Art Commission. Harris said he was trying to emphasize that “Washington Square’s landscape is Olmstedian and that Parks is destroying it with its alien axial symmetry.”
Villager photo by Q. Sakamaki

By Lincoln Anderson
Folk singers strummed and warbled ballads against it. Local politicians - not one but four - testified against it. The Fine Arts Federation of New York stated it was opposed to the idea. Disabled advocates in wheelchairs angrily said they were being used as “pawns” - and not to do it in their name. And most of the people offering testimony during four hours of hearings on Monday said they didn't want the Washington Square Park fountain moved 22 feet to the east. But that didn't matter to the Art Commission, which voted to approve the shifting of the fountain, as well as the park's two statues, as part of the Parks Department's $16 million renovation project.
In doing do, they sealed the park's fate, meaning it will change from its historic Olmstedian design of curved pathways to a more formalistic, symmetrical Beaux Arts layout. And coming with the change to a more regimented look will probably be a parallel change in the use of the traditionally freewheeling park - though the Parks Department is avoiding saying that. Nine high-powered water jets in the fountain will make it hard to perform there.
After hearing the copious testimony, the commission took one hour to deliberate and vote on the three issues.

By votes of 10 yes and 1 no they approved moving the Giuseppe Garibaldi and Alexander Lyman Holley statues to the northern areas of the ovals they currently occupy on the park's central east-west pathway. Their vote on the fountain was unanimous. In his presentation of the plan, John Krawchuk, Parks director of historic preservation, said relocating the fountain would be a stunning improvement. Lining up fountain and arch would “enrich the view of the arch and invite people into the park,” he said. “It is a great civic gesture. Keeping the fountain hidden behind the arch is an intellectual nuance that will be seen as a missed opportunity by future generations.”
Just as at the numerous public meetings held before on the renovation, the overwhelming public sentiment at the Art Commission hearing was once again against the plan. State Senator Tom Duane testified against moving the fountain. Duane also said he supports keeping the fountain and sunken central plaza at their current elevation, though the latter was not within the purview of the Art Commission to decide, having been previously approved by the Landmarks Preservation Commission. Calling the fountain relocation “unnecessary,” Duane said, “While I understand the desire for symmetry between the fountain and the arch, Greenwich Village thrives precisely because its geography is not beholden to grids and symmetry. A park serving and representing our eccentric and eclectic neighborhood does not need perfect alignment.”
His remarks drew cheers and applause from the partisan crowd. Councilmember Alan Gerson deferred to the Art Commission on whether to move the fountain, noting this was part of the agreement he and Councilmember Christine Quinn crafted with the Parks Department in which Parks made commitments on other aspects of the renovation. Yet, Gerson added, “My personal view is that the fountain should stay where it's been my whole life. There's something discomfiting to me about having children in bathing suits playing in the fountain in the line of sight of one of our major arteries.”
Again, there were cheers. New Manhattan Borough President Scott Stringer and Assemblymember Deborah Glick also issued statements against moving the fountain. However, Kate Seely-Kirk, legislative aide to Quinn, the new Council speaker, read Quinn's statement, which, like Gerson, deferred to the Art Commission's judgment on moving the fountain. Except, Quinn didn't offer her personal view on the issue. “Boo!” hooted one woman in the audience. “Chris wimped!” Melissa Baldock, director of preservation from the Greenwich Village Society of Historic Preservation, read the society's statement in support of moving the fountain and statues.
“We see no reason to reject the location of these elements,” she said. A member of the opposition pointedly filmed Baldock with a handheld minicamera as she departed after testifying. Keen Berger, Greenwich Village Democratic district leader, noted her late husband Martin Berger 40 years ago defended the right of a mandolin player to perform in the park. Her voice rising to a shout, Berger implored, “The park is a living place - don't let them kill it!” However, weighing in in support of the move was Ric Bell, executive director of the American Institute of Architects, who called it the obvious thing to do. On the other hand, Tomas Rossant of the Fine Arts Federation of New York said the organization “opposes the relocation of the fountain and sees no reason why a progressive design can't be done with the fountain in place. This redesign privileges Beaux Arts axial symmetry over real history,” he said.
While the mayor appoints all 11 members of the Art Commission, a majority of the commissioners, seven, are selected from a list from the Fine Arts Federation of New York. Last year the federation wrote to the Art Commission expressing their objection to moving the fountain. Ronald Podolsky, attorney on a community lawsuit set to be filed once the project is ready to start, protested that he filed a Freedom of Information Law request to see the updated park redesign plan, but was only notified it was available for viewing the Friday before the hearing. “It is well known that straight lines are the lines of duty, curved lines are the lines of beauty,” Podolsky noted, knocking the redesign. However, broadening the debate, a speaker in support of the project, asked, “Straight lines don't make art? How about the Taj Mahal?” sparking some laughter. Sharon Woolums, a leader of the Emergency Coalition to Save Washington Square Park, on whose behalf Podolsky is filing the lawsuit, said the existing design from the community-driven renovation of the park led by Robert Nichols in 1969 shouldn't be changed. “Bob Nichols was also a theater director and understood how the fountain plaza would function as a theater,” Woolums said. “There is no need to change this brilliant plan. Do not destroy what works.”

Accompanying himself on guitar, Eric Levine, musical director of the Disabled in Action Singers, chose to sing his testimony: Adrian Benepe, our Park commissioner, Says stop the music and that they will do Let not a note by heard from neither man nor bird Ban the guitarists, they're Benepe's taboo We say no to Benepe's men Fight the good old fight again We are the surging mass We are worth more than grass The park's for all people - not just for N.Y.U. During a break in the testimony, Podolsky fittingly led some of the plan opponents in a round of Appalachian coal miners' songs about John L. Lewis. As testimony resumed, noting she's always been a Frisbee player, former City Councilmember Carol Greitzer said it's not a bad thing that there's lots of asphalt in the park. “To play Frisbee you need a lot of payment.

No one's mentioned that.” The actual use of the fountain once the park is renovated was a concern of the commissioners, most notably Byron Kim. Specifically, Kim and a few others voiced trepidations about the plan for a powerful 45-foot-high water plume and eight arcing side water jets in the fountain, wondering how this would mesh with the fountain's current use as a performance space for acrobats and musicians, or even merely as a place to sit and relax. Just the sound of this water display might discourage musicians from jamming nearby, Kim and some of his colleagues opined. They asked the Parks officials if any noise studies of the fountain had been done yet, to which Parks responded that they had not. “The splash factor,” Kim said. “Will it make it difficult for people to sit on the fountain? If you have a lot of water jets will people be able to hear each other talk?”
Art Commission member Otis Pratt Pearsall said the noisy fountain was “a huge issue that needs to be addressed.” Krawchuk said that musicians can ask a park attendant to adjust the fountain, controls for which will be located near the park house. “It'll all be digitized and electronic,” he assured. “I think that this will not be an issue for park users. Certainly, if we feel that noise is an issue, we can adjust the jets accordingly.”
He said the fountain would operate from April to November. Bill Castro, Manhattan borough Parks commissioner, said, in fact, most impromptu performances happen throughout the park, not in the fountain. Castro said time could be carved out for performances in the fountain when the water will be turned off. But larger performances will need to get permits, he said. The commission nixed the Parks plan to add a set of eight shiny pink granite urns atop the fountain's piers mirroring historic urns that were on the fountain before it was moved from 59th St. and Fifth Ave. to its present location around 1870.
The urns could be seen as a deterrent to the use of the fountain as an active performance space and could become large ornate ashtrays, commissioners said. The commission instead approved for the piers to be topped with new bluestone caps. There were issues with turning the Garibaldi statue to face southward. Parks said this would allow for better sunlight on the monument. However, a representative of the Garibaldi Museum said for the statute to face west showed how Garibaldi - Italy's equivalent of George Washington - was a man of both the Old and New World. But Amy Freitag, Parks director of capital planning, said by turning him south he would be looking at the historic Italian South Village. Where both statues are now is an impediment to people walking on the pathway, plus the Holley monument gets doused with dog urine since it's near the dog run, so it's best to move them, Parks said. These opened-up oval areas will also be improved as performance spaces, Parks officials said.
The use of the fountain for cooling off in hot weather and for a children's play area will also apparently come to an end with the renovation. The fountain was converted to a water-play feature for neighborhood children in 1934 with water jets spurting out of the eight fountain piers. The central fountain plume was installed in 1970. However, to meet the new code put in place after a drought a few years ago, in the renovation, the fountain's system will be changed to use recycled water, or water that keeps recirculating through it, as opposed to waste water, or water that goes down the drain into the sewer. Any fountain that uses more than 2,000 gallons of water a day must conform to the new code. The Washington Square fountain will use more than 2,000 gallons of water an hour, Parks Commissioner Adrian Benepe said.
As for use of the fountain by buskers and children, Freitag said, “Having people in the basin when it's dry is certainly something we'd like to explore. And we'll explore use of a [handicapped-accessible] temporary ramp [into the fountain]…. [But] our policy doesn't allow people to play in our fountains.” The restored fountain will continue to have three steps inside as it currently does. After the lengthy testimony, the commission first discussed and voted on the statues and urns. Signe Nielsen, a landscape architect member of the Art Commission, felt that since the fountain relocation had been the only thing the public had testified about, the commissioners were obligated to discuss it a bit. Alice Aycock, an artist member of the commission, said the fountain had always seemed “in no-man's land” to her: “It's neither here nor there. It's just uhhh.” Another commissioner said it was time for “a rebirth of the park” and a blotting out of any memory of how cars used to run through the park until they were banned in 1963. The plaza and north-south central pathway are roughly in the same spot where roads once ran through the park.
James Stuckey, a commissioner who said he plays 10 musical instruments, said the loss of the sunken plaza won't affect acoustics one bit. During discussion of the fact that a plaque to the Tisch family - who have given $2.5 million for the fountain's renovation - will be affixed to the new fountain, Aycock said perhaps another plaque should be added to acknowledge the famous musicians, like Bob Dylan, who got their start playing around the fountain - “so that it just not ignore that.” After the vote, ECO's Woolums angrily called it “a rubber stamp for the mayor's office. The Fine Arts Federation voted against it,” she noted. However, even the Fine Arts Federation's Roussant had predicted Parks would prevail. “There's too much behind this. Parks is really pushing for it,” he had said. Said Commissioner Benepe afterwards, “We're very pleased with the decision. Also, very happy with the fact that people care very deeply about parks. This was further evidence that New Yorkers care deeply about parks and are passionate about them.” The project should begin this spring or summer, he said. He said Parks will work on the issues of the water plume and jets. During her remarks one woman slammed New York University, accusing, “N.Y.U., which has kept a low profile in all this, is the main gainer, getting a symmetrical, clutter-free space for its graduation ceremonies. What a sorry fate that would be for this most individualistic spirited of parks.”
Yet, some of the project's opponents noted a significant absence at the hearing - no representative from New York University seemed to be present. N.Y.U. spokespersons did not return a call for comment by press time as to why the university did not present testimony or even appear to have an official at the hearing.
This is a letter that Bob wrote in 2006 to The Villager:
To The Editor:
Re “Plaza size matters; judge extends order blocking Wash. Sq. project” (news article, May 24):
I was heartened by the news reported in The Villager two weeks ago of the community’s continuing resistance to the planned reconstruction of Washington Square Park. I haven’t kept up with the legal details or followed recent arguments as to the plaza’s size, but I have to smile at the purported cost of the dramatic deconstruction process, when the actual solution is really so simple and inexpensive. As I explained in The Villager before, the basic failure has been the refusal — perhaps recalcitrance or just plain ignorance — of Parks in maintaining the park. The present Parks Department is not altogether at fault.
The original design by the Committee of Architects in 1970 comprised a number of original elements, park furniture such as the circular benches at the corner entrances and some trees. These were nonstandard and required maintenance procedures unfamiliar to the Parks maintenance crew. They required special supervision and attention. We, the designers, and our sponsors, members of the Greenwich Village Community Association, did not see this as crucial. There was no watch committee to follow up on it or see that the engineering drawings and specifications were forwarded from the engineering firm to the Arsenal in case adjustments were needed.
An example are the trees in the raised sitting walls around the edge of the plaza. A crucial element, why have they not received the same attention to keep them healthy that they would have received on any college campus? The trees need nourishment, the soil needs water and air. It breaks my heart to see them. Years have gone by. While the political and legal battles continue, at the same time this might have been attended to. Nobody has thought to do such a simple thing. Or is it a question of calculated neglect?
The legal and bureaucratic answer is, of course: We have no money. No money for maintenance, only for capital improvement. And so, the park wrecked as $16 million “capital improvement.” Hilarious!

Robert Nichols,
Nichols was a member of the Greenwich Village Architects Committee

Friday, October 1, 2010

Film about Grace Paley is Premiered at the Woodstock Film Festival

SYNOPSIS: 
In the opening moments of “Grace Paley: Collected Shorts,” Paley rhetorically asks an audience, “What is the responsibility of a poet?” We soon learn that Gracy Paley answered that question emphatically throughout her entire life.Lilly Rivlin’s inspiring film brings to life the momentous times in which this author and activist lived and worked as she reads from her short stories, poems and essays. Paley was a firebrand on the front line of protest. She opposed war and nuclear proliferation, and fought for the rights of women, which often landed her in jail. As a teacher she influences generations of writers. Grace Paley is a New York icon whose life attests to the possibility that one person can combine public responsibility with individual creativity. Paley not only broke the mold, she created a new approach to her life’s work that combined equal parts writer, activist, woman and mother.
In “Grace Paley: Collected Shorts” we learn the story of this child of Russian-Jewish immigrants, raised in New York City in the 1930s. We hear from her daughter, granddaughter and a wide range of fellow writers and activists. We also hear many of Grace Paley’s own words, the greatest joy of Rivlin’s revealing film. (David Becker)

Thursday, August 19, 2010

The checkpoint, the campus, the museum, the shopping mall, Neve Tzedek, the Jaffa port, the flea market, the beach

If there is a Heaven
A chronicle of a joyous and profoundly moving day of forbidden fun in Tel Aviv
By Ilana Hammerman

Jaffa. A summery evening. Between the blue metal police barriers, in the dark, narrow passage that leads into the flea market, from whose alleyways comes an enticing cacophony, a crowd of people squeeze their way past two policemen standing on either side. The people hand their bags to be checked, craning their necks to get a look inside, toward the source of the shouts and bits of music that promise them and those behind them in line great bargains and plenty of fun at the fair inside. We, too, are squashed with the rest - myself and three young women: Lin, Aya and Yasmin.

The hand rummaging through my leather backpack stops all of a sudden and I hear the policeman, whom I haven't even looked at until now, calling: "Hey, hold on, wait, wait! I haven't checked your bags!" I see Lin and Aya and Yasmin swallowed up by the stream of people making its way toward the heart of the action. In the bright light of flashlights, I am just able to catch the gleam of their long straight hair, and a glimpse of the small, dainty purse that Lin, the eldest of the three, is holding above her head for some reason. I call out to them to come back, but it's no use. They are out of sight.


"They're with me, don't worry," I tell the policeman, squinting to try to see which way they went. They won't disappear on you, don't worry, I tell myself. Meanwhile, the crush of people behind me has prompted the policeman to remove his hand from my backpack and now I'm inside, weaving my way through the slow-moving throng. Clusters form around a jewelry peddler, around a pair of musicians, some clowns and a magician - and I see Aya, the youngest of the trio, standing on his carpet and staring wide-eyed at something. Next to her I spy the other two, one combing and smoothing her disheveled hair and the other tucking in the bottom of her blouse and adjusting her glittery belt buckle.

All this excitement actually came near the end of a long day which had begun in the morning in another place altogether, in an alien landscape - perhaps another country. This is the story.

Aya is a young woman of about 18, whom I love. Lin and Yasmin are her cousins, and are about a year or so older. All three live in the same village in the "Land of Judea." Let's call it Tekoa, Bani Na'im, Beit Umar, Battir - the exact name isn't important. One day I was sitting with Aya in front of her home in the Land of Judea, and I asked her why she was looking a little sad. She was bored, she told me. She was tired of being stuck in the village all the time, never going anywhere, never seeing new things.


Arab teens Aya and Yasmin at Tel Aviv University.

Photo by: Ilana Hammerman
"Where would you like to go?" I asked her. The slender girl, wearing a traditional headscarf that hid every last strand of hair, thought for a moment and then said, "Maybe to Istanbul." She watched me with her large brown eyes, waiting for an answer.

"Well," I said, "I can't take you to Istanbul, but I can take you to Tel Aviv! And Tel Aviv is beautiful, too. There are really tall buildings," I stretched one arm up high, "and a giant shopping mall," I spread my hands wide, "and a gorgeous beach! Tel Aviv is always celebrating something. It'll be very interesting. You've never been to the big city. We'll have a good time."

Her big brown eyes filled with joy, truly beaming from her delicate face, whose round features were highlighted by her dark-blue headscarf with a black stripe. But she didn't feel like traveling alone with me, she said. She wanted to bring along her cousins, Lin and Yasmin.

They're older, I said hesitantly, and they look their age, unlike you - you still kind of look like a girl. Though the truth is that because of her age, Aya too, was forbidden from traveling to Tel Aviv without a tasrih, an entry permit to Israel. It really doesn't matter, I thought, making up my mind, and it would be nicer for them to go together. You'll all be traveling there illegally, I told her, which means that I am going to be smuggling you in, but I'm up for it. And you girls? All three were ready and willing, too.

We picked a date and agreed they would all wear modern Western-style clothes and no headscarves. A headscarf was out of the question! On this day they would be free and pretty - secular, young Israeli women. We decided on a Thursday, so we could end our day at the weekly bazaar in Jaffa.

When I got home I checked the map and mentally reviewed the conditions at the checkpoints that I know in the Land of Judea. I was stopped once before at Tarqumiya with a girl I was taking to an appointment at a hospital in Israel, and her mother. The mother had a tasrih, but the daughter, who was ill, did not. The soldiers checked the mother's ID and saw that the daughter was over 16 - meaning she was only allowed to pass through with an ID and a permit. And anyway, they said, this crossing was supposed to be just for laborers, plus Israelis can't go through the same checkpoint with Palestinians. We should try the Bethlehem checkpoint, they suggested; maybe there they would let us through on humanitarian grounds. These soldiers didn't deal with humanitarian issues, that wasn't their job. But we knew that at the Bethlehem checkpoint only Palestinians are entitled to pass - if they have a permit, of course - while Israelis cannot go through.

Nevertheless, because of the importance of the appointment, scheduled after much effort, we tried our luck at the Al-Khader checkpoint, where we were prohibited from crossing together. I let the two off so they could take a taxi to the "Palestinian" side of the checkpoint, while I drove around to the "Israeli" side. I arrived quickly and waited by the booths, where female soldiers sit behind reinforced glass and check the papers of the people wanting to enter. But the mother and daughter didn't show up; maybe they couldn't find a taxi or there was a long line on the Palestinian side that was not visible from the Israeli side.

When they finally did reach the soldiers, they were told the same thing: The girl needed her own ID card as well as an entry permit into Israel. This time, too, our pleas were of no avail - nor was a document showing that the girl had an appointment at the hospital, which we were not going to make on time. We helplessly bid one another farewell from either side of the electric turnstile and went our separate ways.

Signs and warnings

So, Tarqumiya was out this time. I was a little sorry about that because of the lovely scenery on the way from there to the Elah Valley; I'd wanted to include beautiful views in our fun day out. I also ruled out the checkpoint on Highway 60: There were private security guards there now, who are often even stricter than the soldiers, and detain and inspect each and every car. Sliding my finger down the map, I reached the Betar Ilit checkpoint, on Highway 375. I cross this checkpoint on my bike sometimes and know it well. It could be easier to get through.

The Betar crossing separates 20th-century Israel from 21st-century Israel and has numerous signs posted on either side, some yellow and some red, providing detailed instructions on just about everything. The signs inform people coming from Israel that they are prohibited from bringing a vehicle into the Palestinian Authority for repairs; that the transport of agricultural goods into Israeli localities or to a military facility is permissible solely via the inspection points at Bak'a, Eliyahu, Shomron, Maccabim, Bahurim, Za'ayam, Derech Ha'avot, Lamed-Heh and Meitar; that transport of agricultural goods destined for another West Bank locale is permissible solely via "back-to-back" crossings, at Bak'a, Gilboa, Sha'ar Efraim, Bitunia, Har Homa and Tarqumiya; and that the transport of animals and animal products from PA territory is illegal.

That's one side. For those continuing on the other side - in a vehicle that is not, for example, headed for repairs inside the PA and not carrying goods or animals out of the PA - a red sign offers these caring words of caution: "Dear Citizen!!! Due to a fear that you may be entering PA-controlled areas which Israelis are prohibited from entering by mistake/against your will, the soldiers at the checkpoint have taken down your personal and vehicle information, for your safety. This information will be kept by security officials and used for security purposes if it is discovered that you entered PA territory. Have a good and safe trip - Command Center of the Israel Defense Forces in the West Bank."

A person who passes from one side to the other at this crossing, feeling reassured by the discreet security services promised him in such a personal way, learns from the next set of signs that he is in fact invited to visit Betar Ilit, the city of Torah and Hasidism in the Judean Hills, to head south on Highway 60 to Gush Etzion, Efrat, Elazar and Neve Daniel and on to Alon Shvut and Carmei Tzur, or to continue to Kiryat Arba and Hebron - without actually knowing whether he entered or was brought into PA territory, deliberately or unknowingly. But all that didn't matter to me, because I knew that the village from which I planned to take the trio was located in PA territory, and I was about to enter it deliberately, so as to pick them up and take them to Tel Aviv.

I was particularly interested in the yellow sign that greets those coming from the new Israel to the old Israel - i.e., the sign that would greet me, Lin, Aya and Yasmin on our way out. The sign said "Welcome to the Betar crossing point. This crossing is designated for Israelis only. Crossing over or transporting of someone who is not Israeli is prohibited!! An 'Israeli' is a resident of Israel, someone whose place of residence is in the area or is eligible to immigrate in accordance with the 1950 Law of Return, as valid in Israel."

Despite the awkward wording, I understood what was written on the sign and what was permissible and prohibited. Granted, I could be a stickler and say definitively that not only was the three teens' place of residence "in the area," but they had never left it, to their dismay. On the other hand, it was impossible to claim that they were Israelis or were eligible to make aliyah in accordance with the Law of Return. So, I read the sign and understood it quite well, but I did not agree. I simply could not agree with it.

I arrived at Aya's home at the appointed time, determined to carry out our plans. But I still felt I had to warn the threesome and their mothers. A casual observer that Thursday morning would have seen this picture at the doorway of the house in the village in the Land of Judea: three middle-aged women covered from head to toe in traditional garb - the mothers; another middle-aged woman with glasses, dressed in jeans and a T-shirt and sweater - me; three young women, their pretty long hair falling on their shoulders, their faces tastefully made up, wearing fashionable jeans adorned with glitter, tight-fitting knit tops (not midriff-baring ones, though ) and casual jackets - Lin, Aya and Yasmin.

It looked as though they had dressed up for Purim, I thought to myself. Three cuties, ready for Tel Aviv! After expressing my astonishment and admiration, I explained the situation, in no uncertain terms: We were setting off on a somewhat adventurous journey, at any rate an illegal one, in a land where military force is the form of governance, which puts us in a weak position. So, I urged, think it over a little more. Do you really want to go? Yes, they said. You're not afraid? Silence. Lin hesitantly shook her head and said, at last: They're afraid but they still want to go.

"Okay, then in that case let's do a quick rehearsal: If they stop us at the checkpoint and ask us: What's up? How are things? How are you doing? You say: hakol beseder - everything's fine. Might even be a good idea to pronounce it like this: hakol be-say-der."

Hakol beseder, they all muttered, all six, and then we quietly got into the car. Lin, the eldest, who was partly responsible for this undertaking, sat next to me. Aya and Yasmin sat in the back.

'We made it!'

The trip to the Betar crossing point passed in almost complete silence. When we approached the checkpoint, the red sign, the metal tower, the speed bumps, the concrete barriers, the soldiers' position, I felt my legs shaking - and not because of the bumpy road. I took a deep breath, slowed down but didn't stop, rolled down the window, gave the soldier a causal wave and he indifferently motioned for me to keep going. "We made it!"

I drove a few hundred more meters and then stopped the car on the side of the road to breathe a sigh of relief and turned to look at my three Palestinian passengers. There was no need for words: We had made it through and now we were free to go have fun. I suggested we start off with a quick stop at a cafe. Yes, I was feeling a bit worn out, too.

We sat at Bar Bahar, a restaurant and parks information center, on a terrace overlooking a landscape in the Judean Hills, where no city of Torah and Hasidism had yet been built. Rolling green hills as far as the eye could see; a little slice of Tuscany right here. Suddenly a cell phone rang. It was Lin's (she was the only one with a phone, a gift from her fiance ). He wanted to know if everything was okay. Hakol beseder, I heard her tell him in Hebrew. He wanted to know where we were exactly and she handed me the phone. Bar Giora, I said. He didn't understand. Nes Harim, I added. He still didn't get it. I looked at the map at the observation point: Mount Eitan, Mount Hatayasim - how could I explain? Finally I said that we were somewhere in the middle of the Judean Hills, between Ein Karem and Beit Shemesh. He was happy to hear it. He knew Beit Shemesh, having worked there illegally, and the name Ein Karem was familiar, too. So you're in ____, right?

I didn't understand what he had said. I gave the phone back to Lin and asked her to repeat the name. She listened and said some Arabic name - perhaps the name of a village or region. I'm still not quite sure. But I did recall that I had had this same experience once before with Palestinians, a young girl and her parents, whom I transported from the Land of Judea to the coastal plain. On the trip from Bar Giora to the Karem junction, the parents kept mentioning names of Arab villages that their parents or grandparents or other relatives had once lived in, whose ruins they had visited before the general closure of the West Bank was declared. I only remember the strange sounds of the words - and my embarrassment - but not a single name. Not that any of this would interest these young women. They were feeling joyful and focused solely on the present. They wanted to get going already.

Museum escapade

Once in Tel Aviv, I took out my camera, and today I can remember the adventure with the help of the photographs. Here they are, chasing one another like little girls on the Tel Aviv University lawn, our first stop. Leaning back under a tree, sitting at a metal table in the big plaza outside the big restaurant building, eating McDonald's hamburgers and fries and drinking Coke; in front of my empty seat is a salad and carrot juice. Here they are slowly entering the library, where, I clearly remember, they listened politely to my explanations about the different wings and about the fact that anyone can enter the reading halls freely - something they were not and might not ever be interested in. I also remember how they gazed at a group of female students who were speaking Arabic, one wearing a headscarf and the others bareheaded. They turned an even more curious gaze upon a young man and woman who also spoke Arabic, straining to hear their conversation; the young woman was bareheaded and her blouse was quite revealing.

Now that I look at the photographs, I notice that in one shot, where Lin is sitting with arms crossed against a gravel backdrop in the campus garden, even through her modest dress, the curve of her young, full breasts is visible. In this picture her black hair is pulled back, revealing a bare earlobe that's a little seductive in its nakedness. There are also the perfect lines of a very feminine shoulder and strong neck, neither slender nor thick, and the bone structure of a cheek that draws the eye to a dimple, to a pinched smile, a chin that is both a little rounded and angular, and from there down to the dark slit of her cleavage.

In the next photos, the three are at the Eretz Israel Museum, which used to be called the Museum of the Land and was given its present name by Rehavam Ze'evi when he was the director. But I didn't remember that when I suggested to the three teens that we visit the museum. I wanted them to be amused by "Faces, Inside and Out," the exhibit that was showing there at the time. When we went in, we discovered to our chagrin that all the captions were in Hebrew.

I did manage to interest them in various masks and caricatures, and especially in the exhibit that explained the connection between a person's facial features and his character traits: In one portrait Aya found an explanation for her nightmares, and Yasmin learned something about why her features were a little less delicate than those of the other two.

At my request, Yasmin and Lin posed for a picture beneath three political caricatures: of Yitzhak Rabin, Shimon Peres and Amir Peretz. Aya refused. In the picture the two young women don't look like they're enjoying themselves much, but they are smiling politely and their heads appear to be trapped between Rabin's bowtie, Peres' double chin, which looks like it is practically resting on Lin's hair, and Peretz' mustache, though only about half of his face is visible in the picture. The three of them did not know about the Rabin assassination. Meanwhile, with their newfound sensation of freedom growing from moment to moment, they disappeared while I read about deciphering facial expressions according to the kabbala and the Book of the Zohar.

When I noticed they'd gone, I hurried off too, looked around with alarm, ran down the stairs and called out their names. I finally found them walking around the "In the Land of the Baron" exhibit, trying to decipher, without much success, the importance of the various photographs and artifacts on display there. They were curious and asked me questions, but since I didn't know what to tell them and could only think of singing to them "If I Were a Rich Man," I suggested that we get out of there and go into the city.

When we got back to the car, I asked them what they wanted to see most for the first time in their lives, the sea or downtown Tel Aviv and Dizengoff Center. They wanted both but it seemed more urgent to get to the mall, which they had heard about. The blue sea wasn't going anywhere.

Dizengoff Center captivated them immediately. They rode the escalators, stopped outside the shops and eventually felt bold enough to touch some of the garments hanging on display. They glanced at the prices and were stunned, going from store to store, from display to display. I didn't know how to tempt them away from this place, which held no allure whatsoever for me. But still, the photo on a bench by the exit from the mall shows me looking happy, with pretty Lin leaning on me and both of us smiling broadly at the camera.

Just an hour's drive

Our next stop was the picturesque Neve Tzedek quarter - "the first official Jewish neighborhood built outside the Jaffa walls in 1887." There I told them about the rest of the plans: We'd have ice cream and walk around, then go to the Jaffa port and see the sea, and then to the flea market. Unfortunately, I didn't photograph them standing there in awe before the array of ice cream flavors, which even amazed me. And I didn't get a photo of the young vendor there, with his earrings and dreadlocks, who was so excited to have the girls at his shop, especially when he heard that they'd come from the West Bank for a day out in Tel Aviv. When the few Arabic words he knew didn't suffice, he just let them sample everything on little plastic spoons and waited patiently until they made their choices. He then stuffed their three cones with as much ice cream as they could hold.

The next photos show them, one at a time, striking different romantic and theatrical poses in the Suzanne Dellal Center plaza - kneeling, standing, leaning against a palm tree in front of one of the brightly illuminated buildings. Their smiles are serious and yet dreamy. Beautiful girls with hearts brimming with hope. It was getting dark so we went off to see the sea, at last! At this hour, it wasn't blue, but still, there it was, the vast body of water they had never seen before even though their village was only an hour's drive away.

From the visit to the Jaffa port, which was shorter than we had planned, I have just one photo - showing two fishing boats moored next to a narrow pier. I was the only one who took a walk on the pier, because the girls sat down right at the beginning of it, took off their sandals, rolled up their pants and waded in the dark waters, refusing to budge.

As I began to drift into a reverie, gazing at the boats rocking there gently in the softly rippling water, a man's voice brought me back to reality. Two burly men were standing behind the girls, and they didn't understand each other. This is a private, fenced-in area and entry is forbidden, they scolded. How dare we enter? I had seen the fence - after all, there aren't many places without fences in this country - but the small gate in it was wide open. Still, given the hour and the circumstances, I realized it wasn't prudent to get into a confrontation with one of the men, who said he was a security guard. So I apologized, took the frightened girls and headed out. They were still barefoot and I was a bit confused.

The man heard the girls speaking Arabic and asked where they were from. I couldn't say that they were from Jaffa, because when I tried to win his sympathy beforehand, I told him that I just wanted them to see and feel the sea for the first time in their lives. They're from East Jerusalem and Israeli residents, I said. He showed his official police ID to me patiently and demanded that we show him our IDs and the girls' entry permits. At that moment, Lin's cell phone rang again: It was her fiance, calling for the umpteenth time to check in on her. I heard her mumble something and she hurriedly hung up. I picked up the word mashakil ("problems" ) despite all the stress - the Arabic word that I'm most familiar with.

Anyway, I somehow managed to get the policeman to let us go with a warning and admonition that this was "the last time" he would do so, as if we'd met this way many times before.

Free on the beach

So, that's the story. I recounted what happened next at the beginning: About three minutes after the encounter with the undercover cop, we arrived at the security checkpoint at the entrance to the flea market, an utterly ordinary security checkpoint, but the three girls, who hadn't quite calmed down yet, pressed by, past the policemen and fled inside without showing their bags.

The end was wonderful. The last photos show them about two hours after the trip to the flea market, running in the darkness on Tel Aviv's Banana Beach. They didn't want to stop for even a minute at the restaurant there to have a bite to eat or something to drink, or even to just relax a bit. Instead they immediately removed their sandals again, rolled up their pants and ran into the water. And ran and ran, back and forth, in zig-zags, along the huge beach, ponytails flying in the wind. From time to time, they knelt down in the sand or crowded together in the shallow water to have their picture taken. The final photo shows two of them standing in the water, arms around each others' waists, their backs to the camera. Only the bright color of their shirts contrasting with the dark water and the sky reveals that the two are Yasmin and Aya, because Lin was wearing a black shirt.

And it wasn't the last time I'll do something like this. There will certainly be other times. Because I, who returned them safely to their village at 2 A.M., bursting with joy, do not recognize the legality of the checkpoints and fences, or the legality of military rule over the places that Lin and Aya and Yasmin are from. And it seems to me that the ice-cream guy in Neve Tzedek, with his earrings and dreadlocks - and, above all, his kindness and sanity - would have agreed to join me, if I had known him. And then we would have taken two cars and six young women, and maybe men too, and given not only them but also ourselves a feeling of freedom, temporary but still profound and meaningful. W

The Huffington Post August 19, 2010
"A State of Mind; Why Israel should become Secular and Democratic"
Ofra Yeshua-Lyth, Author,
Posted: August 12, 2010 02:40 PM

A note in the Israeli daily Haaretz informing that the state attorney's office has asked police to start an investigation against author and editor Ilana Hammerman justly outraged human rights activists. Hammerman drew attention when she bravely published, in May of this year, a detailed magazine article describing a trip to an Israeli beach in the company of three Palestinian girls.

According to Israeli law and Israeli military regulations, no resident of the occupied Palestinian lands is allowed into "Israel proper" without a special permit. Since 2000, permits are rarely issued and so Palestinians are kept out of the Israeli view and space. They also have an extremely hard time just moving within the West Bank between villages and towns. Israeli Jews, by contrast, are free to travel in and out of most of the West Bank, and are waved politely through the checkpoints by the friendly (to them) guards.

Hammerman decided she will have no more of this. Having heard that her young Palestinian acquaintances had never had a chance to see the sea -- just 30 miles west of their village -- she promptly invited them to disguise as Israelis (namely, drop the traditional Mandil headscarf and dress casually) and get into her small car. They joyfully cooperated, knowing full well that any suspicion at the checkpoint would land them and their families in trouble. Their reward was a happy day of fun and recreation.

The published story touched many Israelis and aroused some heated discussions. An Israeli nationalist organization pompously urged the State Attorney's office to start a criminal investigation against the law-breaking writer. Many in the Zionist Left and the "Peace Movement" expressed sympathy with Ilana but were quick to register their reservations on this "boundary crossing" of civil disobedience.

To some of us, however, it seemed that "doing an Ilana" is exactly what we were longing to do for awhile. The action fully reflected our long-felt disgust with the Israeli legal system that discriminates people according to their ethnic origins and religion.

"Preserving a Jewish State with a Jewish majority" has become an axiomatic notion in Israel and abroad. An absolute majority of Israeli Jews feel there is a "must" to turn a blind eye to all evil "necessary" to facilitate it. For too long we have been demonstrating, writing and complaining about the sorry state of mind Israelis have locked themselves into. Now we saw a chance to actively break away with all this, as Ilana Hammerman had done.

Motivated by the urgency of the direct threat to Hammerman -- her act could potentially lead to up to two years in prison -- we decided to join her and follow her example. A group of twelve women (11+ Ilana) quickly organized. We soon found counterparts: courageous Palestinian women willing to make a political statement and interested in a day trip outside their harsh reality. They all knew the risk they were taking in case their identities should be revealed, but could not care less. At the appointed day we set off in six cars with 12 Israeli drivers and escorts, 12 Palestinian women, four children and one baby.

It was a beautiful adventure. The day started with much tension. There was always the chance that an overzealous checkpoint guard would ask for paperwork and spoil the plan. Fortunately this did not happen. Less than half an hour after we set off we were able to assemble in a state of euphoric joy -- we made it. The unlawful laws were broken, and from now on it was just a question of finding a good beach and nice cafés and restaurants. Israeli cities have plenty of those.

The recreational aspect was indeed rewarding, but it was merely a side product. Our purpose was and still is to make a political point. We aimed to go public and force a public debate. It soon became clear that the Israeli media will not take too much notice without further prompting, and we opted to place an advertisement titled "We Do Not Obey: Women in the footsteps of Ilana Hammerman". Reactions are still coming, and we are gratified to have many positive ones besides the many angry expected condemnations.

Our group is determined to continue with similar acts of civil disobedience. We are encouraged with the response to the ad, published August 6 and slowly picked up by some media and websites. While Israeli officials, diplomats, academics and spin doctors raise alarms through the media and Jewish communities all over the world in the face of a so called "global delegitimization campaign against Israel", we call on fellow Israelis to start cleaning our act back home. We ask good, honest, liberal democratic Israelis to join us in refusing to comply with laws and regulations that deny basic human rights from fellow humans. It is as simple as it sounds, and long overdue.