We delivered school kits to Sidreh in Laqiya, Negev. Blaine loaded about 230 boxes in the van in the morning, and Sidreh employees formed a chain to unload them when we arrived. It took about 1 1/2 hours to load, and about 15 minutes to unload.
After we unloaded the boxes, Khadra invited us to have lunch with her. It was a delicious meal of rice, vegetables and beef. The beef was tender and the rice was delicious.
Khadra has pictures of Jill Biden and other well known people on her wall and a picture of a woman selling her products in Virginia. She is a very engaging and energetic Bedouin who helps Bedouin women in several ways. Two of her projects are a weaving center where she sells Bedouin made products to tourists and a community school for Bedouin women to learn to read and write Hebrew and Arabic. She has spoken at the Knesset and is well known and respected in the Negev. She sleeps only 4 hours each night.
We met Margaret Elwanger there. Margaret is a Mormon who lives in Galilee. She does humanitarian outreach in Israel. She introduced the Jerusalem Center to Sidreh several years ago. Their philosophy is to fund people who have projects that will help them become self-sustaining so Elwanger's help is no longer needed. One of the best ways is to create employment opportunities for people.
Her husband, Russell, left a secure job with an American company 10 years ago to move to Israel and take over a company that was on the edge of going out of business. He successfully turned it around and now they employ 3000 people in Israel. He is the only non-Jewish CEO in Israel.
After lunch, we went with Margret to see Mariam, a Bedouin woman who sells herbs, lotions, and soap. Ingredients include camel milk and herbs. Mariam studied marketing at an English university.
Mariam dries 11 different herbs. They teach children to develop their sense of smell so they aren't repulsed when they encounter different smells as they grow older and because it is part of their culture. The Israeli army uses Bedouins as trackers because they have a highly developed sense of smell.
Margaret, in the white blouse, arranged for a Bedouin meal. Darrell is from New York and lives with his wife who teaches at an American International School in Israel. Freeda (?), in the orange sweater, is a Palestinian Israeli who knows Margaret. We ate Bedouin style on the floor. We each had a pillow to lean on and cushions to sit on. The food was served on a tablecloth spread on the floor among the cushions.
We talked about the plight of Bedouins and Palestinians. The government wants all Bedouins to live in recognized communities. It is an interesting transition because Bedouins are traditionally producers. They produce what they need and go to the market only a couple times a year. If they move into a recognized community, they become consumers and need the market to supply their needs. They are used to a pastoral life. If they live in a recognized community, they have no land and are often unemployed.
If a Palestinian cannot produce a land document showing ownership, the government assumes the land is Israeli property and confiscates it. It doesn't matter that the family has had the land for 300 years. During Ottoman rule, a family member had to serve in the military if he recorded his property. Many people bought land but didn't record it so they wouldn't have to serve in the Ottoman military. As a result, many families who own land can't prove ownership, so it ends up being confiscated. In other cases, there are documents on file in Istanbul, but people lack knowledge and finances to recover the documents and preserve their land.
If a case gets to the Israeli Supreme Court the Court is seen as treating Palestinians fairly. The Israeli government wanted to confiscate land from a Palestinian family. The owner had fled the country during the 1948 war and he was not allowed to return. His brother was still in Israel and contested the government's right to confiscate the property. He said he had the right to buy the property from his brother. He had the knowledge and finances to contest it. He found the documents in Istanbul and appealed his case to the Israeli Supreme Court, who ruled in his favor.
The government doesn't recognize the Bedouin property rights in unrecognized villages. However, to entice the Bedouins to move, the government offers to buy the property for peanuts or exchange it for property that is valued much higher in a recognized village.
Mariam married a Bedouin man about 3 months ago. They are building a new home for themselves in an unrecognized village. They cannot get a permit for the home, so they are taking the risk that the government will bulldoze their home. They are looking at it as a temporary home, anticipating what could happen.
There are about 6 million Jews in Israel and about 1.6 million Palestinians. In the West Bank, there are about 3.9 million Palestinians. Palestinians tend to have larger families, so the Palestinian population in the combined West Bank/Israel is expected to outnumber Jews in the future.
Mariam is a religious Muslim. When the prayer sounded, Mariam said she needed to pray. She prays 5 times per day. That led to a discussion about voices. The voice on the call to prayer was not a pleasant voice. Mariam said when it is not a pleasant voice, she recoils a bit about praying. Some callers are volunteers, so the voice can't be screened. Others are paid and can be screened. She told a story of Mohammed who chose the person to give the call to prayer because he had a good voice. Someone asked 3 times to be allowed to call for prayer, and Mohammed turned him down, finally telling him he chose the person based on his pleasant voice.
Freeda is a secular Muslim and does not wear the traditional Muslim dress. Mariam said there are also Muslims who are secular, but who wear the traditional dress so they fit in culturally.
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