Overlooking the Border: Narratives of a Divided Jerusalem
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Overlooking the Border Raphael Patai Series in Jewish Folklore and Anthropology General Editor Dan Ben- Amos University of Pennsylvania Advisory Editors Tamar Alexander- Frizer Ben- Gurion University of the Negev Haya Bar- Itzhak University of Haifa Simon J. Bronner Pennsylvania State University, Harrisburg Harvey E. Goldberg The Hebrew University of Jerusalem Yuval Harari Ben- Gurion University of the Negev Galit Hasan- Rokem The Hebrew University of Jerusalem Rella Kushelevsky Bar- Ilan University Eli Yassif Tel- Aviv University Overlooking the Border Narratives of Divided Jerusalem Dana Hercbergs WAYNE STATE UNIVERSITY PRESS DETROIT © 2018 by Dana Hercbergs. All rights reserved. No part of this book may be reproduced without formal permission. Manufactured in the United States of America. ISBN 978- 0- 8143- 4492- 7 (paperback) ISBN 978- 0- 8143- 4108- 7 (hardcover) ISBN 978- 0- 8143- 4109- 4 (ebook) Library of Congress Cataloging Number: 2018942063 Published with support from the fund for the Raphael Patai Series in Jewish Folklore and Anthropology. Parts of chapter 6 were published in Dana Hercbergs and Chaim Noy, “Beholding the Holy City: Changes in the Iconic Representation of Jerusalem in the 21st Century,” in “Travels to the ‘Holy Land’: Perceptions, Representations and Narratives,” edited by Serena Di Nepi and Arturo Marzano, special issue of Quest no. 6 (December 2013): 237– 63. Wayne State University Press Leonard N. Simons Building 4809 Woodward Avenue Detroit, Michigan 48201-1309 Visit us online at wsupress .wayne .edu To My Parents, Maya and Aleck CONTENTS Acknowledgments ix Introduction xiii 1. Remembering the Neighborhood: Jews and Arabs Narrate the Dislocations of the 1948 War 1 2. Remembering the Divided City: Jerusalem between the Wars 39 3. Resonances across the Divide: Musrara as a Border Neighborhood 85 4. On Unstable Ground: Narrating the Occupation in East Jerusalem 149 5. Staking Place: Sephardim, Mizrahim, and Minority Identity in Jerusalem 197 6. Urban Re- visions: The Davidization of Jerusalem 235 Postscript: Separations Reconsidered 265 Works Cited 275 Index 287 ACKNOWLEDGMENTS his book spans a decade of research and writing since I began fieldwork as a graduate student at the University of Pennsylva- Tnia. I would like to acknowledge those people whose support and friendship were invaluable to me in the dissertation phase as well as during subsequent work on this book. My gratitude then and now goes to my men- tor Mary Hufford for her encouragement and enthusiasm. Mary is a truly gifted and giving teacher. Her keen mind embraces subjects as disparate as Appalachian ginseng harvesting and the storytelling of elderly people within the sensibility of folkloristics. If Mary’s humanistic approach is traceable within the fraught pages of this book, I am indebted to her. Professor Heather Sharkey of the University of Pennsylvania has been supportive of my work since my course with her on nationalism and communal identity in the Middle East. The depth of her knowledge and her cheerful, down- to- earth manner make her a scholar to emulate. Happily, she served on my dissertation committee, along with Professor Dan Ben- Amos who chaired the Folklore and Folklife Graduate Program at Penn. Dan bridged the gap of his years of accumulated knowledge with suspenseful stories—landing in Nigeria at the outbreak of a revo- lution, and picking up a vanishing hitchhiker on Route 66— told with a deadpan face and the sudden rise of his eyebrows. His proverbs, such as “Reach for the starts, and you may get to the next town,” bestowed some perspective on academic life. My committee was joined by University of the Arts Professor Anna Beresin, a subtle and fresh thinker whose insights about the ambiguity of play have pushed the boundaries of my thinking about children’s folklore, nostalgia, and narrative. x Acknowledgments I am indebted to the close friends I made in graduate school. Anika Wilson’s humor and wisdom have been a gift. Her advice during our phone conversations was as productive as her silent pauses in prompt- ing me to answer some of my own questions. May everyone have such a sympathetic friend. I give thanks to Leah Lowthorp for her cheer, humor, and adventure in the realm of dyadic folklore. She has made light of my many worries. Ksenia Gorbenko has been an optimistic comrade throughout, supplying good conversations, food, intellect, and encouragement. On the other side of the ocean, Ela Greenberg’s expertise in Pal- estinian history and her sensitivity to my various ethical quandaries have been incredibly valuable. Ela’s advice and friendship, and our joint ventures into youth culture research, made my stay in Jerusalem an experience of shared alterity. My warm thanks go to Chaim Noy for his mentoring and friendship during my time in and out of Jerusalem and for his feedback on parts of this book. Our shared interests have blossomed into scholarly writings about this city. One of our articles together forms the basis of this book’s final chapter. Ouzi Rotem’s friendship was a constant haven during my fieldwork and beyond. His cooking, our walks along the beach in Tel-A viv, and our conversations spanning politics and language have enriched my life and given me a second home. I am fortunate that Ouzi introduced me to Kevin Dwarka, whose thoughtfulness and humor made each of our meet- ings in the city of stone scrumptious and silly. We have continued to share thoughts about Jerusalem’s changing ways, its troubles and its people. In the course of my research I was lucky to befriend Mona Hajar Halaby, who has written about mandate- era Jerusalem and who was researching her own family’s history when we met in 2007. Mona and her husband, David, extended their hospitality to me in Berkeley, where David shared his own family recollections and photographs. His mem- ory is a blessing. Acknowledgments xi My warm thanks go to Lotte Buch for insightful conversations in and about East Jerusalem, her friendship and cooking, and for inviting me to the conference on Spectacular Blindness in Denmark, which helped shape my thinking about heritage in Jerusalem. Penny Mitchell has been a supportive colleague and friend and has put me in touch with scholars working in the field and beyond. Our meetings in Jerusalem and Washington, DC, have been invigorating and eye- opening. I would like to thank the Palestinian American Research Center for generously supporting my fieldwork in Jerusalem in the summer of 2008, and subsequently in 2014– 2015 when conducting research on Musrara. I have benefited from the conversations and perspectives of affiliated Palestinian scholars and it is an honor to have my work rec- ognized by PARC. Thank you to Kathryn Wildfong, the Editor- in- Chief at Wayne State University Press, for her sensitive handling of this manuscript and her attentiveness to my questions and requests. Editorial and Produc- tion Manager Kristin Harpster and Senior Designer Rachel Ross were kindly responsive to this first- time author and treated my questions with patience and care as they helped shepherd this book to press. My loving thanks go to my parents, Maya and Aleck Hercbergs, who recognized— if from a distance— the uniqueness of my chosen path. Their continued support has been balanced by keeping me in check, and helping me to meet goals. Last but not least, I would like to extend my gratitude to the individ- uals who opened their doors to me in Jerusalem and for allowing me to write about them. Their willingness to share their memories and take me along the paths of their childhood leave me with an appreciation for the interactive and ongoing nature of storytelling and of the responsibilities of being a listener. I hope I have rendered their narratives recognizable and relatable, both to them and their peers, as well as to the general reader. INTRODUCTION n a breezy midsummer evening in 2007, I was walking down Ben Yehuda Street, the main pedestrian thoroughfare Oof downtown West Jerusalem. Framed by low limestone buildings— home to souvenir shops, eateries, and retail stores—this wide passageway brims with tourists and locals. In warmer months, as the sun sets, street performers and religious proselytizers take up the intersections of Ben Yehuda Street and the alleys in the city center. The late-evening buzz attracts all sorts of people who saunter or perch on the stone benches along the walkway, each group congregating in its own space. As the hour neared seven o’clock and darkness descended, a cel- ebration was in the air: stages were being set up in various locations in anticipation of Ḥotsot ha Yotser, an annual arts and culture festival. This year, the festival coincided with the fortieth anniversary of Jeru- salem’s “reunification,” the Israeli term for the annexation of Arab East Jerusalem in the 1967 war. As a leftist, secular Israeli-American, I tend to avoid such celebrations for ideological reasons and, atypically for an ethnographer, I escape them due to a general dislike of crowds. As luck would have it, I was in the area searching for a store catering to orthodox Jewish women, as I planned to purchase a long skirt for use in my fieldwork. My research on Jerusalemites’ childhood memories led me to various quarters of the city, into neighborhoods and homes where being properly attired was a matter of blending in and establishing rap- port. After getting directions from a young jewelry saleswoman, I hur- ried down the walkway toward the clothing store, hoping to dodge the xiv Introduction assembling crowds, when I was stopped in my tracks. In an alley, a large group of people was sitting on folding chairs before a small stage where men and women of middle age and older took turns at a microphone, telling anecdotes about another, smaller Jerusalem of a few decades ago.