A house divided

Israeli woman, Palestinian man find hearts tied to the same home

Sarah Peasley, Special to the News

Published June 2, 2006 at midnight

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The story of Bashir Khairi and Dalia Eshkenazi is the story of the Palestinians and the Israelis, writ small. In telling their true story of conflict and compassion, Sandy Tolan has written a history lesson that feels like a novel.

With deft evenhandedness, the journalist and documentary producer illuminates life in the troubled region for both sides, from 1936 to the present.

1936 was the year that Ahmad Khairi built a home for his family in Ramla, an Arab town in Palestine, between Jerusalem and the Mediterranean Sea, and planted a lemon tree in the backyard. The soil was rich and the family prosperous. When his daughters were born, they attended school with Jewish students. "'They all spoke Arabic and they were Palestinians like us,' recalled Bashir's sister. 'They were there - like us, part of Palestine.' "

The British had ruled the country since 1917, and their support of the international Zionist movement to establish a national homeland for Jews in Palestine was causing understandable friction. From 1922 to 1936, the Jewish population of the land quadrupled, while the Palestinian population increased only 36 percent.

But the Holy Land was relatively quiet in 1942, the year Bashir was born. He lived a charmed life of the adored first son. Five years later, when the United Nations partitioned Palestine into two states, one for the Arabs and one for the Jews, the Khairis were in shock. While Ramla was slated to remain part of Palestine, more than 80 percent of Palestine's cultivated citrus and grain plantations would become part of Israel. Most Arabs would not accept the partition.

In 1948, in the fighting that ensued after the British left and the partition was imposed, refugees flooded into Ramla and bombs exploded in the marketplace. Bashir and his family fled with few possessions for the relative safety of Ramallah, in the West Bank. They and tens of thousands of other Muslim refugees from the region intended to return soon, when the fighting calmed down.

Meanwhile, with heavy hearts, Moshe and Solia Eshkenazi and their 11-month-old daughter Dalia fled troubled communist Bulgaria for the new state of Israel. Moshe had grown up learning Hebrew and hearing about the dream of Palestine. "As light broke on November 4, passengers were crowded toward the bow as the boat powered into Haifa port. Some were crying. They began to sing Hatikva, for six years the anthem of the Zionists and now of the new state of Israel. 'A Jewish soul yearns,' they sang . . . 'to be a free people in our land/The land of Zion and Jerusalem.' "

Ten days later, the Eshkenazis boarded a bus taking immigrants to Ramla. A government representative told families the homes had been deserted, and they were free to enter a house, inspect it and claim it. The Eshkenazis chose a house to their liking – stone, with an open layout, a carport and a lemon tree in the backyard.

Tolan traces Dalia's gradual realization that the home they lived in so happily had probably not been deserted, that the Palestinians had likely been forced out of that house and all the houses and shops of Ramla, as well as other cities and towns. One day, in 1967, her suspicions are confirmed when Bashir knocks on the door, politely asking if he can see his house.

Dalia welcomes him, and the two make a strong personal connection. He invites her to visit him and his family, still refugees in Ramallah, which she does the next year. The visit is both tense and friendly, with the conversation bouncing from small talk to political realities. Each side speaks, and each listens.

"As warm as the family was, Dalia was struck by how temporary their home felt. . . Dalia couldn't identify it precisely, but she felt as if the whole family were sitting on its suitcases."

Bashir, now an attorney, had just been released from prison. Like so many Palestinian refugees, grown to adulthood without a state of their own and yearning only to return home, he believed in fighting the Israeli "occupation" of Palestine. Altogether, he would spend more than half his life imprisoned or exiled by the Israelis. Still, despite being tortured, he would never confess to any terrorist acts.

In fits and starts, the two continue their dialogue for 30 years. Dalia is desperate to spread her message of compromise between Israelis and Arabs. Bashir quietly sticks to his belief that Jews like Dalia stole the land from Palestinians like him, and that the Jews must leave.

" 'Bashir,' Dalia pleads, 'don't try to fix one wrong with another wrong!' "

In 1988, Dalia writes to Bashir by sending the letter to the Jerusalem Post because the Israelis have exiled him to Lebanon. She recounts their story for readers and begs for peace. " 'I appeal to both Palestinians and Israelis to understand that the use of force will not resolve this conflict or its fundamental level. This is the kind of war that no one can win, and either both peoples will achieve liberation or neither will. Our childhood memories, yours \[Bashir] and mine are intertwined in a tragic way. If we can not find means to transform that tragedy into a shared blessing, our clinging to the past will destroy our future.' "

Dalia, with the Khairis' blessing, turns the house with the lemon tree into a nursery school for the Arab children of Ramla, and a center to create community among Israeli Arabs and Jews. It exists today, and Dalia's family remains involved in its operation. The Khairis remain refugees in Ramallah. Their only connection to the house exists in their memories.

Through Tolan's thoroughly readable and exceedingly informative book, readers will gain deeper understanding of the beleaguered Palestinians and besieged Israelis who make only brief appearances in our evening newscasts. Tolan offers no easy fixes. But no one can finish this book without painfully longing for the region's leaders to find compassionate solutions to end their peoples' suffering.

Sarah Peasley is a freelance writer living in Littleton.

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