A Walking Guide to the Heart of a City

Abstract

A Walking Guide to the Heart of a City Kazim Ali (bio) In Nazareth an excavation of the ancient city lies underneath the ground. One can walk some of the old streets on Plexiglas platforms or descend into the ruins. Just outside the walls of the Old City of Jerusalem excavations commence in the Arab town of Silwan, believed now to be the actual ancient city of David, his capital. Under this pretext Arab families are evicted from their homes, expelled from the land. What is a city but: the gathering together of people in geographic proximity. In order to create: energy, synergy, vital communication created by the closeness of bodies and the layering of history on top of history. A city has multiple definitions and in this case every street has three different names. So how do you find directions from one place to another? In the old city of Nablus, the historic soap factories—its primary industry—were reduced to rubble in the siege during the second uprising. You want to believe a city is real: that Abraham and Jacob and Isaac and others really are buried in the holy building in Hebron, called a mosque by some, synagogue by others. But if they are buried there at all, they are in a cave beneath, inaccessible. What are revered by the worshipers are only cenotaphs, constructed recently, relatively speaking. And the conflicts of the past erupt in the present moment. The museum of tolerance is being built on top of a Muslim graveyard. The graves are disturbed. City ruptured: Hebron. A cut across the middle of it rendered as “Zone C,” under control of the Israeli military. Sidewalk with a green stripe down it to clarify on which side the Arabs must stay. For their own safety, it is said. In Hebron we see two boys, probably around seventeen or eighteen years old, bumping chests. They exchange words in English. [End Page 84] One, dressed in blue pants and a red shirt, says, “I was born in this city. You can’t tell me what to do.” The other, dressed in army fatigues and a flak jacket says, “Get out of here or I’ll beat you up.” He shoves the other boy back. “Go ahead,” says the other. “Do what you want to do. See what happens.” Later our guide takes us across the line down one of the alleys to show us a house in which a blind Palestinian woman still lived. Her door is bolted from the outside, and she must knock for the soldiers to permit her to exit. A young Jewish man sees us. He tells the soldiers to arrest our guide. We are across the line in a street reserved for Jews. “I am lucky you are here,” says the guide. “Usually they throw stones at me.” The soldiers approach, calling our guide’s name. We cluster around him tightly and move back to the main street. The soldiers try to maneuver their way into our group but we huddle closer. I press against our guide. He puts his arm on my shoulder and we walk on. While on the side of the school building in Nablus is spray painted: “The University of Hip-Hop.” And “Existence is Resistance.” What do you have when your historic buildings are leveled and factories destroyed? Nablus emptied out by war. Hip-hop floods the streets, and the children dance a scintillating mixture of breakdancing and dabka. And Hebron emptied out. By ancient history. When one says, “It’s ancient history,” one usually means something is “irrelevant.” But in Hebron, all the lost children return. Some after millennia or some after only a few decades, but in any case violence is paid with violence and all deaths are used to keep score. In the fighting of 1948 and later in 1967 most of the Jewish Quarter in Jerusalem is leveled, including the Rabbi Nissan Bak Synagogue, which stood over it for years and years. When the Israeli army fights its way to the Western Wall, its immediate action is to level the Moroccan Quarter that abuts it. They complete the action before the ceasefire is signed...