Fatima said that Jordan was the preferred destination, due to its proximity to Jericho and the presence of family members there. The mother and her children traveled to Jordan while the father was forced to remain in Jericho to sell off his sheep and collect debts from people who owed him money.31 Fatma recalled the difficulties and fear that accompanied them during the journey to Jordan. She remembered the Israeli aircraft shelling, which scared the travelers, who had to disembark from the bus and hide in the bushes. She specifically remembered the sight of Jericho on fire, and explained, "We saw the demolished houses, the ground totally burnt, scattered organs of animals.  I was very scared."32

Another story that Fatma has not forgotten is her younger brother falling into the Jordan River when they attempted to cross it. Her mother started screaming and asking for the help from the men, who came and rescued the little boy. As in other narratives, Fatma's story illustrates the great responsibility imposed on Palestinian

29 According to the Wafa News reports, the Israeli army soldiers destroyed about 80 % of the city's buildings, houses, shops, bakeries and more. Most residents left the city. The soldiers forced those who remained to leave. Those who stayed were called over loudspeakers to gather in the city center, where they were loaded onto trucks and transferred to the East Bank, to Jordan. It is estimated that 5,500 Palestinian refugees arrived in Jordan, in addition to thousands of refugees who flowed into the nearby Nablus and Tulkarm areas. The Israeli army offered the Palestinians to set up refugee camps there, but they refused. According to data from the city of Qalqilya, after three weeks, approximately 9,500 out of the 15,000 Palestinians who resided there before the war returned to the city. For more information, see Navani (2018).

30 Taha (n.d.). He is a Palestinian author and researcher from Qalqilya.

31 The interviewees referred to the two banks of the Jordan as though they were two distinct entities. When speaking of moving to Jordan, they refer to the East Bank. They referred to the West Bank as a distinct area, even separate from Jordan, despite the fact that Jordan had annexed the West Bank to its territory following the 1948 War. Perhaps this is a statement of the nonacceptance of Jordan's annexation of the Palestinian territories. This perception is the logical explanation for the fact that the interviewees speak of moving to Jordan, although they are coming from territory that was part of Jordan, at least from the official Jordanian perspective.

32 Interview with Fatma.

women to organize the departure, leave the family home, travel to a new location and keep the family safe in Jordan.

After crossing the Jordan River, Fatma recalled that the bus stopped at a desolate, empty village called al-Wahdat. Following the war, a large refugee camp was built there, which housed refugees from the war. After inquiring, the family arrived at the home of a family that they knew, where they found dozens of others from Jericho. She explained:

The small house contained a large number of frightened people who talked about the 1948 Deir Yassin massacre and feared it would repeat itself in this war as well. There were people who feared that the Jews would come and conquer Jordan as well. The people covered the windows of their homes with black tar in the hope that the planes would not notice them and would not blow up their homes.33

Fatma's family resided in this house for a few days, and afterwards continued to a different city to an aunt's house, where they were hosted warmly. They then settled in the refugee camp and did not return to their home. Fatma's father joined them after a month. Fatma, who was a 12-year-old girl, studied at school in the refugee camp, where she also married a few years later. Fatma's husband, who was 17 at the time, did not want to continue living in a refugee camp and returned to the West Bank.34 While attempting to cross the border, his leg was wounded, but he managed to arrive at the Qalandiya refugee camp near Jerusalem where he lived. Fatma's family chose to stay in Jordan and were granted refugee status. Eventually, Fatma joined her husband.

Rahma, mentioned above, told a story that illustrates the refugee identity. As described, Rahma lived with her family in a refugee camp near Hebron. Her father was a butcher who owned a shop in the refugee camp. Rahma's narrative indicates that her father wanted to be granted official refugee status. She explained:

For several years, my father refused to move to Hebron, even though he had land there, because he did not want to lose his rights as a refugee. Afterwards, he lived in Hebron and his business continued to run in the refugee camp.35

Rahma illustrates that at least some Palestinians found it important to be registered as refugees and to take advantage of the benefits provided by refugee aid organizations such as the United Nations. Another interviewee explained that there were those who refused to accept a refugee certificate, as they viewed it as a degradation

33 Interview with Fatma.

34 I choose to use the term 'return' to describe the phenomenon of Palestinians attempting to return to the territories conquered by Israel following the war for various reasons. The Israeli literature tends to use the term '*histaninuth*' – loosely translated as infiltration – a term with clear security connotations. This term is also used to describe the cross-border attacks of the *Fedayeen* – Palestinian fighters who entered territory conquered by Israel in cross-border attacks.

35 Interview with Rahma.

they could not stand. The question of refugee status was a central issue for numerous families during and after the 1967 War, which had no clear answer.

### **6 The Refugee Issue**

The question of whether to stay or leave was central among the Palestinians. A debate had taken root in various circles: between adults and youths, men and women, refugees and residents. There was also pressure on the individual from the extended family in this respect. These arguments arose during the war and in the weeks following in Palestinian communities in the West Bank, refugee camps and Jordan.

The debate began between the younger and older generations during the war. The older generation did not want to leave their homes, saying they would rather die in their homes than be a refugee. Some of the younger people who worked in Jordan fled there. Sabha, 89 years old at the time of the interview, from the area of Yata, near Hebron, was working the fields at the outbreak of the war. She lived in her husband's family home, which included her brother, sister, sister-in-law, and husband's father and mother. Sabha was only 13 years old when she married, and found it difficult to work in a big house and take care of all of the needs: cooking, laundry, cleaning, baking, taking care of the sheep and cattle, including cleaning and milking them. Approximately thirty people lived in the extended family home. She explained, "They ate together, drank together, and slept together in one large room."36 She stressed that women also had roles outside the home. She stated, "I, like other women, walked great distances without ever being hurt. Sometimes, we would live in caves in the area to seek pasture for the sheep."37

The interview with Sabah illustrated that rural women enjoyed freedom of movement, as they were free to roam in nature for their work without interruption. They were partners in the construction of the family unit and maintaining the extended family unit. Sabha's life changed drastically after the 1967 war. She said there were rumors of Jews entering the area but there was no accurate information. Sabha emphasized that most people were simple people whose main concern was supporting their families.38 She said that the Palestinian peasants at that time were not prepared for war. They were busy with economic survival and ensuring a livelihood for their families. It was not clear to them whether to stay or leave.

In contrast to Sabha's story, the narrative presented by Scharia illustrates the experience of escape to Jordan and the dilemma presented by her family members contemplating refugee life versus the dangers of returning to the homeland. Scharia was born in the village of Halhul (abutting Hebron) in 1952 and was a student at the High School in the village at the outbreak of the war. On the eve of the war, she was preparing for final exams. She studied in the vineyard among the trees in the

36 Sabha, March 17, 2018, Hebron.

37 Interview with Sabha.

38 Interview with Sabha.

morning. Her parents' home was on the main street. Scharia recalled those moments: "I saw people fleeing across from my house. They knew what had happened in Deir Yassin, we were told to flee."39 According to Scharia's description, people were shocked, frightened and ran away in all directions, to nearby villages, caves and fields.

Her family included her mother, five daughters and one son, who together fled with the rest of the village to Jordan :

My mother, who was removing furniture from the house, in the end, limited herself to taking the flour, as there was no possibility of taking anything else. There were no cars. My mother rushed to flee to Jordan and did not wait for our father. Our father was at work, when he came home, he put the furniture back in the house and slept there. When the Jews came upon him in the middle of the night, they asked, "Where is your family?" He told them they were not here. They mockingly responded, "Did they go to Hussein?"40

Scharia's family moved toward the East Bank of Jordan, where the Jordanian Legion was stationed. According to her description, Israeli aircraft were circling and the Palestinians were very terrified and feared that the Jews would kill them. Some of them began to curse the royal family in Jordan and accused them of treason, hinting at Jordan's betrayal of Palestinians in the 1948 War.

The flight experience was difficult for Scharia's family. According to her description, they barely made it to Jordan, where they were sent to a school (which was transformed into a makeshift refugee camp). The food was meager and there were no kitchens. The United Nations distributed processed food and milk to children. Scharia rememberes how Palestinians were registered as refugees in UN institutions in order to receive aid. Some were not actually refugees of the 1967 War but wanted to benefit from the allocation of aid. The UN gave each family a box containing basic food products such as flour, rice and olive oil. Some of the refugees sold these products.

The situation for the family in Jordan was difficult. Scharia explained, "We started to beg for change in Jordan. One of the women, a refugee from Jaffa of the 1948 War, started crying and told us that she keeps the keys from her home in Jaffa, in hope of returning there at some point."41

Scharia, similar to other interviewees, had vivid memories of family debates regarding whether or not to return to the homeland. When her father arrived in Jordan a month after the rest of the family, the question of whether to remain as refugees in Jordan or return to the homeland arose. Her father insisted on returning at all costs. She explained:

39 Scharia, November 18, 2018, Halhoul, Hebron.

40 Interview with Scharia. It is clear from her words that the soldiers mocked the Palestinians who fled to Jordan.

41 Interview with Scharia.

My father did not want to receive the refugee certificate, saying he was not prepared to eat, drink and live like a refugee. Members of his family, especially his brother, attempted to convince him otherwise. In one discussion, my uncle managed to convince my father to leave me in Jordan. I could study there and marry his son. My father was convinced. After a period, my family attempted to return home. I climbed on the roof of the school where we lived and looked toward the road on which they had left and began to cry bitterly. Their attempt was unsuccessful. I then decided that I wanted to return together with them and did not want to be a refugee in Jordan.42

Scharia's family attempted unsuccessfully on three separate occasions to return to their village. Each time soldiers sent them back to Jordan:

The way back was very difficult. There was a man who, for a sum of money would accompany them [the returnees]. We walked in the mountains at night to reach the border, and we didn't know how to swim. We held each other […]. When we saw the Jews, we ran away from them and hid. On one of these occasions, the Jews caught us at the border. We were loaded into the army car and reached the Jericho police station. We were seated under a tree. And they asked my father if we had arrived from Hussein? They asked us and they were sure we had crossed the border illegally because our clothes were very dirty. My mother answered, "We did not come from Hussein."  When they put our mother in the car, I thought they were going to kill her, and I started screaming, "Mama don't go!" Then they took us back to Jordan again. In Jordan, we returned to the same refugee camp at the school .

After several attempts, Scharia and her family returned successfully to the West Bank. She recalls:

The last time that we succeeded in reaching our home, they shot at us. A relative of ours was injured in her hand. She was 15 then. A relative helped her. We fled from the Jews and were able to get home. Until today, whenever I meet that relative, I can see her injured arm.43

Scharias sister was separated from her during the war. She said her sister lost two children, a daughter and a son, when returning to the homeland, due to the heat. They met again only after a long period of time.44 Scharias stories illustrate the difficulty of returning home. The choice against being a refugee in Jordan or another location had a steep price. The use of the name "Hussein," King of Jordan, has

42 Interview with Scharia.

43 Interview with Scharia.

44 Interview with Scharia.

importance: Scharia indicated that the Jewish soldiers ridiculed him, and Palestinians believed that he had betrayed them.

Scharia's narrative is reminiscent of similar situations following the 1948 War. Within this context, we can ask whether the Palestinians learned a lesson from the refugee experience of the 1948 War? I assume, in losing the 1967 War, the Palestinians understood that the refugee problem is not temporary, and there is no guarantee that they would be legally permitted to return to their lands. Thus, some insisted on returning at all costs (Gh'anem 2018: 52–77; Kabha 2011). Usually, the men were those who decided whether the family would remain in the refugee camp or risk returning to their land. However, during the war, it was often the women who decided whether to flee to the fields, to the caves or to leave the land toward Jordan.

As mentioned, the debate over the return to the homeland exposed various familial tensions and pressures in several spheres: between the adults, who preferred to remain, and the youths, who often preferred to attempt a return, between the extended family and the individual, and between men and women. Ultimately, the decision to stay or leave was that of the individual. Scharia's father acted individually. As a woman, Scharia had to settle for the hope that she would eventually return rather than remain in Jordan.

A second circle in which the debate took place was between the men and women in the family. In many Palestinian families, mothers took a clear stance regarding whether to stay or leave the homeland. One such case was that of Maha's mother. Maha was born in 1961 in Beit Leed, near Tulkarm. She moved to Nablus after the war. Maha had vivid memories of the war due to the significant impact it had on her and her family's lives. Maha's father was a schoolteacher, and their economic situation was excellent. They had a radio in their house, which was listened to by the family, especially her father and grandfather, as well as the head of the village. When the war broke out, an argument began in the house, as her father insisted that the family members stay at home and resist leaving for any destination. Conversely, her mother wanted to flee for the caves, where the village residents were hiding. The children stayed with their father, while their mother joined those hiding in the caves. Such cases of splits within families occurred among other interviewees as well. This is indicative of a social phenomenon of confusion and the inability to make an agreed-upon decision for the whole family. In such cases, one can assume that power relationships within families changed as a result of the war; that is, the war shook the family unit, such that the decision to stay or flee was not exclusively the man's decision alone, as women had a say in this fateful matter. Maha was six years old at the time, and her brother was five. They continued to live at home with their father and a grandfather. Maha explained:

We were the only people in the village who remained in their home. The soldiers occupied our house because it had a well. My father and grandfather refused to flee the house so that the disaster of the '48 War would not repeat itself.45

When the soldiers took over the house, they allowed the family to continue living there. Maha and her brother visited the cave dwellers daily, bringing them food:

The soldiers used one of the houses and turned it into a food warehouse. My brother and I climbed the warehouse each day before visiting the caves, we would pass through the house, and collect food such as bread and cucumbers, and we would feed the residents. The soldiers saw us but didn't do anything about it.46

After the war ended, the soldiers remained in Maha's house, and used it as an observation post, as she describes:

Every morning, the soldiers woke us up with loud bangs at the door. I would bring them water from the well for coffee and tea. My mother had anxiety attacks. Since then, she has suffered from mental illness.47

Life returned to normal only days after the war, but the life of the Maha family never returned to normalcy. Maha's story indicates that women were vulnerable during the war, as their emotions and fears resulting from the war continued to accompany them and impact their functioning and ability to raise children. Maha's mother was an extreme example of such a phenomenon as she could no longer function at all. However, most of the interviews illustrate that the majority of the women continued to function as mothers and wives after the war, despite its difficult emotional impact.

War blurred the distinction between the generations of daughters and mothers due to the tasks that each undertook. The main task was to safeguard the family following either the temporary or permanent loss of the home. In many cases, the eldest daughter served as a kind of 'second mother' in the family. Women took over command in the emergency situation of war .

The case of Amal's mother illustrates another occasion in which the mother refused to flee, confronting the pressures of the extended family. Amal was five years old during the war. She still recalls her uncles' visit, her mother's brothers. They arrived at her house shortly before the war. They spoke to Amal's mother and asked her to emigrate with them to Syria. According to Amal, "My mother refused to leave the village. The uncles left, and she began to clean and organize a nearby cave, after which we moved our belongings there."48 According to Amal's

45 Maha, August 14, 2018, Beit Leed, Tulkarem.

46 Interview with Maha.

47 Interview with Maha.

48 Amal, December 3, 2018, Qalqilya.

description, distinct caves were assigned to women and to men. In the cave where she stayed, there were three women along with their children. She recalls:

We hid in the cave during the bombings. When the bombings ended, my mother risked her life and went to get water. The people ate from a fruit tree beside the cave. At first, we only ate bread, then the women started preparing the bread themselves.49

This situation lasted approximately three weeks, after which the residents returned to their houses and started to connect with their relatives in the land and abroad. According to Amal, the refugees who had been living in refugee camps since 1948 regretted ever leaving their homes. Amal's story illustrates a situation in which the mother was dominant and led the family. It is unclear from her story where her father was and what his role was during the war. Her story relates to the dynamics of two spheres of identity: refugee and gender. The refugees of the 1948 War, who had already experienced the frustration and humiliation of a refugee status, preferred to remain in their homes, as the previous refugee experience often resulted in their insistence to remain.

The story of Rahma, hailing from the Hebron area, was more complex. Rahma herself could not make a decision and implement it as she was dependent on both her father and her husband. Rahma got married just before the war began when she was 20 years old to a man who worked in Jordan (the East Bank), but she continued to live with her family in Hebron. During the war she stayed with her parents while her husband was in Jordan.

Rahma recalled an argument between her father and a family friend regarding how to respond to the war. She explained:

A friend of the family came to our house. My father collected belongings in order to escape. The friend told him he did not want to flee because he did not know where to go. After this statement, Dad decided to stay, saying he would rather raise the flag of surrender than flee.

Rahma decided that she did not want to flee, although some members of her family had fled. She said "I have a sister who fled with her four children and wandered the fields far from their homes fearing for the fate of her children. She was very scared and tired."**50**

After the war, Rahma's husband requested that she join him and live with him in the Vahadat refugee camp in Jordan, but her father refused. Her husband threatened to return for her and bring her to Jordan, causing her father to agree to her move to Jordan. Rahma was unhappy in the refugee camp in Jordan, as she had no

49 Interview with Amal.

50 Interview with Rahma.

connections there. The feeling of being foreign accompanied her even after she returned to Israel, as she stated, "I felt foreign and cried a lot."51

Rahma did not want to continue living in the refugee camp due to her husband's tough economic situation and her difficulty living at a distance from her family. After a few years of living in the camp, Rahma left her husband in Jordan and joined her family in the West Bank. She preferred to follow her family over a life alone with no extended family, even if she was married in the refugee camp. Rahma's descriptions illustrates the experience of alienation from the extended family that refugees in refugee camps tend to feel, which augments the psychological pain and sense of loss, not only of the homeland, but also of family roots.

The third sphere within which the discourse of flight versus remaining occurred was between the refugees from the 1948 War and the Palestinian residents who remained in their homes during this war in the West Bank and Gaza. According to Sachira, "We had a neighbor, a refugee. The refugees in the village were experiencing rejection. And so she told us: 'You deserve it. Now you have a taste of being a refugee.'"52 Sachira noted that the woman had also left the village and that they had not met since.

Tensions between refugees from the 1948 War and the indigenous Palestinian residents of West Bank had existed since 1948 and created a rift within Palestinian society between the local residents, mostly owners of land and a home, and the strangers (*A'rib*) who arrived as refugees, without property or even honor. The prevailing perception at the time was that whoever left their home and land due to war was weak and a burden on Palestinian society (Alinat 2009).

The stories of the interviewees and dilemmas regarding whether to remain or flee illustrates the bitterness of the refugee situation: the sense of alienation in the refugee camps, the dismantling of families due to war, the sense of uncertainty about the future, in addition to the harsh living conditions of the refugee camps contrasted to the expected mortal danger of attempts to return to their homes in the West Bank.

### **7 The Image of Jews in the Eyes of the Women**

The interviewees spoke of "the Jews" collectively when referring to Israeli soldiers. The vast majority of the interviewees had had no contact with Jews before the war, as the war was the first setting in which they interacted with Jews. Amana, from the Qalqilya area, described the first meeting with Jews immediately after the war: "They were people. I thought they were shaped differently, different than ours, from the extent that they were depicted as evil."53 She explained that women and children gathered at the home of the *Mukhtar*. The little children started screaming out of fear and hunger. She recalls:

51 Interview with Rahma.

52 Interview with Sachira, November 18, 2018, Hebron-Halhol.

53 Interview with Amna, December 15, 2018, Qalqilya.

The Jews brought us food from the town Nabi Elias and asked the women to prepare food for the children. After three days, the soldiers asked each of us to give them our gold and the money we had. They threatened anyone on whom they would find money or gold after searching. My mother had a gold necklace, she threw it out, she was afraid and did not want to hand it over to the soldiers.54

Amana's story of the soldiers' attempts to extort money from them is unique, as the other interviewees did not narrate similar incidents. Amana's words indicate the fear and distrust of the soldiers. However, she did describe moments in which the soldiers took into consideration the needs of women and children regarding basic needs, such as food. However, these moments are few. She generally portrays the women as resembling hostages in the hands of the soldiers. Amana recalls another experience with the soldiers when they were at the *Mukhtar*'s home :

The soldiers loaded us onto trucks and told us to go to Jordan, "Hussein sold you for a dime." My mother held my little sister and said to one of the soldiers that her daughter is young and would die of starvation and exposure. The soldier brought her a blanket from the car. We were in the refugee camp for two weeks. Afterwards, we returned to Qalqilya. My mother heard the sounds of the airplanes and started screaming that she didn't want to stay in Qalqilya, but my father told her that our home was here, and we wouldn't leave it. The neighborhood was devastated by bombings and trenches. We found our house untouched, but all the blankets and mattresses were with the Jews. The Jews took them and used them in the nearby military base they set up.55

Amana's mother's response, in contrast to that of her father, indicates that for some Palestinians, the *Nakba* (catastrophe) of the 1948 War had been repeated in 1967. There was a significant fear of Jews' reprisal acts and death threats, especially among women. Palestinian culture does not dictate that women should restrain themselves, as they are granted license to express their fears through crying and even screaming. By contrast, men are expected to be restrained and refrain from expressing their fears.

Several of the interviewees feared the Jews due to the stories they heard about the 1948 War. According to Maha, "The women were very scared of the Jewish soldiers, so they blackened their faces out of fear. Women who previously wore short dresses, began to dress modestly and traditionally."56

Sachira, who was 17 years old during the war, also remembers, "I was scared of the Jews. I imagined them as wolves and as monkeys with a tail. My mother laughed at this image and told me they were human beings like us."57

54 Interview with Amna.

55 Interview with Amna.

56 Interview with Amal.

57 Interview with Sachira, November 18, 2018, Hebron-Halhol.

The descriptions of Maha and Sachira also illustrate the fear of being raped by Israeli soldiers. This fear stemmed from rumors circulating in Palestinian society, and the awakening of the traumatic memory of the 1948 War, in particular, the rumors of the rapes in the village of Deir Yassin. In order to protect themselves, women attempted to hide their bodies, so as not to attract the attention of the soldiers. They sought to be active and to defend themselves by themselves, choosing not to rely on protection by the men in their society. This indicates that collective memory does not always present the details as they actually transpired, but, instead, presents to people what appears to have occurred.

In an interview with Rahma, she spoke of the rumors that circulated in Hebron following the war and explained the background of the panic when facing Israeli soldiers. One of the rumors was about soldiers raping the beautiful girls:

It was not true, the story relates to a home in which seven beautiful girls with long hair lived. The father spoke Hebrew and hosted soldiers who raped his daughters. Although the story was not true, it scared people terribly, there were rumors of soldiers that murdered.58

Rahma described an incident with Israeli soldiers a few weeks after the war:

Once, we sat at the house's entrance and drank coffee. Soldiers passed by and asked us to enter the house because we were violating the curfew. I told them we were in our house and were not violating any curfew. My brother, who was next to me, was holding my hand in anger. I whispered to him that there was nothing to fear and offered the soldiers coffee. They refused. I offered them coffee as a courtesy .

Rahma said these words with laughter, but her slight embarrassment indicated that she had done something unacceptable in her society. That is, it was not acceptable for a woman to develop a social conversation with the soldiers. Rahma was the only one of the interviewees who had prior knowledge of Jews before the war, as she explained:

I had heard about the Jews. My father had returned to Israel to buy things. Relatives had been shot dead when they crossed into Israel to retrieve their flock. Four people from our town had been shot dead in one year. Therefore, with the declaration of the end of the war and the Israeli army's occupation of the area and the declaration of a curfew, the residents were in a really bad situation and experienced a decline in morale. Some people started running away.59

Direct contact with the Jews had an impact on prejudices toward them. In fact, many Palestinians did not really know Jews. They were influenced by the stories and

58 Interview with Rahma.

59 Interview with Rahma.

rumors broadcast on the radio. It is likely that they listened to *Sawt al-Arab* (the Voice of the Arabs) broadcast from Cairo, identified with the Nasser regime, which spread the ideas of Pan-Arabism and resistance against Israel. Everyone listened to the radio regardless of their level of education or involvement in politics. Radios were located in the homes of wealthy people, such as the *Mukhtar* and other educated people, who invited the general public to come to their homes to tune in. Thus, the radio became an important source of information for illiterate groups, such as women and farmers.

Three types of encounters between West Bank Palestinians and Jews during the 1967 War arose from the interviews with the women. The first was the imagined encounter, based on previous negative knowledge and the memory of the 1948 War. The interviews gave voice to the prevailing opinions of Jews in Palestinian society and the fear of meeting them.  As has been mentioned above, stories from the 1948 War reinforced this negative perception.

The second type was a traumatic military encounter. It took place during and immediately after the war when soldiers conducted searches for Palestinian men and youths in their homes and towns.60 This type of encounter added to the experience of the need to escape and take refuge, the fear of aircraft bombing, death and destruction.

The third type of contact was cultural, which occurred following the 1967 War during the Israeli occupation of the West Bank. The interviewees spoke of the consequences of the1967 War on Palestinian society and accused Israel of destroying it. They made comparisons with the period before the 1948 War, describing it as a Golden Age, and expressed a longing for the land and the home to which they no longer had access. All interviewees viewed the past as preferable to the present, supporting the values and customs that perpetuated the Palestinian family unit. By contrast, they viewed the post-1967 period as an era defined by the loss of values and solidarity in Palestinian society, as a result of employment in Israel and the influence of Israeli culture on the men who worked there. Rahma, one of the interviewees, described harmonious relationships among Palestinian residents before the 1967 War, when her father was a well-known public figure in the area who frequently hosted people at his *Diwan.* She related that, "Men gathered at the *Diwan*, a large guest house adjacent to the *Mukhtar*'s home, relationships between people were good, both the houses and the spirits were close."61

The interviewees reported that work in Israel caused the Palestinians to abandon working the land, which, in turn, resulted in them breaking away from their religion and traditions. According to Zinab, "Following contact with Israel, people changed,

60 Interview with Zinab.

61 Interview with Rahma.

they became cynical, did not take care of one another. There is no longer solidarity in the family, people just wanted to build houses and buy land."62

At the same time, interviewees pointed out that the economic situation of Palestinian residents improved after the war, due to their working in Israel. Palestinian workers built apartments and houses, left the refugee camps, and bought assets and land. In addition, Maha was the only interviewee to state that Jews possessed positive values such as responsibility and loyalty to their country.63

The interviewees spoke of the 'Jews' on two levels: firstly, they used the term 'Jews' to refer to soldiers. To them, the central conflict with the soldiers did not occur during the war but after it, and specifically following the 1976 Land Day and during the First Intifada of 1987. The second level was the socioeconomic level: they spoke of employment in Israel, the distancing of Palestinians from their lands and their amalgamation of Israeli values. such as consumerism, a desire for money and more.

This seems like a contradiction: on the one hand, the Palestinians fought Israel through their national struggle, but, on the other hand, they identified with Israeli values, as working in Israel exposed them to the modern and individualistic lifestyle, which many adopted, even if it came at the expense of Palestinian social values, such as solidarity, reflected by neighborly involvement in one another's celebrations and mourning, as well as friendly visits among neighbors.

This contradiction, indicated by interviewees, does not reflect the national narrative that shaped the PLO after the 1967 War which combined the following concepts: the independence of the Palestinian decision-making, the guerrilla struggle against Israel to restore the Arab dignity which was lost following the 1967 War, mass mobilization of Palestinians from the refugee camps for the purpose of the armed national struggle, and the strengthening of the unique identity.

# **8 The Attitude of Women to Jordanian Rule**

Most interviewees did not mention the Jordanian regime as a central or influential element in their lives. This could be because they worked in agriculture and, therefore, did not have contact with the authorities. One of them was searched by a Jordanian soldier, as she was involved in smuggling Israeli currency into the territories with her husband's assistance.

Women described the Jordanian soldiers during the war with ridicule, calling them "the army of chicks" (*G'ish Abu Sisan)*. They criticized Jordan for its lack of preparation for war, for refusing to provide weapons to the Palestinians and suppressing Palestinian demonstrations. Amana, an interviewee from Qalqilya, said that during the 1967 War, there was tension between the Palestinians and the Jordanians

62 Interview with Zinab.

63 Interview with Amna.

over the issue of weapons. She explained that Palestinian residents demonstrated and called for the ousting of the Jordanian government, calling it a "cardboard regime" (*Arash HaCarton).* She said, "The Jordanian army beat us with sticks and clubs because we went out to demonstrate and demanded weapons to protect ourselves."64

The interviewees said that during the war, some of the Jordanian soldiers asked the residents for clothes, to change out of their military uniforms. They described situations in which the soldiers fled the battlefields and left the people unprotected. It is worth noting that this information cannot be found in the official materials written about Qalqilya during the war. Various Arab, Palestinian and Israeli historians did not cover events regarding Palestinian society during the war in detail, or write of how the war was managed in various areas, preferring to focus on general issues, such as the states' governments, their military preparedness, combat methods and the reasons for the failure of Arab armies.65 In this context, oral history gains importance, as the interviews conducted with such women adds essential understanding to the details of specific events during the war.

The interviewees' accounts of the 1967 War touched on burning issues in their lives, not only during the war but also dealing with the implications of the war on their personal lives and Palestinian society as a whole. According to the interviewees, the breakout of war was no surprise to them.  The traumatic memory of the 1948 War was resurrected, and women were more vulnerable than men, and expressed their fears. The 1967 War sparked a debate about Palestinian identity regarding Palestinian willingness to be defined as refugees who are excluded from their host society. During the war, women were active and contributed to the defense of their families. In addition, one of the consequences of the war was the blurring of boundaries between the roles of mothers and daughters, as the latter often took the role of a second mother in the family.

### **9 Summary**

The interviews analyzed in this study illustrate that the daily life of rural Palestinian families in the West Bank during the 1950s and 1960s was rather similar to their lives before the 1948 War. They were engaged in working the land and shepherding from early morning until sunset. In the evenings, they would rest and engage in social gathering. The family's livelihood depended on manpower, which included women and children. In addition to their roles in the field, women were also engaged in housework, which was divided among the women.

64 Interview with Amna.

65 Numerous studies and books have been written about the 1967 War from Arab, Israeli and international perspectives; see, for example: Jamal 2017; Kh'ladi 2009; Kurz, Kobi and Siboni (2018); Laqueur 1968; Oren 2002; Sayigh 2002.

Women were given responsibility for household maintenance from an early age, both as daughters and wives. This work included cleaning, keeping order, maintenance, food preparation and baking bread. It is likely that with such a busy schedule, these women were less concerned with politics and ideologies than urban, educated women. These women were exposed to the ideas of Palestinian nationalism and Pan-Arabism when listening to the radio, but not as active participants in conversations and debates. Their participation in such discussions was not significant, due to the separation of men and women in social gatherings. The men would meet at the *Diwan* (guest house) or at the homes of the head of the clan or *Mukhtar*. The women met separately, generally to discuss family life.

It is difficult to detach the interviewees' daily life from the personal narrative they designed for themselves. To a great extent, their collective memory was dependent upon their daily lives as women and from their position in society. Their depiction of daily life in the interviews illustrates how their personal narrative differed from the official narrative. In contrast to the official narrative, the interviewees did not talk about grand ideologies, did not speak in terms of nationalism or Pan-Arabism, or the armed struggle, and did not blame Arab states and Western colonial powers. They did not relate to political movements directly or indirectly. Only one of the interviewees indicated that she had two brothers, members of the PLO, who were living in Jordan and could not return to the land.

In a sense, the collective memory of the women is based on the official collective memory of the 1948 War. The 1967 narrative sparked anew the powerful feelings of defeat, loss and pain felt by the Palestinians following the 1948 War. The interviewees, especially those who experienced the 1948 War as children or were told about the difficult experiences of that war, spoke of loss, pain and fear. Another thread common to the two narratives was the negative image of the Jews. The women viewed Jews as potential rapists who would probably harm them and, therefore, chose to hide their bodies. The Palestinian national narrative related to the Jews as occupiers who should be expelled in a national struggle. In other words, the conquest of the land and the Palestinian woman's body intersect in this narrative.

In contrast to the official national narrative, which did not refer to the phenomenon of Palestinian men working in Israel, as it conflicts with the image of the Palestinian warrior image which was perpetuated, women criticized the consequences of men working in Israel. The interviews illustrated that they preferred to criticize the present situation rather than the past. Thus, the interviewees did not express criticism about their lives before the 1948 War or about the post-1948 period until 1967. Most did not criticize their lives under the British mandate or under the Jordanian regime. Life was good before the 1948 War and even before the 1967 War for both rural and urban women, who did not have the refugee experience beforehand. They did not talk about the problems and the difficulties they had at the time. They tended to accuse Israel of altering their lives for the worse. This is reflected by their attitude towards the post-1967 period. They expressed criticism for changes in Palestinian society following the contact between the Palestinian men who worked

in Israel and their Jewish employers. They spoke of the devastating consequences of the war on the quality of life and interpersonal relationships within Palestinian society. Unlike the official narrative, they spoke openly about the "occupation of Palestinian values" and related infrequently to "the occupation of lands."

These women's collective memory is uniquely rich, with a wealth of details from their personal lives. The political situation is intertwined with the story of their personal lives, work, home, marriage, children, and the striving for values, solidarity and a better future. Unlike the official narrative, they did not talk in terms of self-sacrifice and heroism but addressed a variety of dilemmas and tensions regarding the decision-making during the war, for example, whether to remain in their homes or to flee. They discussed the issue of refugee status, not as a political issue that required a decision, but as a daily experience that affects one's identity, daily life and future .

In some ways, the women 'took advantage' of their interviews to examine the entirety of their lives.  The interviews opened a window through which they could evaluate their personal lives, viewing themselves at the center, and look at their lives through the passing of time. They jumped around temporally, returning to their childhood, their lives in the family home, the War of 1967 and the experience of fear and being a refugee, to survival experiences in refugee camps in the West Bank or Jordan, and the sense of foreignness that accompanied them in their homes and homeland.

These women experienced the changes that Palestinian society underwent after the 1967 War, including changes in economic, political and ideological values. They saw changes in customs regarding weddings and mourning rituals, and in intergenerational relationships. They experienced the First Intifada as a formative event in their lives. The narrative of personal and collective memory portrayed contributes to deepening our understanding of the general impact of the 1967 War on Palestinian society. These women's narratives shed light on the lives of the weaker classes among the Palestinians (refugees, farmers and women), such that these stories can no longer be ignored in the context of the official Palestinian national narrative, which is still in the process of being designed and constructed. The female narrative attaches importance to the family construction, and the relationships within it, which sometimes overrides the importance of nation-building and the establishment of a state.

The research literature illustrates that the working class's experience was given little expression in the shaping and institutionalization of the Palestinian narrative. At the same time, collective memory had a major function for these social strata. In this study, we saw that Palestinian women, mostly rural and uneducated, utilized their personal memories of the War of 1967 to build their personal narrative. They established a kind of alternative memory that can both complement and contradict the official narrative. One example of this phenomenon are hero and victim images, which are common in the relevant literature. In interviews with the women, there was less emphasis on the image of the Palestinian hero during and before the war. They spoke of experiencing fear, escaping to Jordan and the attempts to cross back into the country, but without describing themselves as heroines or even victims of the realities of war. For the most part, they did not blame the Arab states for defeat in the war.

In her youth in the 1960s, Rahma was considered to be an educated girl, as she had a high school education. She proudly recalled going to school and never being beaten by the teacher. Most of the women of her class worked in agriculture during that period. Rahma described two classes of women during that period: rural and urban. The differences between these two classes were also described by other interviewees. Rahma's father married two women, the first from a rural village, the second from Hebron. According to Rahma, the two women were in constant competition regarding dress and interior design. Rahma's mother, for example, who worked in agriculture, took pride in maintaining traditional attire, as a way of competing with the other woman, who was apparently drifting away from tradition. Rahma's account attests to the class differences in Palestinian society between urban and rural residents, while the refugees from the 1948 War were considered to be at the bottom of the socioeconomic ladder.

The interviewees described their marriages as experiences as relevant as the 1948 War and 1967 War, illustrating that women often view starting and maintaining a family as no less important, if not more important, than nation-building and establishing a state. This finding challenges the approach of the Palestinian national narrative, which views Palestinian women (and women in general) as fertility and land symbols, and defending women is equivalent to defending the homeland. Palestinian folklore emphasizes this motif. It becomes clear from the women's interviews that by taking the roles of storytellers, they take on the important function of 'giving birth to' and 'safeguarding' collective memory. However, their stories emphasize primarily their experiences as women, and only on a secondary level, as Palestinians.

In summary, the depiction of memories of women from the West Bank emphasizes the need to view women as a valuable historical source, through which we can disclose essential information about society in general. Personal, female and collective memory established by these Palestinian women intersects with official collective memory regarding the trauma of the 1948 War and its implications for Palestinian society. Furthermore, women's memory uniquely discloses a range of voices and experiences, combining personal and family narratives with the general collective situation. The women did not focus on ideology or grand ideas of nation or peoplehood, but on personal experiences and their families, which were the center of their attention.

### **References**

# **INTERVIEW WITH B.L. (FEMALE), JOINED BY HER SON D.L. HALFWAY THROUGH THE INTERVIEW**

MAY 2017

INTERVIEWER: HAGAR SALAMON (H.). ALSO PRESENT AND OCCASIONALLY CONTRIBUTING: IVANA SARIC (I.)

Hagar Salamon was put into contact with B.L. through a colleague who noted that B. – who was over 90 years old at the time of the interview — might be helpful to the project. She and her husband had immigrated from the United States shortly before Israel was founded and hence they also experienced the War of Independence. From the start, B. expressed an enthusiasm for the project, and was keen to share her story. The interview took place in B.'s small but well-furnished apartment, whose walls are covered with many old photographs and paintings, some of them of Jerusalem. She lives in Beit Hakerem, in a housing facility intended for the elderly. B. was seated comfortably in a chair in her living room, with Hagar and Ivana sharing the sofa. Her son D. also pulled up a chair across from the sofa when he arrived. This provided the opportunity to also hear about some of the events as remembered by D.

B. narrated confidently and, for the most part, appeared very comfortable in English, though she at times defaulted to Hebrew. The same was the case for her son D. She showed her interviewers the pieces of shrapnel she'd kept from the war of 1967, as well as a book of colored photographs her husband took during the War of Independence.

H.: And what about you, when did you come to Jerusalem?

B.: I came '47 […]

H.: Really? How old were you then? If I may ask […]?

B.: I was in my twenties, no, I was in my twenties already. We got married – M. and me, we got married – and we left six weeks later for Isr – for Palestine. […]. So we were here for all the wars.

H.: And you came directly to Jerusalem?

B.: To Jerusalem. But we came as students because that was the only way you could come at that time, because you needed certificates. And my husband served in the American army, so they were allowed to study wherever they wanted to. So that was a good excuse. He said he wanted to study at […] the Hebrew University.

H.: So he did study.

B.: Well he registered, we registered but we didn't really – the war broke out soon after.

H.: Wow. So you were here […] And where did you live?

B.: In Jerusalem. […] In the first twenty years – in the first three years we moved twenty times. Because we didn't have money, we were just married. And so we rented a furnished apartment. When somebody went abroad we just rented the apartment. And then we decided that we better borrow some money. See, Americans didn't know about borrowing. So we didn't have the money to pay […] at that time. […] And then we moved to Kiryat Shmuel. And then we came here.

H.: Ok, so from Nayot you came here and so if we're talking now about the '67 war, this is where you'd be.

B.: We were in Nayot during the Six-Day War. Where do you want me to begin?

H.: Let me tell you a little bit about this research. It's […] we're doing, you know, personal stories around the '67 war. So the days before, the feelings just before, and the war itself, and then things that happened later. And just telling you, that we're recording the stories and we're using them for the research.

B.: Alright, just that my voice isn't very good.

H: Yeah, it's very good. it's clear.

#### **THE BAR MITZVAHBEFORE THE WAR BEGAN**

B.: Well, we had a special experience, because my son was *bar mitzvah1* the *Shabbat* before the Six-Day War began. And we had planned a party, we had everything all ready for it. But everybody was going into [military] service because they had the, all the men were disappearing. All that were left were the women. My husband wasn't, didn't have to go to the army, because he was a journalist, so he had to cover the news. So we planned the *bar mitzvah*, and everything was fine, but things were getting very bad and we said, "Oh we just can't have the people coming, there would be no men, this […]" So we had an idea. We had the *tothanim* [artillery], the *tothanim* were stationed near us. So we said, well maybe we should call off the big party and we'll just get the soldiers, we'll invite the soldiers who were stationed there. So I went down and spoke to the officer and he said, oh, he was so glad because he wanted […], some of the soldiers had excelled and he doesn't know how to pay them. I said ok, fine. Send me seventy. Seventy soldiers. Well we had a big garden so it was no problem. Then we saw – I called up the caterer and I told her I'm calling off the reception. And she says, "I was just gonna call you to tell you that I can't make it. It's no time to make it." But she says, "Since you're inviting the soldiers, I'll come."

[laughter]

B.: So when they first started coming, it was in the afternoon, about five o'clock.

H.: And what day was it, do you remember?

B.: This was a *Shabbat*, the *bar mitzvah*.

H.: The *Shabbat*, but do you know the date?

B.: Two days before.

H.: Really?? The very! The *Shabbat* two days before.

B.: And there was nobody around. Everybody was […]

[…]

B.: Anyway, the soldiers, there was a hill. We lived, Nayot is in the middle of the mountains, and all of a sudden the soldiers started coming down. And the neighbors were frightened because they were sure the war had started, because the soldiers were all jumping down. [Laughter]. Anyways, they came and it was all very nice. And Teddy Kollek was supposed to come too, but he was building trenches so he came late when they were gone already. Teddy

1 Jewish religious ritual and family celebration commemorating the religious adulthood of a boy on his 13th birthday.

Kolleck was the mayor. He was the mayor of Jerusalem for many years. After '67, and of course, just, he was just, since when was he the mayor, do you remember? Maybe '65 or so? Oh I don't know. He was a wonderful mayor and a very friendly man. Anyway, I was gonna something –

H.: So he was about to come –

B.: But there were some guests when the soldiers were there, some Americans, and they were amazed. Because you know we had wine and liquor and the only thing the soldiers wanted was the orange juice and cold drinks. They were surprised because soldiers you know; anyway, then came *Shabbat*. *Shabbat* was gonna be in the synagogue near Talbiya. The speaker who was to read the *parashat ha'Shavua* [portion of the Torah] was to be Y.H. And that Thursday he said to my husband that he's coming. We come to *shul* [synagogue], he's not there. So one of our friends, he was knowledgeable, he gave the *parashat ha'Shavua*. Another friend of ours, who was in the chemical department of the Haganah [the core of the Israeli Defense Forces, IDF], he came to *shul* [synagogue] –

H.: Of the Haganah or Tsahal [special forces]? Of the IDF do you mean?

B.: Well it was Tsahal.

H.: Yeah, right, IDF. […]

B.: So he, all of a sudden I see he's not going to stay. He came to *shul* and all of a sudden he's not there. What happened was they called his wife, and they call them up, because they needed him. And she says he's at a *bar mitzvah*. And they say, "*Gevere*t [lady]! There's a war on!"

H.: There is a war!

B.: I mean it hadn't started yet but you know, everybody was mobilized. So he says you better go to *shul* and tell him to leave immediately. And she did. And that's why he wasn't there.

H.: [Chuckles] Ok.

B.: Then, we did have a reception in the morning, for the people who came to the synagogue. They came for lunch. And then in the afternoon the woman [caterer] came. When she was riding home there was shooting at us.

H.: *Shabbat*?

B.: They were shooting at us. Probably a sniper. And that made a hole in the table cloth. Now that type of cloth, [the caterer] kept it, and she used it when my younger son was *bar mitzvah*!

H.: [chuckles] With the hole.

#### **THE WAR BEGINS**

B.: Anyway, Monday morning came along. […] Monday morning some friends were leaving for Tel Aviv and they wanted my husband to pick up their daughter from school. I turn on the radio, it's 8 o'clock in the morning, and the war had started. I called my friends immediately, they were on their way to their car, they were going to Tel Aviv, so that was changed. And at 8 o'clock it had already started. Then we decided to go to the shelter, at our neighbors. And I left the shelter for a while because somebody had to make a call and just then my husband calls me and he says, "Don't worry, we just shot 104 airplanes. Out of commission, in Egypt."

H.: He already knew it?

B.: He was a journalist.

H.: Right. Because nobody knew it.

B.: He was a journalist. So I didn't believe him! I thought he was joking. He says, "No it's true. You can tell them that they can quiet down." Our son was in second grade at the time, and he says to the teacher – oh, they didn't know whether to send people home from school. But then they did, parents were coming and taking out their children. My little son was then in second grade, said to the teacher, "But my father can't come because he's a journalist and he has to work." But he did. He came, he even took the teacher home. So I told the people in the shelter and we all felt much better. But I still have shrapnel here. I have some. Did you ever see shrapnel?

H.: Not in real life.

B.: It fell in our garden, and it went in our neighbor's house, right through the refrigerator. And also, in shelter, it fell between two people.

H.: Wow.

B.: Didn't hurt them.

H.: That's good. You keep it here? (*Rustling sounds in the background)*

B.: If I can find it –

H.: Oh! Wow!

B.: That's what gets into people's bodies.

 This is from '67. It's so heavy.

[Interruption due to a phone call]

B.: Then, oh, and our daughter had to stay with a friend of hers after school because she couldn't get home.  Abba Eban2 sent a telegram to Jordan to tell them not to shoot, but they did.  But they, their mortars.

This is history.

And then they, they call us occupiers. They started the war!

H.:  Anyway, do you remember the weeks before, after *Yom Ha'atzmaut*3 and the […]?

B.: Oh sure, it was terrible. Everybody was being called up and there were no men around. We women organized to work in the grocery shop because the owner was mobilized. So we took turns in going to the shop and helping his wife there, to sell the produce. And there was nothing to buy. Because we couldn't get the stuff in.

#### **THE TIME IMMEDIATELY BEFORE THE WAR**

H.: How early did the mobilization start before the war began?

B.: Oh I don't know. At least a month before I think. I don't know, that I don't know. But I know that everybody was disappearing. And that's why we called it off because there'd be no point.

H.: Do you remember what you felt during these weeks before the war?

B.: That we would win.

H.: Really?

B.: Oh yeah, we always felt that, we always felt that. The only thing I feel bad about being here was that if anything happened to me, my parents would be, you know […] it would be a tragedy for my parents. But otherwise we weren't scared really. And we all ran home because the, what's-his-name Herzog, Chaim Herzog,4 appeared on television. And he was wonderful. He gave us all such courage. And they were saying, the song […]. Something *Lo Mefahed Mi Nasser*. *5*

2 Abba Eban served as Israel's Foreign Minister at the time.

3 *Yom Ha'atzmaut* – Israel's Independence Day. In 1967, it was in the middle of the military parade of the day that news about Egypt moving army forces towards Israel's borders reached Prime Minister Eshkol.

4 Chaim Herzog, later a president of Israel, was a military commentator on Kol Israel radio during the Six-Day War.

5 B. is referring here (although not accurately) to the Hebrew song: *Nasser Mechake leRabin* (Nasser is awaiting Rabin), which became very popular after the war as a victory song.

H.: Ahh! (Sings in Hebrew).

B.: Yeah, something like that. […] No, we all felt very confident, he was wonderful, Chaim Herzog.

H.: That's interesting. So you felt secure.

B.: No, I don't know. […] We continued. And everybody was helping out, and you know, neighbors, some people were putting sandbags at the windows.

H.: Sandbags. So this was just before the war and then the war […]?

#### **VISITING THE WESTERN WALL**

B.: Yeah, and […] then on *Shavuot,*6 this was very exciting, everybody went up to the wall. And you saw people mingling. And you have the *haredim* [ultra-Orthodox] and the *hilonim* [secular], and the girls half-dressed, and those, and everybody was together.

H.: Going to the Wall [Western Wall]?

B.: We had walked up; there was a new path made. They had built a new road.

H.: Do you remember where it was?

B.: Well it led up – was it up to Har Zion [Mount Zion]? I think it led up to Har Zion.

H.: Like from Jaffa Gate up to Har Zion?

B.: And they had cleared up the *kotel* [Western Wall] already.

H: Already? By *Shavuot*?

B.: Sure. It was […] it was really exciting. And my husband went immediately because he had a pass. So he was up to […] he was there […]

H.: But this is the first time you had visited the wall? On *Shavuot*?

B.: Yeah. […] It was very exciting. I mean everybody together. The women with the men, and everybody was mixing, it was really something.  And I wondered if it really would make a difference.

H.: Then? You remember yourself thinking that?

6 *Shavuot*, a Jewish festival (Feast of Weeks) commemorates the revelation of the Torah on Mt. Sinai to the Israelites, held on the 6th (and usually the 7th) of *Sivan*, fifty days after the second day of Passover. It is one of the three biblically based pilgrimage holidays also associated with the grain harvest in the Torah.

B.: Yeah, I remember thinking that.

H.: And what did you see when you went there, other than these people.

B.: We had been to the wall once before. Because when we came in '47 the British were here. And it was just a little *simta* [alley], a little alley.  They used to hide the *shofar* when the British were there, and blow it, and the British would look around for whom to arrest, but they would pass it on immediately. It was just a very narrow alley. By then, the whole thing was cleared already.

H.: So when you went back, it wasn't the same, it was different.  I mean it wasn't the same, it looked different.

B.: It was different. The wall was there but – well yeah, but can you imagine, we were all surprised because there was this big *rachava* [courtyard], this big square now. And there [had been earlier] just a small alley. No, it was really thrilling. It was something unbelievable. I mean, I don't think you can even express the feeling. The same thing when they announced the state. I mean, to think that I've lived to say.  Because we're all people. She said, "When I hear you talk about the days when it began," she said, "We don't have that feeling. I was born into it."

H.: You're right.

B.: It's an amazing feeling, because you're brought up all your life, about going to the wall, going to Jerusalem, and all of a sudden – there it is.

[…]

#### **REMEMBERING ENCOUNTERS WITH ARAB PEOPLE – BEFORE INDEPENDENCE AND LATER**

H.: And do you remember talking to people in America about it, people were coming […] to help? Do you remember people?

B: […] A lot of volunteers came. And they were terribly disappointed. There was nothing for them to do anymore. The whole war was six days. And they […] they said to Rabin. In fact they were almost angry. And Rabin said, "Unless you live here, you'll always miss it."

H.: [Chuckles] You remember him saying this?

B.: Oh yeah. […]

H.: And did you see, like, people who lived there, Arabs? Do you remember them or […]?

B.: Well we lived in Talbiya7 when we first came –

H.: Ah ok.

B.: And we had an Arab landlord, who was a very fine man, he was a doctor. In fact we didn't have any food – this was just before the War of Independence – we didn't have any food, we were cut off. We had nothing to eat, we were hungry. And he'd go to the market in the Old City and buy food. Well one day he came with eighty eggs for us, and we went around and distributed to all our friends. Especially one woman, she was pregnant so she had to lie in bed. And then one day I meet him and he's carrying tomatoes. He says, "I would have brought you tomatoes but Americans don't like tomatoes." [Chuckles] I didn't say anything to him. But we lived in Talbiya, we lived very nicely with the Arabs, they were Christian Arabs. And in fact, when they blew up the Jerusalem Post, my husband was there, my Arab landlord was the first one to run over at 7 o'clock in the morning in pajamas to find out what happened.

H.: Because your husband worked in the Jerusalem Post?

B.: Yeah, it was the Palestine Post then. And it was blown up.

H.: But he ran to your apartment to find out or to the office to find out?

B.: He lived near us, and he ran in and – first he sent his wife […]

H.: To see if everything is ok, right?

B.: Yeah, and the Arabs ran away from Talbiya because they were told that we were going to do something to them, which wasn't so. We lived very nicely with them. They were Christian Arabs. And he was warned by the *Mufti* [Islamic jurist] too. He told him, he was, he was afraid of the *Mufti*.

[Conversation shifts to B.'s husband's photography and a memorial booklet with photos taken by him at the time of independence-]

#### **THE RESEMBLANCE BETWEEN SHAVUOT 1967 AND WINNING THE WAR OF INDEPENDENCE IN 1948**

H.: Ok. So going back to this event in *Shavuot*, which I hear so many people talking about, this […]

B.: It was something […] an experience you couldn't […]

7 Talbiah is an upscale neighborhood; before 1948, most of its houses were owned by upper class, mostly Christian Arab families.

B.: Absolutely. Absolutely. And the War of Independence was even more of a miracle. We had 24 guns in Jerusalem, and one of our friends had a gun, and he said to himself (28), "But it doesn't shoot." He says, "I know, but would you feel safer not having anything in your hand?" That was really a miracle. The War of Independence, when all the Arab countries around us were surrounding us.

[B.'s son D.L. arrives, the conversation turns to his memories of 1967.]

#### **THE BEGINNING OF THE SIX-DAY WAR AS EXPERIENCED BY A THEN EIGHT-YEAR-OLD BOY**

H. to D.: What do you remember of […]

D.: The war?

H.: Yeah of the '67 war. When you were eight.

D.: I was eight. Yeah, I remember when I went to school that same morning, and all the parents were coming, picking the kids from school. And when the war started 10 o'clock, around ten o'clock –

B.: 8 o'clock. 8 o'clock in the morning was the first shot.

D.: No.

B.: I called the Staffers (neighbor's family name) not to leave.

D.: I remember parents taking their children before the sirens. […] We didn't have radio, but the siren was about 10 o'clock I think. So when the siren came on, we went to the shelter – wasn't exactly a shelter it was like a cave, something like that. I remember, like a […] cave. It was a big hole under the ground, something like that. Still, parents were coming and picking up the kids, and I was left there and I started crying because […] the teacher asked me, "Why are you crying? Your parents are going to come." I said my father is a correspondent so he went to the war, so no one would come and pick me up until the war ends. But after a while my father came, he couldn't come because there was bombing […] and *pagazim* [cannon balls] and borders, all kinds of stuff. So he picked us up and he took the teacher home and he left us.

So we came back home and we went to the shelter –

B.: And he took the teacher home.

H.: Yeah, he even took the teacher home.

B.: Abba [Aramaic word for father] continued with the teacher, he left us […] we had to climb the mountain.

H.: Oh.

D.: And I remember we were in the shelter at night, and we would hear – we have the armory next to us […] – and they were going, "One two, three, fire!" Boom. Boom. We would say, "This is ours, this is coming in. This is going out." All night you could hear, "One, two, three, boom. One, two, three, fire." And at night, one of the nights, mortar […]

H.: Who? What? [The shrapnel] This is it. You have the […] she kept it.

D.: Yeah it fell –

B.: That was in our garden.

D.: It fell right exactly in our neighbor's garden and it was a big "boom!" And I was feeling like everything –

B.: Like everything was falling apart.

D.: Falling apart and becoming a net, like a net of, that was my –

B.: Yeah I felt that way too, as if where we were sitting was like a net separating –

D.: And the guy in the other shelter, he woke up and he had this under his ear. [Gestures toward shrapnel]

H.: [Exclaiming] Ouch, really.

B.: And it went through the refrigerator.

D.: […] I remember Abba taking me out to the toilet, we didn't have toilets in the [shelter], so he took me up to the toilet. And I could see the fire, *pshew*!

H.: Wow. Do you remember how many days you stayed at the shelter?

D.: Three days I think.

H.: Three days. And then?

D.: Because on the third day we captured the Old City and everything, and I remember seeing planes in the sky – mirage in the sky – went out once in a while to see what's happening. […] We saw a mirage!

H.: Do you also remember the first time that you went to the Old City? I think you went together right?

D.: Yeah.

H.: All of you.

B.: It was on *Shavuot*.

D.: We didn't walk through. A lot of people walked, I don't remember us walking on *Shavuot* in the Old City.

B.: We went.

[Slight laughter]

D.: But I remember going to the *Har Habait* [Temple Mount], to the mountain […] *Har Habait*.

H.: When? When? Like […]

D.: Several days afterwards and it was easy to go up.

H.: Yeah so it's the wall and the Mount of Olives. [Murmers].

D.: Yes. We went to the Mosque of –

H.: You went up to the Dome? It was open?

D.: We went into the Dome.

H.: Nobody told you that it's not allowed, it is allowed […]?

I.: You went inside?

[Cacophony of voices]

B.: No they didn't […]. Into the Dome of Omar.

I.: You went inside?

D.: We were inside the mosque.

I.: Oh.

H.: I think that in the beginning –

I.: You were allowed in?

H.: Even me, I remember myself –

[B. and D. go on to remember how they visited Palestinian cities right after the Six-Day War.]

#### **NOTHING HAS CHANGED**

H.: But when you look at these times, do you think that you were just naïve, or […] How do you […]

D.: We were in a – how do you say in English? – Euphoria.

B.: Euphoria.

D.: Euphoria, from the victory.

B.: Oh yeah, it was a feeling –

D.: We thought we could do everything. Some people would say we did some mistakes […]. Leftists would say this type of mistakes, rightists would say this type of mistakes.

B.: […] I just read an article, that the Lubavicher Rabbi was against the Bar-Lev line8 . Building, to build it, the Bar-Lev line. He thought it was a bad idea. And we thought we were so strong, with the Bar-Lev line, nothing could penetrate. And I used to say, "Don't say that."

H.: No, but the thing is that not, I mean, a few months later you had bombing in Jerusalem. You remember that?

D.: Bombing of Jerusalem we had even before.

H.: Yeah, before and then after.

B.: We had a lot of mortars in Jerusalem.

H.: Right.

B.: The War of Independence, I remember we were coming back from the post. As the car passed the mortar fell there. And once I went to get our ration of two slices of bread, and my husband didn't want me to go, and I went. And just half a block away a mortar fell.

H.: No I'm saying, nothing has changed. Nothing has changed after the 1967 war.

B.: I just found a letter I wrote in 1947, two months after we arrived.

H.: Okay.

B.: I could have written it today. I read the letter, I could have written it today.

H.: So what does this mean?

8 The Bar-Lev line was a chain of fortifications built along the Suez Canal by the Israelis right after the Six-Day War.

B.: The people have changed but nothing has changed.

H.: But right after the '67 war, I think people thought that things have changed, no? I mean you had this feeling that something is –

D.: It was a good feeling, everyone was happy, we are strong, we could do everything. In six days we destroyed the armies of three states. Egypt, Syria and Jordan.

B.: Look, even in the War of Independence, we had nothing, we didn't even have ammunition. We didn't have shelters. In the War of Independence.

D.: And the rightists would say we could take all the Palestinians and throw them back to Jordan and have no problems anymore. And the Leftists would say we should have given everything back again and then we would have peace.

B.: Well Ben-Gurion then wanted to give back, he wanted to give back. So we gave back.

H.: But still going back to these days, I'm trying to […] maybe about your feelings [gestures to son], because Ima [Aramaic word for mother] – Ima, can I? – just told me that she felt as if it was a miracle, and just going back to the wall.

B.: I felt a little sad because I didn't know what would happen.

H.: Yeah, you felt? After '67? That's interesting.

B.: Yeah, because so many people were killed […]. [Indiscernible] for that matter Ammunition Hill. Because we didn't want to bomb the holy places, we lost how many boys there? Seventy?

[…]. So many boys were killed. Because we didn't want to bomb the holy place. And look at what Syria's doing to their own country.

[…] Look, it's even a miracle that the Jewish people existed this long, because everybody else has disappeared. Except the Jewish people.

H.: Yeah […] I'm trying to see what is unique about the '67 war. Is there something unique?

[…]

D.: Yeah you could see it was kind of a miracle. […] I mean the religious people would say, "Yes it's a miracle," and that's why on *Kaftet beEayar* (29th of Eayar) which is the day that we captured the Old City, we say, "*shehechyanu*" [Jewish thanksgiving prayer]. It's like a miracle day. Like *Hanukkah*, same thing.

[The conversation turns to visits to archeological sites with foreign guests, marketing encounters with Arabs in markets and traces of knowledge regarding where Arab neighbors from before 1948 moved to.]

#### **PEACHES FOR CATCHING A GLIMPSE OF TV**

B.: Do you want to add something about the '67 war, about you? Maybe you want to [add] something important that we should know?

D.: Did you tell them about Oren's Bar Mitzvah?

B.: Yeah, this was how we began. Because it was something […] wow. Ok, so […]

D.: We had – right after the war – there was the first television broadcast. And it was black and white, and it was just – we could receive Jordan. Jordan already had televisions so we could receive Jordan in Arabic. After the Six-Day War they had a song called *Biladi*. *Biladi* is "my country." My city, my country. And it goes [sings], "Biladi, biladi, biladi, biladi biladi biladi." For hours. They were just singing *Biladi* – that Jerusalem was taken from them, and *biladi biladi* they would take it back, and *biladi biladi*. That's the song we saw, all day long we were listening to *Biladi*. And the first Israeli broadcast started in '68, with Haim Yavin9 – which just finished last week – and I remember we didn't have a TV, only our neighbor had a TV. And he would ask people to bring him things – presents – so we could see TV. So he would tell me, "You want to see broadcast? Bring me a peach from your tree in the garden."

B.: I didn't know that.

H.: [Chuckles] See! Interesting.

D.: I wanted to see TV and I sat, and there was no broadcast. All I could see was this round thing, do you remember that?

H.: Yeah of course.

D.: The round thing. I would sit and look at the round thing for a peach. That was our TV.

B.: What did you see?

D.: When they don't have a broadcast they have this kind of picture.

H.: I think that [broadcast] only a few hours a day, so most of the day.

9 Haim Yavin is one of Israel's leading news presenters, associated with TV news since its beginning and for many decades.

D.: Yeah so most of the time I would give him peaches and see this round thing on TV.

B.: No wonder we didn't have enough peaches!

D.: No, no, only maybe once or twice. Sorry but I [have to leave].

[D. has to take leave. Goodbyes are exchanged.]

B.: The things you learn […] I didn't know! I thought the neighbors were being very nice! [Laughs]

H.: But it's interesting, really, that television also started just after '67. Did you feel that something was opening up for us here in Israel after '67?

B.: I don't know because I always felt that you don't predict about what happens here. You can't predict in the Middle East. I mean who would predict that we would win the war? I'm even more amazed now that we exist. And the connection that Jews have with each other all around the world, there's no other people like that. […] It's amazing, it's a miracle.

# **INTERVIEW WITH A.MF. (MALE)**

### NOVEMBER 2018

### INTERVIEWERS: REGINA F. BENDIX (R) AND SARAH ABU ARAFE (S)

At the time of the interview, A.Mf. was 64. He is a Christian Palestinian living in Ramallah. A. welcomed the two interviewers into the living room of the family's apartment in a quiet, pleasant neighborhood of Ramallah, having given final instructions on how to find the location via telephone as Sarah drove. A.'s wife also greets us and brings tea and cookies; the couple's youngest daughter – through whom Sarah had been able to establish the contact – says hello and later leaves. Neither of the two women stays to listen in. A little white dog calms down after the initial welcome barking and stays with A. on the couch to be cuddled for almost the whole interview; a white cat visits as well. We sit on sofas in a room leading out to a small balcony, the TV gets turned off once we start recording.

A. remembers his youth in Ramallah before the 1967 war in a quite well-to-do business family. The first sign of the imminence of war stands out acutely: the Jordanian military vehicles in a place where he and his friends used to go to play had vanished. Other incidents of the flight that he experienced when he was thirteen have edged themselves into his memory, even though the war remains to him a nonwar. From his present vantage point as a successful business owner who travels with ease to the USA and elsewhere, his reasons for staying in Ramallah are stated clearly: it is his home and, while not politically active otherwise, staying is his act of resistance. Increasing difficulties, up to the Second Intifada, to maintain his flower shop led him to close it after a particularly harrowing effort to get fresh flowers for

a wedding across the border. As of the date of the interview, he remained a firm believer in a two-state solution.

After familiarizing ourselves with one another, the interview begins. A. speaks excellent English and hence the interview was conducted in English.

A.: My name is A.Mf. Born and raised in Palestine.

R.: What year were you born?

A.: I was born 1954. So I'm pretty old. Went to French school.

R.: Here in Ramallah?

A.: Yeah, and that's about it.

R.: So you did all your schooling up to the end of High School in the French school?

A.: Yeah, in the French school. I was supposed to go to the States. You know to finish college. But my father, at that time, he never wanted me to go, because he knew if I left I wouldn't come back. So I stayed here, I helped him. We had a flower shop. And I was more interested in landscaping. And I started doing landscaping. For quite a bit of time. I did beautiful gardens. [He mentions one of them which still is the site of his major business].

R.: Ah, your business.

A.: Yeah, and I have had so many opportunity to go to the States. My wife is an American. Or I could have left – in 1977. But I didn't feel like going.

R.: Aha, how did you the two of you meet?

A.: I was friends with her. And she used to travel a lot. And [both laugh].

R.: One thing led to another.

A.: Yes, yes, yes. Unfortunately. You know. Though I did have a scholarship. Full scholarship. In the States. But as I told, you, my father was a bit – kind of strict in a way.

R.: Were you an only child?

A.: No, I have a younger brother as well. And I have three sisters. Two older than me and one is the youngest. The oldest lives in Cambridge, England. The second one, she lives in Nazareth. And the youngest, she's here. In Ramallah. And my brother in Jerusalem.

R.: And did your brother get to go to America?

A.: Yeah, actually he did go to the States with my parents. When they decided to go back in 1980. Still, I refused to go. So they went, they didn't like it. They came back. [A. and R. both laugh] Actually, I've been going back and forth to the States since 1998. I decided to go to the States, as an immigrant – applied for it.

R.: A visa.

A.: I did get it; I went to the States, I think, for only six months. I couldn't wait to come back.

R.: Seriously?

A.: Yeah, so I came back.

R.: Can you express what it was?

A.: Up until now I just came back. Like a week ago. From the States. I was there for a month. It's beautiful, it's nice, it's well organized, it's clean, it's – everything is perfect. That's what I don't like about it [everyone laughs]. On top of that, you're just a number over there. Basically. Really. I was in Houston for a while. And never got to meet anybody. Everybody – they leave their homes out of their garages! You know, they come back into their garages. It's so hard. In the winter it's so cold. New York, it was different. I felt – I could manage to live in New York. [. . .] You know it's livelier. […] California is something else. If you can afford it. It's nice. I have a daughter who lives now in San José. I have another daughter who works in an Air BnB. In San Francisco. And as I told you. I just came back [from visiting] them. I have a son who lives in Colorado. Colorado is beautiful – it's amazing. But it's nothing like here. I don't know what it is. But I feel here, you know, everybody knows me. […]. It's small. You [run your] errands, you know, quite easily and all. In the States it's like a project. Even going shopping.

R.: [laughs] That's true. You shop for the whole week because it's such a bother to go.

A.: On top of that. It happened, my son, he lives up in the mountains. So he's like an hour's drive away from the nearest city. Far. […]. Up in the mountains and snow. […]. It's such a beautiful place. Ok to spend a week, two weeks. A month it's nice, but I wouldn't live there.

R.: Yeah. It gets very cold in the winter, too. So, you have three children? Or do you have more?

A.: I have four. Three girls and a boy. D., she's here with us […]. She's here, she's helping me. Hopefully, I convinced my son to come back.

R.: The one in Colorado?

A.: Yeah, I think he's really thinking about it – considering it.

R.: And entering the business also?

A.: Yeah, the business is excellent. It's – I'm doing good. I only work six months. I am hoping, when he comes back, I'm gonna do something for the winter. But I couldn't keep it running also in the winter time. […]. We're doing fine.

#### **1967**

R.: So, let us go to that time that is the focus of our project. Which is the 1967 war. So, if you were born '54 you were 13.

A.: Yeah, I was 13. I recall very clearly what was going on. It was –

R.: Can you take us through it?

A.: Yeah, of course. It wasn't really a war. You know, there was a withdrawal from the West Bank. Way before the war started. In our old house there was a military camp. Inside our house. Now, it's the headquarters for the water campaign. Yeah, and that was military or the army base. They had a camp, you know, tents and stuff like that.

R.: The Jordanians?

A.: The Jordanians. And [the withdrawing] was very very clearly [happening], because like two weeks before the war started, we used to take our bicycles and go around and ride our bicycles in the compound. Where it was tracked, you know. Then [our] pathways, we had stones and vines and stuff like that [which made bicycling difficult]. And we were just playing around. And I have an aunt who lives in Jordan now. And she is the one who actually delivered King Hussein and Hasan. She was the midwife. She was very close to the Hashemite court.1 And she did tell us – way before the war – there was something going on or there's gonna be a kind of change. And then, two weeks before the war – they were clearing that compound, everything was gone, no police, no soldiers, no army at all. And it was Monday, I never forget that, it was Monday when the war started in 1967. We stayed for another two to three days before my grandma came from town. We were on the outskirts of town. And my grandma, she came and she was, you know, hysterical! […]. There were rumors that all the Israelis [were] there in Betunia, which is like a few miles away from Ramallah. And they were killing the men and they were raping the women. And they were burying houses and blablabla, you know. We could hear them – […] the rumors. My father, at that moment, he decided on

1 The Royal Hashemite Court is the primary body regulating the relationship between the King of Jordan and the Jordanian people.

our house. Let's just get out. And so, my father, he used to work for the Near East Christian Society (NECC),2 and it was the base, it was in Jerusalem but they had a lot of projects in Jenin and […] even in Jerash.3 All over. And we had two cars, so we packed, whatever, the necessary, basically important documents and papers and stuff like that. And we just left.

R.: Where to?

A.: To Amman. And, of course, we [were] gonna take the main roads. Which actually everybody [tried].

R: Ah!

A.: And that was hard. So, my Dad, because he was with the British air force back in the 50s, he knew all of the tactics and stuff like that. So, he decided to go [a different route], which is what they call the winding road. And we took that road. And boy, what happened on that road! The brakes of the car that my Mom was driving just […] there were no brakes [laughs]. So she, it was going uuh – and it was going pretty steep, so she had to – to do that – to drive in first gear on the way down. Doing that you know, [creates a] lot of stress on the motor, the […] belt just broke. And so, the car overheated as well. And then my father – he was quite a mechanic as well, you know. He took my Mom's – what you call – eh underpants?

R.: [laughs] The stockings?

A.: The stockings. And he wrapped them around and tied them to build a belt. And it worked. And we got to [relative safety]. The time we got there, it was a dark [and we had to] wait. So, we got out of the cars and we hid in the bushes. For maybe half an hour, until everything was ok. And then we kept on driving to Amman. On the way, there were two roads. One is the south road that you go towards the south and then to Amman. And the other road was the road [we took]. Which is now the main road when you cross the bridge and you leave to Amman. And that road, it's in bad surroundings. There are no trees, actually – if nobody was on that road, everybody was taking cover on the other road. And every single car that went on that road, it was bombed. Napalm. And we reached Amman, it was pretty dark. And we stayed at my aunt's house.

R.: The midwife?

2 A.Mf. probably means the Near East Council of Churches, founded in 1952, which launched a humanitarian program to assist Palestinian refugees.

3 Jerash is a city where a refugee camp for Palestinians was established; a large number of refugees came from Gaza. At the time of this writing, it still registers more than 29,000 Palestinian refugees (https://www.unrwa.org/where-we-work/jordan/jerash-camp, accessed March 22, 2020).

A.: Yeah, you know. Eh […], I remember, we weren't allowed to listen to the Israeli radio. My father [tried] to listen to news and what's happening. Anyway, because my father used to work with the NECC, he decided we [had to go to a] house in one of the projects that we could go to. It was in Jerash. So the next day, he decided let's go to Jerash. And on the way we got to Suela, it's like a small town on the outskirts of Amman. By the time we got there, there was another air raid.  And we hid in one the trenches. We could see the planes coming. They did shoot the plane down. Or, after maybe 10–15 minutes, it was calm, we wanted to hit the road again.  What's wrong, what's wrong? You know [we] started treating him, you know.  We thought it was from the air raid! [laughter]. […]. So we got into the cars and we were heading towards Jerash. But on the way there, it was amazing how many military vehicles there were on the road. There were Syrians, Iraqi and Jordanians. You could tell from […] the flags. And they were actually leaving. They weren't coming back. They were leaving their positions and heading to Daraa, all the way up to the north and Syria and Jordan. It's the border between Jordan and Syria.

R.: So we're talking day three?

A.: Day three, four. And we stayed in Amman or in Jerash for like a week. It was nice, nothing over there because it's out nowhere. There was a nice, I would say stream […]. We used to go down there for fishing. There was no war in that particular area. Sometimes you heard a plane passing by, but you know. We stayed for like a week and then we came back to Amman, 'cause the head of the NECC, he was a foreigner.

[…].

A.: So we stayed in this house. It was the boss's house. For quite a bit of time. And then of course we started hearing a lot of rumors about what's going on in the West Bank. And all the Israelis come into the empty houses. And they are actually […] occupying the empty houses, using them for their, eeh [own] activities. So, my father, he tried to get us back to Ramallah. And the only way to get back, was to cross the river. And there is a place where the water is shallow. But at that time, the water, it was up my neck! You know I was 13, I don't know how tall I was

#### R.: It was deep.

A.: It was deep. At that time the Israelis didn't steal the river. They didn't block the water. So there was quite a bit of water. We managed to cross

R.: But left the cars […]?

A.: And left the cars and my dad he stayed over. Thinking he'd come back in. Which he tried, I'll get to that. He came back with his friends. But us coming in we had to cross a certain area in a certain period of time, because the patrol car just passed. And we have to make it in 10 to 15 minutes up the steep hill. That's the time this patrol car would came back. So, during that time –

R.: […] you had to make it.

A.: […] make this short trip, really fast. And we did. We were really exhausted. But quite a steep hill, I remember. Then we had to walk for a few hours until we got to Al-Auja. It's – now not there. Beside Jericho. There was of course fresh water, we cleaned ourselves, stuff like that. Then we managed to grab a taxi from Jericho to Jerusalem. They wouldn't come to Ramallah because of checkpoints and stuff like that. So we managed to get on a bus to come to Ramallah. And –

R.:

A.: My house it was, intact it was – nobody – nothing broken. Of course we had chickens, we had pigeons, we had goats, you know. The chickens, the neighbors, they [laughs] took a couple here, a couple there. I think they were barbecued [everyone laughs]. The goats the same. Except for my dog. I had a dog. When I was one year old, my father, he got the dog. He was like one month. And he stayed with us for a long time. And oh boy, the dog. When coming back – the first thing I was […]

R.: […] to look for the dog.

A.: Yeah, he went crazy. He was just running around, jumping and back and forth. He couldn't believe [we were back]. Two months.

R.: That's a long time. Long time.

#### **AFTER THE RETURN**

A.: That was the end of that. And then, we settled, and then there was the census going on. That's when my father needed to come back. So he came back with his friend, the pharmacist. And they crossed the river and they were going ahead. And then, all of the sudden, there was this Israeli patrol car that came. His friend, he turned around as if he wanted to go back to Amman. So [my father] started screaming at him, "Come back, come back." And they see him. So they got him in. My father, he was going into Ramallah, you know. They took my father back out. So my father, he went back to Amman […]. All of the sudden, after a few days, my father meets one of his friends from Jericho in Amman. He was stuck in Amman, he wanted to come back.  [the friend asked]. "They're already in Ramallah. I'm stuck here with two cars." "That's what we want, two cars!" They had some other people with them, seems they arranged a whole thing. And they took a case of whiskey. So, because once they get across, there would be a case of whiskey – go ahead! That's what they did. So [my father] came back with the two cars and he was just thankful, you know. Oh that's it – the few months after the war.

R.: That's it. So it was two and a half months until he came. And then there was the census.

A.: About two and a half months, maybe three month later they had the census going on. We were lucky. We came back. My cousins, you know, they were scared to come across the river and walk all of that. Unfortunately, […] they couldn't make it. And like them hundreds and thousands, you know […]

R.: […] are still outside.

A.: Amman, when I was there, there was no school. It was, you know: What are you gonna do? So my Dad, he put me to work in one of the garages. Exhaust pipes. Getting paid, it was like shillings – I don't know how much that is now. You needed twenty of them to make one shekel.

R.: So, but there was no danger to lose your property because you were coming back?

A.: We could have, yeah. Because a lot of people, up until now in Ramallah, there are so many homes that were occupied by the military forces. Who never expect – now after they left in '94 that they hand them out, you know, back to their […]

R.: […] to their owners.

A.: The military house in Ramallah up until just recently, it was in the compound where Abu Masan is living now. You know it was right there, […] not ours, but for his relatives. They're in the States. It was also [houses of] people who were in Kuwait or the States. It was a lot of […] houses that were occupied. By the Israelis. Because they say […]

S.: It's article 51, if you know it. That Israel imposed when – if someone is not here they take the […]

A.: They protect [with irony]. They are the protectors. Of the property. Because there are absentees.

R.: But they are not protecting it for the absentees?

A.: No, no. On the contrary. [both laugh] Well, it seems that all of Palestine is absentees.

R.: Yeah, anger.  So there is no school yet, you're helping with work. When did things begin to normalize?

A.: To settle down. You know it took a while because people weren't, you know, happy with what's going on.

R.: Of course.

A.: A lot of people, relatives, are away, a lot of people who couldn't make it back, it was pretty chaotic the first six months I would say. Even the first winter. But slowly, slowly we got used to it. Or we got sucked into the new situation. The Israelis, they flooded the market. With a lot of products. [Stuff that] wasn't there, like during the Jordanian time. From cloth, even vegetables, to a lot of things. For people, they got more into becoming [consumers] – and using the situation for their own benefit. They accepted the Israelis as commercial business [partners]. But up until now, of course, nobody accepts them as a legal status. My Mom's house! Imagine, after '67 [Palestinians] were deported or they fled in 1948. After '67, in like three months, four months later, you know, we could go in and out. [My Mom] wanted to go and visit her old house. And there was a Jewish lady.

R.: Living there.

A.: Living there. And she told her. "No." "I just wanna go in and have a look at the house." She wouldn't let her in.

R.: She wouldn't let her in.

A.: She wouldn't let her in. It's […]

R.: Painful.

A.: Yeah, it's really sad. Yes, this is.

R.: Where does she live now, your Mom?

A.: In Ramallah, here. Yeah.

R.: She is still well?

A.: Yeah, yesterday she came and she had lunch with us.

#### **FROM THE POST 1967 OPENING TO THE SECOND INTIFADA**

R.: Superb. So you're noting that the Israelis began bringing in goods and that shows up in a number of interviews as a sort of, ehm, positive thing, that was quite good, some say. We suddenly had access to various things then.

A.: Yeah, and you know, access. We had never been to a beach before, that was.

R.: Oh, you could actually go to the beach?

A.: We could go to the beach. And before 1967, we couldn't go to Gaza. Because – unless you have special permission. You used to go from Dhabi […], they used to call it, in Jerusalem, behind the American consulate. That was the barrier. That was East Jerusalem and West Jerusalem. It was the only access in and out. And once a year they used to allow the Israeli Arabs to come and visit. You know, a special permit and I remember, they used to bring these plastic bags or baskets. It was made out of plastic. And in the middle of that there is the Star of David. They wouldn't let it in the Jordanian zone unless they cut the Star of David out.

R.: And everything fell out.

A.: As if it will be alright then. And then the Six-Day War happened and it all opened.

R.: So you could go to Gaza, you could go to Tel Aviv. Or anywhere.

A.: Yeah, it was – it was – people felt as if the war had opened up – which it did, in a way. Poor people, others who were left behind the river, that's a different story. Then in the earlier – in the 70s up until maybe the beginning of the 80s. You know, the whole West Bank was thriving. Because a lot of Israelis, they used to come […] and spend a lot of money here. Because it's cheaper […] than buying the same stuff on their side. Because they paid more taxes. Restaurants here, they used to work a lot, you know these vegetable places, the meat places, all of these had, you know, [plenty of business]. I don't know about cloth and stuff – on the contrary, we used to buy cloth from the other side. But the Israelis themselves, they used to come to – to Ramallah, Jenin, for the vegetables. Because our produce, it's more organic, it's more down to earth than what the Israelis produce you know. Up until now, you know, I know it for Nazareth, because my sister lives there – Once a week they go down to Jenin […], it's quite close to them and they buy the vegetables and the eggs and the meat – you know, for the whole week.

R.: So that in a way that commercial exchange stayed […]

A.: Yeah, even, even it stayed like this I think until I would say 2000. Then [came] the start of the Second Intifada. The second and I believe it wasn't genuine, it wasn't an intifada. It was all orchestrated by the Israelis, you know. They created the whole mess. They imprisoned us for quite a bit of time. They did a lot of changes during that time, and route structure, how we go and where we go, all of that, you know. The First Intifada, it was something different. The First Intifada, it was genuine. It was out of the soul. People, they were really together. They looked for each other.  People, they opened their homes for other people, for giving classes, because universities were closed, schools were closed, it was different. The Second Intifada, I think, it was all orchestrated by the Israelis –

R.: In order to put more, more hindrances in the way?

A.: Exactly. And they succeeded, they succeeded unfortunately. Or how we're suffering. My resistance is just being here. I don't have to go and throw a stone or – I'm not capable, it's not gonna change a thing. But what will change you know – if I leave and she leaves and they leave and everybody leaves that's – that's where we go back. You know […] Just being here is a resistance by itself.

R.: So that would tie to what you said in the beginning, that you know it's nice to hang around California but somehow you need to be here?

A.: Yeah, I was there for a month you know. I mean everyday going here and there and even sailing I went, you know. It was beautiful, I love it. But I would live, no I wouldn't live. And a lot of people "Ah, ah, what brings you back? You know I thought you go to the States, so I thought you won't come back." Of course I come back! [laughs] Because I belong here, that's how I feel. I don't belong over there.  But I'm not, I'm not, you know. I can't see myself living in the States.

R.: When you fly, do you have to fly out of Amman?

A.: Yeah. Going to the States is much easier than going to Jerusalem.

R. & S.: [laugh]

A.: I'm willing to cross the bridge. I'm willing to being searched etc., etc. Spend ten hours in the plane or eleven hours in the plane. It's fine with me. But you know what, I haven't been to Jerusalem since 2005. Because the last time I was down there, the humiliation you go through, there, in the checkpoint – the Calandia checkpoint in particular – you know. You know I wouldn't do it. I have a permit, they give me a permit until, I don't know, next year some time. I wouldn't choose it, I wouldn't. I have a permit with which I could even stay in Jerusalem [unfolds a piece of paper], I could go all over except for Eilat.

R.: Except for Eilat?

A.: For Eilat. Time zero, zero, zero, zero, zero, zero. Yeah, it's open. You know, but I'm not gonna, I'm not willing to use it. A lot of times, I did go down to the other side. To Jaffa, to Herzliya, to Haifa whatever. Usually, I don't mind. I don't mind. Or even I don't have a permit, you know, but I do sneak in. It's no big deal. Now I have a permit, I wouldn't go through Calandia.

R.: You'd rather keep sneaking [laughs].

A.: Yep, [laughs] true.

R.: When you, when you, I mean you sort of have a contrast now, where you talked about until you were 13, this was the Jordanian time. And now you have this – the occupation, what do you remember of the Jordanian time? How did that feel in terms of liberties, in terms of –

A.: Well, the Jordan time, you know, to me, it wasn't bad. Because my father, he used to work with an NGO, you know. And he used to travel a lot or I used to go with him to Jerash, to Amman, I used to go even to Lebanon. We used to go to Syria, it's all, you know, in the car. We used to go to Turkey. You know, at that time. Of course, there was a border control, but it was ok. Passport. Easy, it isn't like that now. But here, life was simpler. During the Jordanian time, you know, it wasn't really this rush, rush, rush.

R.: Yeah, I mean this is a very busy town now, isn't it?

A.: Yeah, I mean it's going crazy, you know. I remember the street, it was all potholes [everyone laughs], from the beginning until the end, you know. There was nobody, nobody at the end of the street. […] I have pictures of Ramallah, yalla, I should have them back there now, unbelievable. You know where [my business] is?

R.: I haven't been there.

A.: Ok. You haven't been. That was our place, our old house is there. You know. And then there is the main road all the way up there. Anybody coming down that road either he was coming to the slaughterhouse in front – opposite our house or to our house. There was nobody. Nobody. When we lived there, that was in '73. People used to tell us, you're living there with walls [words drowned in laughter]

R.: It was so isolated.

A.: Yeah, now we are in the middle of town.

R.: It has really exploded. And that happened when, where do you put the surge?

A.: The surge, I tell you, it was basically after the PA [Palestinian Authority] came which was in 1994. It started picking up basically '95/'96, that's when things started settling down and the boom era, I would say, started to pick up. And it stayed like this until 2000, then it slowed down, then it picked up actually 2005, 2006, it was after Arafat passed away. It was still really slow, icky, sketchy you know. 2005/2006 I think that's when it really picked up, you know. And I went to the States 2005. I stayed three months, I came back, I couldn't believe it. There were houses that were not empty anymore, all of the sudden people were living in them. You know and it –

R.: Incredible speed.

A.: It's becoming, pff, I hated, you know, all of these big buildings coming up, you know, all of the old houses. The municipality said they were not supposed to build there. People are going around it, whatever. For example, there is this small house, you are not supposed to knock it down.  So the [small] house stays inside – after that they knock it down. That's what is happening. A lot of the houses in Ramallah, they were built in like 1880/1890. You know, the Old City, you know. Ramallah more than Bireh. Ramallah was richer. You know, than the Bireh side.

R.: But who is behind all the building? I mean is there just a very strong drive to have more apartments here or – ?

A.: Ehm, no people, I tell you, there is, they don't like to keep cash. So they put it […]

R.: In real estate.

A.: In real estate, yeah. And the latest census they did in Ramallah and its buildings, there are 40,000 empty apartments. I mean here, there is a new building coming up here you know it like 60 apartments. It's all empty.

[Further conversation about building and empty real estate]

R.: We talked about how it felt during the Jordanian Time and it, it was ok. And 1967 as a sort of brief boom opening, when you got to go to the beach or to visit the cities. We talked about resistance as staying but are there other emotional reasons for being here?!

A.: Yeah, of course. You know, I myself, I was born and raised here. This stays quite a big fact. Besides what's happening and what's going on. Still, I see it more […] as a place where I belong. You know, though I, as I mentioned I don't like what's going on you know, all of these buildings, the tearing down the old buildings, replacing them with modern ones. But Ramallah, especially Ramallah, I mean, I don't know about other cities, but Ramallah to me it's different. You know, maybe because I had a flower shop and it was the only flower shop until eh 1982. All of the weddings, all of the engagements, all of that, I was doing it.

R.: That is a beautiful thing to do. So, the flowers and landscaping you don't do anymore, right?

A.: Not anymore.

R.: Because you have the [other business].

A.: Yeah. Well I, after, I tell you, after 19 – no after the First Intifada actually, I closed the shop. That's when we had eh the border control, that's when they started that you have to have a permit to go to Jerusalem and to get the flowers. Eh, a friend of mine, he wanted to get married and I wanted to get the flowers. And all of the weddings here, of course, they are on Sunday. And I got the flowers on Friday, 'cause the Jews they close on Saturday. So I ordered the flowers on the phone, 'cause we couldn't go to Jerusalem. I want this color, this etc., etc. Then I had to go to Calandia and get in touch with a guy on the phone, how to get the flowers across and on the cards and whatever. When I got the flowers, it wasn't the right color. That's not the color I wanted. So I couldn't get in touch with the guy 'cause I got the flowers Friday night and he was closed. So Saturday I couldn't do anything, but it was not the right order for these people. They want the different colors. So Sunday I had to call, they don't open early, so I had to call and the wedding of course is at 3:30 or at 4:00, you know. So I had to have all of these things ready before that time. The bridal bouquet and the bridesmaids, and the car and the church and all of that. It takes a lot of time to prepare. For hours, just battling for time, you know. And that was it, that was the last wedding I did.

#### R.: Did you manage?

A.: I did manage. Exactly, I finished the church, I had to get in from the side door, because you know people were coming in. And I said that's it, I closed the shop, I – I had the shop closed from September, that was the Intifada, or as they claim the Second Intifada, until 2012 I had the shop closed. But every day, of course, I go up to open the […]

R.: […] the shutters.

A.: The shutters. Or a lot of times I forgot to close them. I did change a lot of. Lot to do with our life. Not just me, a lot of people as well you know. I had a flower shop, but a lot of people, you know, they used to go and buy cloth or to buy whatever, you know, merchandise. Some people have the yellow plates, that they can go in and out [into Israel], not like us. We have green cards. […] You have to have a permit. As I showed you. It's –

R.: So your business is internationally known, I mean one finds you on the internet. The people with whom you do your business, where are they from?

A.: They are from all over, from all over. People are coming from Europa, the States, from Africa, it's quite divers. The beauty of what I do you know, we look at people the same, we even have Israelis who do come.

R.: Really?

A.: Yes, yes.

R.: And they sneak in or [laughs]

S.: Some of them have passports.

R.: That allow them to –

A.: No, no, I don't know, maybe you just have a look at the signs.

R.: The red signs?

A.: Yeah.

R.: I've seen those signs.

A.: They are all over. Wherever you go. If you really want to feel the sense of what the Israelis did with us now, you know, now actually, the settlers. You know.  One minute they could close the whole area. The same with the villages. If you go west of Ramallah or north of Ramallah – all of these villages, every single village, there is a huge yellow gate. And there is an outpost.

R.: Yeah, it's devastating.

A.: I don't believe in all the Israelis, they are really sincere about having peace. Probably because they spell it differently.  They already got the whole piece of Palestine.

[Everyone laughs]

R.: You have experienced so much, have you ever considered being politically active or is that just not your cup of tea?

A.: No, it's not my cup of tea. I don't know. I'm active in, in my own way, you know. If you check my Facebook, sometimes I get tense crossing the bridge or coming back or [unclear] look what you did, look what you mentioned, look what you commented. Look what you share [everyone laughs].

[Discussion of a recent book]

R.: So you don't believe in a two-state solution. You see one state, with everybody having the same rights.

A.: Exactly, yeah. This is the only solution.

[Description of experiences in the USA]

R.: Well there is this little thing called religion.

A.: They should scrap it. I think, people, they need to understand, you know, life is short, seriously. It only takes a few words to have the love and the acceptance of each other. It's not the color, it's not the race, it's not the religion. It's the human being itself. I hope, and the people they put, as you said, religion aside. And treat each other as human beings. And that's all it takes.

[Description of the importance of family and of belonging]

A.: Exactly. And I, on top of what's happening and what's going on, I just love it here. No, seriously. I love it here. All, as I told you it's resistance. Just being here. No, I tell you I love the States. I drove from Harrisburg to Colorado, drove from [unclear] to San José. Beautiful, I tell you. But I wouldn't sell it for my home. Palestine is my home.

# **Hallowed Hollows: Life Stories of Bereaved Women from the Six-Day War – From Personal Commemoration to Commemorative Shrines**

*Bosmat Ibi Hardy*

### **1 Introduction**

I can tell you that going to the Western Wall after the war was the most powerful thing, I felt euphoric and supreme joy, as well as grief and agony for our loss […] It was very powerful. I remember feeling such extreme contrasts […] that is one of the most vivid things I remember. (Widowed interviewee)

A total of 781 Israeli soldiers fell during the Six-Day War (Golan 1971). This paper focuses on what these deaths meant within the initial time after the war, which was characterized by feelings of national pride, joy and euphoria. The war and its aftermath continue to be at the center of public debate; its influence is still evident in politics, geography, economy and society both in Israel and the Arab world (Folman 2004; Tzameret and Yablonka 2000). The research in this article is based on the life stories and commemoration in words and material artifacts by women who lost a loved one (father, son, husband or brother) during this war. With the environment of general euphoria that prevailed in Israeli society immediately following the Six-Day War, the tension between national victory and personal loss was at its height, and, to a large extent, it is that tension which structures these stories of tragic loss and attempts to mitigate them.

After discussing the interpretive framework chosen, I will briefly describe the nature of the research and then examine how the work of grief and memorialization

#### **DOI: https://doi.org/10.17875/gup2022-1963**

unfolded for the women interviewed. I begin with the moment of actual loss, turn to the problematic funerals and then discuss how these individual women, each in their own way, created memorial practices involving objects and images in their homes to grieve for their loss.

## **2 Commemoration and Memory – Between the Collective and the Personal**

Collective memory that focuses on the heroism of war is a powerful mechanism for forging a national identity. The young state of Israel, feeling its existence constantly threatened, views this collective memory of the heroism of war as a primary objective (Schuman, Vinitzky-Seroussi and Vinokur 2003). One of the main focuses in the creation of a collective memory, and particularly in Israel, is the commemoration of war casualties. This is manifested in a variety of ways: naming streets and sites after the fallen soldiers (Zerubavel 2016), writing poems about the fallen, erecting monuments and setting special dates on the calendar dedicated to the memory of fallen soldiers. Public commemoration emphasizes the heroism of self-sacrifice and how victory was achieved through that sacrifice (Azaryahu 1995; Shamir 1996).

After the Yom Kippur War in 1973, the national-military ethos began to disintegrate, and public debates ensued, led by bereaved parents demanding change regarding national commemoration of the fallen (Shamir 1996). However, the State of Israel agreed to only minor changes. A long and turbulent debate, for example, took place regarding the families' desire to personalize the tombstones of their fallen by adding personal texts or pictures. This practice was finally approved in 1995.1 State law had stipulated that the purpose of commemoration is to create uniform criteria for national commemoration, as well as regulating the state's commemorative activities through the Council for Commemoration. This law, enacted in 1986, has yet to be changed, except for a few small adjustments that were made (The State Comptroller and Ombudsman of Israel 2013). The law prevents families from deviating from accepted commemoration activities in the public sphere. The bereaved families have submitted requests to the army and the Defense Ministry to be able to add a picture or personal words to the tombstones, but the state, via the Commemoration Department in the Ministry of Defense, refused these requests, stating uniformity of the fallen as a national rationale that must be adhered to. This refusal hinders the ability of bereaved families to express their grief in the public arena, assert private beliefs or otherwise communicate their story of personal grief (Guilat and Waksman 2014).

Bar-On explains the institutionalized attempt to disallow personal commemoration as a process of nationalist construction (2000). It accentuates the use of manipulation by the government and elites to legitimize their dominant status and establish

1 Bilu and Witztum (1999), Doron and Lebel (2006), Ivdosin, Almog and Paz (2008), Rosental (2001).

power in the future. In other words, in order to construct a hegemonic narrative, the events of the past are manipulated in the present to create the illusion of uniformity.

We have witnessed a break in the unanimity in recent decades, and the concept of military heroism has begun to be abandoned. This, in its turn, has led to changes in the ways of commemoration. As the myth of military heroism begins to disintegrate, the importance of national commemoration is decreasing and the importance of personal commemoration is increasing (Bilu and Witztum 1999; Ohana 1998; Rosental 2001). Guilat and Waksman (2014) looked at the physical appearance of military cemeteries, and found that there has been a change in the form of commemoration in the last few decades. It has taken on a less national dimension and become more personal-familial. These changes appear in the form of added personal inscriptions on the tombstones, or leaving personal objects or planting flowers near the graves. Many bereaved families also erect private memorials in their homes, commemorative shrines dedicated to their departed. The private memorials are a physical spot in the home, usually created by women (mothers, widows and orphans) who lost their loved ones during military service. These commemorative shrines contain pictures and personal belongings connected to both the life and death of the fallen family member.

### **3 Interview Contexts**

My research is based on interviews conducted between 2016 to 2018. I carried out 13 in-depth interviews with family members of soldiers killed in the Six-Day War (five widows, three sisters and five orphans). The interviewees ranged in age from their early 80s to mid-50s. All the interviews were conducted in the homes of the family members. The interviews focused on the story of women's bereavement, from the moment they learned of the death until the present day. During the interviews, the women were asked whether they kept artifacts or commemorative objects connected to the fallen soldier in a space or a corner of their home. I used a broad definition of commemorative shrines, and included any commemorative sites in their home that contain physical objects symbolizing the fallen dead or their relationship with him. All the interviewees had private memorials or commemorative shrines, and they all agreed to show them to me. I was allowed to photograph their commemorative shrines2 , and we discussed the meanings of the objects contained there. The interviews were highly emotional, characterized by intense grief for men who had died over fifty years ago, equally intense anger at the state authorities, and pride for the fallen's act of heroism. Due to the centrality of commemorative shrines, I attached great importance towards conducting the interviews in the women's homes. This allowed intimate conversations as we stood together in front of their personal commemorative shrines.

2 I have opted not to include such photographs so as to honor the intimacy encoded within them.

My own biography proved a sad yet helpful connection to the interviews. I am an orphan of the Yom Kippur War, a war that took place six years after the Six-Day War. My own experiences are what led me to explore the stories of bereaved families, hear the stories from other bereaved women, and understand how the void created by the death of a family member is then filled in the most intimate of places – the home. The two aspects, which are intertwined, involve observing the complexity of commemoration at home, and looking at the cultural characteristics and the dynamics which accompany them. To illustrate, I first present my own story and my connection to objects belonging to my belated father.

My mother's room contains a treasure. This information has been ingrained in me for as long as I can remember. From a very young age, I knew that our mother was hiding something important: "These are Daddy's things. Mommy won't let us touch them," my older brother explained to me. In one of the wooden cabinets, in a closed drawer, there was a box. I was always drawn to that box. I had a tremendous impulse to touch, feel, hug and smell that box. Without her knowledge, I used to regularly sneak into her room, trying to get to that box. I did not always succeed. When I had enough time, usually when no one was home, I would lock the front door, quickly sneak into her room, open the cupboard drawer and be alone with my father's belongings. These were powerful moments of sensory disorientation, as I closed my eyes and stroked the soft velvet. I imagined my father. Sometimes I could even feel him. That elegant velvet box was where my mother kept "Yehuda's things." She would not allow anyone access, not even her own children, ferociously guarding what was left of her late husband. In her own words, "Nobody else understands […]." To this day, even though more than 40 years have passed, I dare not tell her of my familiarity with her treasure. Even now, long grown up, I dare not tell her of my actions. In those moments, when I had reached this Holy of Holies, I would open the box. The few objects within lay in silence on a bed of velvet. Military decorations. Several photographs, a penknife, a few faded pages with typed text, several colored stones and handwritten letters in my father's handwriting. I would arrange the objects on my mother's bed and lie there, surrounded by them. I would grasp the penknife, trying to imagine my father. These objects could not replace my father and did not fill the void that his death left in my soul. All they allowed me was to have an alternative relationship with the imaginary figure of my father. Since his death, I have forged a different kind of relationship with him: a transformation, a changing and developing relationship. The few objects and images that I have created provide me with a connection, and enable me to build a reality of my own, not dependent on my father's life but rather on the commemoration thereof.

This auto-ethnographic assessment is echoed – even to the point of using identical terms – time and time again in the interviews I conducted. My own experience opened my way into the homes and hearts of the interviewees. During the interviews, many women emphasized that only because the researcher is part of the "family of the bereaved," were they willing to be interviewed and were confident that their story would be presented in a way that respects them and honors the dead.

In the following, I examine how women tell their own experiences of bereavement. My focus, in addition to the experience of bereavement with learning of their loved one's death, is on the nature of these private memorials, the visual landscapes of the commemorative shrines, and the significance that the women interviewed attribute to the "memorial objects."

### **4 The Complexity of Personal Stories of War Bereavement**

The stories that emerge from the interviews chronicle a complex narrative. The journey of bereavement began with the death of a loved one, described in great detail. As they narrate, the women call to the past at different points in the interviews; the topic changes, and then the past emerges again, creating a bridge between the past and present, a connection between the dead and the bereaved. The story is also a performance – it includes body language, facial expressions, intonation, silences. These stories unfold in varied structures and units: fragments of narration, as well as parts of speech that function as closed units of meaning. There are women who begin their story in the living room and end it sitting on the bed in the bedroom, surrounded by albums, diaries and various objects.

These personal stories reflect the autobiographical "self" (Lomsky-Feder 2004; Sarbin 1986), which is always rooted in a concrete sociocultural context (Halbwachs 1992). Coping with the new status imposed on them occurs not only within the mind or home, but also in relation to the existing social structures and society's view of them.

A widow describes the following:

We were walking down the street, it was unbearable at home. I remember buying ice cream for myself and my child, and everyone looked at me like "what is she doing" […] as if I wasn't allowed to eat ice cream […] people kept looking at me. As if I was a performing monkey.

Another widowed women narrates:

[…] the first time I went out for a walk, I was wearing clothes that were big on me, I was walking around and people were shocked, […] everybody was looking at me, shocked at what I looked like […], I was skinny […] [whispers] post-trauma. There was no support back then. I realized then that strength and […] [silence] […] Rami [her late husband] would be ashamed of me if he were alive. I understood that. I was walking around on the streets of Kfar Saba, everybody saw me, and some people saw me and crossed to the other side of the street […].