Fisherman Reuven (2)
The following is a sequel to the story “Fisherman Reuven” written by Joe Jaffe and published on Szirine in 2004. Read them separately for a literary delight, together for literary theater!
Beneath my house in the ancient Port of Jaffa, there is a great barrel-vaulted room in which Reuven the fisherman lived and worked. He was a colorful character, wise and knowledgeable, though I doubt if he could read. We were neighbors for more than twenty years, and during that time we developed a tangled love-hate relationship.
I supplied him with electricity from an outlet on my balcony. He needed it, so he said, to provide a small light for mending his nets at night. But he abused my generosity and connected up a refrigerator, heater and a cooker, thereby overloading the circuit. There were endless arguments over the electricity, and there were periods during which I took punitive action and disconnected it altogether.
In hindsight I know that this was unfair, because Reuven provided me with a regular supply of fresh fish and seafood. Read more of this article »
Posted in Fiction, Israel, Mediterranean
On November 2nd, 2004, the entire world mourned the death of one of the greatest of Arab leaders. Entire nations watched with stricken grief the funeral of a man who I believe was one of the most remarkable and impressive leaders of our time. A man called by U.S. Secretary of State Colin Powell “a friend and a strong example of generosity, wisdom, drive and forgiveness”. He is the late Sheikh Zayed bin Sultan al Nahyan.
A good part of Sheikh Zayed’s eighty-six years were spent in the service of his country; the United Arab Emirates. Born in 1918, Sheikh Zayed grew up during a time when all of the states along the Trucial Coast (now known as the Arabian Gulf) were under the United Kingdom’s suzerainty meaning that the United Kingdom controlled the countries’ international affairs yet allowed it a certain independence in domestic rule. The local Arab leaders signed the treaty with Britain in 1853 with the aim of providing their coast with the protection of the British military and preventing pirates from staging attacks on British ships.
Nevertheless, the region remained undeveloped, without a single modern school anywhere and an economy that depended for the most part on fishing and trade. The only schooling of any kind that Sheikh Zayed himself received was in the basic principles of Islam from the local Islamic preacher who taught him the Qur’an, and the ways of the lenient yet fair hand of the Prophet Mohammed as a leader of the Muslim people, which greatly impressed the young Sheikh Zayed. He took to following in the footsteps of the Prophet and became an avid learner. His thirst for knowledge sent him into the desert to learn the traditional survival skills of the Bedouin tribesmen. I am quite certain it was during those years of growing into manhood that the late leader came to understand about human existence, the important need for natural resources, the natives and the land. Read more of this article »
Posted in Op-Ed, United Arab Emirates
A child cries the seas
and in your eyes my lady
there is not any tear an apology
a lover begs the fates
and you burn the hearts
and implant in the memory
the denials!
To when this decision is?
you know that the seas are
waves and a movement
and the love
Is coming with insistence
what is after it an insistence!
Then, you seize the chance
and end this escape Read more of this article »
Inside the Mystery Chamber, I was sitting with an old man, a man who knows the secrets of the Tradition. Outside, the rain was falling so strongly, that it echoed inside. I looked around me, then precisely at him. His eyes grew brighter as he uttered, “You might be wondering about the Tradition, it certainly goes back to Hermes-Enoch. I feel I have to inform you about it.
“It all started with Enoch or Anak, the Canaano-Phoenician seer at Mt. Hermon, in Loubnan. You may notice also that the name Hermes given to him by the Greeks comes from Hermon.
“Tradition says that Angels descended on Mt. Hermon, and taught that seer a great universal spiritual and occult doctrine. He, Enoch, accepted it and called it the Kabala, which means ‘accepting’.
“Enoch is Henoch, Phenoch, the Phoenix, symbolizing the secret cycle and Initiation. It is death, or the end of life’s cycle, and the resurrection from its ashes after three days into eternity. He is the first teacher-initiator, possessor of the true sacred hidden name, linking Humanity through an eternal concordance with the Father, God.” Read more of this article »
Fisherman Reuven (1)
Jaffa is one of the oldest ports in the world, formed naturally by a protective string of rocks. For three thousand years it served as a small commercial port handling both goods and passengers. In the 1930’s, the British improved nature by building a breakwater, a modernization that extended the port’s use for a further decade. After the Second World War it fell into decline. By the 1960’s the sole remaining activity was fishing.
I always wanted to live by the sea. When I stumbled upon an abandoned ruin in the port, I resolved to make it into a home. This turned out to be much more difficult than I had imagined, but eventually the complicated and lengthy job was completed. That was a long time ago. I have been living ever since, here in the Port of Jaffa.
Standing at my study window I can throw a stone into the water. I am a spectator in a front row seat, of the sea and its moods, of the coming and going of boats and the activity on the quay. It is a never-ending performance, sometimes dramatic, sometimes comic, usually entertaining and during the winter storms, awe inspiring. The term ‘front row’ does not fully describe my vantage point. I live upstairs, and it would be better to say that I am in the centre of the front row of a dress circle. I look out from a perfect height. Had it been less, the view would have been obstructed, and had it been more, I would have been distanced from the scene, particularly from the immediate foreground where so much happens. Read more of this article »
Posted in Fiction, Israel, Mediterranean
Scimitar moon, trembling the strings inside the piano. Scimitar against a vermilion sky, in Arabic, hilal. Curtains furled open like gardenias. Wind-flower, marguerite, friend of the night.
Friend of the night. No happiness so wide despair cannot cross. ‘If I see a red bird in my country will I know the color of a bird in another?’ Like the stream washing over the rock, not the rock. From the soul of her people she makes wine. Who leans out so far from the window?
Scimitar moon, a woman’s laughter untouched behind shutters, a stone house with red tile roof. The house moults from within, muffled strings inside a piano. Lanterns of fishing boats beading the sea. Lighthouse. Lighthouse. Lighthouse. From behind a scrim of cloud thin beams filter through a copse of oak. A vermilion sky, a memory.
Friend of the night. April’s anemone. Souvenir, sovenance, in Arabic, al-atlal. A rusted iron key, oaken door, the invisible white hand drawing the shutters in a stone house with red tiles. Who leans out so far from the window? Warm barricades. ‘If I see a red bird in my country can I know the color of a bird in another?’ There is no happiness too wide for despair. From their sweat she makes bread and jasmine. Read more of this article »
When I wander around the Kingdom of Saudi Arabia (KSA) today, I can see and experience many things that were unthinkable when I first came here just ten years ago. The first significant change that strikes me is the process of arrival itself. The Immigration Security no longer appears to take pleasure in voyeuristically searching around in your baggage in the hope of discovering a porno magazine. In Riyadh, in the past, I have even seen an airport security officer cut open the lining of a Pakistani traveler’s suitcase in the search for banned or illegal substances. In this instance, none were found and the protesting Pakistani was peremptorily waved on his way, humiliatingly left to replace the scattered items inside his mutilated bag. The Westerner in those days received slightly more considerate treatment–but not by much. A colleague of mind was nearly imprisoned for being found in possession of a Bible.
I think it is certain that within the next ten to twenty years, some fundamental changes will take place in KSA. Whether they will be the same as predicted here, only time will tell. It should be kept in mind, that there is always the possibility that future changes might establish a theologically inclined state in KSA, highly critical of Western culture and foreign policy. On this possibility I do not comment. I feel it is, on the whole, unlikely to happen–and if it does, it is probable that we in the West will only have ourselves to blame for it: either through neglect, or a misreading of the situation that leads to the empowerment of, at present, scattered and weak fundamentalist groups.
Now, it is unusual for customs officers to even bother searching bags at all. Everything is put through an X-ray machine and as long as no suspicious material is seen, the traveler is free to collect his baggage and leave. As simple as that! The religious worker who used to check all DVDs and videos for feisty content, was made redundant in a moment; a forlorn casualty of a new and more modern world view that deems such intrusive practices as insulting and degrading to human dignity. Read more of this article »
Posted in Op-Ed, Saudi Arabia
We, humans, grew up in families, where we began our first journey into the world. Later on, when we entered schools, we became indulged in learning. The first classes we took were on the letters of the Alphabet. “A, B, C…” we uttered aloud. These letters are known as the Phonetic Alphabet. The Phonetic letters are a representation of vocal sounds, and are a way of spelling that corresponds to pronunciation. Each country around the world has its own variation of spelling letters.
Without the Alphabet, history would not have been written, and thus all the genesis of mankind would be as mute as death. With it, we could be as wise as the sages of all times. The Phonetic Alphabet made it easier for humanity to evolve and to communicate. Earlier types of alphabets were pictorial, relating to symbols, ideograms, or other representations, like the Egyptian hieroglyphs. In such alphabets, each letter was represented by a picture and not expressed by a vocal sound. Only few pictorial alphabets still remain in use, such as the Chinese Alphabet of almost 40.000 characters.
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Strolling on the sandy beach of Gebel (popularly known as Byblos) in Lebanon, I was thinking about all this. The waves of the Mediterranean Sea in front of me, saluted me as I walked.
On the waters that float to the shore with eternal sailors and travellers, expeditionary and trading ships used to dock. Every bright new day they would head to a different corner of the world. I looked around but there weren’t any ships of this kind. Only small fishing boats and others belonging to private owners could be seen. But they, surely, have the blood of their Ancestors running in their veins. Read more of this article »
On arrival in Saudi Arabia, more than ten years ago now, I was amazed at how different everything was to my preconceptions. I had been fed the usual line that Saudi was a staunch ally and supporter of the West and that life was easy and comfortable there. How very wrong these ideas proved themselves to be! A particular incident crystallized the reality for me.
I was quickly shipped out to Ras Tanura: a major ARAMCO training complex (but a small and boring little town) and in the evenings I used to walk into the center, buy a few things– and maybe get a take-away meal. On this occasion, I noticed that everyone in the pizza shop was rushing around, as if desperately trying to beat some deadline. They just about managed to prepare my pizza and take my money before closing for the sunset prayer. All this was very new to me, so I thought the best thing to do was take a quiet walk on a hopefully deserted beach while I ate my pizza. As the sunset and I munched away, I noticed a crouching presence right in front of me. Suddenly he sprang up and started shouting and gesticulating wildly at me. Even though I was new to the country, it was fairly clear that he was objecting to my consumption of pizza in his presence while he was praying. I tried to utter a few conciliatory words, but he suddenly barked out a few words in egregious English.
“You must pay fine of one hundred riyals.”I shook my head incredulously and informed the man that I didn’t have one hundred riyals with me (not actually true!). Read more of this article »
Posted in Op-Ed, Saudi Arabia
Summer came again, as it does every year for so many years now. I packed my suitcases and drove out of boring Zgharta, our winter village, and headed toward the mountains. On each turn along the ascending road, a mysterious mountain of pyramid shape always caught my sight and imagination. On top of the mountain rose the Cathedral of Saydet al-Hosn, a new church overshadowing a small old one.
It was like a mysterious power mesmerized my eyes and pulled me up along the road. Time seemed to loose its ticking until I passed the pyramid shaped mountain and reached my home in Ehden. Within a few days, Ehden was crowded with people inhabiting their summer homes. And the road directly up to the Cathedral of Saydet al-Hosn swelled with cars. Crowds of pedestrians took short cuts off the road to walk directly up the sacred mountain.
A weird phenomenon captivated our souls and opened up our minds, as we approached the Cathedral. The air changed, allowing a more subtle breathing as it entered our realms and elevated our spirits. We were like pilgrims; we still are now, generation after generation, performing the same rites, over and over again, summer after summer, while the passing moments on the peak of that mountain are eternal. Read more of this article »