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December 2008
A Palestinian symbol, now made in China
The square piece of cotton cloth is folded once to make a triangle and placed over a skullcap, held in place by a doubled black cord of tightly woven black goat hair and sheep’s wool.
It is designed to shield the summer sun and ward off the winter chill.
Once the sartorial preference of the Arab peasant, the headdress, sometimes called a kefiyah, was adopted as a symbol of Palestinian nationalism during the 1936 Arab Revolt, and later popularized by longtime Palestinian leader Yasser Arafat.
These days, it seems, the black-and-white checkered Palestinian headdress, has worn out its usefulness.
Old men still wear it, but younger farmers are more likely to wear a baseball hat. Some employ it as a scarf in the winter. In Gaza, it is discouraged because it represents Arafat’s secular PLO movement, a rival to the Islamist Hamas party that seized power there last year.
What’s most disturbing to Yasser Harbawi, who is in his mid-70s and wears one everyday, most of the Palestinian-style kefiyahs now sold in the Palestinian territories are made in China.
“It’s not just a product and you sell it. This is our name. This is our life,” Harbawi, who is the last Palestinian kefiyah maker, told me outside his workshop in Hebron.
His business, opened in 1961, once operated 15 looms for 20 hours a day. Now, just five are running during daytime hours.
His main local competitor, in Nablus, closed years ago.
In an attempt to appeal to a broader market, he’s added multi-colored designs that are popular with some women. Still, he struggles to compete with cheaper foreign-made versions of the treasured Palestinian symbol.
“I think ours are better. I’m not just saying that. The way we make it is different,” he said.
I suggested he put a label on his products to differentiate them as Palestinian. It was a good idea, he said. He had thought of it, too.
“Here in Hebron, we know people like the local products because it’s from the homeland,” he confirmed.
He shared the suggestion with one of his sons, who wasn’t wearing a kefiyah, and helps run the business. Good idea, he said.
They would add a label, he said. Inshallah. God willing.
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Christmas lights in the Holy Land
Over the decades, as their numbers have dwindled, Christians have become mostly silent in the din of the conflict over the Holy Land.
Even their church bells are often drowned out by electronically amplified Muslim calls to prayer and sirens that herald the Jewish Sabbath.
But once a year, they assert their faith.
The other day, I set out to the Christian Quarter of Jerusalem’s Old City to buy Christmas lights for my tree.
The dividing lines between the city’s four quarters — Muslim, Jewish, Armenian and Christian — are mostly invisible, but during the month before Christmas, they are very clear. Homes are decorated with strands of lights, Arabic Christmas carols waft from open doorways, shops spill onto the sidewalk selling the latest Christmas kitsch — made in China, of course.
On the way, my barber, the son of a Jewish mother and Christian father (his sister married a Muslim) called out to me the familiar Palestinian holiday greeting: “Kul saneh wa inteh salim.” Every year and you are safe. Sort of like, many happy returns.
I arrived at the Christmas store, opened one month a year by a well-dressed elderly man, a refugee from pre-1948 West Jerusalem, singing Sinatra songs.
It was difficult to move amid piles of merchandise and a clutch of shoppers, speaking Arabic and French.
He was selling giant inflatable Santas, ceramic elves, tinsel, ornaments, lights. I settled on one strand of blinking white lights.
I asked him how business was this year. “Not good but not bad,” he said. “Merry Christmas.”
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Holy tomatoes!
I grew my first garden this year. It turns out the sun, or the soil, which more than one visitor pointed out is holy, worked to my advantage.
Or, call it beginner’s luck. I harvested a bumper crop of peppers, strawberries, melons, and eggplant, which are still growing. So are the tomatoes. (The photo was taken this afternoon). I expected to be turning over the soil by now, yet even with cold nights — no frost yet, however — and mild days, my mostly north-facing garden is still producing.
Some of the herbs are also hearty. The mint has shriveled and I finished off the basil — pesto is just as delicious in the Holy Land — but there’s still oregano, sage, rosemary and thyme. (No parsley.)
The sage goes with winter tea, which you’ll find served in the Old City markets this time of year. I’m warming the water now on top of my wood burning stove.
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Another holiday … and more good food
In the land of religious holidays — it seems like someone is celebrating something every other week here — there is one thing that binds together the faithful: food.
Don’t let the extra prayers fool you: most holidays in this part of the world celebrate the kitchen. And when folks aren’t eating — fasting plays a role in all three of Jerusalem’s monotheistic religions — they’re thinking about food.
There is often a specific food that goes with a specific occasion. It’s a time when women show off their best recipes and are the focus of the feast.
“This is what I’ve been waiting for,” my neighbor, Ra’ed, explained to me, as he eyed the leg of lamb and heaping platter of rice that his mother had prepared.
On Eid al-Adha, or the Festival of Sacrifice, which occurred yesterday, Muslims celebrate Abraham’s willingness to sacrifice his son, Ishmael, as an act of obedience to God.
God intervened and provided Abraham with a lamb to sacrifice instead, so Muslims eat lamb on this day. For the poorest Muslims, it’s the only meat they eat all year.
Ra’ed’s widowed mother, who lives next door and takes her cooking seriously, put a dry rub — a blend of spices, including pepper and cardamom — on the lamb the night before. Before baking, she seared both sides to seal in the flavor. The rice included bits of minced lamb, almonds and saffron.
I was invited to the family feast. Three generations gathered around the table (the youngest were excused to watch cartoons) at about 3 p.m. Ra’ed pulled off hunks of the tender meat for me to eat, and his mom kept piling the rice on my plate.
“Zaki kiteer,” was the chorus to the family matriarch. Delicious.
At last, I begged off a fourth helping, and, by way of further complimenting the chef, I said I wouldn’t need to eat until the next day. Which was the truth.
