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Too bright for school

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My love of Arabs from the age of 10
Uri Avnery Social activist
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We lived in Neve Sha'anan in Haifa on the mountain, in a house that was some distance from the built-up area. There was a house that was about a 100 meters further away and there was a stable in that house and an Arab family lived in the stable – very primitive Arabs who reminded us of the Gypsies in Germany. There were problems with them because they stole our water. Water was on a meter and when we were not there they stole the water and there was trouble. But in general we got along. And in order to reach the house there were – how shall I describe it? – from this small suburb I had to go across a barren deserted area, it was 100 meters. Then for the first time I saw something very strange: flying lights. It was fireflies or something, apparently. I was not familiar with this. There were many things I was not familiar with. I knew about figs – in Germany we ate figs from a box, and figs had a regular shape: they were brown and they were flat. In Neve Sha'anan we had a fig tree in the garden that had nothing in common with that: the fruit was red on the inside and it was not round.

Well, little by little we became familiar with the country, and regarding what happened after that, what I continue to recall, was that from the first moment I liked the Arabs, their melodies and their way of life, already from Jaffa when we disembarked from the ship. I wrote about it afterwards, more than once, in articles. Many of the Zionists wrote in their memoirs about disembarking in Jaffa. In Bracha Havas' biography of Ben-Gurion, Ben Gurion – Unique in his Generation… they had one thing in common: they all hated Jaffa at first sight: 'What kind of a country is this! Is this the Holy Land? What is it? What kind of people? What voices. How do they talk? What do they look like? What kind of shops do they have, without display windows?' Things like that.  I wrote about it many times because my first unmediated impression as a boy of 10 was exactly the opposite. It was so picturesque, it was so different, it was so romantic, and they spoke a different language and dressed differently and they had carriages and rode on horses, and all sorts of things like that. And Haifa was the right place for it because Haifa was, then, a really mixed city. Like I said, there was an Arab neighborhood and the Hebrew neighborhood above it, but there was no separation. Jews came down to the port and from the port they went up to Hadar HaCarmel, passing through the Arab neighborhoods. At the beginning we lived in an Arab house. We rented an apartment from Karaman, who had a cigarette factory in Haifa bay, and I felt very good. I really liked the country as it was, and it somehow remained stuck in my memory.

 

וגרנו בנווה שאנן בחיפה, על ההר, בבית שהיה קצת רחוק מהשטח הבנוי. היה בית שהיה איזה מאה מטר הלאה, והייתה בבית הזה אורווה ובאורווה גרה משפחה ערבית, ממש פרימיטיבית, שהזכירו לנו את הצוענים בגרמניה. והיו בעיות איתם, מפני שהם גנבו לנו את המים. מים היו לפי שעון. כשלא היינו, הם גנבו את המים וצרות. אבל בסך הכל הסתדרנו. וכדי להגיע הביתה איך לקרוא לזה? מהפרבר הזה הקטן, הייתי צריך לעבור שטח טרשים נטוש של איזה מאה מטר. ואז ראיתי בפעם הראשונה דבר נורא מוזר: אורות עפים. גחליליות או משהו כנראה. לא הכרתי. היו שם הרבה דברים שלא הכרתי. אני הכרתי תאנים. בגרמניה אכלנו תאנים מתוך קופסא. ותאנים יש להם צורה קבועה: זה חום, זה שטוח. ובנווה שאנן היה לנו בגן עץ תאנים שלא היה לו שום דמיון. היה בפנים אדום וזה היה עגול. טוב, לאט לאט הכרנו את הארץ. ומה שנשאר לי בראש לגבי מה שקרה אחר-כך, שאני מהרגע הראשון אהבתי ערבים. את המנגינות הערביות ואת ההווי. כבר ביפו, כשירדנו מהאונייה. אני כתבתי על זה לא פעם אחר-כך במאמרים, רבים מהציונים כתבו בזכרונות שלהם את הירידה ביפו. בן גוריון, ״אחד ודורו״ של ברכה חבס ביוגרפיה של בן גוריון, היה להם דבר אחד משותף – כולם שנאו,את יפו בראייה ראשונה: "איזו ארץ, איפה? זאת ארץ הקודש? מה זה? איזה בני אדם? איזה קולות. איך הם מדברים? איך הם נראים? איזה מין חנויות, בלי חלונות ראווה,” וכל מיני דברים כאלה. ואני כתבתי על זה לא פעם, מפני שההתרשמות הראשונה שלי הבלתי-אמצעית לגמרי של ילד בן עשר הייתה בדיוק הפוכה. זה היה כל כך ציורי, זה היה כל כך שונה, זה היה כל כך רומנטי, והם דיברו שפה אחרת והתלבשו אחרת, והיו להם כירכראות ורכבו על סוסים, וכל מיני דברים כאלה. אז בחיפה היה מקום מתאים לזה, מפני שחיפה הייתה אז, עיר ממש-ממש מעורבת. כאמור, הייתה שכונה ערבית ושכונה עברית מעל זה, אבל לא הייתה הפרדה. יהודים ירדו למטה לנמל ומהנמל עלו להדר הכרמל, עברו דרך השכונות הערביות. גרנו בבית של ערבים בהתחלה. שכרנו דירה אצל קארמן, שהיה להם בית חרושת לסיגריות במפרץ, והרגשתי נורא טוב. נורא אהבתי את הארץ כמו שהייתה, וזה נשאר לי איכשהו תקוע בזיכרון.‏

Uri Avnery (1923-2018) was an Israeli writer, journalist and founder of the Gush Shalom peace movement. As a teenager, he joined the Zionist paramilitary group, Irgun. Later, Avnery was elected to the Knesset from 1965 to 1974 and from 1979 to 1981. He was also the editor-in-chief of the weekly news magazine, 'HaOlam HaZeh' from 1950 until it closed in 1993. He famously crossed the lines during the Siege of Beirut to meet Yasser Arafat on 3 July 1982, the first time the Palestinian leader ever met with an Israeli. Avnery was the author of several books about the Israeli-Palestinian conflict, including '1948: A Soldier's Tale, the Bloody Road to Jerusalem' (2008); 'Israel's Vicious Circle' (2008); and 'My Friend, the Enemy' (1986).

Listeners: Anat Saragusti

Anat Saragusti is a film-maker, book editor and a freelance journalist and writer. She was a senior staff member at the weekly news magazine Ha'olam Hazeh, where she was prominent in covering major events in Israel. Uri Avnery was the publisher and chief editor of the Magazine, and Saragusti worked closely with him for over a decade. With the closing of Ha'olam Hazeh in 1993, Anat Saragusti joined the group that established TV Channel 2 News Company and was appointed as its reporter in Gaza. She later became the chief editor of the evening news bulletin. Concurrently, she studied law and gained a Master's degree from Tel Aviv University.

Tags: Haifa, Neve Sha'anan, figs, Hadar HaCarmel, Ben Gurion – Unique in his Generation, David Ben-Gurion, Bracha Havas

Duration: 4 minutes, 16 seconds

Date story recorded: October 2015

Date story went live: 10 March 2017