American-Arab Bridge Building – Try It, You'll Like It!

In January our longtime friends Jean and Phil Rosenberg came to Israel to visit us. I brought them to visit my friend Trees Kosterman in Sahknin, in the western Galilee. Something wonderful happened afterwords at a sports store after our meeting and I'd like to tell you about.

Sahknin is an Israeli Arab town with a reputation. It hosts the only Arab soccer team, Bnei Sakhnin. They won the championship a few years ago despite not having a stadium to practice in. Sharon promised one but it was the government of Qatar that finally came up with enough funding to complete it. Sahknin is also known as a site of civil disturbance and tragedy in 2000 when several people were killed during an angry demonstration.

My friend Jean is one of the founders of Imagine Peace Network, a small organization that funds women's programs around the world. Trees is the development officer for Al Zahraa, the Israeli Arab Women's Association. I thought Jean should see what Al Zahraa was able to accomplish and perhaps she could help in some small way. Trees, a Dutch women devoted to women's empowerment, is married to an Arab and has two daughters.

We spent a wonderful couple of hours together. At the end Jean and I decided we wanted to buy Bnei Sakhnin soccer memorabilia to take home as souvenirs. When we finally located the store our husbands decided they wouldn't come in so just Jean and I entered the shop.

When we went inside there was a man behind a counter. He looked at us, glowered, and went back to his newspaper. Surprised I went about the business of trying to make friends by showing Jean all the wonderful sports equipment, oohing and awing at this and that. I was hoping we could make him feel friendly but we didn't succeed.

Then I looked past him to another part of the store and saw that a man was on his knees praying.
I quickly moved Jean into another part of the store and whispered about the man so she wouldn't risk offending him. We looked at things in front of us but as we looked more closely we realized that we couldn't tell the difference between the team paraphernalia and the regular sports equipment. Everything was in Hebrew or Arabic which neither of us can read. Giggling because we were so nervous we realized we would have to ask the shopkeeper.

We went back to the shopkeeper and asked politely which were Bnei Sakhnin souvenirs. He looked at us for several minutes and then said, mostly in Arabic: You are English? “Yes, Americans,” I said hesitantly (we are not well liked among Arabs – actually this is not true – Americans are liked a lot but the current administration is very disliked).

His whole face lit up in a smile!

“You mean Americans are in Sakhnin? You Americans don't think that every Arab is a Osamu bin Laden???????? Americans are here in Sakhnin?? "

He was thunderstruck! He immediately took out a Bnei Sakhnin key chain and gave us each one. He showed us scarves, banners and apologized that the hats were all sold out but he was ordering more. The man who had been praying came over and, all smiles, helped us look at different possibilities as well.

I think we gave him something interesting to tell his family at the dinner table that day. And every time I look at my key chain, I see another chink in the wall that separates two great cultures.