There's no place like home

After a long evening of tired, uninspired soccer there was nothing, really, to say. So they played it again. Thirty years after Freddie Mercury wrote it, and 22 years after he said, "I can't believe that somebody hasn't written a new song to overtake it", the national stadium of Ramat Gan was re-filled with the notes of Queen's ubiquitous sports anthem, We Are the Champions. Maccabi Haifa were the champions, the new holders of the Toto Cup by virtue of their 2-0 triumph over Bnei Sakhnin, but the second rendition of the song served only to underscore the irrelevance of their title, as if the public address announcer was unsure whether it had been heard the first time. His doubt was rooted in a not unreasonable question: if a team wins the Toto Cup in a stadium empty but for its own fans, does it make a noise? Well, if you listened carefully, you could hear the rustling of a different kind of notes, notes of money exchanging hands, hands thumbing through wads of bills being counted. In the Toto Cup, prize money is all that counts.

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The National team of Sakhnin

"It seems to me a very old quarrel; I suppose it's in the blood, and perhaps will only end with it" - Franz Kafka, Jackals and Arabs

When Bilal awoke one morning from delirious dreams he found himself transformed in his bed into a...fan of the Israeli national team, draped in a flag blue and white. "What happened to him?" his wife thought, aghast. For Bilal, it was a dream. He had spent the previous night, March 26th, 2005, at the cavernous National Stadium in Ramat Gan, watching Israel's national team play Ireland's alone among 40,000 Jews. Ireland scored early on, but the slightly drunk Bilal vainly proclaimed that Abas Suan, an Arab who at the time was Sakhnin's captain as well as a national team substitute, would even the score. When he improbably did just that in the waning minutes of the game, the euphoric fans hoisted Bilal aloft in celebration, carrying him out of the stadium and into the night. Hours later, Bilal went to sleep with a new blanket and newfound hope for Israeli society.

He may have been less sanguine had he been watching the game along with soldiers of the Golani unit. Their celebration was short-lived, for when they realized who it was who saved the day, happiness soon turned to anguish and finally gave way to vehement cursing. The equalizer was no longer a source of pride, but rather an insult to their ethnic ego.
Bilal's hangover lasted but a week. As with all dreams, his too was doomed to end. Only a week later he found himself sitting in Ramat Gan again, watching Sakhnin take on Beitar Jerusalem when the Jewish fans unfurled a banner that read, "Abas Suan, you do not represent us". Ever since, national team games have been "just another game" to Bilal.

Looking back today on that week of wishful thinking, Bilal is mildly amused at his own naiveté. He smiles bitterly and says he owes a debt of gratitude to Beitar's fans for waking him up. An Arab seeking to fit in to Israeli society, he explains, needs to do better than 100%. But in a moment of considerable honesty, Bilal also admits that if finding a job in Israel is not easy for an Israeli Arab, it's not exactly Kafkaesque, either, and if Arabs are unable to find jobs other than teaching it's partly because they don't bother looking.

The Eids of December

At all times, even in the stillness of the Sakhnin night, there is an omnipresent scent of slowly smoldering, incessantly burning incense -Sakhnin is an Abu Abdo hookah. What's on fire? In Bnei Sakhnin's case, it's the team's passion to succeed, coach Elisha Levi explains. Otherwise, it's usually meat.
 
A girl was fanning the flames of her barbecue with a hairdryer some two months ago, as dusk was settling on a city seemingly abandoned. The streets, usually bustling at quarter to six, were hauntingly empty. Minarets spread a glimmering neon light and emitted a booming muezzin, the perfect soundtrack to a horror film. For the multitudes of slaughtered animals presently being feasted upon, it probably was just that. Especially if the way in which the men of Sakhnin tear into a shared chicken laid in front of them is any indication of the way the butcher treats it.

Sports and violence

"Pardon my ignorance", the inevitable question always begins, when people first hear where I live, "but is Sakhnin safe?" The tone they employ would seem to imply that Sakhnin is in Iraq or Afghanistan. Which, incidentally, is understandable, given that there are signs here pointing the way to Kabul, a nearby village. Seriously though, the apologetic question is easily understood - at least by me, since it was my first inquiry, too. The answer was affirmative - Sakhnin is safe, I was told, its people are warm and friendly and not at all dangerous. Just be prepared, I was forewarned, to deal with the prevailing suspicion that accompanies every Jew who seeks out Arabs, namely that he is either from the Mossad or the IRS. 

I am neither, of course: after three years in the army, I haven't the slightest interest in any topic remotely related to national security; and, likewise, the IRS hasn't the slightest interest in me or in the meager income on which I subsist, which is not nearly substantial enough to be taxed. Yet while I pose no threat to them, living here is not an experience entirely bereft of hazards.

A Jew in an Arab city

I've been living in Sakhnin for three months now, and for the past month and a half I've been recording my experiences here in a Hebrew blog. Upon reading it, one subscriber promised me that I would be famous if I translated it into English, while another assured me that an international version would draw a far greater audience. So I took a few shots at translation, and I missed them all.

Which should have come as no surprise, considering that I just spent three and a half years translating in the army. Which isn't to say that I defrauded the Israeli Defense Forces ; just that translation, as one of my teachers in the military would exuberantly exclaim, is itself a form of fraud, or at least an exercise in futility, as Borges showed in his famous Averroes's Search. Besides, the army did much worse unto me. But anyway, the conclusion I came to was that if it is a future in writing that I aspire to, it is my past in translating that I must leave behind. And so it is from scratch that I begin.

Or rather, a clarification: it's not fame that I'm after, nor an expanded readership, although the latter would be nice, and I'll take this opportunity to cordially invite you to send this to anyone who may find it readable, especially anybody who could help me achieve the former.

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An Introduction: Anything Averroes can't do - I can't either

I've been living in Sakhnin for three months now, and for the past month and a half I've been recording my experiences here in a Hebrew blog. Upon reading it, one subscriber promised me that I would be famous if I translated it into English, while another assured me that an international version would draw a far greater audience. So I took a few shots at translation, and I missed them all.

Which should have come as no surprise, considering that I just spent three and a half years translating in the army. Which isn't to say that I defrauded the Israeli Defense Forces - just that translation, as one of my teachers in the military would exuberantly exclaim, is itself a form of fraud, or at least an exercise in futility, as Borges showed in his famous Averroes's Search. Besides, the army did much worse unto me. But anyway, the conclusion I came to was that if it is a future in writing that I aspire to, it is my past in translating that I must leave behind. And so it is from scratch that I begin.