Some People Have More Stars Than Others (from April 7, 2011)

Renana is our fearless leader for our day in the West Bank. She is Palestinian and went through the Seeking Common Ground Building Bridges for Peace program many years ago. She is featured in the film, My So-Called Enemy. She is the bright-spirited, short-haired, tattooed, outlier who plays basketball, won’t wear a headscarf and blurts out in the film, “Who puts broccoli on pizza? Americans. That’s who!” She is a bright spirit. Did I already say that? She lights up a room when she walks in. She doesn’t take it over or fill it up, but the room always seems to get brighter.

Hasmig and I saw the film the first time at the San Francisco Jewish Film Festival last July before we had decided for certain to work with Seeking Common Ground. Erin (the SCG Executive Director) was in The City for the screening, and agreed to have dinner with us afterward to talk about a potential partnership. I don’t remember why, but Renana was in San Francisco for the screening, too, and joined us for dinner at Café Mediterranee. It was such a pleasure and a relief to meet them both. We were so reassured and confident that working with them, we could pull off something great, that we could pull off…this! I remember I cried at dinner telling them about Kyle. Then a month later, I went to Colorado to observe the Building Bridges 3-week retreat. Renana was staff, and I was able to observe her in action both with the teens in the program, and making a presentation to the SCG Board of Directors. I wrote in my notes that day that Renana told the Board, “The program caused me to make the choice not to be on the side of the road throwing a stone or getting on a bus and exploding it. The program was life changing for me. It saved my life.”

Renana only spent this one day with us on the trip, but she managed to drop in on us a handful of other times over the course of our stay in Jerusalem. She had dinner with us a couple of nights, so by the time we boarded the bus for Ramallah, everyone felt like Renana was part of our group.

In between taking us through the Check Point, looking at the Wall, showing us Arafat’s Tomb, introducing us to Shmuel, hiking 10 miles with us, and convincing two Israeli soldiers with automatic rifles who boarded our bus to let us back through the Check Point into Jerusalem by telling them we had only driven through the West Bank to get to Masada that day, she managed to share with us little pieces of her life and her story. She lives in Beit Hanina, a Palestinian neighborhood in East Jerusalem on the road to Ramallah in the West Bank. Beit Hanina was taken over by Jordan in the 1948 War. The Jordanian government built roads and schools, and a new modern suburb emerged. After the Six Day War of 1967, Israel occupied the West Bank, including Beit Hanina and all of Jerusalem. Many Palestinians left for the United States. Some like Renana’s family, stayed. Renana is officially designated by the Israeli government as a “Temporary Resident,” even though she has lived there her entire life. She is not a citizen of Israel, she is not a citizen of Jordan, and of course, there is no state of Palestine to be a citizen of. She has no passport, only an identity card. Renana showed us her identity card. She said her last one, an older version, stated in the bottom left corner, “Arab.” Each person was designated as either Arab, Christian or Jewish, and rights and privileges were assigned accordingly. I asked, “what if you are a Christian Arab, or worse yet, a Jewish Arab? Or an American Muslim?” Renana just smiled, and raised her eyebrows and shoulders in equal measure. She said the United Nations and some human rights groups challenged the Israeli system for being so much like Apartheid South Africa, not an association Israel likes to have. They collected all the identity cards and re-issued new ones. In place of the three labels, there are now a series of small stars in the same lower left corner. “Some people have more stars than others,” Renana laughs. All the Jews have the same number of stars, all the Arabs have the same number of stars, all the Christians have the same number of stars. As they say in the restaurant business, presentation is everything.

Renana is finishing up her Masters at McGill University. I asked her what she’s planning to do next. She will go on for her PhD. Where, I ask. Hebrew University in Jerusalem, if she can finally get accepted. Wow, I said, what will that be like? She said she isn’t sure. It’s the best University available, and there is a professor there with whom she really wants to work, but it’s a bit of a hassle to get in. “I’ve lived here all my life, but I have to apply as a foreign student.”

Sleepy on the bus ride back to Jerusalem, everyone is quiet, bouncing along. Renana turns around in her seat up front to survey the tired faces. She is smiling. Why is she smiling, I think to myself? From where does that brightness in her eyes come?