Tag Archives: Arabs and Jews

May 6, 2019 · 9:18 am

At Sammy’s Store

by Brad Jacobson (Columbia, MO)

Today is Shabbat.
I stop in for a Bamba
Peanut snack and Coke.

We do not pay
until after Shabbat.
Sammy wears a Yankees hat.

His first language is Arabic
but he speaks English and Hebrew
to customers.

David visits Sammy every day.
He manages the Heritage House,
the Jewish hostel next door.

Sammy, David and I dream
about sailing around the world.
We will meet at the ship tomorrow.

Or the day after.

 

Brad Jacobson is a volunteer every summer in Israel in the SAREL program. He teaches TESOL at the Asian Affair Center at the University of Missouri, where he has an MEd in Literacy. In the summers he enjoys exploring places with his camera like the Old City of Jerusalem, Tzfat, and the Red Sea where he scuba dives. He has been published in Tikkun, Voices Israel, Poetica, Cyclamens and Swords, and the University of Missouri International News.

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March 25, 2019 · 12:26 pm

Oasis

by Brad Jacobson (Columbia, MO)

“Come—come into my store,” the shopkeeper calls.

Walking through the Arab shuk, I focus straight ahead.

“A special deal for you,” he says.

I eye a Bedouin carpet hanging outside his store.

The shopkeeper invites me to sit and have coffee

and tells me his name is Neal.

I am his first customer in twelve days.

He wishes for peace and says both Palestinians and Jews have hearts.

He loves to eat hummus and drink Coke with his friends.

I pick out a candle holder, but can’t find my wallet.

I am his first customer in twelve days.

He looks under the pillow.

Finds the black billfold and teases me,

“Where is my wallet—where is my wallet?”

We laugh together.

Brad Jacobson is a volunteer every summer in Israel in the SAREL program. He teaches TESOL at the Asian Affair Center at the University of Missouri, where he has an MEd in Literacy. In the summers he enjoys exploring places with his camera like the Old City of Jerusalem, Tzfat, and the Red Sea where he scuba dives. He has been published in Tikkun, Voices Israel, Poetica, Cyclamens and Swords, and the University of Missouri International News.

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December 17, 2018 · 7:25 am

Hummus Shop

by Brad Jacobson (Columbia, MO)

“Tear a small piece of pita,
use forefinger and thumb,
dip into hummus, and fold in half,”
Ra’ed instructs me
at the same hummus shop
his father took him as a little boy.

A bearded man wearing a black suit
and kippah walks a mountain bike
past three women with white head scarves
and long black abayas.    

Tonight I fly back to the States,
but now I smell the hummus
topped with spiced meat and chickpeas.
We share a large bottle of orange Fanta.

Six of us sit around the table. Tsipi and I
are Jewish. Ra’ed, Mysum, and the others
are Palestinians. All around me
I hear Arabic.  

I raise my eyes to look at Ra’ed.
I think,

“You invited me to your
favorite hummus shop.
You taught me marhaba means hi
and shokran is thank you.”

Mysum says, “We love you, Brad.”

I tell myself to be friends
but in the back of my mind
are cobwebs that are very old.

Brad Jacobson is a volunteer every summer in Israel in the SAREL program. He teaches TESOL at the Asian Affair Center at the University of Missouri, where he has an MEd in Literacy. In the summers he enjoys exploring places with his camera like the Old City of Jerusalem, Tzfat, and the Red Sea where he scuba dives. He has been published in Tikkun, Voices Israel, Poetica, Cyclamens and Swords, and the University of Missouri International News.

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February 12, 2018 · 7:31 am

Visiting the Mount of Olives

by Steven Sher (Jerusalem, Israel)

for Maureen Kushner, on the yahrzeit of Rabbi Aryeh Kaplan, zt”l

Our van winds through the narrow streets

and splits the crowds that choke the way.

The Arab children after school seek shortcuts

past the Jewish plots–whole sections overrun

with broken stones. Windshield grating,

front and rear, guards against large rocks

that can be hurled at passing cars.

We are targets in our own land.

It is the day before Tu b’Shevat,

a season of renewal, a time of growth—

the first flowers bloom in the city below.

When we find the Arab caretaker, he leads us

to the gravesite and asks for too much money,

but we don’t bargain with our dead before us.

Like Abraham for Machpelah, we pay full price.

He scrubs the stone with brush and water.

More Arab boys pass through the lane.

An old woman and her daughter appear

in the section next to where we stand

reciting Psalms. In his year in the earth

her husband has prepared a place

for their eternal home. She says it feels

more like home than Brooklyn.

Returning to our van, we meet a group

on foot breathing hard. Alarmed

there’s been a new attack, the road

exposed below, we gird ourselves

for a hail of rocks on our descent.

Born in Brooklyn, Steven Sher is the author of fifteen books. He made aliyah five years ago, and now lives in Jerusalem near his children and grandchildren. To learn more about him and his work, visit his website: https://steven-sher-poetry.wixsite.com/writing

 

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