Ajami, ethnic cleansing one step further, unless the high court stops it

Last Wednesday judge Zafet of the Tel Aviv district court heard the case of 28 Jaffa residents (honesty demands to say that i'm one of them) against the Israel Land Administration and the Be'emuna company who won the tender for a piece of land right in the middle of Ajami. Originally Palestinian owned, declared "absentee property" and finally "publicly owned" and sold by the Israel Land Administration by tender to the highest bidder, the Be'emuna company. Until here everything has the appearance of "stinking but kosher" according to Israeli law. We were represented by lawyers Gil Gan Mor and Dan Yakir of the Israel Association for Civil Rights.

Until a few years ago, our market took place on the plot. The market was closed by the municipality for no reason (or so it appeared at the time) and no other plot was offered for the purpose of creating a new market, leaving us, the Jaffa population as well as many people from Bat Yam and Tel Aviv, as well as small farmers from the central area of the country, without a cheap  fresh food market, a true necessity in an impoverished area such as Jaffa. 

Yet the Be'emuna company is NOT just another building company out to make a good profit. They marketed the flats planned on to be constructed by them on the Ajami plot, to the members of one very specific group only: Zionist religious Jews. They put it bluntly on their website, but just to make sure, we also called them, interested in buying a cheap flat on their plot. Not very surprisingly, we were refused. Private companies can sell to whom they like, but NOT when the land was previously publicly owned, as in this case and according to the "Ka'aden" high court ruling.

The company's efforts are part of a well orchestrated and funded, much larger effort to expel the Palestinian population from the shared Palestinian and Jewish towns and cities in Israel. It appears that after the disengagement from Gaza some of the settlers and their colonially minded friends decided settling in the West Bank was no longer an ideological necessity for them. Instead they decided to address Israel's mixed cities with their racist ideology. The process is under its way in Accre, Lod, Ramle, Haifa, Nazareth Elite as well as in Jaffa. And there is nothing friendly or innocent about it.

We are talking about a concentrated effort to "replace" the original Palestinian residents with Jewish ones; Not to live together and share our cultures but to expel the Palestinians from their homes and "Judaize" the area.

During the previous sessions the judge had made remarks which led us to conclude that he is not as impartial as he should be. Therefore we asked him to dismiss himself, which he refused.

The verdict was sent to us yesterday afternoon: not surprisingly the judge decided in favor of the colonialist project.

We will have to appeal our case to the Supreme Court.

A dead dog, police and a few kids: Ajami the sequel?

Yesterday a dog was killed  in a car accident in Ajami. It happens. The dog's owner, a kid from Ajami, did what people do when a beloved pet dies: bury it.

The child and some of his friends buried said dog, crying. Close to the beach and close to the place where the dog had been killed by a quickly driving car.

But right in the middle of the burial ceremony a police car passes by and this is where and when things start going wrong. Kids burying something in Jaffa? Drugs, of course drugs!. The over zealous policemen jump out and run  towards the unsuspecting children.

The kids explain it was a dog they buried. But the police were sure they made a catch and start arresting the crying and terrified children. Tony and Geries Cobti, two guys from Ajami, who watched the scene from their nearby home, go down into the street order to talk to the policemen and explain the misunderstanding.

The Cobti brothers are well known in Jaffa. Both are highly educated sons of a school principal, in short, good kids. University (Technion) graduates with good jobs, nice guys. And yes, they were also involved in the production of their brother Scandar's movie "Ajami".  But to the police they are simple "Arabs from Jaffa".

And being a Palestinian in  Ajami classifies you automatically as "criminal" and "drug dealer". So the brothers were arrested.

Then, some other cocky policemen came to dig up the "drugs", but all they found was the corpse of a dog. Oops. So what do they do? They do the thing the police always do: claim the brothers attacked the police. 

Usually that claim works wonders. Many kids from Jaffa have some sort of a record. A few juvenile mistakes, and as a result they can be presented to the court as "withered criminals". The court tends to believe the police and many Jaffans cannot afford a lawyer when arrested. So the accusation of "attacking a police man"  sticks.  And people have done jail time for that offence.

Only this time the police made a small mistake. The highly educated and well employed brothers have no record, are from a strong family of movie making fame. And then there is that dog corpse. 


In addition, the arrest was carried out right in front of press photographer Muhamad Babai's home so there is evidence to the contrary.

In this case every one in Jaffa knows the accusation is yet another attempt by the police to justify their performance in Jaffa. The accusation won't stick this time, i expect.

But what if the brothers were not of Ajami fame, as happens so often? What if it had happened in some dark corner and not in front of Babai's camera?

How many others have been arrested,. tried and found guilty of crimes they never committed?

And a little more

Hell, two very loud volleys of automatic gun fire really close by just now.
Coming from a slightly northern direction as in "the other side of the building", as in my building, the one i live in.

Hamude Shakra, victim, yet another murder victim in Jaffa.

Yesterday i wrote about the murder of a man in Jaffa, not realizing i know the victim and his family quite well. His mother and sisters are friends and i had coffee at their place only a week ago, chatting away about this and that. Hamude's young son playing around in the living room. 

The personal side of the story isn't interesting. However, i suddenly realized this is all so close by. So many young men in Jaffa have been murdered over the last few years. In a few cases i knew them personally, had seen them grow up from sweet kids to awkward teenagers to young men, sometimes angry young men, involved in things better not to be involved in.

I know their families and, in the current case, I can only try to imagine what Hamude's mum and sisters and young wife must be going through. The police state he was involved in shady car deals and i realize that may well  be true. But he was their son, husband or brother, father to a little son who probably doesn't  understand too much as yet.

I remember him always tinkering at this or that car, close to the family's home. Music nearby, preferably loud. Friends sitting around waiting for their car to be fixed. Hamude's legs sticking out from below the car or his back bent over the hood fixing something, while joking in a loud voice. Playing around with his son, a big smile on his face, the kid happy and excited.

This is Jaffa, this is Ajami and things often don't go here they way they should go for young guys: finishing high school, going on to further studies, starting your career or trying to figure out what you should be doing in life, trying out this and that, travelling around a little, taking up a cause. Life isn't like that in Ajami, or perhaps only for a few, the lucky few.

The public school system in Ajami is terrible. And your family doesn't have the money for private education or  private teachers when you fall behind. Often you don't have the books you need, because your family cannot afford to buy them. You don't go on school trips because your family hasn't yet paid for last year's trip . (yes i know it's illegal to exempt kids from their school trips because of a debt but say that to any Jaffa school principal, or just come and see how many kids are left behind when the buses take off, half empty). At some point you drop out, thinking it makes more sense to try and make some money, not to live in poverty. But finding a job is difficult when you have little schooling. And it's quicker and easier (or so it seems) to make quick money on the streets.

Hamude loved cars and spent much time repairing them, his own, his friends',  the neighbours, turning old wrecks into driving things. Slowly moving up from wreck to something far better. Cars play a big role in Jaffa's young men's status game.

And quite obviously the majority do not have the money to buy these cars, unless on credit schemes which over time will put them and their families in throttling debt and poverty. Ownership of a car with a loud and powerful stereo system is the big thing for many young men here. 

It's easy to sink into street dynamics, in some cases it's unavoidable, it happens without you wanting or choosing it. If your brother is in, you are in. If your friend is in, you are in. That's how it works. Easy to get on, hard to impossible getting out. The laws of the street result in much pain and hard statistics. Hamude's has many sisters and brothers, some of them still very young kids. I fear for their future. It's a cycle and unless it is somehow (HOW?) broken, how can they get out?

Some two years ago someone shot at the family's home and that wasn't for the first time. Then someone aimed his gun at a car Hamude's brother was sitting in, wounding a friend but the brother got away unhurt this time. 

Hamude's funeral is today at 12.00. 

The Metropolitan Public Transport Plan

It's very ambitious, has no budget attached nor a time table; the grand plan for the metropolitan  public transport reorganization. 900.000 People a day use public transport to get to Tel Aviv Jaffa and move about in it. Several companies, buses, trains, taxis and communal taxis are all part of it. 

Stations and Tel Aviv's "new" central bus station are some of its of its several existing and planned hubs (Wolfson Hospital junction being one of the newly planned hubs).

The idea is to have a few quick central and very frequent super bus-lines on special tracks  serve the city in cooperation with the train system and the metro (if and whenever the red line will be finished, under planning since the early 1970-ies, so allow me to cast a little doubt at the municipal hopefulls) will bring people into the city, smaller (and much less frequent buses- expected waiting time 20 minutes)  buses will take them around within the neighbourhoods. A minibus will serve Ajami neighbourhood (today there is no bus touring the inner streets of the 'hood) .

The central lines passing through Jerusalem Boulevard will be moved to Shlavim Street, currently a mostly deserted and unpleasant area of car workshops, garbage dumps and shady places. Not a residential area and i cannot easily imagine anyone waiting in that deserted spot for some 20-30 minutes for a local minibus to arrive to take them into the neighbourhood.

The new plan assumes cooperation between the different companies operating within the area between Netanya in the north, Modi'in in the east and Ashdod in the south. to share their timetables and ticketing system as well information services. 

The program was presented today to the municipal council as a given, to be implemented as of July 2010 in 4 stages over a period of two years. Without a budget and a detailed time table that is a little hard to imagine.

For Jaffa the message is clear: bad transport as a low frequency to an irrelevant unlived in area. 

The Ajami minibus is a good idea, however.

Oh and did i mention the new bus stops with their metal chairs that become sort of VERY hot during the summer months. They are very stylish, but i doubt if the designer has been making much use of a bus stop. Three chairs is also not a whole  lot when people will have to wait 20 minutes for their minibus to arrive. And metal chairs in the sun will not be very comfortable.


But then without a budget and a clear implementation table i have my doubts.


Another question s of course the ever rising cost of public transport. Bus tickets in Tel Aviv cost 5.80 NIS as of the beginning of this month. When the minimum hourly wage stands at 20 NIS an hour and many people need to take more than one bus to their place of work, that's very expensive.

No, that ain't fireworks

Just a volley of automatic gunshots made me sit up and feel very scared last night. This time it was really really close by. No screaming right afterwards, so it must have been a warning volley. For whom and what? No idea, although i  can make a guess.
Nothing in the news later on, but then, unless there are dead they don't bother to publish, shooting being nothing new here.
I used to live on the top floor, so i always felt somewhat protected from shots going into the wrong direction by mistake. Having moved to the bottom floor has somewhat taken away that -perhaps false-sense of security. Happy New Year Ajami is what one could call it, i guess.

The 2010 municipal budget - good for the wealthy and who cares about the rest?

Yesterday evening the Tel Aviv - Yafo municipal council voted for the budget proposal for the year 2010: 

The coalition praised themselves for their great sensitivity and the wonderful budget proposal. That included Jaffa council member Ahmad Mashrawi (Meretz) who, like the total bunny he is,   voted in favour of a budget in which the south of the city, Jaffa included, continues to be discriminated against.

Mashrawi, who just loves publicity,  claims to vote in favour of  Jaffa but the facts show the opposite. Meretz are part of the coalition and their current track record is highly embarrassing.  

The outnumbered opposition (to Ron Hulday's wide coalition) asked to vote separately on a number of clauses, in order to try and make at least a few improvements and do some social justice:

Omar Siksik of the Jaffa list asked to vote separately for an added 200.000 NIS for the Jaffa based "Hirsh" early childhood development center. 

The Hirsch centre provides testing and treatment for development problems for children at a young age.   The centre is highly professional and the only service of its kind in the whole city able to provide these services in Arabic. The centre's very existence is threatened due to the continued budget cuts.  The implication of the centre's closure or limited ability to provide services is obvious: Parents will not be able to provide their young children with the most basic services. Not even privately (the majority would not have the money for that in any case) as their is no alternative in all of the city for Arabic speaking young children. 

Mashrawi (Meretz, that supposedly socially conscious party, now part of the coalition, what will people do for a little money) has been posing as the big fighter for the Hirsch centre, but reality is rather different as he did NOT vote in favour. He abstained, what a hero!

A city that spends 70 million NIS on a bicycle rental project does not have 1.100.000 for the Hirsch center, or 55.000 for the teenage health clinic, which will receive 0 money in 2010.

Or, another example: the Toulouse Club for the elderly, the only one serving Jaffa's elderly Palestinian population in Ajami, has an annual budget of 70.000 NIS. Its sister club in Neve Golan (Yafo Gimmel) which serves that area's Jewish population receives 220.000 NIS in the budget.  I am in favour of Neve Golan's budget. But Why does the Ajami Club for elderly Arabic speakers receive so little? 

And these are only a few examples. I could go on and on and on. The budget is highly biased.

Tel Aviv is positioning itself as a city for the wealthy only, disregarding its poorer inhabitants. In addition the 2010 budget is totally greenwashed. More and more car parks and highways. 

It was embarrassing to see Peer Wisner (the Green Party also in the coalition) vote in favour of the budget. What a little money does to these "freedom fighters".

Jaffa for Gaza Demonsration

"Stop the siege of the Gaza Strip" was the main message in yesterday's demonstration in Jaffa, where over 1000 people, Palestinian and Jewish Israelis. marched through Jabaliyah and Ajami neighborhoods from the public housing estate at south Kedem Street (aka "the Jungle") to the Ajami Mosque. The demo had been organized by the Jaffa popular committee in coordination with several other organizations.

One year ago Israel started its murderous atteck on the Gaza Strip, which resulted in some 1500 dead, many of them civivlians, women and children, over 5000 wounded and a total destructon of the Gaza infrastructure and many homes. Complete neighborhoods were demolished.

The continued siege of the Gaza Strip has created an additional catastrophe, when basic medicine, food, fuel for the power station and the sewage treatment and water cleaning plants, school books etc. cannot be imported.

The Gaza Strip has become a prison camp for its inhabitants. Many families cannot meet, as some of the family memebers are ni the West Bank, others in the strip. Students stucjk in the West Bank cannot go home, others, who were accepted into higher education programs are not able to leave. People cannot recveive life saving medical treatment available outside of the Gaza Strip at a mere 40 minutes car ride.

Many of the Gaza Strip's residents have Jaffa roots, their families forced to leave the city in 1948. Many are connected by family ties, so whatever goes on in Gaza, is important in Jaffa and the other way around. The peaceful Jaffa demonstration opens a week of world wide activities in support of the people of Gaza

Another Ajami home demolished today

The terra coloured one story building at the corner of HaOgen and HaToren streets in Ajami, next to the "Hasan Arafe" school, housed an extended family. The father, who in the past led the struggle against the demolition plan of his home,  is currently imprisoned.  As a result, the municipality had a relatively job.

The land next door to the home (currently in use as a parking lot for the teachers and parents of the nearby Hasan Arafe  primary school) used to belong to the waqf but as often happens in these cases, it was sold "somehow" to a wealthy newcomer and in any case, the municipality wants to construct another unnecessary road on part of the plot where until today a family used to live. Who cares if a they loose their home as a result?

A part of the home is still there, open like a dolls' house towards the street.A large piece of green cloth offers scant protection against the cold night and prying eyes of all those passing by.

Another family pays the price of Ajami's gentrification.


Street gossip says the guy who bought the plot next door pressured the municipality into quickly carrying out the demolition, because he wants the planned road to be constructed ASAP, before he starts his own building plans. If indeed this story is true, one wonders how he thinks he can live there, next to the people whose home he caused to be demolished.

Playing with fire in the Ajami mosque

Yesterday morning a group of armed settlers entered the compound of the Ajami mosque (next to the Hasan Arafe primary school) in the framework of their tour of Jaffa.

One wonders about the true purpose of that visit. Was it to repectfully view the grave of Ibrahim Ajami? The ajami mosque, unlike some other beautiful Jaffa mosques, is not of great beauty. Not a place a tourist wold go out of his or her way to visit.

Thus, the armed settlers' visit raises serious questions as to their purpose. A  provocation?

The Jaffa community turned to the police and the municipality for protection against this kind of most unwanted "attention".

Asbestos is good for children's health

My friend E. lives in a small shack located next to several large houses and newly constructed villas in Ajami.

She has three young children.

Her much richer neighbors decided to do some home improvement and replace the asbestos roof of their home with a pretty tiled one.

Usually you rent a container and the demolition crew immediately remove the rubble. Especially when there is asbestos involved, the work is carried out by a specialist company and under stringent conditions.

E.'s neighbors are too stingy to do so and they simply dump their filth next to E's home, including a large amount of broken asbestos roof elements.

Whenever there is a southern wind, the asbestos dust is blown straight into the window of the children's' bedroom. The municipality refuses to act and the neighbors don't care, although they themselves have young children as well.

E. herself doesn't have the money to employ a company to remove the ever growing mountain next to her home. Her children love to play outside in the yard, but that has become dangerous. But then,. inside the house it is dangerous as well.

It appears no one really wants to take responsibility. If it was their kids living next door, would they be as careless?

Update: After an article in Yediot Tel Aviv the municipality arrived and took away the asbestos and other garbage. The municipal spokesman claimed E. had never informed the municipality it was asbestos, otherwise they would have come immediately, or so they claimed. Right. Daily phones and faxes by E. representative in the municipal council, Omar Siksik, were apparently not heard. In any case, the main thing, the asbestos was removed.

Sheikh Bassam Street in Jaffa

It's a smallish and brand new street leading from the southern part of the harbour to Kedem Street (or street nr. sixty), constructed in the area where the Al Adassi home was until the municipality demolished it, some two years ago.

That very same municipality decided to name this street, used mainly by Jaffa's few remaining fishermen, after some founders of Tel Aviv.

We asked them to respect the Palestinian identity of the area and name the street after sheikh Bassam of blessed memory. Sheikh Bassam was the imam of the Mahmoudia Mosque and well beloved by most of the Jaffa population. He was known as a peace maker and a community leader able to find simple and just solutions, not only for religious but also for secular problems.

After his death, , many in Jaffa (and not only Muslims) mourned for him.

The Bassam family lives near by and it would have been much more fitting than the street names usually given to the Jaffa streets, some of which are still known by their pre-1948 Arabic names.

Yet the municipality is out to wipe out the memory of the Bride of the Sea, of pre- Naqbe Jaffa. But after the catastrophe the white bride, that was Jaffa, turned into a slum and the municipality got used to doing what they want.  No longer so.

Some 40-50 people met this morning at the corner of the street and symbolically replaced the municipal name with the name we selected for the street.

There was supposed to be an official municipal naming ceremony this morning at 10.00 a.m., which they cancelled after they learned about the feelings of the local community and of our intent to demonstrate during the official naming ceremony.

The demo went by peacefully.

No roof above your head

The rain strikes the trees forcefully, the wind blows away the flimsy piece of cloth protecting Ali Sakhafi, his young wife and 4 children from the winter storm.

Last thursday Ali's home was demolished by the municipality and the family found itself out n the streets.

Ali is a construction worker who got laid off a few months ago, when the company he worked for went bankrupt. Prior to the bankruptcy Ai did not receive three salaries and the employer did not pay national insurance deductions for him. As a result, Ali is not eligible for unemployment money, as he does not meet the stringent criteria. The family has no income at all.

Ali is not eligible for rent subsidy either because he was married before and he used to be a home owner. Only, the court gave the previous home to his ex-wife and their children. But if your were a home owner in the past, you can no longer qualify for rent subsidy. Simple, straightforward and totally stupid.

Unable to pay the rent after he became unemployed, Ali constructed a tiny home with the help of some friends. Small, simple but adequate. As a construction worker he had the knowledge and experience. He and his friends had time as well, the company closed down after all.  The municipality destroyed that home  last thursday.

The family have 4 young children, one of them a baby. They have nowhere to go and are desperate. I'm trying to imagine what it is like to put a baby in its cradle in this cold, the rain coming through.

Policing Ajami

The movie "Ajami" must have woken up someone to the reality we live in. Anyone following this blog even slightly knows about the violence and drug dealing going on here.

Yesterday morning 27 people from Ajami were arrested on suspicion of drug related crimes. It appears a cover agent has been operating in the area over the last few weeks.

In the few cases i know about personally from relatives and friends of those arrested, no drugs were found in spite of the extensive searches carried out in the homes of the arrestees.

In a few cases damage was caused to the property of the families involved. Some of the arrestees live very normal lives, working hard and are poor, not exactly a drug dealer's life style or so it seems. They may well be innocent.

Some of the arrestees do have the doubtful reputation of being a dealer.

Moving once more

Many of the stores along Yefet street are closed in honour of the October 1st strike .
Good to see that quite a few store owners in Jaffa are politically aware,

At the same time, (and until the demo this afternoon) i'm working very hard as once more i have to move. This time the owner wants the flat back. He's getting married (mabrouk) and wants to move in with his wife.
Thank all of those who helped me find a new place in Ajami. Close (less than 100 meter) from the sea, a tiny garden with a lovely lemon tree (i counted 5 lemons this morning in different stages of ripeness and grapes) and 2 (as in two) bathrooms. For those of you who had the doubtable honour to visit the miniature premises in my current (tomorrow ex-flat) abode, you know what it means.

But right now i am packing, over 50 boxes of books.......still so many to go.

"Ajami" goes to Hollywood

And now for some local patriotism: Last night the movie "Ajami" received the Ophir prize for "Best Movie" and it will be the official selection to tthe academy awards (as in Oscars).  It's the first time a predominantly Arabic spoken movie is the official candidate.
Good luck to Scandar Copti, Yaron Sheni and all the other crew & neighbours!!

About the movie  Ajami in Arabic

Ajami, not the movie

Cinema reality.

I woke up because of the rain, the first rain of the year, the "yore" as we call it in Hebrew, after the long dry season.. I love its smell, but of course i have to open the "floodgates" of the roof so my rooftop balcony won't get flooded because of the blocked drains. The first rains bring with them everything that has gathered on the roof during the long dry summer (imagine tons of guano, feathers, dead leaves, dirt, whatever). My neighbours are out as well, doing the same little necessary job.

Then the news starts going from roof to roof:  A 22 year old guy from Jaffa was shot and killed last night at the beach. His friends took him to the nearby Wolfson Hospital, but there they could do nothing.

We don't know yet who it is. There are various rumours.  As usual, the police are investigating.
Normally we have the doubtful honour of being among the first to know, the gravedigger lives on the  corner of our alley and bad news travels quickly. I think the family may have gone for the holiday as already on Thursday they brought me a batch of Id el Fitr cookies and talked about perhaps going somewhere.

It's the first day of Id el Fitr, "Have mercy", is all i can think of. Yet another family are crying. More people in danger. Enough.

Later on i learned of the guy's identity; Samir Moghrabi.

Jaffa, New Year, Id El Fitr.

Ajami, the movie

It hits you in the face, Scandar Kopti's and Yaron Sheni's movie "Ajami"' bluntly. It's overpowering.

And yes, this is where i live. It's about "my" neighbourhood.

Of course this is not going to be an objective film review. I know most , no, almost all of the actors, at least by face and some are very good friends. The cast  has been trained, but they are not professional actors, just my neighbours, more or less playing themselves, playing situations they know, reacting naturally as they would have done were the story real. It could have been real.

However, before continuing, honesty demands i admitting being ever so slightly being involved in a very very early production stage of Ajami.

The film opens with a murder scene, a case of mistaken identity, shot in HaDudaim Street. The scene sent me back to some 7 years ago, Saturday afternoon. Enjoying a glass of wine on my balcony overlooking that  street. The street is packed with children, playing outside, enjoying themselves. A motorcycle drives by, on it someone wearing a dark helmet. A few shots ring out, loud, then screams and crying, a young guy lays badly wounded on the street. It all went so fast it took me a few seconds to understand what i had just witnessed. The opening scene takes place at almost the same spot. Only on the other side of the street. In this case the guy survived. They say the murderer was someone from Ramle or Lod, and he didn't know the intended victim well enough and thus mistook him for someone else. Just like in the movie. The similarity is chilling and it doesn't stop with this scene either.

The movie is made out of a few story lines which initially seem not entirely connected, but over time they do, as in real life, as in Ajami.

Many in the audience were from Ajami, so some scenes were funny to us in a way they may not be to others.

I highly recommend, run to your nearest movie theatre.

Another Jaffa family out in the streets

When R. and her 5 children came home this afternoon, they found all their furniture out in the street, much of it severely damaged and broken. The doorlock had been changed.
The house owner, well known and very wealthy Jaffa property tycoon Walid Aboulafia (of bakery fame), had abused R's absence from the hovel she had been renting from him for some three years, to evict her, illegally, without a court order.
R. asked the police to come, but the sinlge police man did not help her. "There was nothing he could", do he said. R. was under so much pressure by then, that she forgot to take his details.
In fact, it is Mr. Walid Aboulafia who broke the law by evicting her illegally, without a court order.

The flat R. rented was a 2 1/2 room affair in Jaffa's Al Ajami neighborhood. Damp, it's walls blackened by fungi. In the winter the rain entered through the cracked walls. The kitchen sink was not connected to the sewage, so R. used a bucket instead.
For over a year she and her kids had their daily shower at R's mother's tiny house, as the shower in R.'s house didn't function and the owner, rich Walid Aboulafia, refused to repair it.

R. who paid a very high rent relative to the ugly state of the house she lived in, stopped paying the rent. The owner cut off her water and electricity supply. It was easy for him to do so, because in the past, the flat had been larger and he subdevided it, one assumes without a permit. As a result R. shared the electricity and water bill with her neighbors, so it was very easy to punish her.

R. started looking for a new place, but the rents in Jaffa have gone up and all she has is her social security payments. Also many houseowners want all kinds of guarantees, which when you live on social security, you cannot easily get.

The beds were literally broken, as if they had been thrown from the second floor where she lived. Maybe they were.

Due to the Ramadan, Jaffa's streets are very quiet, so we have no witnesses to the method of furniture removal. The broken aquarium says it all, i will not ask questions about the fish. Volunteers from the Islamic movement helped R. to move her stuff (or rather that part worth salvaging) to Esther's house. Esther who's always there to help each and everyone. But the damage has been done. Five children out in the streets. Next week the schoolyear starts. I wonder how R.'s children will cope. We could not find their new schoolbooks in the mess.

Ramadan, Jaffa 2009

Cruelty Alley

The little girls are already forgetting today's drama, replaying it with twists and turns, and turning it into a fairy tale with a happy ending.
Yet the other "little girl" L. is still severely traumatised and crying non stop, tears streaming from her cataract covered eyes.

Some 15 years ago the place was a successful fish restaurant, before all the other places along Kedem Street (street nr. 60 or Ajami Street prior to 1948) were opened. The clients preferred the newer and fancier places, business went down and the restaurant closed. It stood empty for years.
Its very wealthy owner owns another very successful restaurant in the north and didn't care too much about the Jaffa place, that had stood neglected for many years. Having grown old and perhaps somewhat tired, he let his younger brother take care of business.

The younger brother, well aware of the severe housing shortage in Jaffa, divided the place into 5 small crummy flats and started to rent them out for some 500-600 $ a month. No contract.
You pay a few months ahead and receive a key, you miss a payment and you are out.
Of course the restaurant owner's brother did not bother to get a permit (to turn the property into housing units) from the municipality, nor did he bother to pay the very old and by now huge debts to that same municipality and the electricity company, so water and electricity supply "are somewhat problematic". The tenants, not having contracts, cannot register the municipal and electricity bills in their own names.
Only very poor people, having no other choice, are willing to take the risk to live in such a place. My friend A, divorced mum of two little girls, and barely surviving on her cleaner's salary, is one of them. Her neighbour H, with his young daughter and elderly, retarded, half blind sister live there as well. Some two years ago, their key money flat's ceiling caved in and they have been living in "the restaurant" ever since, while the legal procedures on the other house continue, slowly as these things go.
Their financial situation is very bad and they missed last months rent payment. So today the owner sent in the goons. L. the elderly sister, a sweet women known all over the area, likes to play with dolls together with the little girls that live in the alley. Although half blind and elderly, she really is "their age" and the little girls accept her, as she is sweet and innocent. L. was home alone when the goons arrived.
She was scared so she didn't open the door as she has been instructed no to when alone at home and strangers knock on the door.
The goons broke the door and started yelling at her that she should pack her things because she owes rent. They then started to throw the family's belongings out on the street.
L's screams brought out the all the other tenants who intervened on her behalf, pointing out that L is retarded and that the goons should talk to her brother. They formed a fierce defence around L and called the police. At that point, the goons took off (although the police never arrived and told L.'s brother H. should come in and file a complaint before).