Sana’ani Pizza

Sometimes we get bored eating the same thing in Yemen. Not that we don’t enjoy Yemeni cuisine, we just sometimes get homesick. The great thing about Yemen is that restaurants are completely happy to let you bring your own food for them to cook. Down the street from our house is a bakery that supplies rotis and pita to the restaurants in the area. I asked them if we brought them some uncooked stuff could they pop it in their giant brick oven for a minute, and they said sure.

So we made an herb-infused pizza dough, enough for two large pizzas. We topped one with your standard red sauce, mozzarella, and anchovies, and the second with spinach, roasted garlic, and feta.

We assembled them at home, then carried two large pans down our stairs, out to the Silaa, past the peanut gallery at Cafe Exquisite, and to the bakery. 20 minutes later, we walked back with two ridiculously awesome looking pizzas.

All photos by Rachael Strecher

The American Institute for Yemeni Studies

I visited the American Institute for Yemeni Studies this week, and was extremely impressed by their collection and the staff, notably their director Stephen Steinbeiser and their librarian, Faraj al-Arami.

The American Institute for Yemeni Studies was founded in 1978 by the Council of American Overseas Research Centers, and is the 11^th such institution in the Middle East, among the 25 American Research centers worldwide. It’s goal is to facilitate research by foreign scholars doing work on Yemen in all disciplines, in addition to aiding Yemeni scholars in research on their own country. They offer fellowships for the study of Arabic at the Yemen College of Middle Eastern Studies, and have housing available for scholars-in-residence.

The most distinctive and notable aspect of the institute is their 5000-volume research library, covering all aspects of Yemeni studies. It is open to the public by appointment, and is highly beneficial to anyone doing research on Yemen’s history, politics, and culture. From their website:

It contains most of the serious scholarly works by Yemenis and non-Yemenis, as well as many books produced throughout and about Yemen, including a collection of Yemeni schoolbooks. There are also government reports, statistics, and laws from pre-unification North and South Yemen and from the unified state since 1990, as well as maps related to both North and South Yemen. The library also has a significant collection of development studies on topics such as urban and regional planning, agricultural production, health and family, etc. AIYS’ collection of more than 170 dissertations dealing with Yemen gathers in one place an extensive body of research on Yemen not otherwise accessible.

AIYS recently underwent a major move, and after a few months of limbo, is now settling into its new location, near the Jumhuri Hospital, in the neighborhood of al-Ga’a. The process of moving a library from one location to another can be a traumatic one, bibliographically speaking. As such, the librarians at AIYS are still working out a few of the kinks in getting completely operational, but the library is present in its entirety and can be browsed to ones heart’s content.

In addition to a new location, AIYS recently received a new director, Mr Stephen J. Steinbeiser, JD, formerly of Pittsburgh, PA. I had the opportunity to speak with Mr Steinbeiser about some of the issues facing both him and AIYS.

All photographs by Rachael Strecher.

What changes has AIYS undergone in the past two years?

Over the past two years at the American Institute of Yemeni Studies there have been many positive changes at the Institute which has moved from its previous location off of Al Bawniya Street to its current and permanent site in the Al Qa’a neighborhood, close to Tawfiq Street.

In the process of moving, the Institute has expanded. The building which AIYS previously inhabited was an old house in the typical Sana’ani style. The new building is more modern but no less historic, as it is the former house of a famous Yemeni poet, Ahmad Mohammad Al Shami. Also, the AIYS property is large and plans are underway for an additional building on the premises.

In addition to the location and building changes, the long-serving director of the Institute, Dr. Chris Edens, left his position in the beginning of this year. I arrived in January to become the new director and began several medium-term projects at the Institute, including preparation for more construction, full library cataloging project, and a public lecture series, as well as projects with local partners.

What are your main goals as director, and how do you plan on executing those goals?

My main goals as director are to raise the profile of AIYS within the Yemeni academic community while continuing the Institute’s commitment to supporting serious academic research in and about Yemen.

AIYS has been in Sana’a since the late 1970’s and many Yemeni researchers know of our fellowship program. Moreover, many local partner organizations have worked with AIYS on several important cultural heritage projects, such as the restoration of the Amiriya Mosque in Rada’.

Because of the recent move and expansion, though, the Institute has not had as much of a public presence as in the past. As a result, while foreign researchers continue to come to the Institute, not as many Yemeni researchers have been browsing our library. I would like to raise awareness of AIYS’s resources for all of those interested in researching Yemen, and above all to maintain the atmosphere of honest intellectual exchange between foreigners and Yemenis which has always existed at AIYS’s previous locations.

What are the major challenges facing AIYS as an institution?

The challenges facing AIYS are similar to those facing many institutions in Yemen at the moment, especially those which rely on foreign resources, whether publicity, persons, or perception. Media reporting abroad about the security situation in Yemen does not serve the country well, and many first-time foreign researchers in Yemen postpone or cancel trips to the country.

Moreover, research permission will only be granted for a geographical area if that region is deemed to be safe and stable for foreigners. Currently, this limits the number of areas for research in the country, thereby, limiting the potential topics and scope of research for some foreign scholars.

Finally, independently funded fellowships and grants, ones which originate through foreign research or philanthropic institutes, have been hurt by the lingering global economic crisis. This has resulted in more caution from donors before awarding grants and scholarships for Yemeni studies. This area of regional interest studies has not traditionally been considered a unique academic focus, so it already must compete with areas of other regional interests to receive money.

In the library, are there any particular volumes or collections you are especially proud of, and would like to make others aware of?

I am proud of the library generally, as it has about 15,000 books, Approximately 60%-70% are in Arabic while the remainder are in English and a smattering of other languages. It also has about 2,000 articles and 200 journals.

Of particular importance in my opinion are a complete compilation of the British laws and chronicles of that government’s time in Aden, books about the time of the Yemeni Imamate and subsequent revolutions, and the Institute’s own publications, whose topics range from agricultural calendars to translations of the poetry Dr. Abd Al Aziz Al Maqalih.

I have heard from many Yemenis that in their opinion, the most important section of our library is the ever-expanding American Studies section. Many Yemeni researchers want current information about the United States, as well as a better understanding of American democratic concepts and culture generally.

We spoke earlier about trying to engage the Yemeni academic community to a greater degree. Does the institute have any active projects designed to engage that community?

AIYS works on several levels to support, engage, and strengthen the Yemeni academic community. In that vein, the Institute works with its primary local partner, the Yemen Center for Studies and Research, to avail itself of opportunities which Yemeni researchers envision already, as well as to create new ones to fulfill research needs in Yemen.

Our public lecture series is a direct attempt to bring Yemeni researchers to the Institute to meet foreign scholars who are currently in Yemen researching. Lectures also serve the purpose of introducing research-oriented Arabic language to foreign scholars who may not be acquainted with some specialized vocabulary, as well as allowing Yemeni researchers to practice their English language skills. Both Yemeni and non-Yemeni researches benefit from this exchange of knowledge about the current body of research on a wide-range of issues affecting Yemen.

Additionally, the Institute currently manages projects (such as the compilation of a Soqotri-Arabic dictionary) that to preserve tangible and intangible cultural heritage in Yemen.

AIYS continues to offer its annual fellowships for Yemeni researchers who wish to pursue independent research in the country.

There are also a few other projects, some of which have been put on hold because of the security situation, and others which are still in the planning stages and which will involve more concrete efforts, specifically restoration of flood-damaged tombs in Hadramout, and manuscript preservation in the north of the country.

You mentioned that the institute is still settling from the move, and getting organized. What is your timeline until everything is fully operational? What are the steps along the way?

AIYS is fully operational now. The library is open to the public from 9.30 a.m. to 4.30 p.m. Saturday through Wednesday, and the scholars’ residence regularly welcomes foreign researchers and AIYS fellows.

Ongoing expansion work continues, though, which means that visitors and members will notice some construction on AIYS property.

Many people do not realize that the Institute is a relatively modest operation with only four full time employees, each of whom is kept very busy on a daily basis, especially as AIYS receives a steady stream of enquiries, researchers, and members-in-residence. In the future, I would like to expand our staff appropriately, to be able to accommodate even more requests and to move more quickly on research-based project ideas.

In closing, anything else you’d like to add to our readers about the institute?

Yes; I encourage all of those who are interested in our library to visit us. More information about the Institute, can be found on our website at www.aiys.org.

The AIYS can be reached at 01278816 and aiysyem@y.net.ye.

To get to the AIYS, go to Tahrir Square. With your back to Bab al-Sabah, walk down Gamal abd al-Nassar St, past the Military Museum and continue walking straight, which will take you to the neighborhood of al-Ga3. Look for the Saidalia al-Tawfiq (in Arabic صيدلية التوفيق) with the English word AMOL written at the bottom. Turn left down the alley, walk to the end, and turn left again. The AIYS is the second gate. Buzz the intercom and a guard will let you in. If you get lost, ask someone for Bayt al-Shami. Be sure to take down their phone number to call if you get lost.

Silta, Yemen’s National Dish

Work begins early at Jabar’s restaurant. At six o’clock AM, six young men arrive to prepare the day’s food. The doors open to the public at 11, and the five hours in between are spent cleaning, preparing, and cooking a massive vat of meat over roaring gas flames. Only two dishes are served here, fahsa and silta, Yemen’s national dishes.

Restaurants like this exist by the hundred across the capital and beyond, and at any crowded market around noon one can invariably observe many small groups of men, all squatting around a sizzling bowl of silta, bread in hands. Jabar’s central location next to the bustling Bab al-Sabah market ensures many eat-in and take-out customers, many of whom have their lunch delivered to them by one of Jabar’s runners.

Silta and fahsa are two variations on a theme: pressure-cooked beef stew in a tomato-based sauce, served sizzling hot in a stone bowl. The only difference between the two is the presence of a variety of cooked vegetables and often rice in silta, whereas fahsa contains just chunks of tender beef in a tomato-onion broth, which often boils off before your eyes. They are both served with hilba, ground fenugreek that has expanded in water until frothy, which is then mixed with salt and finely chopped peppers.

The restaurant is a simple set-up: a raised platform with four massive propane burners alongside the wall leads customers into a small space packed with tables and benches. There is no storeroom, so all ingredients are bought daily. There is no bathroom, just a sink in the corner for customers to wash their hands before and after eating. 20lb propane tanks line the wall by the door, and the constant fires under the vats of meat consume two to four tanks per day.

At six, the crew arrives and starts the work of the day. One employee, Majid, comes from the nearby street market laden with groceries, among them three kilos of potatoes and a kilo of green onions. He squats on the floor with two plastic basins filled with water, scrubbing potatoes in one basin, then dumping them in the second. Nearby, Muhammad chops the scallions, and Saleh fills one of the huge pots with water, and puts it onto the fire. Meanwhile, a kilo of ground fenugreek is sifted into a vat of water until it covers the surface. It is then left to sit undisturbed. By this time it is 7:10.

Once the onions are chopped, they are added to a medium-sized pot and sautéed in oil for fifteen minutes. A large can of tomato paste is added, and then a half-kilo of chopped garlic. The smell of sizzling garlic and onion fills the room, while a boy carrying an alagiya, a glass-carrier, arrives at the door with eight cups of tea. After the onions, garlic, and tomato paste have cooked for ten minutes, they are dumped into the water. Along with hawaj, a Yemeni spice medley, this forms the broth. Silta contains potatoes, peppers, okra, and zucchini, so Muhammad is busy chopping those at one of the tables. When ready, the vegetable mixture, called mushakkal, is put on a burner and cooked with some broth for another fifteen to twenty minutes.

Meanwhile, Majid and Abd al-Aziz wash down the walls, the prep area, the tables, and the benches. Abd al-Aziz throws water on the soapy surfaces, and squeegees the floor with the runoff. By that time, Saleh has returned from the meat market with seven kilos of beef. It is put in a pressure cooker with some broth and left on low heat for more than an hour. By eight o’clock, all the elements are in place: the meat is cooking in the broth, the vegetables are cooking, and the hilba is frothing in the corner. The meat cooks for another hour and a half, and is added to the broth, which has cooked down some.

At 11, the doors open and people start filing in. If it seems like it will be a busy day, Saleh will return to the meat market for more beef, but today it seemed the seven kilos would suffice, so the employees assume their places: Jabar on top of the platform preparing the dishes, Saleh directing the floor staff, Muhammad and Abd al-Aziz serving the sizzling dishes to the customers, and Majid washing up. Voices are raised, as the roar of the gas creates a din inside the dimly-lit restaurant. From time to time, Muhammad or Abd al-Aziz will leave to deliver a large pot to a customer in the market. Sometimes customers will ask for customizations: eggs or tuna in their silta, no hilba, etc. and Jabar has a small stockpile of supplies for such requests. A hole is cut in the wall behind his platform to provide a way to pass drinks between the restaurant and the adjacent juice stand.

By two, the lunch rush is over. The crew starts breaking down the day’s work: cleaning the vats, the stone pots, the tables. This crew wakes early and works hard in a fast-paced, hot environment, and by three they are ready to go home. Qat may be chewed or naps taken, for in the morning, it all starts again.

There is no set recipe for silta or fahsa. It is not an exact science. However, it is a well known fact in Yemen that, though silta is available at catch-all restaurants with long menus, only a sucker would order it there. Silta is best at restaurants that serve nothing but silta. Jabar has been in the game for more than 30 years, and his 11-year-old son Ali now works as a runner at his father’s joint.

If you are abroad and would like to try this, a rough recipe follows. If you are in Yemen, just visit Jabar and let the experts take care of it.

All photos are by Rachael Strecher.

Silta Recipe

Silta contains 4 distinct parts, which come together at the end. This recipe is a scaled-down version of Jabar’s, and should serve between 4-8 people.

First, the broth. 8 cups hot water   Oil (olive or otherwise.) 5 green onions 6 large cloves of garlic Hawaj -pepper corns -cumin -cardamom pods -coriander seeds -turmeric -cloves 1 small can tomato paste Heat oil in pot Add onions and saute 10 to 15 minutes Add garlic and saute another 5 to 10 minutes. Add hawaj and tomato paste, turn down heat. Cook on medium for 10 minutes, add to 8 cups hot water, cook on low until ready to eat. Second, the mushakkal. Chop roughly: 3 medium potatoes 5 okra 3 zucchini Put in pot with 2-3 cups of broth. Cook until soft. Mash up by stirring roughly.

Third is the meat. 1 kilo of good quality beef   3 cups of broth from above Cut beef into chunks. Put in pressure-cooker with broth. Cook until tender. Fourth is the hilba Ground, powdered fenugreek Water Salt 1 Bell pepper, very finely chopped in a food processor. Let ground fenugreek sit in water for 1 hour. Stir gently, add salt When it has increased and become frothy, add peppers, stir well. Finally, the assembly: Put a stone bowl on very high fire for 5 minutes with nothing in it. Put meat, hot broth, and mushakkal into bowl, stir well Ladle hilba over top Serve while still sizzling.

The Sana’a International Book Fair

The 26^th Annual Sana’a International Book Fair started this week, showcasing more than 250 publishers and book dealers from around the Middle East. The exhibition is taking place in the Apollo Expo conference center, located past CityMax on Siteen St, and will run from October 22^nd to November 2^nd. I’ve been looking forward to this event for months, as it is a great chance to snag awesome books at super cheap prices.

The vast majority of the books are of a religious nature, but there are many publishing houses selling books of a political or cultural nature, as well. For example, Ali Shafiq from the Egypt-based Dar al-Thaqafa publishing house, whose stall was stacked with volumes of Mahmoud Darwish, Nizar Qabbani, and Nabil Yassin’s collections of poetry. Many stalls also were selling collections of Arabic calligraphy, the history of Islamic art, and collections of photographs of notable Islamic architectural monuments throughout the world. There was a booth from Turkey, and when I started asking for books in Turkish, they sort of gathered around me and took turns asking questions, apparently puzzled by this white dude in Yemen who happened to speak Turkish.

For students of Arabic, the Book Fair is a gold mine. The stalls are packed with valuable materials to fill your shelves. From children’s books to short stories, there is a vast selection of books to help you along the way. If you’re looking for something relatively easy in language and length, collections of fatwas, or Islamic legal Q&A texts, are both abundant and easy to read. In addition, many booksellers offer specialist dictionaries and Arabic grammar texts, which are sold for much cheaper than they would be abroad. I myself purchased a dictionary of diplomatic terms and a guidebook to common grammatical mistakes. I passed on, for space concerns, dictionaries of literary terms, economics, proverbs, medical terminology, a book of verb conjugations, and many other drool-worthy books to provide a fix for the Arabic student’s habit.

The crowd that attended the fair was surprisingly diverse. While there were, of course, many Yemenis, the fair was also attended by Arabs from throughout the Middle East, scouting for good deals to bring home, as well as a large number of Indonesian and Malaysian students. East Africans were also out in force, with small clusters of young men towering a head over the rest. While most attendees came from the greater Islamic world, there were also a fair number of Germans and assorted Europeans milling about as well.

While most booths were run by individual private publishing houses, many booths were set up by the Ministry of Tourism or Development of particular countries. I visited the Oman booth and spoke with the people there for some time, and they presented me with a very beautiful book about the history and cultural geography of Oman, free of charge. The first booth upon entering the main showroom is run by the Saudi government, and I picked up a nicely bound Qur’an, with English translation, also free of charge.

The book fair is an event I’ve looked forward to for months, after first going in 2007. It is a wonderful show of culture and literacy, and a chance for Yemen to have access to the literary wealth of the entire Arab world and beyond.

All photographs by Rachael Strecher

The Teahouses of Sana’a

While many foreigners, perhaps used to a more fast-paced city, may decry the lack of a serious nightlife in Sana’a, I would argue that a vibrant night culture does in fact exist, just at a more subdued and chilled-out pace. Yemenis take their tea seriously, and while Yemen may be the birthplace of coffee, it is tea that reigns king amongst hot beverages here. Drinking tea in Sana’a is more than just getting a caffeine fix. It is a way to watch the world go by, see friends socially, and let go after a long day spent chewing qat and seeing friends socially. No one takes their tea to go, because the tea is just a medium: the real reason for the teahouse is the social network of friends and co-sippers one can only experience at the café. These are a few of my favorite spots around the city.

Café Exquisite aka Café Paradiso

The name of this café is not Café Exquisite nor is it Café Paradiso. These names were given to it by the staff of the Yemen Language Center in 2008. In reality, it has no name. It is beyond names. It exists by raving word of mouth alone, and business is booming. A call to rendez-vous at Café Exquisite usually goes something like, “Ok, you know the Silaa? There’s a tea place on the…oh you know it already. See you there, then.” However, for those who have not experienced the wonder that is Café Exquisite, it is located in front of the Qubat al-Mahdi mosque, a short jaunt from Bab al-Sabah. The tea is perhaps the tastiest in Sana’a, due to the ratio of sweetened condensed milk to tea being vastly higher in favor of the milk than in most cases. If the owner likes you, he’ll give you a quarter-cup of overflow while you wait for your order to be filled.

However, the trick about Café Exquisite is brevity when ordering. Get in, get out. Don’t try and chat the guy up, you’ll end up getting screamed at. The owner goes by many a pseudonym among the foreign crowd, most notably the Tea Nazi. In reality, his name is Ali al-Amrany. The café does, however, retain many similarities to the Soup Nazi from Seinfeld: amazing, delicious product, terrifying and dictatorial owner. Despite his comparatively high price (100 Riyals a cup), the end result is most assuredly worth every qursh. The busy time is from eight to ten PM and the place is jumping the whole time, often with a line out the door. He is open well into the night, and seating space is limited.

The Boy’s Club aka Kursi-Shay

This is more of an archetype than a particular location, as spots like this exist throughout Sana’a and beyond. The Club that I choose to frequent is just off of Tahrir Square, three doors down from Al-Jazeera restaurant which is next to the Tahrir bus depot, and was named al-Rahab. The Boy’s Club is just that: a place for men to sit, chew, sip tea, smoke shisha and mida’a, and reminisce about the good ol’ days before they had wives and children, presumably. Given the fact that whenever I come here I am greeted by the same friendly, qat-addled faces I assume that Kursi-Shay (so-named for the two things they provide- Chair & Tea) is a regular night-time hangout for hundreds of men throughout the capital, in its various manifestations.

The Boy’s Club is a relatively simple set up: bedframes and mattresses fill the space, each with rectangular diwan pillows to lean against (it is said that qat is best chewed while leaning), and a TV playing the latest MBC Action movie marathon. You can order apple shisha or mida’a, the Grizzly Adams Yemeni version of shisha that makes its Egyptian cousin look like a pathetic little toy. Discarded qat leaves cover the ground, and neighbors offer you sprigs from their personal supply, and often peer into your bag of qat to judge your qat-purchasing ability. Usually the conclusion is that foreigners are lousy qat buyers. A tea and a shisha will run you 200 riyals ($1).

The Enclave at Souq al-Enab aka Shumaina

In the Old City, few teahouses compare to the Enclave. Set in a former hotel (from the days before cars, so there’s a horse hotel on the ground floor), the atmosphere and surroundings here is so uniquely Sana’ani that it had to be included on this list. It may be the Old City’s best kept secret, and long are the hours I’ve spent retracing my steps trying to find it a second time. It is sort of like the Room of Requirement in Harry Potter: when you really need a great teahouse, just pace back and forth three times near the Great Mosque while thinking of delicious tea, and the Enclave will appear for you. It is located adjacent to the Great Mosque, at Souq al-Enab. Benches line the space, and there is a definite communal feeling to drinking tea here. Says Murad, who comes daily, “It’s the best in town.”

As with the previously-mentioned teahouses, they offer one kind of tea prepared two ways: Al-Kaboos with milk, Al-Kaboos without milk. There are also several restaurants in the area that will bring take-out to the Enclave around meal times, so you can sit and eat a sizzling bowl of silta while drinking your tea, if that strikes your fancy. The Enclave provides the perfect pit stop for weary legs when browsing in Souq al-Milh.

Mokha Bunn

Ok, so everyone who has been in Sana’a for any length of time is well aware of Coffee Trader. Supposedly, it is the only place in Sana’a to offer espresso, wireless internet, biscotti, and all the other trappings of a more Western-style café. Well, I present you with Mokha Bunn, a brand-new café that offers all of the above, but with crepes, apple pies, and a variety of tea flavors as well! Their espressos and cappuccinos could be direct from Turin, and the apple pies straight out of Iowa. While not exactly like the three teahouses that precede it, it is a cut above the rest. This is no Boys Club. This is a classy joint, so leave your AK-47 at home. No, seriously. A sign on the door warns, “Qat and Weapons Forbidden. Thank you.” It is around the corner from the Korean restaurant, which may or may not be Korean or a restaurant.

Mokha Bunn is a coffee-drinkers establishment, which essentially means it is a purveyor of Western drinks, of the non-alcoholic variety. The tea they offer is Earl Grey, English Breakfast, Green Tea, and the like. I’m not even aware if they serve Al-Kaboos, the Yemeni standard. If you’re bored with the norm, and looking to get away from Coffee Trader’s muzak hymns, Mokha Bunn is the place for you. Also, decent baked goods are a highly rare commodity in this fine city, so if you’re looking for some marbled coffee cake, carrot cake, or cinnamon apple crumble, look no further.

Sana’a may not be on par with Los Angeles, London, or Istanbul when it comes to crazy parties till dawn or bumping clubs spitting obnoxious techno music, but if you came to Yemen expecting that, tea may not be your biggest problem right now. For the rest of us, Sana’a is often a welcome change from that lifestyle, even if it only existed on the periphery of our lives before we came here. The teahouses that I’ve mentioned here are really just a sampling of what Sana’a has to offer you in the way of cafés. There are no doubt others which bear mentioning. If what you’re looking for is a place to sit down, relax, perhaps speak to some normal Sana’ani folk, occasionally puff a hookah, then the teahouse is the answer. Now it’s just a question of 7leeb or 3ady- with milk, or normal.

All photographs by Rachael Strecher

Editing in Yemen

From time to time, working as a copy editor at a Yemeni English-language paper has its benefits. For example, when we get sent an article to edit that is absolute gibberish, and requires a re-write, top to bottom. This may not be very fun, but it does provide some comedy. Enjoy the following:

From an article warning of the dangers of sexual stimulants, (the hilarity of this article was increased tenfold by the awkwardness of the subject matter):
“With the invisible of supervision and shy to go to doctor
Death hundred of people, divorce from first day and bride in the hospital Sexual stimulants Attendance randomly killer”

“(Najib Al-tamem) he working in one of the pharmacy in Taiz said
Sexual tonic increase and add they aren’t embarrass from ask to buy
Tonic pill as previous most of them got help from children or beggar
To let them bought for them, but now we find young people came to the
Pharmacy to buy by them self without any shy and the strange things he finds a few of them buy sexual stimulants for the women and some
Want buy Frankincense sexual that he heard it help to seduce girls or Excessive sexual activity.”

“Certain for each drag has symptomatic and damage for the patient who has prescription from the doctor what about others who don’t have.”

“Dangerous of accumulations phenomenon that sexual stimulates were the reason of spoil the honeymoon for both groom & bride for who has take the drag in the first day that make bride has shock result of groom violence, others has bleeding and ministering  to the hospital …
Most of them refuse to back to their groom and want divorce and the other has Oedipus.”

The other has Oedipus?

From an article about tourism:
“A superior points of our destination is that Yemen a unique in natural and historical and cultural components that are not found anywhere else, these uniqueness can be more and more strengthen and widen by creating several themes of uniqueness”

Keyword here: unique.

From an article about the importance of national unity, entitled How Evil Factions Yemen Has:
“In actual fact, our oppositions in Yemen are truly strange and destructive. They plan to damage Yemen and its unity, incite the people badly, even the brothers, to fight with each other trying to divide Yemen into a lot of states, and they endeavor to achieve their personal aims and purposes”

[last sentence]
“If we lose today’s Yemen with its progress and accomplishments, we won’t make it again, like a mother, if she died, she wouldn’t be alive again.”

From an article about swine flu:
“I check the internet and many physicians send their reports confirming that H1N1 can be cured easily and the fact is that this propaganda on such disease is done for benefit factors to some medicine companies”

“During the past Eid, people who put face masks became a common sense  especially near parks and markets.”

From an article about the dangers of the Balkanization of Yemen:
“Yemeni state has aggravated this hazard when it made used tribal and sectarian (and recently the fundamentalist) cards itself as a means to establish its existence.”

[last sentence]
“But despite all of this, there is an even greater calamity that is beneath, not above the lands of Yemen.”

Do we get to find out what that could be?

From an article about Yemen turning into another Somalia:
“Unfortunately, such thing never happened and what makes it even worse is the revenge tradition that is always found in any tribal society, which was the problem of Somalia that is downing it now.”

“In the name of Islam, the waiting for the calling turning into waiting for death and body-tearing bullets or missiles accompanied with the call “Allah is the greatest”!”

From an article about…. I’m not entirely sure what:
“Imagine that the neglect of our experts of the development sector causing a lack of local expertise in carrying out surveys of individual and social focal questions and preparing questionnaires in social, economic and professional style convincingly despite the presence of tens of thousands of graduates and dozens of academics in sociology and there in the field to apply the criteria and standard procedures when carrying out evaluation or statistics of the selected communities as there aren’t members of the media companies who can produce document film foundations of photography.”

“The press, with the absence of specialized libraries, research and questionnaires in the country, through the published articles and criticisms of the elite and one of the most important sources of information should be directed mostly at the Olney beam components of the broad community development in order to assess and analyze related events and engage deeply to examine the causes and bring out proposals for solutions supported by the evidence of realism.”

The Genius of Ibn Muqlah

In the year 632 AD the prophet of Islam, Muhammad bin Abdullah, died. This event threw the fledgling Muslim community into a crisis: the revelation was complete, and at the time it existed only in a fragmented and scattered collection of palm leaves, bones, tablets, and in the minds of the believers. The Prophet’s death created a need to collect, codify, and standardize the revelation. An order needed to be agreed upon, and a standardized script needed to be chosen. The personal scribe of the Prophet, Zaid bin Thabit was charged with this task. It took, however, twelve years, until the reign of the third Caliph, Uthman bin Affan, for this to happen. By that time the Muslim world extended throughout the Arabian Peninsula, across North Africa, and into Central Asia, and yet there was still no standardized Quran for the new Muslim communities to use. Uthman assembled a team, and Zaid wrote out copies of the new, standardized Quran to be sent to major cities of the new Islamic empire. Upon arrival, the people were told to burn any copies they had previously, to prevent strife within the Muslim community. Only a very few of these Qurans still exist.

Prior to Islam, the Arabic language did indeed have a script, but it was markedly different from the one we know today. Many of the letters did not connect in a cursive fashion, nor were diacritical marks typically used to distinguish one sound from another. So the sounds Ba, Ta, Tha, and Na all appeared as a short tooth, and it would have to be inferred from context which sound was correct. In fact, to use diacriticals in a letter was to insult the reader; it would imply he could not understand the meaning from context, and needed to be coddled like a child in school.

Obviously, when dealing with the word of God, there could not be such confusion, hence the use of diacriticals in all written material following the proliferation of Islam and the more widespread use of Arabic.

However, it wasn’t until nearly two hundred years later, in the early 10^th century, that the Arabic language was codified in its written form. It took the work of one man, a mathematical genius from Baghdad named Ali Ibn Muqlah, and it changed how the Arabic script is written forever.

Ibn Muqlah, whose name translates as son of an eyeball, devised a way to write the Arabic script in such a way that, regardless of the size of the pen the scribe uses, each letter will be proportionate to both itself and every other letter. He simply related every letter to the rhomboid dot drawn by the pen being used. Each letter has a set of predetermined size rules based around these rhomboid dots.

Now, when a calligrapher is learning a script, the first task is to write each letter out quite literally hundreds of times, and measure them according to Ibn Muqlah’s rules.

These practice sheets can indeed become works of art in their own right, as shown by Mehmet Ozcay’s work above.

These are a few examples of letters I wrote out, according to the rules of Ibn Muqlah.

The Qamariya

Possibly the most distinctive decorative feature of Yemeni architecture is the qamariya, the multicolored stained-glass windows that grace Yemen’s buildings. The geometric patterns formed with colored glass sit above the windows and cast their patterns on the room. It is the symbol of Yemeni architectural culture, and adds a great beauty to Sana’a’s distinctive gingerbread skyline. All those who have walked through the Old City’s streets at dusk can testify to the fairy-tale beauty given by hundreds of illuminated qamariya to the city itself. Inside, the whitewashed walls are sprinkled with dots of colored light that creep down the walls as the sun falls in the sky.

In Arab culture, the moon is equated with beauty. The qamariya, which comes from the word qamar, meaning moon, is said to let light reminiscent of the moon’s beauty into the house. In one form or another, these patterned windows have have been a feature of Yemeni architectural embellishment since pre-Islamic times. Then, as today, windows consisted of two parts, the main window which could open to let air in, and then a secondary, patterned pane set above the window and separated by a lintel. The bottom part of the window often was covered by a shubaq, a wooden screen that allowed women to look to the street without being seen by strangers. This is still present today. The original style of patterned window that eventually evolved into the qamariya was made with thin, circular panes of translucent alabaster that had been hewn down to a thickness that allowed light to penetrate. This way, rooms could be lit by natural light but still retained an opacity that prevented strangers from seeing into the house. These alabaster windows can still be seen around Sana’a and in the Hadramawt, but the practice has faded from popular usage.

The process of creating a single qamariya takes the craftsmen just two days from start to finish. At the shop of Yahya Abu Ali in the neighborhood of Sa’awan in Sana’a, four craftsmen (all his sons) work daily on qamariya production, and the building boom that Sana’a is experiencing as people move out of their villages to the city ensures that Yahya and his crew’s work is in high demand. He has been in the qamariya business for more than 30 years, learning the trade from his father, who in turn learned it from his father. He has been in his current location on Sheraton Street for more than 15 years. He sells an average of 30 windows per week to both private individuals and corporate contracts who buy in bulk, and has a large stock of qamariya skeletons that are waiting for customers to decide their final colors. He also has a pattern book that allows his clients to custom-choose their qamariya, and can easily retrofit or custom-make a qamariya to the specific desires of his clients. A large, intricate qamariya costs between five and six thousand riyals, while a smaller, square one goes for around three thousand. Small, porthole-style windows cost a thousand riyals. In addition to windows, Yahya and his sons also make intricate gypsum moldings that adorn sitting rooms and receiving areas in traditional Yemeni homes.

The qamariya, also known as takhrim, ‘lace-work’ from the verb kharrama meaning to pierce, or make lace, is made by simple four-step technique that takes a trained craftsmen just a few hours, divided over two days. First, gypsum plaster is poured onto a wooden board and smoothed out to a thickness of 3 to 8 centimeters. It is allowed to partially dry, until it can be cut but retain its integrity and shape. Designs are then cut into the plaster with the help of stencils, and the cut edges polished with sandpaper. The cut plaster is removed from the wood and placed in the sun to fully dry.

The following day, glass sections are cut to match the spaces in the plaster, and laid out in place on the floor. A second layer of plaster is then poured over the back of the qamariya, securing the glass in place. When that layer dries, the plaster that covers glass areas that are meant to let light in is scraped off, and the qamariya is ready for use. When installed, it is customary for the windows to sit double-pane. Often a light bulb will be installed between them, illuminating the room at night time with soft colored light.

The rise of the stained-glass qamariya began on a small scale during the Ottoman period, with traders bringing patterns and craft styles to Yemen from throughout the Islamic world, particularly Syria. Ottoman authorities encouraged traders to introduce colored glass to Yemeni architects. The practice of embellishing a diwan, or sitting room, with colored light started in Sana’a and then moved to other parts of Yemen. Today, the qamariya can be found in every city and village in Yemen. Even modern buildings that retain no other traditional features of Yemeni architecture include qamariya windows. All qamariyas are hand-made; there are no qamariya factories. The majority of qamariya production is done at small, family-run operations like Yahya’s.

In Western Europe during the medieval period, light was seen as an allegory to God’s presence. Therefore, colored light was an even fuller and more glorious depiction of the magnificence of God, hence the prevalence of stained glass windows in churches and cathedrals. If we can make a cultural parallel, then Sana’ani architecture is an entire city devoted to glorifying the greatness of God through colored light. In a city of more than 300 mosques from which the faithful broadcast supplications throughout the day and night, it only makes sense that the glory of God should be manifested physically in the very composition of the city. Sana’a is a strikingly gorgeous city, and the ubiquity of the qamariya only intensifies and completes that beauty.

All photographs by Rachael Strecher

Possibly the most distinctive decorative feature of Yemeni architecture is the qamariya, the multicolored stained-glass windows that grace Yemen’s buildings. The geometric patterns formed with colored glass sit above the windows and cast their patterns on the room. It is the symbol of Yemeni architectural culture, and adds a great beauty to Sana’a’s distinctive gingerbread skyline. All those who have walked through the Old City’s streets at dusk can testify to the fairy-tale beauty given by hundreds of illuminated qamariya to the city itself. Inside, the whitewashed walls are sprinkled with dots of colored light that creep down the walls as the sun falls in the sky.

In Arab culture, the moon is equated with beauty. The qamariya, which comes from the word qamar, meaning moon, is said to let light reminiscent of the moon’s beauty into the house. In one form or another, these patterned windows have have been a feature of Yemeni architectural embellishment since pre-Islamic times. Then, as today, windows consisted of two parts, the main window which could open to let air in, and then a secondary, patterned pane set above the window and separated by a lintel. The bottom part of the window often is covered by a shubaq, a wooden screen that allowed women to look to the street without being seen by strangers. This is still present today. The original style of patterned window that eventually evolved into the qamariya was made with thin, circular panes of translucent alabaster that had been hewn down to a thickness that allowed light to penetrate. This way, rooms could be lit by natural light but still retained an opacity that prevented strangers from seeing into the house. These alabaster windows can still be seen around Sana’a and in the Hadramawt, but the practice has faded from popular usage.

The process of creating a single qamariya takes the craftsmen just two days from start to finish. At the shop of Yahya Abu Ali in the neighborhood of Sa’awan in Sana’a, four craftsmen (all his sons) work daily on qamariya production, and the building boom that Sana’a is experiencing as people move out of their villages to the city ensures that Yahya and his crew’s work is in high demand. He has been in the qamariya business for more than 30 years, learning the trade from his father, who in turn learned it from his father. He has been in his current location on Sheraton Street for more than 15 years. He sells an average of 30 windows per week to both private individuals and corporate contracts who buy in bulk, and has a large stock of qamariya skeletons that are waiting for customers to decide their final colors. He also has a pattern book that allows his clients to custom-choose their qamariya, and can easily retrofit or custom-make a qamariya to the specific desires of his clients. A large, intricate qamariya costs between five and six thousand riyals, while a smaller, square one goes for around three thousand. Small, porthole-style windows cost a thousand riyals. In addition to windows, Yahya and his sons also make intricate gypsum moldings that adorn sitting rooms and receiving areas in traditional Yemeni homes.

The qamariya, also known as takhrim, ‘lace-work’ from the verb kharrama meaning to pierce, or make lace, is made by simple four-step technique that takes a trained craftsmen just a few hours, divided over two days. First, gypsum plaster is poured onto a wooden board and smoothed out to a thickness of 3 to 8 centimeters. It is allowed to partially dry, until it can be cut but retain its integrity and shape. Designs are then cut into the plaster with the help of stencils, and the cut edges polished with sandpaper. The cut plaster is removed from the wood and placed in the sun to fully dry. The following day, glass sections are cut to match the spaces in the plaster, and laid out in place on the floor. A second layer of plaster is then poured over the back of the qamariya, securing the glass in place. When that layer dries, the plaster that covers glass areas that are meant to let light in is scraped off, and the qamariya is ready for use. When installed, it is customary for the windows to sit double-pane. Often a light bulb will be installed between them,

The rise of the stained-glass qamariya began on a small scale during the Ottoman period, with traders bringing patterns and craft styles to Yemen from throughout the Islamic world, particularly Syria. Ottoman authorities encouraged traders to introduce colored glass to Yemeni architects. The practice of embellishing a diwan, or sitting room, with colored light started in Sana’a and then moved to other parts of Yemen. Today, the qamariya can be found in every city and village in Yemen. Even modern buildings that retain no other traditional features of Yemeni architecture include qamariya windows. All qamariyas are hand-made; there are no qamariya factories. The majority of qamariya production is done at small, family-run operations like Yahya’s.

In Western Europe during the medieval period, light was seen as an allegory to God’s presence. Therefore, colored light was an even fuller and more glorious depiction of the magnificence of God, hence the prevalence of stained glass windows in churches and cathedrals. If we can make a cultural parallel, then Sana’ani architecture is an entire city devoted to glorifying the greatness of God through colored light. In a city of more than 300 mosques from which the faithful broadcast supplications throughout the day and night, it only makes sense that the glory of God should be manifested physically in the very composition of the city. Sana’a is a strikingly gorgeous city, and the ubiquity of the qamariya only intensifies and completes that beauty.

The Date Market

The date market at Souq al-Milh, near Bab al-Yemen. Most of the dates come from Saudi Arabia; the sweetest and softest come from Medina.

Photos by Rachael Strecher.

When Life Gives You Yemens

On Wednesday the 16th of September we left Istanbul and flew to Sana’a via Dubai, arriving the following morning. I have to admit, I was very apprehensive about coming back, not simply because of the current political climate and the war in the north, but because the last time I was in Yemen I left with a very bad taste in my mouth. There are certain aspects of Yemeni society and the Yemeni mindset I find frustrating. That frustration can range from mild confusion that makes me laugh to myself, to full-on apoplectic fury.

However, upon my return and seeing the Old City’s gingerbread skyline come into view, I was filled with a giddiness and sense of elation that I haven’t felt in a long time, and made me reconsider my misplaced anti-Yemenism. I am very much looking forward to re-learning the city and its wonderful and kind people.

We are living in the top floor of an Old City castle that once belonged to the former Prime Minister of Yemen. The walls are three-foot thick solid stone, and from the roof you have a 360-degree view of the valley in which Sana’a sits. It is a gorgeous house set in a perfect neighborhood, an easy walk westward to Tahrir Square and the restaurants there, and eastward to Souq al-Milh and Bab al-Yemen.

We arrived three days before Ramadan ended, and the build-up to Eid was in full swing. It is traditional to give gifts for Eid and buy new clothes, and the streets of Souq al-Milh were absolutely covered in wrappers, bags, and flattened boxes, as stores were going through their stock faster than the garbage could be collected.

Yemen during Ramadan is an amazing place. Stores are closed most of the day but stay open until sunrise. Loudspeakers on minarets broadcast constant supplications and prayers, which reverberate through the valley. Restaurants are absolute madhouses right at sundown, but by the time dark has come they are deserted, and some even have no more food left. The streets at 3 am are mobbed and the city is as bustling as New York at noon. And then, come Eid, the city and its people switch themselves out of this time cycle and back to their normal Qat-addled day.

Our plan is to stay here three and a half months, during which time Rachael will be splitting her time between working and studying Arabic with a private tutor (our apartment has a room for Arabic study, complete with textbooks, dictionaries, a whiteboard, and other accoutrements of a classroom) and I will be working full-time, either teaching English, or copyediting at one of the two English-language newspapers printed here.

All photographs by Rachael Strecher except the last two.

Harvesting Mussels off the Princes Islands

We took a ferry from the port at Kabataş to Burgazadı, the third largest of the Princes Islands, a small archipelago in the Sea of Marmara, and a popular summer retreat for Istanbulites.

We found there a sheltered cove filled with mussel-covered rocks. We decided to take some home and make a curry with them, as a send-off to Turkey. We leave tomorrow for Yemen.

This is not a food blog. Nor will it ever be! But these mussels were so delicious that we had to tell you about how awesome they were. Now, I only recently started eating shellfish again. I had kept moderate Kosher for around 12 years, and the seafood finally broke through that dam. In retrospect, I wish I had broken my Kashrut when I lived in Seattle, because their seafood is world-famous. I still don’t eat swine though. That just sounds disgusting.

We packed a lunch with us, befriended a very happy and friendly dog on the way to the beach, and then swam around until we found a nice rock sticking up from the water, covered in mussels. Whenever a cargo ship would pass by on its way into the Bosphorus, huge waves would come and knock us off the rocks.

We picked two small bags of them and then lounged around on the shore for a while, hanging with Mr. Dog. The island is a perfect place for dogs; there are no cars, only horse-drawn buggies, and plenty of places to explore and cats to chase.

We took the ferry back, and sat next to a young Iranian couple from Mashad. I noticed they, too, had a bag of mussels. We started speaking, very slowly and with much gesticulation, as the guy’s English was pretty rudimentary and my Farsi is barely existent. Pleasantries, the numbers etc.  It was funny, because it was clear that his wife spoke English well, but she never spoke to me at all, only whispered in his ear. At first he said, “You [point, point] country??” whisperwhisperwhisper, and then “Where are you from?” We spoke/mimed for a bit, then I said “Ahmedinejad [left thumbs up] or Moussavi [right thumbs up]?” He says “Moussavi! Citizen Iran Ahmedinejad NOOOO. [fierce finger-wagging back and forth]” I replied, “Baleh [yes], I see [two fingers point to eyes] on television [box drawn with fingers] that Ahmedinejad [mime ballot being put into box] take [mime stealing, putting hand into pocket.]“  To which he vigorously nodded, and made the ’switch’ motion with his hand, as though he was unscrewing the lid of something. I nodded. I like Iranians.

We scrubbed the mussels till they were free of all the sea-junk they accumulated, which took a while. Then we cooked them in coconut milk, green curry, lime, sauteed onions, red bell peppers, garlic, and ginger. It was freaking awesome.

Next stop, Yemen.

All photos by Rachael Strecher!

Irbil – The Citadel

The city of Irbil has been around for a long time. At 8000 years old, it is among the oldest continuously-inhabited cities in the world, after Damascus, Jericho and the like. And interestingly, its name has remained essentially the same through Sumerian, Akkadian, Babylonian, Assyrian, Persian, Greek, Sassanian, and finally Arab rule over it: Erbila, Urbilum, Erbilim, Erba-Ela, Arabaelo, Arbail, Arbela, Erbl, Irbil. It is known in Kurdish as Hewlar.

We got in late at night from the border. We only have a few requirements for a hotel: cheap, no visible bugs, sit-down toilet. We don’t need turn down service and a mint on the pillow. The first hotel we went to flunked the last requirement so we went to the Jabbar Palace next door. Haitham, our Iraqi friend from the train, had recommended it, and by the lobby it fancies itself a five-star joint. We stayed a night, then moved to the much more pleasant, much less ostentatious Hotel Shahan, a no-frills nice-enough place that was walking distance from the Citadel.

The thing that strikes me first and hardest is the language issue.  Since 1991, when Kurdistan gained internal autonomy, the Arabic language has not been taught in schools. All newspapers, radio, and books are in Sorani Kurdish. The older generation learned Arabic, but the younger did not. What that means on a practical level is that anyone under 30 doesn’t speak Arabic. Some young people I met understand it but can’t really reply. However, a plus-side of this is that the Arabic-speakers we did meet were also speaking a second language, so they spoke in clear, short sentences of Classical Arabic. The fact that we spoke only with the older generation made for an odd reversal of practice for me; usually I avoid talking to old people in a foreign language because they’re typically the toughest to understand. This often is exacerbated by a lack of teeth.

The city is a series of concentric circles radiating out from the Citadel. Built on top layers of previous settlements, it rises up from the surrounding sprawl. It has 500 houses inside the walls, but the residents were evacuated in 2006 because houses were collapsing. Now, only one family remains. We walked through the Citadel in the early hours of the morning and found it eerie, an ancient ghost town. That morning, one of the members of the last family came out to have a chat with some of the soldiers who were milling around the main street.

The last resident of one of the oldest human settlements in the world.

As we walked around, we came upon 3 men sitting on a wall. We spoke for a few minutes with the older guy (who spoke Arabic) and then I noticed the other two speaking Turkish to each other, so we switched to Turkish. They took us inside one of the reconstruction projects currently going on, a refurbishing of the former houses of Irbil’s noble class. Once completed, they will be a museum.

After speaking for a quarter-hour, a gang of 20-odd young men showed up in work clothes. They filed into a burnt-out husk of a huge former home, and started the days work: cleaning out what was destroyed by the fire, so that the house can be turned back into something beautiful.

For me, the city feels very much like Sana’a. It is an ancient city that pulses with life, yet is a bubble of calm and normality among a great vastness of chaos surrounding it. The lack of any real tourist business means a lack of touristy shops in the market; everything is utilitarian.

Having lived in Arab, Israeli, and Turkish societies, I can honestly say that I have never experienced a culture as kind, warm, welcoming, and genuinely hospitable as Kurdish culture, as represented on both sides of the border. From the cab driver who refuses to accept any payment from us, to Karzan, a bookstore owner and student of English who refuses to charge me for the map of Kurdistan, to Sherwan, an Iraqi Kurd who has lived in Kentucky for the past 18 years, to the dozens of smiling shopkeepers and pedestrians offering us welcome, Kurdish people surprised us again and again with their warmth and generosity.

For those wishing to go to Iraqi Kurdistan, I highly recommend it. For more information, have a look at the blog Backpacking Iraqi Kurdistan. All of the information was spot-on, and very helpful.

All photos (except the top one) by Rachael Strecher.

Under Kurdish Skies

The bus from Diyarbakır takes us to a small podunk town on the border called Silopi, which straddles the Tigris. One of the other passengers, an English teacher named Abd al-Rahman with a giddy, giggling demeanor befriends us and offers to find us an ‘honorable’ taxi driver to take us to the border.  He is from Silopi, but teaches in Diyarbakır where he went to university. He tells us he recently went to Istanbul “just to see it,” but felt very uncomfortable on Istiklal because of the state of undress in which many women find themselves.

We say goodbye, and our honorable driver makes for the border. On the way, he stops to pick up another passenger, Ayub Raja, an Iraqi Kurd from Zakho with family on the Turkish side.

We drive to the border crossing, past trucks upon trucks waiting to get in. Our driver fills out the required paperwork, going back and forth between windows. Ayub helped us greatly, vouching for us on the Iraqi side, putting down his address and phone number as contact information for us. My American passport has six full pages of Israeli stamps, including one embassy-issued full-page student visa. The official did a double take, shook his head, and stamped.

Welcome to Kurdistan.

At 9, we leave the border station and drive to Ayub’s house in Zakho. We stay for a few minutes, meeting his family, saying our goodbyes and effusive thanks for his help at the border.  His brother goes out to talk to our driver, telling him not to go via Mosul (outside of Kurdish-controlled territory). He comes back and tells me not to sleep, and make sure the driver stays awake. He says to Rachael, “Sleep for you, ok.”

We’re in Irbil by 11:30.

Diyarbakır – The Houses of Bakir

Diyarbakır is the last stop before the frontier. The unofficial capital of Turkish Kurdistan, army bases surround it, and the police presence is heavy. Red and green (Kurdish national colors) are ubiquitous, and are present in everything from store signs to flags flying.

People tell us the people in Diyarbakır are mean, nasty. Kids throw stones. We arrive and people come up to us to offer help, directions, suggestions. When we walk down the street they stop in their tracks to say “Hello.” Just hello. Shopkeepers stand in their doorways, grin and bow, hands over hearts. Maybe this is a different Diyarbakır than the one described to me.

At the makeshift bus stop, a dusty parking lot with low, square seats around the walls, a boy has a box of pigeons. He is binding their wings with Scotch tape, then stuffing them back in the box. “Those are for eat?” I ask. “Yup.” “They are good?” “Delicious.”

All photos by Rachael Strecher.

Night Train To Kurdistan

We decided to go to Iraq overland from Istanbul.

The route was like this: a three-night sleeper train from Istanbul to Diyarbakir, a bus from Diyarbakir to a border town called Silopi, and from there across the border into Iraqi Kurdistan, to Irbil.

The train we took was called the Güney Ekspres, and leaves every other night at 10:55 PM from Haydarpaşa station, a ten-minute walk from the Kadiköy ferry stop on the Anatolian side of Istanbul.

We got to the train early, and the only other people on it were an Iraqi family from Mosul. The father, Haitham, spoke to me in high FusHa (Classical Arabic), articulating every syllable with the utmost clarity. He had been an English teacher under Saddam, but recently his father had gotten sick so he had to take over the family textile import business.  He had been to Istanbul six times, but never with his family, and never overland. He said they were returning overland because 8 plane tickets (him, his wife, his two sisters, and four young children) would have been more than 1500 dollars. Over the coming days, Haitham and I spoke often, and Rachael and I shared food and tea with him and his family many times.

Our bunk was shared by a family of three, and a young man from Kayseri who had been in Istanbul for a month visiting his older brothers. He said he was in high school, and I asked how many years he had left. He replied, saying he was going into his senior year. “And after?” I asked, to which he answered with a salute. Military service is mandatory here.  “But!” he said, and placed two fingers on his shoulder. He explained that he had done a high school pre-army training program similar to the JrROTC, and he would enter as a junior officer. He said he was looking forward to it.

The train pulled into Eskişehir around four AM, and the family who shared our cabin got out and was replaced by two young guys on their way home to Batman, in eastern Turkey. I was drifting in and out of sleep, listening to the conversation between them and the young soon-to-be recruit. He asked, “Did you study foreign languages?” They replied, good-naturedly, “Well, Turkish is a foreign language for us.”

The morning came, and people filtered out of their cabins into the hall to watch the countryside pass by. I was approached by a twenty-something guy from Istanbul who spoke idiomatic English, and we talked for a while over a cup of tea. He studied hotel management and said he worked at a five-star hotel in Istanbul, and that meeting and speaking with tourists was his favorite thing, because it gave him a glimpse of a world beyond Turkey. He declared that he hates being Turkish, and said he would rather have been born a dog. He asked me about Texas, “Is it like in the movies, with the big hats? Guns, gambling, horses…and jeans?” When I said it probably was, in some places, he sighed a long sigh, saying, “They don’t have no problems there.” It occured to me, then, that the desire to flee is so innate to the human experience that it manifests in all places, all walks of life, no matter how privileged. For me, Istanbul is a wonderful, incredible city. For those who were born within it, it is just home, and somewhere else is undoubtedly better. He tells me that by sixteen he had memorized the map of Manhattan (which he pronounced MANatin, to rhyme with manatee), and could tell you what to see anywhere in the city.

By noon, our co-cabinists were asleep, so Rach and I put the top bunk up and had a picnic on the middle one. Tuna sandwiches, pumpkin seeds, nutella filled crepes.

We pass through countrysides of rolling hills, small villages with a single minaret, and burnt meadows.

When you look out the window of the train, the heads and elbows of the other passengers are there with you, watching the countryside pass by.

After we passed Kayseri, I was speaking to a boistrous older Kurdish man sporting a Stalin moustache. He gestured out the window with a karate-chop motion. “Here,” he said, “Kurdistan begins.”

All photos by Rachael Strecher.

Be- And There Was

Another piece I did recently. It reads:

كن فيكون

Happy Birthday Mom!

Uğur Derman

Uğur Derman is a legend. He is quite possibly the foremost historian of Islamic calligraphy in the world, and has been studying calligraphy’s history, practice, and culture for more than half a century.

He went to school for pharmacology, and in fact there is a pharmacy in Beyoğlu called Derman Eczanesi (Derman Pharmacy), but in 1955 he discovered Ottoman calligraphy and it began a lifelong passion which has become his legacy to the world.

Last Wednesday, I met Mr Derman in Ortaköy at the Turkpetrol Vakfi Müzesi (Turkpetrol Foundation Museum), a collection he has put together over the past several years showcasing an incredible gallery of calligraphy, implements, books, and book art tools. It was among the most impressive collections I have ever seen, and in my opinion even surpassed the Turkish and Islamic Arts Museum in Sultanahmet. Most of the calligraphy was from twentieth-century calligraphers, some living, some dead. All of it was spectacular.

He studied for his Icazet (calligraphy diploma) with the famous Ottoman calligrapher Necmeddin Ökyay (1883-1976), based out of Üsküdar, and earned his Icazet in 1960. He has taught traditional book arts and calligraphy at Marmara University, Mimar Sinan Fine Arts University, and at the Institute of Turkish Studies since 1961.

Leather embossing stamps for book covers.

In addition to calligraphy, Mr Derman is also an expert on the history and practice of Turkish and Ottoman book arts, marbling (ebru), inlay work, and other traditional Islamic arts. He has curated dozens of exhibits around the world, among them in Cairo (1976), Jeddah (1980) Chicago (1987) Baghdad (1988), Kuwait (1992), Islamabad (1994), again in Cairo (1997) and Tunisia (1997). He has sat on the judging panel of IRCICA (Research Center for Islamic Art, History, and Culture) for several years.

He has more than 247 publications to his name, and a book commemorating his 65^th birthday and the contributions he has made to the field was published in 2000, with articles by some of the most major names in the field of Arabic and Islamic arts contributing articles.

All photos by Rachael Strecher.

Adab Ya Hua

This is the first time I’ve used Ebru, or Turkish marbled paper, as a way of illuminating a piece of calligraphy. It would be better if the paper were more cream-colored, but I haven’t found decent paper like that.

Javier’s Guitar Neck

Right before I moved to Turkey, I was contacted via this blog by an Argentinian guy called Javier Pasquale. He designs custom-made guitars, building them from start to finish, complete with inlay work. You can see pictures of his amazing work at his blog, here. He wanted some Arabic calligraphy of the phrase “The world is yours” to be inlaid in mother of pearl into the neck of a guitar he is building for himself.

I designed this piece and sent it off about three weeks ago, and today I got the following gorgeous picture in the mail:

I also designed his name, for the head of the guitar:

The Java Reed

The Java reed has got to be one of the most elusive writing instruments I’ve ever encountered. It was first mentioned to me by Ben Bahman, the Iranian calligrapher I met at the UW Islamic Art show I organized who became my first teacher. Massoud Valipour, also Iranian, mentioned it when I was hanging out with him at his store in Los Angeles. Neither of them had any idea how to get a hold of one.

I finally found them for sale in the Sahaflar Carşisi here in Istanbul. It is essentially a very thin piece of hard wood that is famous for retaining its integrity and sharpness through rigorous usage. It is said that one calligrapher was able to write an entire Quran with a single cut of his Java reed. Most bamboo pens require that they be re-sharpened after about a page of writing, and regular reeds must be recut every few lines.

The reed is cut like a normal calligraphy reed, and then the tip (about the last 3 inches of the reed) is broken or cut off, and then snugly stuck into a piece of bamboo, which acts as a holder.

Of course, after I found this incredibly rare and elusive reed, I found a Turkish website offering them for sale. It’s actually a pretty decent website for Islamic art supplies.

Traditional Turkish Arts Foundation, Üsküdar

In Üsküdar, on the Anatolian side of Istanbul, there is a large compound set up to teach the traditional Turkish arts of calligraphy, ebru (paper marbling), miniature painting, leather embossing and bookbinding, inlay, papercutting, and Tezhib (illumination). The center is called the KTSV, or Klasik Türk Sanatları Vakfı and is located at 82 Doğancılar street, a 10 minute walk from the Üsküdar ferry station.

They offer classes taught by the most famous and respected calligraphers in Turkey: Uğur Derman, Hasan Çelebi, Mehmet and Osman Özçay, Davut Bektaş, and Mehmet Memiş. The Foundation is heavily subsidized by the Turkish Ministry of Culture, which is interested in fostering a new interest in the traditional arts of Turkey, which judging by the number of young (women mostly) who attend the classes and show in exhibitions, is working.

Inside, the building has beautiful examples of the arts they teach.

The Foundation has an excellent art supply store for Turkish craft work, selling supplies for calligraphy, illumination, marbling, and books on all of those subjects.

I came away from it with a few pieces of ebru paper, a book of Thuluth calligraphy practice pages, some pre-illuminated papers for calligraphy, and some cool gold-transfer designs I have some plans for.

Şevki Efendi (Shawki Efendi in Arabic)’s pratice pages for Nesih (Naskh) and Sülüs (Thuluth).

I mentioned earlier that they teach Ottoman Turkish classes as well. Ottoman, the literary language of the Ottoman Empire is so different from modern Turkish that a native speaker of Turkish cannot read or understand it without training. Besides being written in Arabic script, the language borrows so heavily from Arabic and Persian that the modern Turkish language bears very little grammatical similarity to Ottoman. As such, if you are a Turkish historian or just interested in reading a book written prior to the 1920s you must take language courses, just to do research in your own language. I can think of no other situation where the (indigenous) inhabitants of a country speak a different language than their great-grandparents.

Tarlabaşı

I’ve always been amazed how a city’s character can change in just a few short blocks. In Los Angeles, a few miles of Third Street will take you from Hancock Park, where only the super-rich can dwell, to Hacienda Heights, an East LA slum that has been a gangland battleground for years.

In Istanbul, the affluence and European chic of Cihangir can change to a Kurdish slum in 3 short blocks. Cross Istiklal Caddesi, go down the Balik Pazarı, and cross into Tarlabaşı. The journey takes less than ten minutes on foot and in those ten minutes you can witness the difference between old-money Kemalist Istanbul secularism and Eastern Turkish traditional Kurdish life caught in the crossfire of modernity.

A police tank with a turret-mounted water cannon is parked on the sidewalk at the entrance to the neighborhood, as a reminder of who is in charge. Undercover and uniformed cops are ubiquitous in the streets, this being evidenced to me when a guy standing on a corner in a soccer jersey adjusted his shirt a bit to reveal the 9mm pistol stuck in the back of his pants.

A Turkish flag has been stenciled on a wall, and then subsequently crossed out with a black marker, more subtle reminders of the tension that ripples through the country, kept under wraps in Istanbul by a police force ready and willing to get messy.

On Sunday (Pazar Günü in Turkish, meaning Bazaar Day) there is a massive, never-ending incredible street market in Tarlabaşı. The market is mostly run by Kurds, transplants from Eastern Turkey, but is frequented by the flotsam and jetsam of the world that has ended up in Istanbul: Arabs, Europeans, Africans, Central Asians, and random Korean people.

The market lasts forever, it turns several times, and boasts everything from fresh vegetables (we even found avocado!) to kitchen wares, to clothing, to fish, and the freshest most tasty bread I’ve had in a long time. All for cheaper than anywhere else I’ve seen in Istanbul.

I’ve always been amazed how a city’s

 

character can change in just a few

short blocks. In Los Angeles, a few

miles of Third Street will take you

from Hancock Park, where only the

super-rich dwell, to Hacienda

Heights, an East LA slum that has

been a gangland battleground for

years.

In Istanbul, the affluence and

European chic of Cihangir changes

Blackout in Istanbul

Last night, the power in our building went out. I put my head out the window to see if it was just our building or the whole block. I saw about 6 other heads poking out of their windows to find out the same thing, and the whole block was out. So we went for a walk.

It wasn’t just our block, but at least all of Beyoğlu, and perhaps more. It was bizarre walking down Istiklal without all the lights and sounds of music coming from the shops. Many stores had generators (as brownouts are pretty common in the hotter months here) but for the most part it gave the city a very subdued tone, and provided some very beautiful scenes.

All photos by Rachael Strecher.

Street Art Istanbul

In Karaköy, near the entrance to the Tünel train line, there is an extrodinary exhibit of graffiti. I caught it at the very end of its run, as it ends today. It is housed in an abandoned building on Bankar Sokak, across from Saint George Hospital. There is little or no indication from the outside that an exhibit is taking place; it simply looks like a dilapidated old building, the windows shattered, the door wide open. Once you go inside the walls are filled with art, in all directions, almost every surface has been used for something. Many of the pieces interact with their environs in awesome, creative ways.

There were a few other people there when we went, all young and hipstery folk, all sort of doing their own thing off in some corner. There was ambient music coming out of some speakers in one of the rooms, a bizarre moaning and ambient space sounds. If there were a few fires burning it could easily have been a Terry Gilliam set.

This is the first floor. The building is five floors, plus a roof. In the first pic, on the left, the phrase reads “çocuk pornosu yetmedi mi?” This isn’t child porn yet, is it? The second picture reads “benim olduğum yerde sansür vardir” I have a censor in place.

The second floor. There were many instances of photographs printed out and wheat-pasted onto the wall.

Third floor

Look at these Turkish hipsters.

Probably the best piece in the show.

Last one reads, in Arabic, You have the choice.

Fourth floor. Fifth floor had nothing on it. The roof was awesome. Check it out:

Eeep! Scary!

The Galata Bridge from the roof.

My favorite piece in the show. Its a sultan!

Istanbul Again

I’m back in one of my favorite cities in the world. I really can’t express how wonderful being here is, so full of life, culture, vibrancy and beauty. Living in Beer Sheva, bustling metropolitan cultural hub that it is, really made me miss being in a city, a real city, with real life happening.  In Beer Sheva I felt like the old gomer sitting on his rocking chair as the tumbleweeds roll by. Only by tumbleweeds I mean old Russians who were beginning to resemble potatoes.

Either way, I am very happy to be gone, and have returned to Istanbul for an extended stay, and what will be the first leg of a year-long multiple-country sojourn. In Istanbul I will be learning and practicing Arabic calligraphy, as this city is the capital of the calligraphy world, and has been for several centuries. I will also be re-learning the Turkish I have spent the past 4 years forgetting.

My apartment is in Cihangar, one of my favorite Istanbul neighborhoods, and has a gorgeous rooftop terrace with a view of the Sea of Marmara.

Re-Facing Jerusalem

In Jerusalem, and in fact all over Israel, racist scumbags spraypaint out the Arabic on street signs, or cover it over with political stickers. The message is clear: this is not your country, we don’t even want to see a trace of your heritage on our streets.

Friends of mine in Jerusalem, Ilana and Romy, started an amazing project: Re-Facing Jerusalem. They made a list of streets around Jerusalem that had been defaced, and set about putting the Arabic back.

I was lucky enough to have a small role in this project over the past weekend.

I wrote 25 street signs out in Arabic calligraphy, and on Thursday and Saturday nights we drove around and stuck them back up. None of us are Arab or Muslim, but we all recognize the importance of shared existence, and are committed to the principle and reality of Jerusalem as a shared city.

The response of the general public was interesting. While Romy and Ilana said that others engaged them in conversation during other outings in the past, of the 25 signs we re-faced only about 5 people spoke to us while we were doing it. Many people were around us as we put the signs up, but few of them said anything. One was a block from the intersection of King George and Ben Yehuda, arguably the busiest intersection of the city, and the streets were packed as we walked through the crowd with a ladder and climbed up to the sign. No one said a word. Another was across the street from the Jerusalem Theater in Rehavia, and a show had just let out when we set up the ladder, and a steady stream of middle-aged Ashkenazi Israelis walked past as we were refacing Rechov Marcus, and none said a thing to us. And it’s not as though we were a threatening group of punks spraying graffiti; we’re three dorky artist-types.

General Pierre Koenig, Emek Refaim

Raban Yochanan Ben Zakai, same corner as above.

Marcus St, Rehavia.

Marcus St, further down the road.

Haim Bajayo, Emek Refaim.

My favorite comment from the public was while putting up this sign. Two twenty-something guys with goatees and long hair walked past while Romy was up on the ladder sticking the sign on. One asked what we were doing, and I explained the project, saying that we had re-written the name of the street in Arabic because the original had been vandalized. The other said, “Yeah, anashim zevel do that.” That translates literally as ‘garbage people,’ and is my new favorite phrase.

Jabotinsky St, Rehavia

Shalom Hartman Institute, Rehavia.

Ilana and Romy had replaced this sign before, and the replacement got ripped down a few days later. You can see the remnants of the original, and it currently looks like a battleground.

Keren Kayemet St, center of town.

King George, center of town.

Mitla Pass St, Ramat Eshkol

Yaaqov (Sharl) Neter St, Ramat Eskhol. We thought it was Karl Neter.

Reuven St, Emek Refaim.

SHaH”L St, Givat Mordecai

Shmuel HaNagid,center of town.

Shmuel haNabi, Sanhedria.

Zalman Shneur, Navot

Talpiot Hwy Sign, center of town.

Old City Hwy Sign, Rehavia.

While putting up this sign (a block down the street from the Prime Minister’s house) a security guard carrying a massive automatic rifle came running at us. He asked the rhetorical “do you have permission to do that?” and then demanded our IDs. Ilana was in the car and I left mine at home on purpose, so Romy (who is Israeli, and thus did all the talking) gave the guard his ID, who then radioed back to base explaining that he had just found some miscreants. He looked at the Arabic phrases we had just stuck up, and said, “What is written there?” and Romy replied, “The Old City, in Arabic.” “What was there before?” “Vandalism obscuring the words.” And at this point there was this momentary pause when, I think, he realized he was talking to the good guys, as Ilana put it. But he couldn’t back down from his bully demeanor, so he said sarcastically to Romy, “Oh, so you’re the hero!” to which Romy politely declined. A few words were exchanged and then he handed Romy back his ID and then gave us a few stern sentences about how no one should take the law into his own hands.

Tel Aviv Hwy Sign, Rehavia.

Trumpledor, Center of Town

Yehoash, Emek Refaim

Yehoshefat, Emek Refaim

Forgot to get the before shot on these:

Arlozoroff, Rehavia. Fun word to write.

Harav Avida, Center of town.

Mordechai Hillel. Right in the middle of town, by Ben Yehuda.

Friends of mine in Jerusalem, Ilana and Romi, started an amazing project:

Re-Facing Jerusalem. They made a list of streets around Jerusalem that had been defaced, and set about putting the Arabic back

Last Day at the RCUV

I can’t believe it’s over. My 10-month Shatil Social Justice Fellowship has come to an end, and it is now time for me to move on. I spent the year working at the Regional Council of Unrecognized Bedouin Villages, the elected representatives of the 76,000 Bedouin living in 45 unrecognized villages.

I had an amazing, fun, interesting, and challenging year, and I won’t forget the friendships I made within the Bedouin community, nor the things I learned from them.

Suleiman, Ye’ela, Atwa, Ali, Faisal, Said, Hussein, and Ibrahim, I will really miss you guys, and I wish you nothing but the best. B’Tawfiq.

On my last day, Suleiman and Ye’ela organized a picnic barbeque out in the woods at a beautiful spot overlooking Rahat and Beer Sheva. It was a perfect send off, and really made me sad to be leaving.

Hussein al-Rafaya (former president of the council), Ali Abu Sheheita (at whose home I taught English), and Atia al-Athameen (from the village of Khashm Zanna).

Atia.

Salman Bin Hmed (At whose home I also taught English) and Atwa Abu Freih (general director of the council)

Suleiman Abu Obeid.

Hussein, Atia, and Ye’ela Raanan (public affairs spokewoman for the council)

I’ll miss you guys, ya ashabi.

The Yemenite Arrival

Last night, in another secret operation, sixteen Yemenite Jews arrived in Israel. And, like before, they are now staying in my building in Beer Sheva, the Merkez Klita Yeelim. They comprise members of the Jaradi, Nahari, and Hamdi clans.

The Jewish Agency threw them a small party in the building, full of Yemenite food. Many relatives came in to greet them, mostly from Rehovot.

I didn’t take any pictures. Instead, I let the kids pass my camera around and take pictures. Not surprisingly, almost all the pictures were blurry, save a few.

The girl on the right is Saadia ben Yisrael’s daughter Leah. She arrived in February. She’s sitting next to Aharon Nahari, from the family of Moshe Nahari, the Jew who was gunned down in December, sparking this exodus. She spent the time explaining to him the differences between Yemeni Judeo-Arabic (their native language) and Hebrew, which she now speaks fluently. She started with the food. “Bisbas. Ze harif b’ebrit.” Hot sauce. It’s harif in Hebrew.

Aharon Nahari. I gave him the camera and he took a lot of pictures. He was really excited to talk about their trip (which he technically isn’t allowed to do). I’m not going to give any details, suffice to say that he was really jazzed about the airplanes.

More Naharis.

Not bad photos for nine-year-olds.

Notice the bulge in the guy’s cheek: there was gat aplenty, in addition to the food.

This is Dawood (David), from Sa’ada. He arrived with Saadia in February, and according to Saadia, does nothing but chew gat all day long. He always has this deer-in-headlights look that you see now.

The guy on the right, Ezra, has been in Israel since the early 90s. He’s originally from Sa’ada, but spent time in New York working in the jewelery industry. He now lives in Rehovot. He also was the only one who spoke fluent FusHa (Modern Standard) Arabic, as opposed to just the local dialect. When he mentioned jewelery, my ears perked up. He learned filigree work from his father and grandfather. I got his contact information and he invited me to visit him in Rehovot.

Bismillah in Thuluth

In the name of God, the Beneficent, the Merciful

Awful Arabic Tattoos

Today I have collected a few pictures of absolute disasters of tattoos. I guess the thought process goes something like: “Ooh, Arabic writing is so pretty, I want something deep and meaningful tattooed on me. I’m going to send an email asking for a translation, and then tattoo whatever comes back on my body. Should I check with an actual Arabic speaker before getting the tattoo? Nah, why bother.”

These gems are the result. If you are the owner of one of these atrocities, I am so, so sorry for you. I really am. But you’re a moron for not checking.

Most Arabic tattoos use the equivalent of Ariel font, which in my opinion looks incredibly stale and boring, as opposed to an actual calligraphic work, which was done by a human being. I know I’m biased, but still. You want to do your entire forearm with your first name, like you might forget it or something, fine. But at least make it look nice.  Unlike this guy, who I assume is called Michael:

The reason it comes out like that is because this is the (only) font that most computers use for Arabic, unless they’re told otherwise, and since most Americans don’t have Arabic fonts on their computers, there isn’t an option.

As far as I can tell, these train wrecks come in two types: the kinds that look like a four-year old wrote them, but are technically correct, just hideous, and then the absolutely unforgivable mistakes that were ruined by computers.

See, when computers that don’t have Arabic language support get an Arabic word they break the letters into their individual forms. Most Arabic letters have up to four forms: alone, in the beginning of a word, in the middle of the word, and at the end. Here’s an example, with the letter Ha. The following reads, “ha hahaha”

But on a computer that didn’t recognize Arabic fonts, it would all show up like the first, unconnected letter, the one that looks like an O. On top of this, for some bizarre reason these computers also take the word and reverse the letter order. So “order” becomes “redro,” with all the letters written as their unconnected forms. In other words, total gibberish.

Lets have a look at the first group, the ones that are written correctly, just butt-ugly:

This says “without hardship there is no ease,” and looks like Stevie Wonder wrote it, on a dune buggy.

Ok. I’m going to ignore the butterflies in a trail of fairy-dust and focus on the Arabic, which I imagine this chick wanted to say “Big Mamma,” but since idiomatic expressions don’t really translate (huge surprise there, homeslice), it now says “The Large Mother” across her foot. Nice.

The thing about this one is, the geometric pattern in the background is pretty cool, and would have been a nice tattoo if he’d just have let well enough alone. The Arabic (usraty, my family) just runs through it like the fat kid streaking at prom.

Now on to the computer-addled fuckups.

Here is an example I’ve drawn up to illustrate what I mentioned earlier. The top word here says al-salaam (peace) and the bottom says mim, alif, lam, sin, lam, alif. It isn’t a word, its a few letters in a row. This is what happens if I tried to send al-salaam to a computer that doesn’t have Arabic language support. Incidentally, I saw a picture of some moron with that tattooed on him, in huge letters across his forearm. Poor guy.

Most tattoo disasters fall into this category, and that is a mistake that is 100% preventable. Go find an Arab, show him the printout you’re taking to the tattoo parlor and ask what it means. When he says ‘Nothing at all,’ you know you have a problem.

I’m going to try and decipher this. Beloved wife, princess protects, this is me soft (transliterated from English) I will protect. Pure poetry, even once you put the letters back together and reorder them.

Princess, backwards and unconnected.

Queen, unconnected.

The person claimed this meant “unashamed.” I cant figure that out. Either way, its wrong.

This one is so screwed up it’s not even funny. I don’t know where to start with this, so I won’t. Ecchh.

More backwards gibberish, I don’t even have the energy to try and decipher it at this point. All I know is that in addition to having to look at your awful tattoo, I don’t want to have to look at your ass crack to boot.

Wow! Backwards, unconnected, and ugly! You’re so deep and inspiring…

“This says Michael in Arabic.” No it doesnt. F-

And now! The pièce de résistance, this monstrosity. According to the website I found it on, it says “Serenity, Strength, Courage.” All I can say is, no, not even close. You poor, poor hipster fuck. I feel no pity for you at all. HA! Every time I see this atrocity I have to laugh!

Basically what I’m saying here is this: tattoos are forever, so don’t be impulsive with your decision. If you really want a tattoo in Arabic, go through a native-speaking translator if it’s more than a few words, and through a calligrapher for the art work itself. If you are serious about wanting an Arabic tattoo, leave a comment on this post and we talk about details and design. A couple of tattoos I’ve designed can be seen here and here.

Heroes of the Desert

This is Hazem abu Gwedar. I first met Hazem hitchhiking back to Beer Sheva from the village of Al-Zarnouq; he gave me a lift. A few weeks later, I was in Al-Zarnouq again and met Hazem’s brother, Muhammad. We subsequently became friends and it wasn’t till a few weeks later that I realized that Hazem was Muhammad’s brother. Since then, I’ve become friends with their entire extended family, and they are one of the reasons why Al-Zarnouq is my favorite village in Israel, and I consider the abu Gwedar clan to be the warmest and most kind people I’ve met.

Hazem abu Gwedar is the only Bedouin with a certified teacher-level black belt in Shotokan Karate. He makes his living driving a bulldozer, and teaching in a dojo in Ashkelon to Jewish Israeli students, but started a small Karate club in his village to teach the kids Karate.  They were featured in a documentary about the village, which I have digitized and put online here. In it, the kids talk about the ways in which the experience of learning Karate has changed their lives, made them see the world differently, allowed them to connect to each other in ways they would not have been able to otherwise. There are subtitles in Hebrew and Modern Standard Arabic, but not English. 

One time I asked him if he’s ever had to use Karate out of the dojo. He sort of looked away for a moment and said, “…once. In Akko.” I asked what happened and he said, “This group of fellahin [non-Bedouin Northern Arabs] came up to me and a few friends near the beach. They had been drinking. They started to give us trouble and I straightened them out.”

Alphabet Aerobics, Arabic Style

A few years ago, Blackalicious put out a song called Alphabet Aerobics, where Gift of Gab goes through each letter of the alphabet with some alliterated lyrics for each letter. Peep a video here.

Enter Dam, Palestine’s most notable and well-known hip-hop group who have been burning shit up for a while now. They took the same idea and made two songs, one starting with Alef and working its way through to Yaa, and another starting backwards, at Yaa and going back to Alef. Check em out.

Alef to Yaa:

Yaa to Alef:

Mahmoud’s Wedding

A couple of days ago my friend Mahmoud abu Jarabeya, who built the straw bale mosque in Wadi al-Na’am, got married. It was the first Bedouin wedding I’ve been to.

There was one long tent, divided in half, one for the men, one for the women, and rows of carpets and cushions to lean on. The women had dancing, singing, music, and general wedding festivities. We had a stern-looking mullah give a sermon on the blessing of marriage and the dangers of watching Turkish soap operas. No, seriously.

We sat and talked until a huge procession of men carrying plates of mansaf arrived, plunked them down in front of every third person, we huddled up and started eating, left hand behind the back, right hand acting as a scoop.

This little dude sat next to me, and told me all about the different types of scary movies he had seen in his 8-year-old life. “They are alive but look like dead people and you can’t kill them easily,” he said. I thought for a minute and then said, “Zombies!”

The only other white guy there was sitting a few dudes down from me (top left corner of the picture). We gave each other the “what-are-you-doing-here” stare and I asked my friend Suleiman who was sitting next to me who he was. He looked over and turned back to me, saying “Dudik Shoshani.” The former director of the “Authority for the Advancement of the Bedouin,” the government agency charged with dealing with the Bedouin. Arguably one of the most influential individuals in Israel when it comes to dealing with the Unrecognized Villages. We spoke for a bit, in Arabic. He speaks well.

Shoal Berer, 1920-2009

We miss you, Saba.

Poetry at Qalandia II

A little while ago I returned with Rachael to the Separation Wall at Qalandia and put a new poem up.

This one was written by Abu Firas al-Hamdani (d. 968).
It reads:

وألحظ أحوال الزمان بمقلة

بها الصدق صدق والكذاب كذاب

بمن يثق الإنسان فيما ينوبه

ومن أين للحر الكريم صحاب

وقد صار هذا الناس إلا أقلهم

ذائبا على أجسادهن ثياب

English translation, by Walid Khazendar:

I glance at time’s conditions with an eye
Which sees truth is truth and lying is lying.
Whom can one trust with one’s afflictions?
And where can the pure and noble find friends
When people, save a few,
Have become wolves wearing clothes?

Photos by Rachael Strecher.

Khede Kasra!

This is an amazing ad campaign in Lebanon, designed to integrate women into the public discourse by changing the way people look at the Arabic language.

Good Friday and the Passion Play

This past Friday was Good Friday for Catholics (Orthodox and Armenian Christians celebrate it in a week), and every year there is a Passion Play through the streets of Jerusalem, from the Lion’s Gate (next to the Garden of Gethsemane) to the Church of the Holy Sepulcher, supposedly built on Golgotha, the hill upon which Jesus was crucified. A Passion Play (this was the first one I’ve ever seen) apparently consists of re-enacting Jesus’s walk along the Via Doloroso to the hill of Golgotha, where he was crucified, accompanied by Roman soldiers and a bevy of ‘women of Jerusalem’ who beg him not to go.

It’s a different person portraying Jesus every year, and I’m sure considered a huge honor to be chosen, but I was more than a little disappointed by the pasty and slightly pudgy American guy they chose this year.

2000 years ago, the city’s walls were in a different position, comprising mostly the modern-day neighborhood of Silwan (today outside the city walls), and Golgotha was a hill to the west of the city. The Roman emperor Hadrian expanded the city walls to include Golgotha, and so the Church of the Holy Sepulcher today sits inside the old city walls.

The actors in the play were surrounded by a dispatch of Israeli soldiers to keep onlookers back, and around the ring of soldiers was a ring of press photographers who were clamoring and pushing for the shot with the fewest other photographers, tourists, soldiers, and other distractions. In the old city’s narrow streets, the pushing got pretty intense. I thank Ed Ou for these photos. 

I can’t help but imagine that if this event were to go down today, it would look much the same, with the swarm of journalists and photographers hovering. “Controversial Rabbi Sentenced to Death in Jerusalem.”

Palm Sunday in Jerusalem

Yesterday was Palm Sunday, the holiday commemorating the triumphant return of Jesus to Jerusalem, prior to his crucifixion and martyrdom. The tradition states that when he rode into Jerusalem the people layed down their cloaks and palm fronts in front of him, as a sign of respect.

Today, Palm Sunday attracts thousands of pilgrims from all over the world to reenact Jesus’s walk into Jerusalem. The procession starts on the Mount of Olives and proceeds down into the Kidron Valley, past the Garden of Gethsemane, and into Jerusalem via the Lion’s Gate.

There were dispatches from all of the city’s various Arab Christian denominations and monasteries leading the parade.

We followed the parade into the Old City and into the various important Christians sites (the birthplace of Mary etc) and then the parade dissipated and we went home.

All photos by Aline Khoury.

Shabbat in Rehavia

I’m housesitting for Clinton Bailey, who has an amazing home in Rehavia, my favorite Jerusalem neighborhood. It’s the first opportunity I’ve had to use an oven in 7 months, so we celebrated with home-made Challah and roasted chicken and vegetables. Delicious.

Dr Bailey has an amazing personal library, of particular interest to Arabic nerds.

Here are some gems:

Lane’s Lexicon

Dialect dictionaries

Specialist Dictionaries

Poetry books

Lifta

On the way into Jerusalem from the western direction one can see an abandoned Palestinian village on the hillside, left the way it was when it ceased to be inhabited in 1948. The name of the town is Lifta, and it has an interesting history. Lifta was one of the most affluent villages in the Jerusalem district prior to the founding of the state of Israel. During the war of 1948, the village reached an agreement with the Irgun to remain in place, and the people planned to stay and wait out the fighting, unlike many Palestinian communities who chose to flee to neighboring countries. However, Deir Yassin happened and rumors of a massacre spread to Lifta and, like dozens of other towns, the villagers panicked and, fearing their safety, fled to Jordan.

This story could apply to dozens of communities in Palestine, but Lifta is almost unique in that the village itself remains. In most cases, the homes were destroyed, incorporated into new Israeli cities, and many had Keren Kayemet forests planted over top of their ruins to hide any evidence of their very existence.  But Lifta remains. It’s unclear why Israel chose to leave it in place and intact, but it is. It has become a weekend hangout and picnic spot for Jerusalem families, and many of the abandoned houses now house homeless junkies, or broke hippies.

I went there with my friends Ed, Rachael, and Aline. The insides of the houses were covered with graffiti, and old books pile in the corners.

Aline with the city rising behind her. Photo by Edword.

There is an underground spring that runs from a well to a pool at the entrance of the village. There is a long underground corridor and tunnel that you can walk in, that goes very deep inside.

I would have been scared to go in, had I not seen a three-year-old girl come out before we went in.

Palestineremembered.com has several photos of the village from before 1948, and you can see the emptiness of the surrounding hillsides.

Varouj

In the old city of Jerusalem there sits a small shop in the Armenian quarter, selling antique photographs of Jerusalem and the Orient. The proprietor is one Varouj Ishkenian, and he has been a fixture of Old City life for almost half a century. Anyone who has wandered the streets for any length of time will have encountered him, and will likely have been drawn into to sit and hear his stories. His shop has been in the same location since 1964, and he is the former court photographer to the Jordanian royal family. He speaks Armenian, Arabic, English, French, Turkish, and some Hebrew.

His family has a long history with photography. His father was a photographer, as was his grandfather, and many of the photographs he sells were originally taken by his grandfather, when Jerusalem was a completely different city. His sons, too, are photographers, but apparently prefer the medium of video more. Varouj has lived through British, Jordanian, and finally Israeli rule of the city, and has watched as the world outside the city walls has changed beyond recognition. He laments the passing of an earlier time, when all the shops on his street were owned by Armenians. Long are the hours I’ve spent sitting and sipping tea, discussing this and that, with pauses in the conversation as tourists filter in and out.

On August 10th, 2007, a man from East Jerusalem bent on wreaking havoc grabbed a gun from a security guard and started firing randomly into the crowds of the Old City streets, wounding ten people before being shot by another guard. Among those ten was Sarkis Iskhanian, Varouj’s son. He was shot in the leg while walking with his wife and daughters. A former cameraman for the Armenian news channel, he has been out of work since the attack, as the injury still causes pain when he stands holding the heavy camera.

Many people have noted their meetings with Varouj. Among them: here, here, here, here, here, here, and here.

All photos by Rachael Strecher.

The Unrecognized

I realize I’ve been here almost seven months now, and I haven’t really written about the Unrecognized Villages yet.

There are 45 villages in the Negev that the Regional Council of Unrecognized Villages considers unrecognized by the state. There are dozens of small encampments that do not show up on the map and are not counted among the 45, because their population is fewer than 500, the minimum population for recognition under Israeli law. 

These villages are home to between 500 and 7000 residents each, for a combined population of 76,000 people, all citizens of Israel. They receive no basic services from the state, such as water, electricity, roads, garbage collection, sewage removal, or any other infrastructure that one would expect from an industrialized state such as Israel. Electricity is provided by generators that run usually 3 hours a day, and costs more per month than the 24-hour electricity residents of recognized towns and cities receive. As a result, those who are in need of 24-hour electricity for medical reasons (many medications, including insulin, need 24-hour refrigeration) cannot meet those needs, and suffer needlessly. Read about one such ongoing case here: Baby Girl’s Power Struggle With Israel.

The national electric grid runs through the villages in the form of high tension wires, in fact there is even a major electric plant smack in the center of one of the largest villages, but the residents do not have access to any of it. In the Negev, a desert home to intense temperatures in both summer and winter, the lack of electricity is exremely harmful, and every year people die due to lack of heating during the bitter cold of winter nights, and intense summer heat.

The residents of the Unrecognized Villages have little or no access to the national water grid, despite living alongside the main pipes used to transport drinking and irrigation water through the Negev. In cases where the government has granted access to the grid, the access is through a one-inch diameter access point, which is equipped with a turn-off valve to prevent too much water from going through the pipe at any one time. From there, above-ground hoses connect the houses in the village. However, if one does not live close to the access point, there is still no water connection, as the water pressure is not great enough to carry the water to houses outside the limited radius of water pressure allowed by the pressure valve.

If, however, one does not live in a village with this connection, or one lives far away from the pump, large water tanks must be used to transport water to the house. In cases such as this, the residents must go to a house close to a water access point, and another resident must fill these tanks up once or twice a week. This process takes two hours to fill the tank. So, if one arrives on the designated filling day to find 2 or 3 other people in line ahead of him, simply procuring water for the week can take all day. In addition, these tanks are often rusted out and extremely unhygienic, further exacerbating the already-dire health situation in the villages.

The residents of these villages have no official address, which precludes them from municipal elections of any kind. Some of these villages have been in the same location since the Ottoman times, others were created in the wake of the creation of the State of Israel. Following Israel’s victory in 1948, the Bedouin settlements in the western Negev were destroyed, their residents expelled to a triangular region known as the Siyaj (’fence’ in Arabic), with the cities of Beer Sheva, Yeruham, and Arad forming the points of this triangle. 

The Regional Council of Unrecognized Bedouin Villages was created in 1997 by more than fifty leaders from across the Negev, tired of being denied access to the political process. Among the prominent leaders of this group were the following nine individuals:

• Hussein al-Rafay’a from Bir Hammam, current president of the RCUV,
• Lubad abu Afash from Wadi al-Na’am, 
• Salman al-Asam from Khirbat al-Watan, 
• Hussein al-Atrash from al-Mkaimin, 
• Saaed al-Uqby from al-Qrein, 
• Ali al-Kashakhr from Tel Arad, 
• Ibrahim al-Waqily from Bir al-Mashash, 
• Attiyah al-Asam from Abu Tlul, 
• Jabr abu Kaf from Um Batin.

However, these nine would not have succeeded had it not been for the support of dozens of others, among them Dr Amir al-Wuzail, Khalil al-Ammur and others. Attiyah al-A’sam was the first head of the council. He is currently the point man for the Forty Committee in the Negev. Jabr Abu Kaf was the second head elected for the council. Hussein Al–Rafay’a is the current head of the regional council.

They started by forming 45 committees, one in each of the unrecognized villages, which were then assembled into a council, the Regional Council of Unrecognized Villages. The work of the RCUV expanded, as did our reputation on both sides of the political fence, until the RCUV became recognized as a legitimate political action body, and one that was created by the new generation to meet the needs of a changed world.

By the Pen and What They Write

Nun: By the Pen and What They Write

ن – والقلم وما يسطرون

From the 68th surah of the Quran, surah al-Qalam.

The Facade Shell

In Jerusalem there is an interesting construction project underway. The city plans to build a new hotel, a Waldorf-Astoria, inside the husk of the former Jerusalem Palace hotel on the corner of King David and Agron St. The new hotel will boast 220 rooms and 30 residential apartments, and will give the King David Hotel a run for its money in terms of popularity among visiting dignitaries. They essentially ripped out the guts of the old building, leaving nothing but the facade.

From Jerusalemite:

The old Palace Hotel, constructed in 1928-29 under the order of Jerusalem’s Supreme Muslim Council and supervised by the infamous Mufti of Jerusalem, was completed after just 11 months, by over 500 Arab workers, supervised by one Jewish engineer named Baruch Katinka. Since Katinka was secretly working for pre-state Jewish military organization the Hagana, the Palace was a tricky project to say the least. Upon opening, the hotel was the most luxurious in the Middle East, with elevators, a central heating system and even private bathrooms – practically unheard-of at the time.

Due to a hardcore rivalry, much deceit (during the excavation, it was revealed that the site was an old Muslim cemetery – the Mufti covered this up) and a dash of sabotage between the British-appointed Arab mayor and the Mufti, the hotel was destined to fail. Management of the hotel was handed over to a local corrupt hotelier, but it was eventually forced to close its doors once the King David opened down the block.

The British Mandate went on to use the building as military and administrative offices, and when the State of Israel was born in 1948, the Ministry of Trade took up residence. Then, five years ago, the building was abandoned, the government-caused void ironically filled by the community of addicts, homeless folk and squatters featured in David Grossman’s Someone to Run With.

About three years ago, the Reichman magnates purchased the structure from the Israeli government, which should be ashamed for letting such a beautiful building fall into these depths of disrepair – not to mention that the sale reportedly went for a $20 million price tag, a paltry sum for historical value, central location and sheer property size such as this.

The Reichmans closed a management deal with Hilton hotels, and together, they will be investing over $100 million in the development and branding of the refurbished hotel, destined to be the latest branch of the Waldorf-Astoria chain. The 220-room facility, due to open in 2010, should eventually house five additional floors, several restaurants, a swimming pool and hundreds of well-to-do tourists.

Haneen’s Fashion Show

On Thursday, February 26th, my friend Haneen Ahmad had her second fashion show in Seattle, showcasing the amazing line of clothing she has been working on for the past few months. Her website can be seen here.

Among the works she was showing were t-shirts with a Mahmoud Darwish quote I designed for her.

Haneen is second from the right.

Hipsters rocking my calligraphy!

It says “Record! I am Arab!” and is taken from the first lines of Darwish’s famous poem “Identity Card“.

She works with kuffiyas (also known as hatta, shemagh, or mandil), traditionally patterned scarves worn in Arab countries, and fashions them into jackets, ties, skirts, and shirts. It is often difficult to find anything but red-and-white checked or black-and-white checked kuffiyas, except in Yemen, where one can find every color combination possible.  When coming back from Yemen, I brought her a whopping 200 kuffiyas with me. Before I came home, I layed them out on the floor of our mufraj. It was a sight to behold.

In June, I went up to visit Seattle and Haneen and we put the Mahmoud Darwish quote onto a silk-screen together.

Amazing work Haneen, I’m rooting for you all the way from here!

Mahmoud Darwish and the Barrier

About a week ago Rachael and I went back to the Qalandia checkpoint, the checkpoint separating Jerusalem and Ramallah. The Palestinian side of the barrier is covered with graffiti as far as one can see, and so we thought we’d add something to it. Most of the graffiti is the most cliche, boring crap you would expect: “This wall will fall!” “Frei Palestina!” “Miener Schlieben Mit Gevünktenlinmustrassers Berlin!” and so on. I wanted to put something up that had no relationship to the wall, the situation, occupation, Berlin, South Africa or anything else. I chose a piece of poetry by Mahmoud Darwish (which was the most political aspect of the whole project, given he’s the Palestinian poet laureate) and some stencils for a background. I also chose not to put an English translation anywhere. The poem I chose reads:

القصيدة تبعد عني,

وتدخل ميناء بحارة يعشقون النبيذ

ولا يرجعون إلى امرأة مرتين,

ولا يحملون حنينا إلى أي شيء

ولا شجنا

محمود درويش

“The poem drifts away from me
It enters a port of sailors who love wine,
And never return to the same woman twice,
And feel nostalgia for nothing,
Nor sorrow, either.”

All photos are by Rachael Strecher.

First, I wrote the poem out with a reed pen and China ink, and then cut the words out of the paper:

Then I primed the wall with gesso:

First layer of stencil in beige:

Second layer in red:

Border with square stencil:

Done spraying:

Time to add the words. I brush a layer of clear gel sealant onto the wall, put the word on, and then paint a second layer of sealant over top of it.

Add the dots:

Done!

Saadia’s Return

In October of 2007 I had the opportunity to visit Raida, the last village in Yemen with an indigenous Jewish population. There were at the time roughly 280 Jews living there, 2 synagogues, a Jewish school, and a Jewish quarter in the village. Many of the tall metal gates that surround the courtyards of houses had Hebrew Bruchim ha-Bayim, Welcome, inscribed upon them, instead of the usual Arabic Ahlan wa-Sahlan. Raida is an incredible time capsule of Jewish life in the Middle East, a way of life that has almost completely vanished in the wake of Israel’s creation. I wrote about my experiences in the village here.

I stayed with Said Bin Israil (Saadia Ben Yisrael) and his family while there. He was one of the leaders of the Raida community and a teacher in the school, his sincerity and hospitality made my visits to Raida the most memorable and incredible experiences of my life to date.

In early December, events began in Raida that will eventually mean the end of the community there. I wrote about this several posts back, stating that these acts of violence will finally break the camel’s back, and force the emigration of the last Jews of Yemen.

Sure enough, the first family to leave Yemen arrived in Israel 4 days ago, in a secret operation carried out by the Jewish Agency. And sure enough, that family is the very same Ben Yisraels I stayed with while in Raida. As if that coincidence was not enough, it turns out that they are living, at least temporarily, in the apartment building I live in. Right down the hall from me.

So a couple nights ago Rachael and I paid them a visit. It was really amazing to see him again, and wearing a suit and pants, as opposed to a thoub! Right away I started asking about his trip, did he go through Jordan, was it direct, etc, and he gave me this embarassed smile and said he couldn’t say, he was sworn to secrecy.

I brought with me Saadia Gaon’s Siddur, which has large sections of Judeo-Arabic commentary; I thought he might like to have a look. He did, and we spent a while pouring over it, checking out the different sections. Jewish books are hard to come by in Yemen, and they depend on whatever books they can get from New York or Jerusalem from time to time, and those books rarely have Judeo-Arabic, Saadia’s native language, written in them.

His kids are about the cutest thing in the world.

He told me that in the weeks before they left Yemen, there were representatives of the Jewish Agency in Raida, trying to help them to come to Israel, and representatives of the Neturei Karta, an anti-Zionist Hasidic sect, trying to get them to stay in Yemen or come to New York. It was as though a covert war of words and ideologies was raging over the last Jews of the Arab diaspora, in a tiny village in a forsaken corner of the Middle East.

All photos by Rachael Strecher, except this one, courtesy Reuters:

Clinton Bailey

Last weekend I had the opportunity to meet one of the pre-eminent scholars of Bedouin culture of our times. Originally from Buffalo, Clinton Bailey has lived in Israel since 1958 and been actively involved in the Bedouin community since the 1970s. He has published two monumental works on Bedouin oral culture, A Culture of Desert Survival: Bedouin Proverbs from Sinai and the Negev and Bedouin Poetry from Sinai and the Negev: Mirror of a Culture. Both have been extremely useful in my calligraphy.

The second book is particularly important as it records and transcribes a cultural phenomenon that is disappearing. The younger generation of Bedouin do not memorize the poetry of their forefathers as the older generation did. Renowned throughout the Arab world and beyond as the most eloquent, most poetic strata of Arab society, the loss of the Bedouin poetic tradition in Israel is a cultural tragedy, and this work is crucial for recording that tradition before it is extinct. He is currently working on a third book, in its final stages before publication, on Bedouin law.

Photos by Rachael Strecher

Khiriya and the Duality of Israel’s Existence

As part of the fellowship I’m doing here, we meet once a month with the other fellows (there are 5 of us) and see what kind of work they’re doing at their respective organizations. One of the fellows, Kevin Dwarka, is working at an organization called Adam, Teva, ve Din [Man, Nature, and Law], an environmentally-conscious lobby group consisting of lawyers, planners, and experts on environmental issues.

On Thursday, with Kevin and some of the staff of Adam, Teva, ve Din we took a tour of a site called Khiria, just on the southern outskirts of Tel Aviv. A garbage dump that handles 25 percent of all garbage produced in Israel, Khiria is also home to a center for environmental projects and forward-thinking planning. They are in the process of turning the area around Khiria into a public park with trails, picnic areas, and an open-air theater. The massive mound of garbage, known by Tel Avivis as ‘Shit Mountain’ also is being used to collect biofuel by harnessing the gases produced by the decaying garbage, and it is planned that the lights that will light the park will be powered by this biofuel.  The park borders the Hatikva neighborhood of Tel Aviv, once infamous for its bad-ass Mizrachi ghetto reputation.

The park and the projects surrounding it are a beacon of light and consciousness, an example for us all to follow.

Khiria is built upon the site of a former Palestinian village called al-Hiriya, depopulated in 1948 and turned 4 years later into a garbage dump for Tel Aviv. For me, Khiria therefore represents the duality of the Israeli reality. On one hand, you have incredible ingenuity, brilliant science, and a serious commitment to environmental justice. On the other, a dark past and the history of an ethnically cleansed population which still remains. The vibrant cultural and creative life of Tel Aviv is a world away from the bombing campaign against Gaza, but only a few kilometers separate the worlds.

A World of Carob Trees

I have found a world filled with carob trees

As my parents planted, so shall I plant

For my children.

-Babylonian Talmud

Pen and ink on paper, digitally composed.

The Last Exodus of the Yemenite Jews

On Thursday, December 11th, 2008, Moshe Yaish Nahari was gunned down on the street in Raida, Yemen. This event will be the catalyst that provokes the final exodus of Yemenite Jewry, the oldest Jewish community in the world, and it will be gone forever, lost to the sands of time.

His killer, an mentally unstable former Yemeni Air Force pilot, called upon him to accept Islam, and when he refused he opened fire with his Kalishnikov (which non-Jews in Raida carry like a fashion accessory) and shot Moshe 5 times. The man, Abd al-Aziz al-Abadi, had killed his wife two years prior and managed to escape jail time by paying off his late wife’s family.

The judge in the case was originally pushing the death sentence, but when the Sheikh of al-Abadi’s tribe vowed to execute every last Jew in Raida, the judge apparently has backed down. The entire Jewish community has received death threats. Saadia Hala, the man I stayed with when in the village, had his house firebombed, and a grenade lobbed at his door.

The Forward has an excellent article about the murder here.

This is the straw that will finally break the camel’s back. The Jews are currently in the process of selling their homes, and moving to Sana’a to await the next move, out of the country. Many will come to Israel, because they will recieve support and assistance, others will go to Jewish communities in America or the UK.

I have wanted, for some time now, to return to the village and do a major project of oral history and story recording within the community, it seems that perhaps that the boat has sailed and I have missed my window. The nature of the project, therefore, is changing. Now there is a potential for a great project documenting their new lives here in Israel, almost 60 years after the vast majority of their coreligionist countrymen arrived on Israeli soil.

Our Orwellian Reality

This is Avigdor Lieberman.  He is the head of the Yisrael Beiteinu (Israel Is Our Home) party, one of the most far-right parties in Israel, the new manifestation of Kahane’s dream. They are hardline anti-Arab, and that includes Arab citizens of Israel.

It’s election season in Israel, and political billboards fill Tel Aviv’s streets. This one reads:

No Citizenship Without Loyalty

It is the policy of Yisrael Beiteinu that all Arab citizens of Israel must take a test of loyalty to the State in order to remain citizens. Those who refused would be stripped of their citizenship, but allowed to remain in Israel as permanent residents.

Lieberman himself was born in Moldova in 1958 and came to Israel at age 20, and therefore finds it appropriate to make policy regarding the civil rights of those whose roots on this land extend back a thousand years or more.

One Year Anniversary of This Blog

Yesterday, Nomad Out of Time turned one.

Bombs Over Be’er Sheva

The last few days have seen rockets hitting Be’er Sheva for the first time in its history. The first one hit Tuesday night.  I was standing in my kitchen eating peanut butter in my underwear when the air-raid siren starts blaring, and I booked it to the shelter. After that first initial adrenaline-filled incident, the other times the siren has sounded have been comparatively tame. The siren is followed by this wonderfully awful gut-clenching waiting period of roughly sixty seconds. The sound of the explosion is like a pressure valve, and as the tension felt during the siren’s wail subsides, a giddiness follows in its place. I laugh and giggle stupidly, and listen to my heart thumping.

This is, of course, all petty and silly ado about almost nothing compared with the destruction and death and suffering felt in Gaza this past week. As many as 460 Palestinians have died at the time of this post, and thousands have been wounded, with more promised to come. For this reason, writing about the difficulties or stressfulness of ‘life under Qassams’ is, in my opinion, so trivial, so insignificant as to be almost insulting. Yes, Qassams fall in our cities. Yes, it is very stressful to live in Sderot, no doubt.  Do Qassams cause even a fraction of the damage to human life and infrastructure as aerial bombardment by F-15s? No. And yes, it is that simple.

The Destruction of the Straw Bale Mosque

I’ve written about the Straw Bale Mosque in the unrecognized village of Wadi al-Naam several times.  On November 22nd, I wrote,

“The demolition team never came.

This doesn’t mean we won. It means they didn’t want to destroy it in front of everyone, so they’ll probably come back next week and destroy it when no one’s there to document it.”

I am extremely sad to report that this morning at five o’clock AM Israeli forces arrived at the mosque and razed it to the ground. The builder and director of the project, Mahmoud Jarbeau, was sleeping in the mosque when he heard the rumble of bulldozers, and awoke to find a demolition team at his door.

He served for 9 years in the Israeli Defense Forces, ending his career as an officer in the Paratrooper Corps, and has poured more than 40,000 US dollars of his own savings into the project over the past 6 months.

We called an emergency meeting to discuss our response, and have decided to begin rebuilding the mosque immediately, and are actively soliciting financial support from the community to help in the rebuilding process. God willing, it will be rebuilt soon, and will serve as a testament to the will of the people to persevere in the face of enormous adversity. If you would like to make a donation to the rebuilding process, you can send money through PayPal to yallylivnat@gmail.com, putting “Wadi Naam Mosque” in the note.

East Wind Blowing

Today Be’er Sheva was swept with Eastern winds, the Shargiya. The Bedouin say it is a dusty, dirty, harsh desert wind.

The city has been hazy all day.

This line of poetry was told to me by Ibrahim Abu Afash:

شرقية تقهر التوبة

تلوي بعشيب الريظاني

“Easterlies crush redemption,

Twist the grass of mountain valleys.”

Entire Bedouin Village Demolished

At five o’clock this morning more than 200 police and green patrol descended upon the Bedouin encampment of Abdallah al-Atrash, in the area of Rahat. Over the following 6 hours, they proceeded to demolish the entire village and forcibly expel all 20 families living there. Not a single structure was left standing, and all men, women, and children were pushed off their land.

The court case had been in the courts since 2000, but 4 days ago the demolition and evacuation order was served in the village. The government had ordered them to vacate the land immediately, but provided no alternative location to go to. No solution was given, nor were any suggestions made; they were simply told ‘go.’

They had been living in the same location for close to 20 years, after having been expelled from their previous homes farther to the west. The people belong to the Atrash tribe, and are likely to go live with relatives near Hura, in an unrecognized village of the Atrash. Some will stay on this land, and told me they plan to sleep amongst the rubble of their demolished homes tonight, until new tents can be erected on the land.

This expulsion comes days after the publication of the Goldberg Commission’s recommendations, which advocate recognition for Bedouin villages to the east of Route 40. Abdallah al-Atrash lies to the west.

Eid al-Adha in the Village of Al-Graen

Today is Eid al-Adha, the Feast of the Sacrifice, in the Islamic calendar. It commemorates Abraham’s willingness to sacrifice his son. So, as a reminder of that, it is traditional to sacrifice a sheep on Eid. According to the Sunna, or tradition of the Prophet, it is also tradition to visit family.

The previous evening, I learned that steel wool lit on fire can double as fireworks if you swing it around.

I spent the night in the unrecognized village of Al-Graen, with the family of Ali Abu Sheita. In the morning Ahmed, Ali’s brother, slaughtered two sheep: one for his family and one for Ali’s.

“They must be sharp!”

“In the name of God the Beneficent, the Merciful”

Skinned and washed, now Ali and his sons remove the guts, take a massive machete and turn it into cookable portions.

A handprint on the door is supposed to protect the home.

And finally:

South-West Iran Pens

These are calligraphy reeds from the Bandar-i Bushehr region of Iran, located in the southwest, on the gulf. They are the best kind of calligraphy pen available today, and very hard to find. They are made of bamboo that has been treated in a special process that I’m told takes over a year.

I got the five on the right in Istanbul, the middle two from my first calligraphy teacher Ben Bahman, from Tabriz, and the last one from Massoud Valipour in Los Angeles. He sells them at his shop Ketabsara on Westwood blvd.

Nasreddin Hoca

I saw this stencil on a wall in Istanbul.

Nasreddin Hoca/Hoja/Hodja/Joha is a mythic folkloric figure in the Islamic world. He is at once a fool and a wise man, and his anecdotes teach lessons through the complexity and wisdom of his seemingly simple actions. He has many names, depending on the country, and many cultures claim him as their own, particularly the Turks, Persians, and Afghans. Children all over the Islamic world hear his stories and are taught by the wisdom of his ways. Often he is represented riding backwards on his donkey, with whom he shares many stories.

Much of Nasreddin’s actions can be described as illogical yet logical, rational yet irrational, bizarre yet normal, foolish yet sharp, and simple yet profound. What adds even further to his uniqueness is the way he gets across his messages in unconventional yet very effective methods in a profound simplicity. (From wiki)

When I was teaching in Yemen I would use Hoca stories, translated to English, while teaching English. All my students knew dozens of stories about him, and would bend over backwards trying to tell the tale in English.

My favorite Hoca story is like this: Hoca, his grandson, and his donkey are making the long walk home from town. The child is on the donkey and Hoca is walking alongside when they pass a group of people. He hears one say, “That poor old man! This child rides while he walks in this heat? My dear…” So the kid gets down and Hoca rides for a bit. A little later, they meet another group, and he again hears someone say, “That poor kid, made to walk while the grown-up rides!? My dear…” So he takes the kid and they both ride. Again, a group comes and he overhears, “That poor donkey!” So they both walk, and the donkey carries nothing. Later he hears someone laughing, and sees a group of men under a tree laughing at the two fools who chose to walk, even though they have a perfectly good donkey. Finally, they decide to carry the donkey. The moral of the story is that you can’t please everybody all the time.

Calligraphy in Istanbul

There’s a saying that goes, ‘the Quran was revealed in Mecca, recited in Egypt, and written in Istanbul.’ This is 100% accurate. Ottoman calligraphers were the cream of the calligraphy crop, and their legacy lives on today. Schools of art in Istanbul often have a calligraphy faculty, and there exist several master calligraphers in the city who received their Icazets (calligraphy degrees) from the last generation of Ottoman masters, so their teaching creates an unbroken link back to the most famous masters in the history of Islamic art.

Stores like this exist all over the city, selling calligraphy and leaves out of illuminated manuscripts. In the covered market, since most of it caters to stupid tourists, the calligraphy is usually total crap, created by people who didn’t have an Icazet. But in the Sahaflar Carsisi, outside the covered market, there are several professional stores which sell not only framed calligraphy but professional reeds from south-west Iran, professional ink, papers, and calligraphy supplies.

I went there 3 days in a row because I made friends with the owner of one the shops, Ali, who studied for his Icazet from Davut Bektas, one of the best calligraphers in Turkey. The store is like a little secret hideout for all the calligraphers, students and teachers, of Istanbul and from abroad. In the course of the 3 days I was there I met an Iraqi calligrapher from Baghdad named Tariq and a Syrian named Anas, a calligrapher who received his Icazet from Hasan Celebi, the best and most renowned calligrapher in the world, as well as a dozen or so Turks, all studying for their Icazets. It seems calligraphy has been experiencing a renaissance in Turkey, as the second generation of non-Ottomans comes of age.

Happy Birthday Aunt Sue!

The Lure of the East

I went to a museum opening here in Istanbul last night of a show called The Lure of the East: British Orientalist Painting. It was a gorgeous show, and I especially loved it since I have a minor obsession with orientalists and their dress-up ways, but I was really surprised to find the following painting, it’s called Edfou, Upper Egypt, and was painted by John Fredrick Lewis in 1860, and it’s half the header of my blog.

Millet Kutuphanesi

The Millet Library is home to an unbelievable collection of Ottoman manuscripts and documents. Many of them contain miniature paintings, amazing calligraphy, gold leaf, and beautiful illumination. I went there Wednesday and met the board of directors, who showed me some absolutely stunning examples from their archives.

These are Divans, poetry collections from the Ottoman empire, written in Nesih/Naskh or Taaliq/Faarisi calligraphy of the Ottoman Turkish language.

This is the archive. There are 31,000 volumes of hand-written books, 12,000 of which have been digitized. This is an unbelievable step towards the digitization of Ottoman libraries.

Back in Istanbul

This is among the greatest cities in the world. I am so happy to be here, it is a much needed break from Beer Sheva and the unrecognized villages. Not that I don’t love my life, but sometimes screaming at the top of your lungs about something you personally can do nothing about needs to take a back seat to a cold glass of raki and some batter-fried fish. This is also the calligraphy capital of the world, and has been for 200 years, so that also provides a nice change from the cultural wasteland that is Beer Sheva.

I’m meeting some very interesting people, despite the fact that 3 years of not speaking what little I knew has taken a serious toll on my Turkish. I am finding that it comes back relatively quickly. It’s a wonderfully easy language to learn, and Turks are among the warmest people in the world. Did I mention I love it here?

Saving the Straw Bale Mosque

On Monday morning my boss Ye’ela called me, telling me that the straw bale mosque I wrote about a few posts back was to be demolished this week, we didn’t know when, but they informed the owner, Mahmoud (he wants his last name withheld), that it would take place. So on Monday night I went out to the mosque in Wadi Naam and spent the night there with some other international people as a sit-in, in case they came in the morning. We were under strict instructions, both from Mahmoud and Ye’ela, that should they come we were not to chain ourselves to the doors, or lay in front of the bulldozers, or throw rocks, or hit the soldiers back when they hit us. We were simply to photograph and record the demolition, should it occur. Jewish Israelis, on the other hand, could sit in the mosque and refuse to leave, or lay in front of the bulldozers because they would just be arrested and released later that day, but we as foreigners would be deported for interfering with army operations.

They didn’t come Tuesday morning, and they didn’t come Wednesday. However, Mahmoud received word from the court that demolition was assured, and the bulldozers were going to be there on Thursday. So we kicked it into high gear and together with Bustan got as many people as could be there as we could, and planned a big sit in from Wednesday night to Thursday afternoon.

And plenty of people showed up! Haaretz, the Jerusalem Post, Channel 3 news, ActiveStills, the Associated Press all had representatives there, and there were quite a few volunteers and foreign types who showed up, and showing up is not easy, its a real schlep out there.

Around 9 two plain-clothes officers of the Shabak, the Israeli domestic security/intelligence agency, Negev division, showed up. They had a talk with Mahmoud and spoke for a while about what was going to happen. The details of the conversation we don’t, or may ever, know. In any case they saw all the people there, and were very aware of the fact that many people were taking their photograph. Afterwards Mahmoud left for Beer Sheva, he said he had to deal with some last details in the court.

Around 11, he called to tell us that one of his “eyes” had called him to say that a demolition team (100-200 soldiers, plus 20-30 paramilitary Green Patrol soldiers, a bulldozer, and military vehicles) had been spotted on the road. We all scrambled on our cell phones, but my co-worker Suleiman from the RCUV called us 15 minutes later to say that the team turned east, toward Arad, and that there was another demolition they were going to do near there, but don’t get comfortable because they usually do more than one when they come out.

Mahmoud told us to start working on the mosque, so that if they show up they’ll see that it is an international project and it really engages the community. So we mixed two types of dirt with straw and water, stomped around till it was all mixed in, and then started throwing it on the wall, literally. You take a small handful and throw it at the wall so it splats on, then you smooth all the splats out.

The demolition team never came.

This doesn’t mean we won. It means they didn’t want to destroy it in front of everyone, so they’ll probably come back next week and destroy it when no one’s there to document it. It won’t be a story because we’ve played our card and the press showed up, but they’re not going to schlep out there twice. Also, Mahmoud is going on pilgrimage to Mecca on Sunday, so he won’t even be around to let us know if they do show up.

All in all, it was a really interesting experience, and a lot of fun, to be honest. Obviously, I’m glad that they didn’t come, but very afraid that they’ll just show up one morning and knock it down.

Mahmoud is a pretty amazing guy. He’s 43 now, and was in the army for 9 years, 18-27, ending as an officer in the paratrooper corps, and serving two tours of combat duty in Lebanon. Ironically, the day he received notice that his mosque was to be destroyed, he had just gotten back from his reserve duty. He decided to build the mosque in May, and just started doing it. He’d never built a structure like this in his life, and at first he was the only person building it, the other villagers thought he was a little bit nuts for doing it, but once it started to take shape they really rallied around him, and a lot of them show up every day to volunteer and throw mud. Every penny that has gone into it has been from Mahmoud’s own pocket, and to this day its upwards of 140,000 shekels, or around 40,000 dollars.

You can read more here:

http://www.jewlicious.com

http://jvoices.com

http://jewschool.com

http://www.wrmea.com

http://www.jpost.com

Ten Glasses of Arak

Teaching English in Bir Haddaj

For the past 3 weeks I’ve been teaching English to a group of 10 kids in the recently-recognized village of Bir Haddaj, located around 40 minutes southwest of Beer Sheva, and not far from the Gaza border. In the Arab school system in Israel, the kids learn Hebrew as a second language and English as a third language. Most of the focus is on the more immediate need of Hebrew, so the English curriculum is pretty lax. That is to say they don’t really learn it. The upside of that is that I can practice my Bedouin with them, since they also don’t speak much Standard Arabic. I teach at a guy’s home, but I visited the elementary school in Bir Haddaj, and spent the day with the English teacher, a rather severe northerner (not Bedouin) named Fatima. The students don’t learn grammar until 11th or 12th grade, meaning they don’t learn how to construct an English sentence until then. The entire curriculum until that time is teaching them scattered random vocabulary: the vegetables, the colors, animals, school supplies etc.

So, in an attempt to remedy that situation a little, in the classes I’ve been teaching (essentially additional tutoring for students who either need improvement, or had nothing better to do that day) I’ve been starting at the ground level. “I want tea.” “We go to school in a bus.” “He likes soccer.” “They pray in a mosque.” This has been a slow process; they only got chairs and desks this week, and we still don’t have a blackboard. But the kids are cute, even if they are little bastards behaviorally-speaking.

Finally.

Even a great muggle such as yourself should rejoice on this happy, happy day! For you-know-who has gone at last!

Clever Graffiti in Jerusalem

Saw this on a wall in Jerusalem yesterday.

Die Lucky Bush = די לכבוש = Dai l’Kibush = End the Occupation

Home Demolition in Khashm Zanna

Thursday in the unrecognized Bedouin village of Khashm Zanna the home of Bassam abu Gwedar, a father of three young girls, and his wife, all citizens of the State of Israel, was demolished. The reason given by the Israeli authorities was that the structure was a new structure and had been built without a permit, which for all residents of the unrecognized villages is unattainable. The home had been built a year ago replacing the tin hut in which they had lived, and the demolition order was posted almost immediately. The family took the case to the local courts, which refused to offer any respite from their predicament. The situation is that of a catch 22: there is no method of attaining a building permit, but without a building permit the home is illegal and must therefore be destroyed, so Bassam and his family were left homeless. The bulldozers arrived at nine o’clock in the morning accompanied by 150 soldiers and 20 members of the paramilitary Green Patrol.

The season chosen for the demolition was not lost on the family. The recent rains and cold make the homelessness that much harder.

“We have nowhere left.” He told members of the RCUV Thursday.

Khashm Zanna is an unrecognized village of more than 2000 people living roughly 15 kilometers south of Beer Sheva in the Negev desert, and has been in the same location for more than 200 years. They have no access to electricity, water, sewage, paved roads, or medical services from the Israeli government. They are constantly under the threat of home demolition, as all houses in the village have been deemed illegal. This demolition is not an isolated incident, but the latest in a series of co-ordinated operations designed to make life in the villages as unbearable as possible, so as to force the residents to abandon their lands.

Also Thursday, the village of Tweil abu Jarwal was completely destroyed for close to the 20th time. The night prior to this demolition, six young men of the village were arrested and kept overnight in the police holding cells in Beer Sheva. They were arrested in the village on charges of trespassing on their own land, held overnight and then released on the sole condition that they refrain from returning to their homes for two weeks.

The Straw-Bale Mosque

A remarkable new project has begun in the unrecognized village of Wadi al-Na’am, the village mentioned two posts ago. It is a relatively large mosque, easily enough to fit 200-300 worshippers, made of straw-bale construction. For those unfamiliar with this method of building, it involves stacking straw bales one on top of the other as the core of the walls, and then covering the bales with thick clay-like mud, and finally covering the mud with plaster, which is often then water-sealed. This creates a structure that is earthquake proof, waterproof, and mostly fireproof. It is also completely green, and has a very low environmental footprint. In this case, the only non-natural materials were the rebar used to hold the bales in place, the cement floor, and the metal roof and its supports. No drywall, no tyvec, no pvc. Unfortunately, the government has posted a demolition order on the mosque, as it has been built without government permission, which in turn is almost impossible to attain in this village. This does not mean that demolition is assured, but it certainly puts a cloud over the happiness that would normally go along with the opening of a new place of worship.

When we visited the mosque, the walls had been built, the roof was on, and most of the mud had been applied. They were working on the windowframes, and finishing the second coat of mud-clay. Photos by Rachael Strecher.

Full Moon Over the Desert

Water main near As-Sira, Negev desert.

Sheikh Ibrahim Abu Afash and the Village of Wadi al-Na’am

This is Ibrahim abu Afash, he’s the sheikh of the unrecognized village of Wadi al-Na’am, perhaps the most infamous of the unrecognized villages. His countenance is remarkable: the most dignified, distinguished, and regal way of carrying himself I’ve ever seen. Such that, when he enters the room, it’s completely clear he is a true leader.

He has these eyes, so full of light and life, they just convey such brilliance and warmth, it’s an honor just to be around. Photos by Rachael Strecher.

Wadi al-Na’am is a village of 7000 people located around 15 km south of Be’er Sheva. The village is unrecognized by the Israeli government, meaning they receive no water, no electricity, no sewage, no paved roads, or any other basic services. That is the case with 45 villages in the Negev, with a combined population of 76,000 people.

Wadi al-Na’am is special, in terms of infamy, because of the presence of Ramat Hovav just on the other side of the hill. Ramat Hovav is name that inspires visceral emotions in those who know the situation. A chemical plant that houses a pesticides factory, a plastics factory, a pharmaceuticals factory, a hazardous waste disposal site and many other happy and pleasant environmental castastrophes, Ramat Hovav’s toxic cloud has spread over Wadi al-Na’am since 1979, and as a result the people in the village have the highest rate of medical problems anywhere in Israel. The highest rate of cancer, highest rate of miscarraiges, highest rate of birth defects, all due to the presence of the plant.

The plant has been wrought with problems since its inception, there is widespread leakage into the ground, explosions occur from time to time sending more toxic chemicals into the air, it does not even closely conform to Israeli standards for industrial plants. One method of toxic waste disposal is to put the waste into pools and wait for it to evaporate into the air. One study found that the amount of pollution produced by Ramat Hovav was 4500 times that of the legal amount in Israel.

3amiya On Bethlehem Billboards

It’s very uncommon to see dialectic Arabic (3amiya) written. Usually it is considered very uncouth and uneducated to write the dialect, and so only literary Arabic (fusHa) is ever used for written communications. It seems certain companies have been challenging that maxim in their advertising campaigns and have been using Palestinian dialect on billboards. I saw these two in Bethlehem on Monday.

“Ramadan biyijma3na / wa Coca Cola bitna3shana”

Ramadan brings us together / and Coca Cola reinvigorates us

The black, green, and red words read: “Al-Hayat ma bitstanash”

“Life won’t wait.”

The Palestinian/Jordanian/Syrian dialect adds a ‘B’ to the beginning of verbs in the present tense and negates by adding the word ‘ma’ before the verb. The Palestinian dialect distinguishes itself from Jordanian and Syrian by adding a ’sh’ stuck on the end of the negated verb. So in the second picture a positive statement would read “Al-Hayat Bitstana” “Life waits.” In Jordan or Syria a negative statement would be “Al-Hayat Ma Bitstana”.

No Electricity = Dinner By Candlelight

For some reason my apartment lost electricity last night right before dinner time. Not the building, just my apartment. I thought I might not have paid the electricity bill but in fact it was discovered this morning that I just needed to flip a breaker switch (which I swear I tried last night like 4 times). In any case, the lack of electricity provided for a fun ambiance lit by tea-lights. Rachael made amazing steak with a pomegranate sauce and a cherry tomato rosemary concoction that was extremely wonderful.

Bird’s Nest On My Balcony

I moved to Beer Sheva, in the south of Israel, last week. My apartment is fairly normal for Beer Sheva: in a housing project thats 70% Russian and 25% Ethiopian. I like Ethiopians. I discovered today that a family of pigeons calls my balcony home, and is raising a family. While bird shit all over my balcony is not high on my list of favorite things, a solitary egg in a makeshift nest on the floor is rather tender, and I just can’t bring myself to turn it into pigeon-egg salad. Also, that sounds gross.

Such charm.

The Armenian Tavern

This is the Armenian Tavern restaraunt, in the Armenian Quarter of the Old City in Jerusalem. Its on the main road between the Jaffa Gate and Zion Gate.

They Burned My Racist Billboard!

The guy standing and pointing is Asher Roz, he wants to be mayor of a town called Omer, in the Negev. Omer is an extremely affluent suburb of Beer Sheva located next to a Bedouin village called Terabin. In the past years, Omer grew and incorporated the village into its boundaries. Four years ago, roughly half of the village was pushed out and sent to live in a newly-built (recognized) town, also called Terabin (named after the tribe of the inhabitants). The other half remains, and irks the population of Omer with their presence. Asher Roz is running on a platform of destroying the rest of the village and kicking out its inhabitants. The yellow letters on the billboard read “I have a real solution for completing the evacuation of Terabin!”

I arrived there with Ye’ala Raanan of the Regional Council of Unrecognized Villages (the organization I’m working with) and Anwar Terabin, the elected head of the village of Terabin, to discuss with him just what exactly this real solution involves.

Throughout the entire impromptu meeting, I was surprised how cool Anwar remained, he projected a persona of total diplomacy, and kept the discussions jovial and friendly, even. The banality of ethnic cleansing. When Ye’ala asked Anwar in front of Asher, “Is this not racist?” he replied with a grin, “I don’t really want to get into semantics.”

The Maraqia

This is another of my favorite spots in Jerusalem. Its called the Maraqia, which could probably best be translated as The Soupery. They only serve soup. Four types per night, and each is more incredible than the previous. On the particular night I went last week, we had Yemenite tomato soup, and sweet yellow squash cream soup, which was out of control delicious.  Its located on Rechov Coresh, about halfway between the Old City and the Midrechov.

Sheikh al-Bukhari and the Uzbek Palestinian Community

This is Sheikh Abd al-Aziz al-Bukhari, and he is one of the kindest people I’ve met. For those who were brought up Muslim or have taken class on Islam, the name is familiar: Muhammad bin Ismail al-Bukhari compiled one of the two most trusted sources of Hadith, the sayings of the Prophet, known as Sahih al-Bukhari. Photo by Rachael Strecher.

Sheikh Abd al-Aziz is his direct descendant, and the leader of an Uzbek Naqshbandi Sufi sect here in Jerusalem. Born in Jerusalem, he traveled as a young man to Konya, Turkey, to learn Sufism, and is fluent in Arabic, Turkish, Uzbek, English and Hebrew. He runs the Uzbek Cultural Center out of his house in Jerusalem, and is an integral part of the Jerusalem Peace Makers, a dialogue group comprising all the major religious sects and groups represented in the city. Three of them, Sheikh Bukhari, Rabbi Eliyahu and Father Jack were featured by the Face2Face Project.

He lived in Chicago for more than 10 years, so his English is peppered with idiomatic phrases one doesn’t expect to hear from a Sufi Sheikh. For example, “I was like ‘what the heck is this, man?’”

His house has been in his family for more than 350 years, and contains more treasures of his family history than I could ever relate. Among them, more than 200 original handwritten manuscripts in Arabic, Uzbek, and Persian dealing mostly with religious matters, but not limited to.

This is a piece of calligraphy from 1604, AD.

Right before the war in 1948, his house was bombed by the British. This china closet had all the windows smashed in the explosion, except for one pane which stayed in despite the shrapnel holes. His grandfather had all the other panes replaced, but chose to keep the scarred one as a testament.

The Calligraphy Lesson

For the past few weeks I’ve been staying in Jerusalem. The compound I’m living in is right inside the Old City, in the Christian Quarter. The family next door to us has 3 boys and they are the cutest thing I’ve ever seen. One day I saw the youngest one, Rami, practicing how to write his name, so showed him how I used a pen and ink to write in Arabic. A couple of days later they asked for a calligraphy lesson and I was happy to oblige. Photos by Rachael Strecher.

Rami

The Shua’fat Refugee Camp

On Friday as part of my orientation for the fellowship I’m doing we took a tour of East Jerusalem, the Separation wall, and the demographic ‘facts on the ground’ ie neighborhoods and settlements that form the obstacles to a ‘final status’ agreement. We saw houses occupied by Jewish settlers, land zoned for new settlements, major established settlements that formed wedges to disrupt Palestinian demographic contiguity of the land. The tour was run by Ir Amim, City of Nations, a NGO that does work regarding the status of Jerusalem and the different neighborhoods that make up Jerusalem’s ethnic diversity. One of the most compelling aspects was that of Shuafat.

A refugee camp established by Jordan in 1966 to settle Palestinian refugees from Asqelan/Ashkelon who had settled in the Old City of Jerusalem, the Shuafat refugee camp was conquered in 1967 by Israel and subsequently was annexed into the greater Jerusalem area. It currently forms one of the most impoverished neighborhoods in the city and is walled in by the Separation Barrier and access is through a heavily guarded checkpoint. There is little basic infrastructure, such as trash collection, so piles accumulate and are burned.

This photo was taken from Pisgat Ze’ev, the Israeli settlement/neighborhood on the other side of the valley from the camp. Pisgat Ze’ev has gardens, sidewalks, playgrounds, and infrastructure, and the residents complain about having to look at Shuafat, and get reminded that there are Arabs indigenous to the region.

Jan’s

This is by far my favorite restaurant in Jerusalem. It’s called Jan’s and is located on Hanassi St, below the Jerusalem Theatre. The atmosphere is among the best in Jerusalem.

Ali Jidda and the Black Palestinian Community

This is Ali Jidda. In the sixties he was a fighter for the Popular Front for the Liberation of Palestine, George Habash’s Marxist organization. They are a much more secularist organization than the other Palestinian resistance organizations, advocating a class-based fight against “Israeli imperialism” and drawing support largely from urban and educated (often Christian) Palestinians who are wary of a Hamas theocracy. In recent years they have been marginalized, largely due to the fall of Marxism as a dominant world philosophy, and their own internal factional divisions.

In 1968 he put a bomb on Jaffa road in Jerusalem, injuring 9 Israelis. He spent 17 years in prison, and is now semi-paralyzed on his right side. Until recently he gave “alternative tours” of Jerusalem and the West Bank, showing left-leaning tourists and activists sights and spots of the city that bear the mark of the occupation, or played a role in the loss of Palestinian rights to the city. He is fluent in Arabic, Hebrew, English, French, and German, and gives talks in all of the above.

Outside one of the entrances to the Temple Mount there is a compound of apartments, all shared by members of the black Palestinian community. Their history is very interesting, going back to Chad, and a Muslim tribe there called al-Salamat. They came to Jerusalem under the Ottomans and were employed as guardians of the Temple Mount.

I highly recommend reading this report by Dr Susan Beckerleg on the history of the African community in Palestine.

Photos by Rachael Strecher.

Flowers of the Holy Land

I got the one on the left for my father as a birthday gift 2 years ago, and the one on the right for my mother’s birthday this year. They contain flowers from Palestine pressed between the pages. Beautiful books.

Qalandiya Checkpoint

Yesterday Rachael Strecher, photographer-genius, and I went to the Qalandia (pronounced ga-LAN-diya) checkpoint to see the Security.Separation.Apartheid Wall as it cuts through the land. It so happens Banksy’s pieces are here too. We walked along the wall while talking to a couple of really nice guys, Mua3tasr and Nasr, about the situation. Both were teenagers who studied water resource management in a techincal high school in Ramallah. They had never seen Jerusalem. They carry the wrong color id cards. They asked me, “will Barack Obama change this?” Fuck. I don’t know. I hope so.

Banksy

Chewing Gat in Jerusalem

Today I went to Machane Yehuda, the Jewish market in Jerusalem to try and find some gat from a Yemenite store, the stimulant chewed in Yemen on a massive scale. I didn’t have high expectations, because the lack of a multimillion-dollar-a-day habit in Israeli society would probably mean the quality wouldn’t be to Sana’a standards.

This is what I found.

This was 30 shekels, or about 8 bucks.

This is crap gat.

To be sure, of the above pic, only the leaves in the bowl were chewable:

Washed and ready.

In Jerusalem

After almost 3 days of travel I’m back in Jerusalem. The air is sweet, here.

As for the trip, Rosa if you’re reading this, thank you for the best flight of my life, o long lost compadre!

Goodbye, Los Angeles

The time has come for me to leave, my flight is later tonite. I’ve had a good run, I feel like. Now it is time for me to go back. To all my friends and fam in LA: I’ll miss you, I really will. We’ll see each other in dreams.

These are some pics from my last days.

The Holocaust Collection

For the past month I’ve worked full time at Eric Chaim Kline, Bookseller, one of the largest rare/antiquarian Judaica dealers on the west coast. Its been an amazing experience and something of a revelation in my life. The book as a physical object (as opposed to scholarship and research which is more concerned with whats inside the books) is very fascinating to me, and I think I’d like to work with books professionally, either as a special collections bibliographer in a library or as a conservator working on old books. That sounds really, really fun to me.

The job I was working on all month was organizing Kline’s Holocaust collection, a 12,000 volume multilingual research library covering all aspects of Holocaust studies, from the build-up to World War Two to the founding of the State of Israel. Its an amazingly impressive collection and I had a really fun time organizing it.

These are some pics from my last day there, today.

The collection. The boxes on top contain original files from the Nuremberg trials.

Reference materials.

Nazi shit.

“The New Germany and the Jewish Question”

Ephemera. My favorite one is in the bottom left corner, “The Jews and Their Lies!” How I’d love some time alone with some of these guys in a room with no windows.

ID Cards from Nazi Germany.

Nazi food stamps and a wee little book of pictures of Hitler.

These are all memoirs of Holocaust survivors.

Art and photography books.

Antisemitic English books, from left: “The Octopus,” “The Myth of the Six Million,” “The Jews: Are They Human?” “The Wandering Jew,” and finally “Anne Frank’s Diary: A HOAX!!!”

The man with the plan.

This is Alex. He’s an amazing, hysterical and brilliant guy, fluent in Polish, German, French, Latin, and English, he helped me figure out what the books were about and what category to put them in. He escaped Poland before it got bad on a forged Nicaraguan passport via Japan. BAMF.

Lunch. Thursday is .39 cent taco day at the Mexican restaurant next door. The place is in this odd mall, almost 100% latino, and so when you go out the back door of the warehouse you’re suddenly in this Mexican mall. Then after you get your food the door closes and suddenly you’re back in a world of Jewish books.

There’s a guy who runs an airbrushing shop a few shops down, we speak sometimes about graffiti and whatnot, its a hangout for some pretty amazing artists.

All the cans up top in the pic on the left are signed by famous LA graf artists.

Fraktur

I think working around Nazi books all day has been rubbing off on me.

All my hats at once

I’m home sick from work. I thought I’d be really productive and instead of getting stuff done I need for my trip, I’d take pictures of hats.

These are collected from all over, most are of central asian origin and picked up in Turkey.

My friend DanRae made this for me, and I wear it every. day.

My friend Noa got these for me when I left Israel in 2004.

A girl named Nazire gave me this right before I left Turkey in 2005.

Bukharan, courtesy the huge Uzbek population in Istanbul.

My mom picked this one up in Afghanistan, 1973

More Afghan

My friend Darrin sent this to me from Afghanistan. Its one of my faves, even though its a bit froofy.

Craft fairs in BC. The first two are the same, reversed.

Ugandan kippa, used by the Abayudaya Jewish community.

Assorted random ones

From Georgia

Mahmoud Darwish, 1941-2008

The greatest of the Palestinian poets has died, رحمه الله, God rest his soul.

Henry Hollander’s Books

I’m in San Francisco for the weekend, and I had the opportunity to visit Henry Hollander’s Bookstore. The store is actually in the basement of his house, and i was there for like 45 minutes by myself while he went to the warehouse. He’s an awesome guy, incredibly knowledgeable and very friendly. With an awesome hat, too.

I came away from it with four new books: The Land Of Sheba: Tales of the Jews of Yemen, Ahavat Teiman- Yemenite Jewish women’s poetry, in Hebrew and Judeo-Arabic, Al-Murshad al-Kafi, in Hebrew and Judeo-Arabic, and lastly The Arabic Commentary of Salmon Ben Yeruham the Karaite on The Book of Psalms Chapters 42-72, in Hebrew and Judeo-Arabic. These are going to be my projects for the next year.

Mahmoud Darwish / Yoram Taharlev

Characters by Meirav Haber, calligraphy by me.

My life has an update

On February 18th i wrote “Well, thats it for Yemen. After a 2 hour interrogation at LAX I’m finally home. Plan is to stay 3 months and take it from there. More later.”

Well, three months turned into six, as los angeles will do to you. However, in four weeks I leave again for the Middle East, this time to Israel/Palestine. I got a fellowship from the New Israel Fund to live and work with the Bedouin community for a period of ten months. I’m in the process of nailing down exactly what I’ll be doing, but if it goes according to plan I’ll be living in a village doing human rights advocacy work and existing in Arabic-speaking society exclusively. I feel like I’ve been studying Arabic too long, and now its time to actually put that into practice and go out there and get a job where I’m expected to just speak it and use it to function.

Los Angeles is an amazing hub, an ever-buzzing hive of life with amazing people doing amazing things, but I personally can’t be here for the long haul, it just runs me into the ground.

Until I leave, however, I am working full-time at Eric Chaim Kline, Bookseller, the insane warehouse of antiquarian and rare books I mentioned a few posts ago. It’s pretty incredible. I sort and organize books all day long at what is essentially a museum of books.

Preserving the Ethnosphere

This is an unbelievably articulate and intelligent lecture on the disappearance of indigenous language and culture around the globe by noted National Geographic Explorer-in-residence Wade Davis, I highly recommend watching this.

I Am the Witness

I am the witness, and the scene,

The worshiper and the temple,

In this land of my siege,

And yours.

-Mahmoud Darwish

Ink on canvas

Words Are My Exile

Exile is my homeland,

Words are my exile.

-Mahmoud Darwish

Exiled in Memory

Exiled in my memory,

Imprisoned in words,

I flee under the rain.

-Mahmoud Darwish

Freedom

Pen and ink

First Attempt at Hebrew Calligraphy – A Prayer for Peace

May we see the day when war and bloodshed cease,

When a great peace shall embrace the whole world,

Then nation will not threaten nation,

And mankind will not again know war.

Judeo Arabic II

As I mentioned in the previous post, I found a Jewish prayer book from around the year 850, written by an incredibly influential and brilliant Egyptian rabbi, Rav Saadia Gaon, with large portions of translation and explanation in Judeo Arabic, Classical Arabic written in Hebrew characters. This particular book was reprinted in 1941 in Jerusalem.

This is an interesting piece of research material because it provides a window into what cutting-edge Arabic Jewish discourse and discussion and prayer was like in the Cairo/Baghdad of the Middle Ages.

In this post I’ve chosen a random sampling of Judeo Arabic and I’m going to transcribe a small section of Hebrew characters into the Arabic characters and then try and translate it to English. Thing about Judeo Arabic is, there are Hebrew phrases scattered in, particularly relating to God and prayer. In this (helpful) printing, the Hebrew words are spaced a little wider out. Note that only one column is Arabic, the left side is Hebrew.

Also present are Arabic diacritical marks denoting certain Arabic letters and pronunciation guides. This is an easy diagnosis when looking at a this siddur, since the Hebrew wouldn’t have those particular marks, one can tell the JudeoArabic from the rest easily, without having to scan and find clues in the text, a preposition here, a definite article there. These marks also help transcribe the text more easily. I’ll go into more detail about how to switch the alphabets over later.

وكانت الفصول يح فقت فلما زاد هذا صارت يظ. وكذلك في عهد ابانا لم يكونوا محتاجين ان يقولون “מקבץ נדחי עמו”
لاجتماعهم ولا “בונה ירושלים” لآنها كانت مبنية ولكنهم بدلًا من هاتين كانوا يسلون في دوام الملك والنصر في الحروب حسب الحاجة في كل جيل. فأن توهم متوهم ان ههنا فنون آخر جير هذه اليح مما

“And it was only in the sections of Yeh, and when it increased it became Yidth, as it was in the time of our fathers, who were not in need of saying, “מקבץ נדחי עמו” for they were together, nor “בונה ירושלים” because it was built, but instead of saying either of those, they sought the favor of the king and helped during the wars, according to the need of each generation. If there was suspicion against them, with these or other types of Yeh regarding…”

So jibberish, or what happens when you flip to a random page and pick a paragraph. I’m pretty sure I screwed up the translation, I have no idea what these Yeh and Yidth things are, and I translated fasul as ’sections’ but it could be ‘months’ and a ton of other stuff. The first part of the Hebrew says “Gather the Exiles ” and the second reads “Build Jerusalem”.

-UPDATE! My man Ezra comes through with the clarification!

Yeh and Yidth are numbers, abbreviations for 18 and 19. 18 in Hebrew, besides being the numerological sign for ‘life’, is also a collection of prayers said daily: the 18 blessings, or Amidah, from עמד/عمد ‘amd – pillar or support, as it is said standing.

The Hebrew of the first line, facing column, translated by Ezra: “and when the sections/paragraphs were only 18, and when they were added upon they became 19.” So just based on this first paragraph and nothing else, it’s possible that it’s discussing factional politics in Israelite times, before the Jews were scattered.

Kline Books AKA The Most Amazing Bookstore in the History of Everything

Today I found a real, bona fide LA treasure. In the deep Valley, Panorama City, lies a bookstore of epic proportions, Eric Chaim Kline Booksellers. It’s located above the giant edifice that is the Valley Indoor Swap Meet at Parthenia and Van Nuys Blvd and is by appointment only.

Once inside, its total sensory overload. It goes on forever, with books overflowing from every corner. Most of the books are Jewish themed, or have to do with some aspect of biblical study. They have tens of thousands of volumes and more treasures than you can count. Many are antiquarian with amazing vellum or parchment bindings. I had no expectations, and thus was totally blown away by what I found.

Old Orientalist German books on Near-Eastern languages.

That is a giant Indonesian Qur’an from the turn of the century.

Latin-Amharic vellum-bound lexicon.

I came away from it with Saadia Gaon’s Judeo-Arabic prayer book, Kitab Gami3 al-Salawat wat-Tasabih “The book of all prayers and supplications” which I had read about and had been searching for for some time now.

Body Painting for the Labyrinth

For a long time I’ve been wondering whether or not one could detach a silkscreen from its frame and tape it to a body and apply images to the body like this.

I was making a screen of some Mahmoud Darwish poetry when disaster struck and I ripped the screen. I was well pissed but decided it was a good opportunity to see whether my bodyscreen idea would work. There was a part of the screen that didn’t get ripped so I cut it out and gave it a try.

I taped it so it was completely flush with the skin and then used a palette knife to smear ink through the screen and it worked wonderfully.

So then we decided to go nuts with it. The Labyrinth of Jareth Masquerade Ball was the 12th and 13th and that provided the impetus for a major body painting project. We used designs gleaned from Iznik tiles from Ottoman Turkey and traditional Mehndi designs.

Meirav has the Mehndi skills:

Blue Scholars Rocked the El Rey

The day I moved to Seattle in 2005 I went into a record store in Pike Place market and asked the dude if he knew of any good local hip hop. He told me to try these guys, the Blue Scholars. Within 20 seconds of the first track I knew I found something amazing. Their lyrics are intelligent, well thought out, and the beats are sick. They are Geo-Logic and Sabzi, Geo’s the MC and Sabzi’s the DJ.

On Saturday they came to LA and played the El Rey theater and I went with my brother. They rocked the freaking house.

This is a video of their song “Back Home“

A table from 2×4s

This is a coffee/work table I made from some salvaged two-by-fours and 4.5 feet of thick square heavy wood for legs. I got all of it at a salvage shop in the valley, at Sherman Way and Coldwater, I think. In any case the total cost for this table was under 30 dollars.

First I sawed all the 2×4s to a uniform length and glued them all together and clamped it for a couple of hours.

Then, since the 2×4s are beveled on the top I sanded down the glued slats until there was no bevel and they were all flush.

Then I sawed out a space on each corner to accommodate the legs.

These get glued and screwed, and then voila you have a table.

I used these tools:

And now this table is my main workshop, for filigree and calligraphy:

The Sneakiness of the Letter Ghayn

I was watching a lecture by Shaykh Hamza Yusuf on youtube, which can be seen here. In it, he mentions that many of the meanings of words that begin with Ghayn (غ) have to do with betrayal, obscurity, leaving, covering over, the unknown, evil, and other words of this nature. Just a general black cloud upon it, like if the alphabet was Middle Earth, Ghayn is Mordor. So I cracked out the Hans Wehr, and decided to see how true this is. The letter Ghayn does not have a large section, comparatively, in Hans Wehr, so the fact that there are so many words that conform to this connotation is evident of a deeper, hidden treachery concealed behind Ghayn’s open-mouthed and otherwise welcoming demeanor. Incidentally, many words have love-related meanings as well, in their derived forms: seduction, temptation, swooning, flirtation are seen as a slippery slope, beset on all sides by Shaitan’s presence.

She dwells in the back of your throat, the subtle and rolling rumble only a voiced velar fricative can give. Because of where Ghayn emerges from, and this connotation, I imagine her personified as Oscar the Grouch. Oscar the Ghhhraaouch.

Here is the list i came up with.

غبر/ غبار – dust/ to cover with dust

غبش – darkness, “the twilight before sunrise”

غبشة – opaque

غبن – to defraud, cheat, dupe.

غبو / غبى – to not understand, to be ignorant.

غبي – stupid

غتّ – to submerge, immerse

غثي – To confuse, muddle, jumble.

غدر – To act treacherously, perfidiously, betray etc

غادر – To leave [so betrayal is when one turns away from his loyalties and leaves to the loyalty of other parties.]

(غدو (غدا – to leave (one of كان’s sisters)

غرّ- to mislead, deceive (form VIII to be blinded, fooled, unexpected)

غرور – dillusion

غرر – hazard

غرارة – thoughtlessness

غرب – To go away, to be a stranger or obscure entity, to be difficult to comprehend.

غربة- Melancholy loneliness felt when outside one’s homeland. Good Al Kitaab word for ya.

غريب – Strange, obscure.

مغرّب – Banished, exiled.

غرض – To have a bias.

تغرض – Biased, partial.

مغرض – Person with ~

غرق- To drown, be submerged

اغراق -Scuttling (of a ship), sinking, [also "hyperbole" - ie inundated with exaggeration to the point of sinking]

مغرق – Immersed, engrossed

غرم – Damage, loss

غرا – Tempt, seduce

اغراء – Instigation, temptation, allurement

مغريات – Temptations

غزّ – To be thorny

غزل - The English word Gazelle comes from the Arabic ghazal, same meaning. But Ghazzal, in English and Arabic has a poetic meaning, a type of poem, check the link. The connection is thus: The style of poetic expression that many ghazzals use is said to evoke a melancholy lovesick feeling. So as a verb, the three letters, ghayn zai lam, means, according to my teacher in Jordan: “the melancholy whimper of a doe cornered by hunters.” [Side note: this is one of my favorite anecdotes when it comes to Arabic connotations]

مغازلة – Flirtation

غزو- Invade

غزوة – Invasion

غازية – Female dancer, danseuse (hmm.)

غس – Worthless

عش – To defraud, cheat, act dishonestly

غش – corruption, deceit

غشاش – Fraud, deceiver, swindler, imposter

من غشنا فليس منّا – A hadith saying “whoever cheats us isn’t one of us.” This is really useful (i’ve found) to bust out when someone is trying to rip you off because you’re a foreigner.

غشم – To treat wrongly or tyrannically. Form VI to feign ignorance or inexperience [deceptively] Form X – to deem or regard as stupid, ignorant, foolish.

غشوم – Unjust, iniquitous

غشيم -Ignorant, inexperienced, a greenhorn

غشو – To envelop, conceal, descend upon.

غشى – Unconsciousness, swooning

غشاء – cover, wrapper, coating

غاشية – misfortune, calamity, disaster

غص -to choke, be choked, be overcrowded or packed

غصب – Take by force, rob, seize, force, compel, abduct, violate (a woman), conquer, subdue

غاصب – Usurper

غض – To lower, lessen, diminish, detract, to turn away from [out of modesty]

غض البصر – lower ones gaze.

غضة – Shortcoming, deficiency

غضب -To be angry, upset, irritated

غضر – Turn away from, turn on/against someone,

غضن -To wrinkle, pucker, shrivel

غضن -Toil, labor, hardship, difficulty

غضو – To close ones eyes, to overlook, disregard, avoid seeing

غضا – On pins and needles, in an unbearable situation

تغاض -Overlooking, connivance, disregard

غط – To immerse, dip, plunge

غطيطة – Fog, mist, miasma

غطرة -Headcloth worn in Bahrein and Najd [covering over of the head]

غطرس – To be arrogant, haughty

متفطرس – conceited, self-obsessed

غطس -To immerse, dip, plunge

غطاس – Baptism

غطش – To be or become dark [said of the day], obscured

غطا – To cover up. Form II – To wrap up, be stronger, conceal, to drown out

غف – To take unawares, grab, grasp, seize.

غفر – Guard over, watch

غفرة – Cover, lid

غفارة – Headcloth

مغفر – Helmet

غفل – To neglect, not heed, act foolishly, ignore,

غفلة -Foolishness, heedlessness, acting without thinking

تغفيل -Stultification [I have no idea what that means at all]

مغفل – Apathetic, indifferent, gullible, easily duped, a chump

غفو -To doze off, take a nap

غل -To penetrate, become deeply embedded, to put in manacles or chains, be filled with hatred,

غل – hatred, spite malice

غلب -Subdue, conquer, vanquish, be victorious

غالب – Most of, the majority, [that which has been overcome by another side]

مغلب – Defeated, overwhelmed, overcome

غلس – Darkness of night

غلط – To make an error, to be incorrect, be mistaken

غلظ – To be or become rude, crude, rugged, to treat ruthlessly

غلغل – To penetrate, become deeply embedded, to put in manacles or chains

متغلغل – deeply embedded, extensive, far-reaching

Note this is just غل doubled.

غلف -To wrap in a cover

غلاف – a cover

غلق -To close, shut,

انغلاق – incomprehensibility

غلم – To be seized by lust or sensuous desire

غلو -To go over the proper bounds, to be excessive, to overflow, to be expensive

غالي – Expensive

غم -To cover, to veil, to conceal

غمد -To sheathe, put into a scabbard, shelter, encompass, protect

غمر -To be plentiful, to be abundant, to overflow, to flood, submerge, immerse

غمار -copious, plentiful, desolate, bare [see previous post on antonyms]

مغامرة -hazardous or foolhardy undertaking, adventure, risk, hazard

غميزة -failing, fault, shortcoming of character

غمس – To dip, plunge, submerge, immerse

غمص -To belittle, degrade, despise, hold in contempt

غمض – To be hidden, concealed, to be dark, to close ones eyes, to be incomprehensible

غامض -ambiguous, dark, obscure [which itself comes from the Latin obscurus, indistinct, dark, as opposed to lucidus, light, and therefore clear. ]

غامضة -unsolved problem, riddle.

غمط -To belittle, degrade, despise, hold in contempt

غمغم – To mumble, to mutter

غامق – Dark

غملج – Fickle, inconsistent, unstable

غمى – To swoon, faint, loose consciousness

غنج -To flirt

غندر – To play the dandy, act like a fop

غنم -To gain booty, take as war spoils, plunder, sack, loot

غنم – Spoils, booty

غنم – Sheep and goats, herd

غيهب -Darkness, duskiness, gloom

غار -To To penetrate, become deeply embedded, to ooze away. Form II – to attack, raid

غارة -Predatory incursion

مغار – Cave, cavern, grotto

غاص – To dip, plunge, submerge, immerse

غوط – To evacuate the bowels

غاغة -Mob, rabble, riff-raff, din

غال – To take away, grab, rob

اغتيال – Assassination

غوى – To stray from the right way, seduce, tempt, lure away from righteousness.

غواية -error, sin, seduction

غاب – To be absent

غيب – the Unknown world, that of jins and angels and spirits and the world beyond death, the supernatural.

غار/غير – To be jealous, to display zeal over. Form II To alter, modify, change. Form III To be dissimilar, to be different

غير – other than, different from, unlike, no, not, non-, un-, dis-, except, save.

مغاير – Indecent, immoral

غاض/غيض – Decrease, diminish, recede

غاظ/غيظ – To anger, exasperate, enrage, vex, gall

غيم/غام -To become cloudy

غيام – Clouds, mist, fog.

Arabic Antonyms

This is an amazing article about the Arabic language. There are an entire category of words that mean both themselves and their opposite. In fact, I remember reading one book about an American’s hapless attempt to learn Arabic in Yemen and he came away from it saying, “every word in Arabic either means itself, its opposite, or a camel.” Very true.

This was originally printed here, but you need to register so Arabic Gems posted it here, and now I’m reposting it from her.

Antonyms in Arabic are a strange phenomenon.

By Tamim al-Barghouti
Special to The Daily Star
Tuesday, July 13, 2004

Antonyms in Arabic are a strange phenomenon. There is a whole category of words that mean one thing as well as its opposite. For example, the word, “saleem,” means the one who is cured as well as the one who has just been bit by a snake. The word baseer, means one with great sight and insight, but also means blind. Mawla means master and slave and wala means to follow and to lead, The word umma, which is usually translated as nation, means the entity that is followed, or the guide, as well as the entity that follows and is guided.

Like many properties of Arabic, the reason for this is usually attributed to the Bedouin origin of the language – the desert is said to impose unity, homogeneity, and therefore equality on the all creatures. Sand is everywhere, and in the end everything turns into sand, the contradictory extremes of life seem to be the same in essence. But this traditional explanation, like many traditional explanations, does not explain much.

For Arabic is not a poor language, almost every creature, object or feeling has scores of names. A sense of continuity and unity of the universe might have been present in the desert community of Bedouin Arabs, but a sense of meaninglessness was not there. The way the ancient creators of the Arabic language celebrated the smallest details of their world is noteworthy: it is said that the great poet and linguist of the eleventh century, Abul-Ala al-Miary, who was blind, stumbled into one of the princes at the court of Saleh Ibn Mirdas, the autonomous ruler of Northern Syria. The noble guest lost his temper, especially because the poet was poor, and poor poets, are not supposed to stumble into rich nobility! So the guest called the poet an ignorant dog. Abul-Ala answered swiftly: “The dog among us is the one who does not know 70 names for the dog!” Of course the noble guest, the prince and half the linguists of the court could not come up with so many names.

Later on, in the 12th and 13th centuries, when the preservation of the language became an obsession, all 70 names for the word “dog” were recorded. They were not quite synonymous, for they did not all simply mean dog. Rather, they were descriptions of a dog’s conditions; an angry dog had a name different from a joyful one, the dog that had one ear pointing up and the other down had a name different from the one who had both ears up or both ears down. What is true of the dog is true of most other creatures. Up until this day the most famous seven names of the lion are taught to children in schools all over the Arab world: Laith, Sab, Asad, Qaswara, Ghadanfar, Dirgham and Usama.

“Love” has 77 names, each of which has a slight but crucial difference from the other. Hawa means light liking but also transfers an element of error, bias and irrationality. As the old pre-Islamic proverb goes: “Hawa is the downside of reason.”

Then you have ishq, which comes from entanglement, like two pieces of wood and ivory in a work of arabesque, the two lovers are inseparable yet still independent and distinct. Then there is hayam, which comes from wondering thirsty in the desert, and fitna, which means love, infatuation, passionate desire, but also means civil war and illusion.

There is izaz, which is the kind of love that gives both lovers power and dignity, and sakan, which also means home and tranquility, the Quran uses this word to describe the relation between married couples. The highest stage of love is, paradoxically, fanaa, which means non-existence. This is the stage where the lovers lose their independent existences and actually become one another. This stage is usually used by Sufis in reference to divine love and the unity of existence.

With this wealth of words and meanings, the existence of the category of words that mean one thing and its opposite cannot be explained by desert born nihilism and lack of imagination. Taking a second look at those lists of antonyms, one can see that, with very few exceptions, most words relate to power and knowledge. The continuous fighting for water and means of livelihood among Arab tribes, the temporality of life and the cruel paradox of the desert coupling monotony and uncertainty, might have resulted in an instinctive position on power.

Power is temporary, and is in itself meaningless. Temporary power is therefore the same as weakness, master and salve will both die in the end, so would the seer and the blind, and the blind might be more of a seer than the one whose eyes are wide open. Those couples thus deserve the same names. Power and knowledge become meaningful only if they result is something that is not temporary. To Arabs, all physical objects will in the end vanish and turn to sand, but ideas, will remain. Thus power is necessary only to create legacies, memories, epics, legends and poetry. One could trace this idea well into the pre-Islamic era. After the advent of Islam, the concept of legacy was replaced with the concept of the afterlife.

The history of Arabic literature is full of anecdotes were antonyms and puns were used to mock unjust power and authority. After Haroun al-Rashid massacred his Persian ministers, one of their women told him “qarrat Aynok” which is an expression meaning “may god give you peace of mind,” but the literal meaning of the words is “may your eye stand still” – in other words, “may you go blind.” In the Arabian nights, Shahrazad continuously addresses the angry king Shariar, who kills a woman every day in revenge for his wife’s betrayal, “Oh happy king, of wise judgment” in a context that means exactly the opposite.

Perhaps today we are in great need of such words (antonyms) in everything – from love to politics.

Tamim al-Barghouti is a Palestinian poet who writes a weekly article for The Daily Star

Judeo-Arabic

So I got my first look at real Judeo-Arabic, the Arabic dialect spoken by the Jews of the Arab lands. It is written in Hebrew letters, but is the transcribed Arabic dialect of the country in which it was spoken, but with some Jewish words, Hebrew and Aramaic mostly, thrown in. These two particular examples are Iraqi, and were shown to me by Rabbi Avi Navah of Kadima Heschel West Hebrew Academy in the West San Fernando Valley. He was born in Baghdad and a year later his family fled to Israel and he was raised speaking Judeo-Arabic at home but Hebrew everywhere else. He brought the Hagaddah of Passover, the prayer book used during the Passover feast to tell the story of the Israelite exodus from Egypt, and Shir ha-Shirim, the Song of Songs. It says on the front עם תרגום ושרח ערבי “‘em targum ve-sharakh Arabi” -With Arabic translation and explanation. Note this is the same as Arabic مع ترجمة وشرح عربي “Ma3 targema wa-sharh Arabi.” The ayin and the mim in “with” reverse themselves when you go from Hebrew to Arabic. This is why Judeo-Arabic is cool. Its a bridge language between two cultures who have serious problems right now, and in 50 years this language will be mostly extinct.

A lot of our knowledge of medieval Judeo-Arabic, and thus the dialectic Arabic spoken on the streets of Cairo, Baghdad, Tunis, or Sana’a for a thousand years of Jewish life, comes from the Cairo Geniza, among other genizas, or book storage archives. The geniza was typically an attic in a Synagogue or house of learning in which damaged or unusable books could be stored, since they could not be destroyed as they contained the Holy Name. As they grew over the years and the language gradually changed, the genizas have become a massive archive documenting linguistic evolution, as well as a way of life that has ceased to exist as a result of Zionism.

In our world, the information contained within those hundreds of thousands of books is being digitized and uploaded to the internet for all to peruse. Check Genizah.org for one major example of digitization. The Princeton-Penn-Cambridge Combined Geniza Project also is working hard to make geniza data available.

Some people are doing great research in this field and are preserving the study of this sadly moribund beautiful language. Among them were Dr. Joshua Blau, Dr. S.D. Goitein, Dr. Benjamin Hary, Dr. Noam Stillman, Dr. Ofra Tirosh Becker, Dr. Judith Rosenhouse, and others.

Also:

Omniglot

Wikipedia

Jewish-languages.org

The Nomad Poetry Project

Since I returned in February 08 from Yemen I had been focusing a lot of my energy on a large-scale calligraphy project revolving around a singular theme, that of nomadism, on many different levels, physical and intellectual, spiritual and emotional. I set my sights on 50 pieces, and this is the halfway mark, and September is the deadline. I have 25 until now, and many of them I haven’t posted until tonight.

I merge digital and analog in the creation of these works; I use GiMP, a free-ware photoshop program, to edit scanned-in hand written words or letters. I dont clean them up, but they scan in as a jumbled up soup of words:

So I re-arrange them back to coherent sentences.

I drew on many sources for this project, among them:

A Culture of Desert Survival: Bedouin Proverbs from Sinai and the Negev by Clinton Bailey

Bedouin Poetry from Sinai and the Negev: Mirror of a Culture by Clinton Bailey

Dusting the Color From Roses: A Billigual Collection of Arabic Poetry by Ghazi A. Algosaibi

Love, Death, and Exile: Poems Translated from Arabic, Bilingual Edition by Abdul Wahab Al-Bayati

Arabian Love Poems: Full Arabic and English Texts by Nizar Qabbani

A Time Between Ashes And Roses by Adonis

The Butterfly’s Burden by Mahmoud Darwish

The Son of a Duck Is a Floater by Primrose Arnander

Victims of a Map by Mahmud Darwish, Adonis, Samih al-Qasim

Long Are The Days.

People, for People

Bedouin Proverb.

Taken from: A Culture of Desert Survival: Bedouin Proverbs from Sinai and the Negev by Clinton Bailey

Nothing Lasts Forever, Good or Bad

First piece I’ve done in 3amiya, dialectical Arabic.

Taken from: A Culture of Desert Survival: Bedouin Proverbs from Sinai and the Negev by Clinton Bailey

Where Will We Go?

Food and Hospitality

Food and generosity are lot and luck.

-Bedouin proverb.

Taken from: A Culture of Desert Survival: Bedouin Proverbs from Sinai and the Negev by Clinton Bailey

We did not abandon our country.

Our land abandoned us, we did not abandon her. We’ll pasture our livestock, and follow it.

-Bedouin proverb

Taken from: A Culture of Desert Survival: Bedouin Proverbs from Sinai and the Negev by Clinton Bailey

March

This reads better in Arabic, as it rhymes.

“Adar – shams wa amTar – wa-lleil yuwazn an-nahar”

Bedouin proverb.

Taken from: A Culture of Desert Survival: Bedouin Proverbs from Sinai and the Negev by Clinton Bailey

The Treasures of the Sea

“If the desert is a treasure, the sea is seven treasures.”

-Bedouin proverb, Sinai.

Taken from: A Culture of Desert Survival: Bedouin Proverbs from Sinai and the Negev by Clinton Bailey

If Our Footsteps Part…

If the footsteps of people part, by God’s greatness they will be rejoined.

-Bedouin proverb

Taken from: A Culture of Desert Survival: Bedouin Proverbs from Sinai and the Negev by Clinton Bailey

All Roads Are Distant

Canopus

If Canopus has appeared, beware a flood, even towards the end of the night.

-Bedouin proverb

Taken from: A Culture of Desert Survival: Bedouin Proverbs from Sinai and the Negev by Clinton Bailey

Ar-Rahim

Al-Rahim, The Merciful.

Power to the Coffee Drinkers

Coffee is to be respected.

-Bedouin proverb

Taken from A Culture of Desert Survival: Bedouin Proverbs From Sinai and the Negev by Clinton Bailey.

Sowing is Our Task

Our task is to sow, and God’s to make it green.

-Bedouin proverb

Taken from: A Culture of Desert Survival: Bedouin Proverbs from Sinai and the Negev by Clinton Bailey

The Scavenger’s Paradise

I found the most amazing store, built in an old mission church, it is overflowing with salvaged house parts. Amazing old fixtures, leaded or stained glass, incredible odds and ends everywhere, it lived up to its name one hundred percent. It’s located at 5453 Satsuma Ave in N. Hollywood, between Burbank and Chandler.

Henna Sleeve

Rain and Age

Rain and lifespans are in God’s hands.

-Bedouin proverb

Taken from: A Culture of Desert Survival: Bedouin Proverbs from Sinai and the Negev by Clinton Bailey

Boredom

Happy Memorial Day. Party with a sharpie.

Record! I am Arab.

This is a design I busted for a friend at UW. It’s a Mahmoud Darwish quote: Record! I am Arab / Sajal! Ana Arabi.

Yemenite Filigree Cheating

For the past several weeks I’ve been slowly working on Yemenite filigree, with mounting levels of frustration. I can’t get the solder to bind. I got Yehuda Tassa’s DVD on basic filigree and it showed me why I was screwing it up. I’m doing a bunch of things wrong, and so in the next few weeks I’m going to try and correct them and get the right materials.

I decided to try and get a preview of what being able to actually do filigree work would be like, if only i could make it work. To do this, I decided to use superglue in place of solder.

First I bent some 20 gauge silver wire into a loop. Then I did that again, and soldered (not glued) both rings closed. I put one of the rings around the head of a hammer and hit it against a brick till the wire took on the shape of the hammer’s 8-sided shape. After that, I heated that ring up and hit it with a hammer till it flattened. Then I glued the two rings on top of each other.

To make the filligree elements, bend the wire in half, and twist the two ends together and then twist the wire together until it’s reached the right level of twistiness. There’s more to it than just that in the traditional method, you have to ‘cure’ the wire through annealing (heating up to allow the molecules to rearrange and settle in their new shape) and then putting the wire in an acid bath, but since I’m cheating and doing a piss-poor job of adhering to tradition, i skipped those two steps. Then you simply twist them up into the shape you want. I did two elements in 20 gauge wire and then annealed them until their color changed (shouldn’t happen ideally) and then flattened them a bit, then sanded down the top to get a shine. I popped a little coil on top to cover the center.

Then its just a matter of winding up some high-gauge (therefore very fine/thin) wire into coils and arranging them in the frame.

Japanese Food and Mutaytor

So Thursday night was a blast. I met up with David and Tida of cheese store fame, in Little Tokyo in a random-ass closed all-Japanese mall.

On the third floor is Honda-Ya, one of the dopest restaurants in town, and one of LA’s best kept secrets. Open till one am, they have an amazing menu built around small fried and barbequed meats, veggies, and noodles, all designed to pair well with beer. And ridiculously cheap: 9 bucks is the most you’ll pay for a dish, but figure each person gets two which are then shared, it makes for a good meal. And the beer is 3 bucks a glass or a pitcher for 13. All in all figure 20-30 a person, but its an amazing spot, the food is great and the place itself is better.

After that we drove over to the Mayan Theater at 9th and Hill. Mutaytor rocked the fucking house. On top of that the show was sponsored as a promotion so it was free, with loads of free handouts inside.

For anyone unfamiliar with Mutaytor it’s truly a unique and incredible experience when they go full on. I imagine their Burning Man show is off the hook. Watch this video to get an idea of what they do:

This is the email I wrote to a friend the first night I saw them:

oh. my. god.
last night i saw the most unbelievable performance. i dont even know
how to describe it. it was this nuts show that stretched the boundary
of theater, performance art, and music. my friend from work was like,
oh you should totally come see this show. so i went, and the opening
band was like this hardcore goth metal in stupid costumes shit, and
was SO bad, and i was just like, wtf did i come to see? but then my
friend was like these guys are as far from the mutaytor (the band we
went to see) as possible.
so then they finished alhamdullilah and the mutaytor came on. ok, so
first of all, it wasnt a band as much as a performance art troupe, with
maybe 30 people. there were 6 regular drum sets, one wicked crazy drum
set with like 6 MASSIVE drums and a million little cow bell/ cymbal
things and this crazy dude behind it all dancing like a motherfucker,
4 bongo players, 3 brass instrument guys who played like 6 different
brass instruments, and electric guitar player, an electric bass
player, 2 keyboards, and 4 people behind mac laptops doing who knows
what. and that was only the music part. there was a dance team who was
just insane. there was a trapeze act that had fire-spinners flying
through the air. there was a sikh firespinner who was doing crazy
flips and jumps and shit with 4 balls of fire flying around him. there
was a drag show too…. this girl came on to the stage in a bikini and
she was shakin it to the music and i was like DAMN she is fine! and
then as she was gyrating around she turned around and took her top off
and when she turned back around it was a dude in drag! i was like
holy. shit.

Since then the only shows I’ve missed were ones when I was in Yemen.

The Mayan is gorgeous:

The show was amazing, as one would expect from the Mutaytor:

All in all another amazing Mutaytor experience.

My grandfather’s jewelery tools

These are my grandfather’s jewelery tools. I found them buried in a closet. I decided they would be useful in my ongoing experiment with Yemenite filigree work. I’m making a proper case for them, too.

Sara Rahbar

I randomly came upon the Myspace page of Sara Rahbar, an Iranian-American artist working out of NY. Her work revolves a lot around Iranian-American issues of identity, duality of culture, and perceptions of Middle Eastern-American life as a young woman in our century. Or not even Iranian-American: just American duality and the confusion of being.

Her myspace page is: http://profile.myspace.com/index.cfm?fuseaction=user.viewprofile&friendID=2306901

The Pearl, Darwish

How can I walk towards my people, towards myself?

How can I walk towards my passion my voice?

How can I ascend?

I am only a river that rejects, surges, blazes;

Overwhelming poetry’s hidden pearl,

Wearing the sun’s suspicion.

-Mahmoud Darwish

Eat My Wheat

Where Are the Days, Where Have They Gone?

This is a nasheed, an a capella song sung in many Muslim communites.

There is a translation at http://www.memritv.org/clip/en/1381.htm

Those in the picture were killed fighting the Coalition in Afghanistan.

Rain On Our Deserts

Muttanabi GIMP’ed

Dave and Emma on UJ Website!

On the university of Jordan’s offical website theres a picture of Dave, my roommate, and Emma, his girlfriend. Dave’s rockin the I ♥ Hans Wehr shirt i stenciled. represent!

Incidentally, if you want a I ♥ Hans Wehr t-shirt I could hook one up for 10 dollars plus shipping.

Need a Change? Be a Watchmaker!

Ever wonder where watchmakers learn their trade? Its a dying trade, and very few students are enrolling nationwide in programs, so programs are closing. So it goes. The result, however, is that now jewelery stores and watch companies are feeling the pinch, as the majority of watchmakers are 40+ and are retiring in this generation, so salaries are high for people who learn the trade. But how?!

Seattle saves the day with North Seattle Community College’s Watch Technology Institute!

Also, a program devised by the Swiss gov’t plans to create jobs through a training partnership with watchmaking schools around the world,

THE WOSTEP 3,000-HOUR PROGRAM

Since 1992, leading Swiss watch manufacturers have been financially supporting an ambitious program to foster and encourage the training of watchmaking technicians on a worldwide basis. The partnership program has since become a quality label for after-sales service worldwide. The WOSTEP 3,000-hour program is supported by 80 different brands of the Swiss watch industries.

As a neutral body, WOSTEP coordinates this worldwide partnership with watchmaking schools and has been given the task of selecting schools around the world that can implement a 3,000-hour training program and ensure adequate training for the needs of the Swiss Watch Industry. The curriculum of the WOSTEP 3,000-hour program includes studies in micromechanics, mechanical watches, chronographs, electronic watches, external parts, and organization of after-sales service. It requires 2,400 hours of practical or bench time and 600 hours of theory.

The program is vital to the watch industry, ensuring an optimum quality and quantity of after-sales service for Swiss made watches in world markets. Students who pass the final examinations in a WOSTEP-approved school are awarded the WOSTEP certificate, which is recognized throughout the world as the superior qualification in watchmaking.

Currently, there are 14 WOSTEP partnership watchmaking schools in the USA, China, U.K., Japan, Sweden, France and Germany. Five of the schools are in the USA and Okmulgee has been one since 1994.

I like that they stressed “a neutral body…” So very Swiss.

WOSTEP

The Penland School of Crafts is offering a summer watchmaking tutorial by Israeli watchmaker Itay Noy.

Check out Is Time Running Out on the Watch Repair Business? By Norma Buchanan

The British Horological Institute has classes and a wicked coat of arms:

The Enticements of Distant Ports

The Great Pen-Making Project.

I came upon about 6 5-foot sticks of bamboo, which I turned into a ton of pens of various sizes for Arabic calligraphy. If you’re interested in purchasing one they’re five dollars a piece, plus shipping.

I got my keyboard stickers!

So, two posts ago I mentioned that I hated typing in Arabic because I didn’t really know exactly where the letters lived, so it often took a couple of tries to get the right letter. Well, for $1.80 including shipping I got these little stickers on eBay, so no more will that be a problem! Hebrew ones are still in the mail.

The Sweetest of Friends

Hezarfen Şeyh İbrahim Edhem Efendi

This is Sheikh İbrahim Edhem Efendi, known as “Hezarfen” or “master of 1000 trades,” Sheikh Ibrahim was born in modern-day Uzbekistan in 1829. He later moved to the Ottoman capital, Istanbul, where he gained a reputation as the most BAMF in the art world of the time. He was the ultimate renaissance man, and for me represents perfection in art: skills across the boards, jack of all trades and kicks ass at all of them.

From Ebru Sanati: “He was proficient in Turkish, Arabic, Persian, and Cagatai. It is no wonder he is given the name Hezarfen. A list of his skills includes carpentry, woodcarving, founding, printing, weaving, along with archery. In addition, he was a blacksmith, lathesman, calligrapher, and last but not least, a master of Ebru.”

From The Ottomans, “He was a carpenter, metal caster, weaver, printer, architect, scientist and a mathematician. He was appointed as the first principal to Sultanahmet School of Crafts in 1869 and it was here that the first lead pipes were cast in Turkey. Producing ebru papers was one of his many talents which made him famous as Hezarfen.”

A is For Allah

Addictive!

Jerusalem Cards

Used to leave these at cafes and bus stops around Jerusalem. These were leftovers when I got home.

2004

Cathy

2005

The quality on these is less than optimal because they are digital photos of the original prints.

Ill Gotten Gains

SAYME

Yemen: Empty Jewish homes destroyed

In the latest attack targeting Yemen’s few remaining Jews, rebel Houthi militiamen destroyed several homes that had belonged to the now-absent Jewish community in the northwestern Saada province.

“The Houthis destroyed part of my house and looted it,” Rabbi Yehia Youssuf told Reuters in the capital, San’a.

All 67 members of Saada’s Jewish community fled following threats from the Houthis, the rabbi says. Some locals say the Jews were threatened because they had been selling wine to Muslims – an accusation the Jews deny, according to Reuters.

A local said the Shi’ite rebels attacked the houses of other Jews after looting the rabbi’s.

Around 400 Jews remain in the majority Sunni state, the remnant of an ancient, close-knit community that, while remaining connected to Jewish intellectual and legal developments outside Yemen, managed to insulate itself culturally until the 20th century.

Read more at http://www.jpost.com/servlet/Satellite?c=JPArticle&cid=1207486208257&pagename=JPost%2FJPArticle%2FShowFull

The Yemenites.

These are some photos I’ve collected online of Yemenite Jews, past and present.

Saadia

Today I was poking around on Flickr looking at pictures of Yemenis and to my great surprise I found the following picture. It was taken by Eric Lafforgue, www.ericlafforgue.com

This is Said Bin Isra’il Hala, or Saadia ben Yisrael Hala, and it is he who I stayed with when I visited Raida, the last surviving Jewish community in Yemen. He helped us get travel permits to the village, invited me and my two compadres into his home for Shabbat, we spent the weekend with him and his family and I will never forget his kindness and hospitality.

Since that trip, I’ve become mildly obsessed with Yemenite Jewry, and more specifically the silverwork trade they were known for.

These are the emails I sent home after returning from the village.

October 9 2007. Ramadan in Sana’a.

First of all I apologize for the group email. but this was cool:

So for the past three weeks my friends JB and Ezra and I have been playing human ping pong ball and bouncing to the interior ministry, the Foreign Ministry, the Tourist Ministry, the American embassy, and various other bureaucracies in an an effort to get a travel permit outside Sana’a to a village in the north called Raida. In Raida is the last surviving Jewish community left in Yemen, about 400 people. It’s also one of the last surviving Jewish communities left in the Middle East, period. Basically its a bit of an anomaly. So finally after being passed off probably a dozen times to various ministries packed with bureaucrats grumpy from not eating all day, we found one guy at the tourist ministry who told us if we knew someone in the village who could drive us there and vouch for us, we could get permits. Ezra called his contact in the Jewish community here (there’re 7 families who used to live in a village called Sa’ada but were moved to Sana’a because there was a threat against them which the government took seriously enough to put them up in a nice hotel across from the American embassy indefinitely) and the guy said he would call the next day and we’d go and meet him. Ezra and JB pulled me out of class and we went to meet him at the hotel.

We walk in the lobby of this small hotel, and every chair in the place has a bona fide Yemenite Jew, complete with long thoub, kuffiya, and long tightly curled paot. All in all like 12 guys, the first Jews I’ve seen (other than JB and Ezra) for a long time. We went with Ezra’s friend Said (Saadia) and another guy, Faiz, both from Raida, to the ministry, got the permits, and then they were like ‘we’re going to get some food.” so we went with them and got some fish (easy way to get out of eating non-kosher meat) and then we were driving around Sana’a. i figured they’re taking us back to our place, and then suddenly we’re in the outskirts of the city, full of industrial buildings and car chop shops, and I said ‘um, guys? where are we going?”

“Raida.”

oh shit. We only have the clothes on us, no toiletries, Ezra’s wearing barely more than his pyjamas, and we’re planning on staying a week.

Whatever.

So we get to his house in Raida after an hour and half, and this gaggle of paot-sporting kids greets us at the door, none older than 6. For the rest of the night guys came in, we ate food and chewed gat, all the while speaking an odd mix of mostly Hebrew and Arabic. None of them spoke English, and they didn’t ever learn classical Arabic so they only spoke the dialect, but they all spoke very decent Hebrew, so Ezra and I would talk to them in Hebrew and when we came to a word we didnt know we’d switch to Arabic.

Sometimes we’d conjugate Hebrew verbs like Arabic ones, or use only Arabic prepositions. Basically it was a linguistic adventure. Unfortunately JB doesn’t know Hebrew and scrapes by in classical Arabic. He had a tough time. One thing I found so odd was that they referred to the local Muslim population as goyim, which I guess makes sense but, growing up in the Christian world, only ever meant Christians to me. We went to a bunch of Jewish houses, and met about 20 or so families left there. We saw the synagogue, and the school, which was a trip. There were a dozen kids singing the Torah parsha for the week, with their paot swinging back and forth. It was a time capsule of Jewish learning in the Middle East for a thousand years or more.

The village is a crossroads and houses on a hill, all with the ubiquitous rebar extending from the roofs denoting the possibility of a second floor at some later date. The men here sit under the shade of buses or awnings, squatting and talking and thats about it. If it were not Ramadan they would be chewing gat. I will never cease to be shocked by the amount of time the average Yemeni can spend doing nothing but sit and chew a baseball size ball of pulped gat for hours upon hours. The non-Jewish men here all wear folding-stock Kalishnikovs over their shoulders like a fashion accessory.

The wind blows colored plastic bags out of the town and into the fields, where it forms a colorful mosaic caught on branches, a noxious wildflower field.

All the Jewish guys ride around on motorcycles, paot swinging in the wind, with thoubs on and traditional Yemeni kuffiyas wrapped around their heads.

They asked me if I wanted to get married, and I think they were serious.

So we came back after one night, with the plan to go back on Thursday with supplies and stay till Sunday. I’ll report about Shabbat with the last of the Yemenite Jews later.

love Josh

Mon, Oct 15, 2007

Hello again,

So as I mentioned in my first email we had decided to go back to Raida with supplies and stay the weekend, to spend Shabbat with them. So we did, and it was pretty eye-opening. We got in Friday afternoon without incident, and went to the synagogue around 5 to pray. The synagogue there is cool: no benches, just carpets on the floor and a hard rectangular pillow every few feet around the wall, to lean against. There was a table and a bench and a podium in the middle of the room. Many of the guys were chewing gat during the service, some were even smoking during the beginning, before Shabbat actually started.

The service was similar to other Mizrachi services i had been to in the past: more like a constant buzzing/murmuring of prayers with an occasional silence and intermittent collective AMEN!s thrown in than a ordered service with leadership. In other words, completely impossible to follow. so the three of us looked like morons sitting there with deer-in-headlights looks on our faces. after the service we talked with some of the guys (the women pray at home) and then walked home.

Saturday was pretty standard for religious families: wake up pray pray pray eat pray eat pray sleep. However the Torah reading was ridiculous and fed most of my thoughts for the rest of the trip. Basically it illustrated the vast differences in Jewish education here and in North America, and provoked a lot of thought. First of all, in America/Canada (at least the synagogues i’ve always gone to) the people called up to read from the Torah say two short blessings, once before the reading, once after. A person who is trained and has practiced the weekly portion actually does the reading. Then when the people who say the blessings come back to their seats everyone shakes their hands and says congratulations like they just accomplished some Herculean feat. Here, everyone who is called up reads, no practice, and no vowels. He just sight reads it. Then, the tradition is that the second to last person to read is under thirteen. I was told this, and thought, ok so a 12 year old a month from his Bar Mitzvah will do it. Wrong. In this case, it was a 6 year old and he did it like a champ. This is every week here, and people dont think this is particularly remarkable, it’s just how Jewish life and learning goes. And to think in America we piss and moan for 6 to 10 months prior to our Bar Mitzvahs to read one little portion, if that! In addition to this, for each person reading, a kid between 5 and 12 sat at the table next to the podium and after the reader finished each verse, the kid would read it again, but this time in Aramaic. Are you kidding me? I was floored.

These guys put our Judaism to shame, and made me feel like a stupid tourist. I guess in terms of the extent of Jewish education i have as compared to these guys, I am. I can say with certainty that the role Judaism and Torah plays in my life and the lives of my Jewish friends in North America, is but a shell of what it was for our ancestors. So I began to think. I thought about the causes and conditions that would allow this kind of commitment to learning Torah to exist. Some are sociological: the Jews here dont really exist within Yemeni society. Others are educational: they dont learn secular subjects, or even to read and write Arabic. Just Torah. The alphabet Jews here use is Hebrew, many of the kids dont learn Arabic script until theyre married and with kids. After a while I realized that this education and commitment came at a cost. The Jews here will always be their own community, and will never a) be permitted to or b) want to integrate into the general society. Each side views the other with mutual distrust and disdain, each believing the others religion to be deeply and irrevocable flawed. Yemen is a homogeneous society, and the Jewish community that exists inside it dimly flickers with equal homogeneity.

Sometimes I get frustrated here by the lack of scientific reasoning and lack of secular thinking. I realized this weekend I would probably get just as frustrated in time with the Jewish community for the same reason. Secular thinking and society has no place with them. They exist as they have for a thousand years or more; protecting the traditions and passing on the Torah and Talmud from generation to generation. It was all in all an amazing experience, and I’m incredibly fortunate to have seen this community while it exists, but made me really consider the place religion has in my life, and the life of my Jewish friends, and what the costs are. Ultimately, however, I concluded that its probably better, at least for me being a North American, to have a more solid foundation on secular thinking, as it is within that society that I plan to live.

An unexpected side-effect of this trip has been a guilty and reluctant resentment of Israel for what its creation meant for the Jewish community here. If I were studying here in 1930 there were 30 000 Jews in Sana’a alone. Nowhere in the Middle East can we see authentic Mizrachi Judaism exist, as a result of 1948.

Interesting side note of this whole thing: I noticed that the Tanakh used by the congregation was stamped “Neturai Karta, NYC.” For those unfamiliar with these guys, once so eloquently described by one Seattle Rabbi as “rats in suits,” besides being the most vociferous and vocal Jewish Anti-Zionists, they were also the Jewish delegation to Iran’s holocaust-denial conference.

Lovely.

Love Josh

Aphids are Screwing Up My Roses

I need to nuke the little bastards later today.

Because that is disgusting, and makes my skin crawl. Yecccch.

The potion cabinet

This is my dad’s potion cabinet. In it, he keeps various pigments, ground-up coral, powders, burnishers, mortar-and-pestles, and other such cool stuff one can use for art projects if one is so inclined. Being back home for basically the first time since college is affording me opportunities to use some of his badass art supplies for projects.

Back in the day he was a bookbinder/poet/illuminator of manuscripts/finder of oddities. He still is, but life with a day job gets down on those other pursuits. His website is http://shivvetee.blogspot.com/

 

Lila’s Tattoo

Lila Zucker finally did it! I sort of thought she was bluffing when she told me she wanted an Arabic tattoo and could I design it. But no bluff! She did it! Check it out:

“We live and struggle for our beliefs.

Na3esh wa-nujahid min ajil 3tiqadatina”

Ya Rayah!

Throwback

So today while cleaning out my stuff, I found my flick-book from high school, where I kept the pics of the graffiti I did back in the day. These are like 7 years old almost.

Bismillah and Stencil

2-color stencil.

Photo in the LA Times

I took a photo in 12th grade of some dudes in East LA for a photo assignment. This morning the California section ran the exact same photo.

Silkscreens

I spent all day and half of Lake Arrowhead cleaning these stupid screens.

Before

During

 

After.

Rav

Cool new mousepad

check it out, its a rug…

Happiness Is…

Matrah 2

A dark and humid land,

That dulls the senses,

Blots the sheets of memory

-Khalil Hawi b.1919

Matrah

Part of a larger project, will post more later.

Ink on paper

Mutanabbi

Only familiarity

With this life

Makes us believe

That death is painful.

-Al Mutannabi

Ink on Paper

Tent

Kheima

Ink on paper

Mar 18 2008 3:25 am

The Getty Lampost Ad

So when a show comes to any museum they put those ads all over hanging from lamposts. When the show is over they get rid of them, so this was from the Oudry show this past September.

Inlay/Maquetry try 1

This is my first (possibly failed, or stalled) attempt to do inlay.

The process is like cutting a stencil out of wood veneer and saving the bits you cut out and making patterns with them. Its not so hard, you just have to allow for screw-ups and make more cut outs than you need, because they break easily.

This took me a couple of hours to set up, cut, and glue. I just put some Law and Order: CI on and cut little bits of wood up. I may have screwed this one up but I’m gonna try and salvage it.

The Hans Wehr

So this is my ‘in-a-fire-what-do-you-grab?’ answer. My grandmother got this for my mom when she went to college, my mom had it rebound in Istanbul, and now it’s mine. I need to get the spine fixed. I once socked someone in the head because he threw it across the room to me.

I’m sorry JB, I really felt bad afterwards.

Last Day in Yemen Pics

My friend dave came through with the pics from my last day in Sana’a. SooRae and I got on the back of a motorcycle and told the guy to drive to the Presidential Mosque (way out there) and back to the center of town by way of the Sila’a. It was awesome.

This is the President’s Mosque, its a massive structure on the outskirts of the city. It dominates the sky and when they finish it will be the biggest in the country by far. Its a giant waste of Yemen’s money because Ali Abdallah Salah needs to leave a permanent record on the city.

Silkscreen Step 1

First thing is to choose a verse to work with. In this case I chose:

أذكرونا مثل ذكر انا لكم
رب ذكرى قريب من نزحا

Think of us!
Such thoughts
Bridge distances.

-Mihyar

Then, you write it a couple of times and decide how you want to arrange it. Then, you practice that particular design a couple of times to figure out cool ways letters can go together and complement each other. Get to know the verse and play around with the letters a bit.

Then you write each letter-form in the composition once, in a way you’re happy with. Then cut it out and arrange it, then photocopy it. White out the seam areas around the letters on the photocopy, then photocopy it again. if it worked, and youre happy with it, photocopy it onto a transparency and that is it for step one of silkscreening.

SAYME

SAYME Spraypaint and paint on canvas.

My screens came!

finally my massive used silkscreens arrived from eBay. They’re way more huge than i predicted. thats AWESOME. not so awesome is that i have to reclaim all of them, ie scrubbing gently some caustic shit for a long time. But for thirty bucks its way worth it.

 

Yemenite Filigree 2

I knew Yemenite filigree was amazing and gorgeous, but didn’t realize until I was in Yemen that it was exclusively Jewish. I wanted to buy a silver Jambiya as a present and when I was on my search I spoke to the silver dealers about the history of silver in Yemen and learned some cool things. For example that it crash-dived in 53 when the Jews left, so much that it’s only recovering barely now, with the Jewish techniques being re-created, and that the techniques the Jews used were often kept strictly within the extended family, so much so that the tribes developed different styles, unique to certain family lines. One told me that if you wanted a ring, for example, you would bring three silver coins to the jeweler, one he would keep and the other two he would melt down and make your ring from.

I found some examples around my house, notably the Jambiya I got my brother.

A Kiddush cup:

A tube for carrying scrolls I got in the suq at Bab al-Melh:

A yad:

A Mezuzah (Deuteronomy 11:20):

An earring, back and front:

This is from www.canaan-online.com:

Its an amazing art form which I think has so many other uses outside of just jewelery, in my opinion. I’m gonna play around with it and see what happens.

Yemenite Filigree 1

Prior to 1950-53 Yemen had a large Jewish population (50,000+). One of the main occupations of the major Jewish tribes was silversmithing, and they had developed a filligree style unique to the Middle East. When they all moved to Israel they brought the technique with them, but faced with a multitude of job options not available to their ancestors, the next generation of Yemenite Jews did not all faithfully learn the craft. So the masters of this craft are now either very old Yemenites in Israel, or those who did preserve the craft.

Among them is Yehuda Tassa, www.sabrajewelrydesign.com. From: Spinning silver into Yemenite filigree — in Silicon Valley by janet silver ghent

In a corner of his Palo Alto garage, Yehuda Tassa turns threads of silver into intricate Yemenite filigree jewelry and Judaica. He fashions layered flower petals that form a pendant or the base of a chanukiah, necklaces replete with Yemenite Jewish symbols, drop earrings with stones or colorful beads, pendants set with fusion glass, stones or enamel.

He works with two kinds of torches, soldering or creating layered designs with a fusion technique he developed himself. He also uses a crock pot for creating pickled finishes, and a rolling mill for flattening beadlike granules of silver into a wire frame. The delicate designs must be flattened on a surface of soft, charred wood, which provides cushioning.

“Yemenite filigree is a very unique style,” says Tassa, who learned the craft as a child in Jerusalem from his Yemen-born father. He says it’s far more precise and detailed than the work done by other cultural traditions. Unfortunately, most of the Yemenite Jewish artisans have passed on, and their children have adopted other professsions. Tassa’s lapidary teacher calls it a lost art. But Tassa, 70, who worked for 40 years as an aerospace engineer and professor before returning to the craft of his ancestors, has gone several steps further. Using his knowledge of chemistry and physics, he augments a past tradition with new designs, formulas and techniques.

From his website:

Making a Calligraphy Pen from Bamboo

Pens

Pens suitable for Arabic calligraphy are made either of reed or bamboo. You can’t use pens bought at art stores because the nibs are cut in the wrong direction. Plus, walking around in marshes looking for reeds is cooler than going to Michael’s. I started with reeds but moved to bamboo because I like it more. Reeds take more work and they need to be sharpened and re-cut more frequently, but bamboo, with its hardness, keeps its shape and point longer. Sometimes with a reed it would do this annoying thing where if the reed was too wet it would scrape along the paper and split and spray ink all over.

These are the pens I use, and this is how I made the second largest from the end.

First, I use a chisel and snap-off razor to make and maintain any of the pens. The bamboo ones need to be cut with the chisel usually.

 

Make the first downward cut.

Now that its nicely curved and cut, its time to make the important cut, at a 45ish degree angle down from the left. I use another pen to remind myself every time I make a new one, because once I cut it the wrong direction and it was a big waste of time.

Now flip the pen over and bevel the top a bit to make the nib of the pen better for writing and less curved.

Now take the razor and trim the wings of the pen, take the flare off.

 

And thats it, you’re good to go.

 

Calligraphy Intro

Arabic calligraphy can be amazing, and an incredible challenge. Starting out is easy enough. Getting good just takes practice, and years of dedication. I’m still not at a point where I’m satisfied and I’ve been doing it for a year and a half now. This is what you need to get started:

-India ink, a jar with a cork, a piece of silk or nylon stocking material (like 3 inches square balled up and stuck in the jar). The stocking acts as a sponge, and you want to fill the jar just so the stocking is soaked, not swimming in ink. Traditionally the ink would be made by mixing soot with gum arabic and water. India became a major exporter of inks, which were exported dried as cakes and were then wetted and mixed with gum.

-Pens. I’ll deal more with this later. You can’t use pens from the art store because they’re cut for English calligraphy and don’t work for Arabic. Next post I’ll show how to cut a proper calligraphy pen from a reed or bamboo.

-Proper paper – Glossy paper is the only way to go. In the past calligraphers prepared their paper by sizing their papers with egg gesso and then burnishing it with agate. I personally just get a ream of glossy paper. Matte paper doesn’t work because it just sucks up the ink.

-A knife and a chisel. These are used to cut the pen and keep it sharp.

-Instruction book, and examples to work from. Ideally, traditional Arabic calligraphy should be done in such a way that the identity of the calligrapher is only known from his signature, and not by his style, because individual styles are an idea that came about in the 20th century, and in the past calligraphers were known by the skill of the work and how much work they produced, not by how their style set itself apart. Every letter should conform perfectly and exactly to the proportions set by calligraphers through the ages. To start out I recommend Venetia Porter and Mustapha Ja’afar’s book Arabic Callgraphy: Naskh Style for Beginners, also known as the Big Blue Retard Book:

 

Back in the day calligraphers took their craft seriously, and made badass implements to go with it. This is a inkwell and pen box from Turkey, c. 1850.

This is an inlaid pen box, also Turkey, 1850s.

Knives used for trimming pens, Turkey, 1700s and 1800s.

A page for instruction, showing the proper proportions for Thulth style:

A full calligraphers set, including pen boxes, gold burnisher, paper burnisher set in wood, knives, muqaata3, or places of cutting (traditionally ivory slabs on which to rest the pen while cutting it), and scissors:

 

All images from Traces of the Calligrapher: Islamic Calligraphy in Practice by Mary McWilliams and David J. Roxburgh.

My Badass Massive Yemeni Qur’an

The last day I was in Yemen, I had finished packing and realized I miraculously had a little space left over. There was no question as to what would fill that void: a massive Quran. My boy Asif got one at the Yemen International Book Fair and I had admired its big dope letters for months, and one like that would be hard to find and expensive in the States. So I got this beauty in the Bab al-Yemen souq for 1500 Riyals ($7.50). Score!

I am a deadbeat.

I haven’t left my house since I’ve been home except to go to the library. If there was, for example, a hitman waiting to get me when I left to go out, he’d be there a long time.

I read, I catch up on TV online, draw calligraphy, and eat eat eat. So much food. And I’ve been, surprisingly, missing Yemen. Especially my students. I had a semi-secret letter correspondence with one of my female students, Safaa, and it was seriously the highlight of my last 2 months in Yemen, and somehow in transit I lost her letters. It made me so sad. That kind of created this period where I was pining for Yemen, a doorless dabab, some Fahsa, the Silaa, a Kamaran, the whole thing.

The Blockade

Pen and ink

6:25 Am

Al Fatiha

Surah al-Fatiha, ink and spraypaint on paper.

2007

The Soo-Rae Shirt

Soo-rae and I decided to put some poetry to a silkscreen and make a shirt. We went to the library and found some poetry books, and sat around leafing through till we found a good one. We settled on this one, by the Syrian poet Adonis. His words end after the third line, and we felt we needed some kind of a stronger ending, so we put the last two lines on there.

“I am a book.

My blood is ink,

My limbs words,

Inside me, a thousand stories.”

Inny kitab, damy hibr, eDHai’y kelam, dakhily elfu hikaya.

A myth around you

A Myth Will Need to Sunbathe Around You

Sayehtaju Astouratan Liltashammus Howlak

-Mahmoud Darwish, from Sonnet I

Waiting

I did not wait for you. I waited for no one.

Lam intatharik wa lam intathur ahadan.

-Mahmoud Darwish

The Reason We Live

We live and struggle for our beliefs.

Na3esh wa-nujahid min ajil 3tiqadatina

Ink on paper 2007

Back in Los Angeles

Well, thats it for Yemen. After a 2 hour interrogation at LAX I’m finally home. Plan is to stay 3 months and take it from there. More later.

I’m out of here

I’m leaving Yemen, sooner rather than later. I dropped out of school and left my house, I’m gonna bounce out to Israel/Palestine pretty soon it looks like. I almost ripped a dude’s head off today for charging me an extra dollar on some rice, which I’m taking as a sign that Yemen and I have just grown apart. It’s not an altogether mutual breakup but I think it’ll be best for us.

Nateeja

Nateeja, “Result”

Oil on Canvas, 2006

Hamd

 

Bismillah in the shape of the word Hamd in Nastaliq (Faarisi) style calligraphy.

Ink on paper, 2006

Peace and Blessings

Salla Allahu Alaihe wa Sallam

“May Peace and Blessings Be Upon Him”

Ink on Paper, 2006

Ghadaba

Ghadaba- To become angry.

2006

Prince Khurram’s Wish

“Tonite there is I, and a companion.

A festive meeting on a grassy hill.

A cup of wine, fine sweets, and a minstrel all are here.

Oh how I wish thou were here, but not all these.”

-Prince Khurram, the future Shah Jahan (King of the World), aged 17.

Spray paint on canvas, 2006

In 1607 CE (1025 AH) Khurrum, the son of the Mughal emperor Jihangar, met and got engaged to a girl he met named Arjumand Banu Begum, who was just 14 years old at the time. It was as though the heavens opened and life suddenly had meaning, and she would become the unquestioned love of his life. They would, however, have to wait five years before they were married. In the meantime Khurrum took two other wives, but he was so taken with Arjumand that he showed little interest in exercising his polygamous rights with his other two wives, other than dutifully siring a child with each. According to the official court chronicler Qazwini, the relationship with his other wives “had nothing more than the status of marriage. The intimacy, deep affection, attention and favor which His Majesty had for the Cradle of Excellence [Begum] exceeded by a thousand times what he felt for any other.” When he ascended the throne he became known as Shah Jahan (King of the World).

When she died, he built the Taj Mahal as a testament to his love for her.

Bismillah Bird

 

Bism’Allah al-Rahman al-Rahim

In the Name of God, the Beneficent, the Merciful.

Ink on Paper, 2007

Moloch

Moloch, Linoleum cut print and ink on newsprint. 2006

World

This was my first foray into Arabic graffiti. I did it at Bard College in 2005. At the time, I was a first year student of Arabic, and the switch from graffiti in English to graffiti in Arabic was so natural it was almost pre-ordained. Graffiti is about the flow and interconnectivity of letters, so Arabic, with its fluid script lends itself perfectly to graffiti.

It says A’alam – World. There was a long process by which this name was arrived at, through three different languages and manifestations.

Angel’s Tattoo

This is a stencil I put on a tshirt of Angel from Buffy’s tattoo. I haven’t ever seen an episode of Buffy, but I saw a pic of the tattoo and decided that it was a pretty cool image. The delicateness of the stencil meant that it couldn’t really be an outdoor stencil. Carrying it around on a bombing mission would have ruined it.

Everything Is Illuminated

Alex: Many girls want be carnal with me! Because I am such a premium dancer!

Three color stencil and ink on canvas.

Falling Down

Bard College, 2004