image 1

i am spending the morning planting olive trees outside of nablus with a palestinian community. the other people on the bus with me are a mixture of israelies and internationals, all committed - even with different outlooks and politics - to the safety of palestinians and their olive trees.  

we have planted maybe twenty trees, it has only been 40 minutes and we see them drive up. three soldiers leave their truck and tell us that the field is now a closed military zone. all of us have to leave. an organizer asks for a physical order of closure per the law. they refuse. we gather our things and walk back to the side of the road outside of al-sawayia and listen to a leader in the community tell us about how constant this treatment is. about their children trying to go school, their people trying to tend their olives, their community trying to survive. 

we board the bus again. i doze on the drive back, watching the landscape blur as my eyes shut. i wake up briefly, a soldier boards the bus at the check point. my passport does not pass initial inspection and i am directed in to have my objects inspected. they check my phone with a chemical wipe. they let me go, back onto the bus. i doze off again.

i wake up in jerusalem. i get off the bus, return to where i'm staying and shower. i gather myself and begin the walk to shabbat services and dinner. i cross nearly the whole city, passing olive tree after olive tree leaning their branches out over the side walk. i hear nusachim from around the world mingle on the street, streaming out of small shuls in basements, second floors, alleyways. i reach out and i touch a tree. nobody tells me to stop. 

the sounds of a diaspora swell, a wave crashing over me and this olive tree. this tree is as sacred as the last tree i patted gently into the earth.

i continue to walk and find myself looking out at the whole city, standing on top of a hill. it is almost shabbat and the sun is still up. i see the wall in the distance, bifurcating the rolling land. i am allowed in and out, nobody in al-sawayia is allowed in.  

i keep writing and expecting to be able to say something smart, make some kind of meaning. but i am not there yet. i keep coming back, again and again to the sounds of shabbat surrounding me as they never have before. on the street, in the park, pouring out of buildings on all sides of me. while i touch this sacred tree. while the people i was with that morning are not allowed this tree, and fear for their safety every time they go to tend their own trees. 

 people move around me on the sidewalk. and eventually the moment ends. i continue walking.