what a storm

After a hot dry Khamsin day, the wind is picking up like crazy, howling around my home and blowing ultra-fine dust into and onto everything and i can hear the sea waves going wild.
It's cooler now, but while writing this, my computer-screen is becoming fuzzy due to the dust quickly settling onto it.
All kinds of things are away carried by the wind, dancing wildly until they get stuck on an electricity cable or some such, including my neighbour's freshly washed, bone dry but oh so dusty dress which just passed beside my window.

Update: not my neighbour's dress, it was mine, my lovely black silk designer dress. (Yeah me, the unfashionable one, i actually had one decent piece of clothing to be used for special occasions).

Another shooting nearby

Two nights ago a young guy was shot at in Ajami and lightly wounded. i was reading a book in bed, trying to fall asleep, then rudely woken up by shots, then screams from the south west more or less.
Later on i hear the details from my neighbours; another young guy, "yes these kids have guns, they don't know what they are doing, what can we do to stop it?" and so on. The regular talk the morning after, between neighbours, we had all woken up or been about to fall asleep.
About one minute ago: a volley of 7 Shots, just north east from my home, then screams. Someone must be hurt. It's still early, there are many people out in the streets, the weather is pleasant, many kids are playing outside.
Mothers come out into the streets and call their children inside, the kids protest, it's still early and they are right in the middle of a game. The mothers have no patience, "inside NOW". Reluctantly the kids go inside, they know the rules, the usual routine.
The neighbors' kids are now playing out on the roof, it's pleasant and warm. "You heard it?" they ask me through the open window. Yes i did. "Someone got hurt" the little girl tells me. "Yes i know, i heard the screams" i answer. We all know the sound, another shooting, The little girl continues her game. She waves at me, "slamat". I wave back.

Far away the sound of a siren is coming somewhat closer.

Naji El Ali grafiti in Old Jaffa

Hanzala appeared "just out of the blue" somewhere in Old Jaffa.
And more about this kid from Ayn El Hilwe

Haneen Zouabi in Jaffa

Women from Jaffa, Ramle and Lod met today at Jaffa's Balad offices in Ajami, in order to have an informal (but very efficient) talk with Knesset member, Haneen Zuabi.
From local to national issues and beyond were discussed in a relaxed atmosphere at the Balad offices in Ajami.

Classical Arabic Music Concert today

The "Al Rabita" organization are inviting lovers of classi Arab music to a concert today at 20.00 at the "Anis" auditorium in Jaffa Daled (9 HaPa'amonit Street).

Tickets are 50 NIS.

Today in Jaffa: Women's Market

Jaffa's women are holding a market and happening in the "Shnayim"(Gazans') park n the corner of Yefet and Erlich Streets.
Between 11.00 - 16.00.
Home cooked food, jewellery,clothes (including clothing for religious Muslim women), Palestinian embroidery and more.

So what if you want access to your own home?

The ultra rich are buying up property in Jaffa, nothing new there.

A tiny piece of land on Mendes France street went for 1.200.000 $ not a while ago.

The neighbors had hope to buy it so they could expand their modest home, which was becoming cramped for their growing family. However, their offer was way below that of the people who finally bought the little plot; Close to the beach, opposite a park, no doubt, prime property.

What the neighbors did not expect, was that the developers of the neighboring plot would simply block the access to their own home!

One day the bulldozers came, dug a deep hole in preparation for laying the foundations for the new house and that was it. No more access.

I guess there is one law for the rich and quite another one for the poor.

As the deep hole started caving in, the neighbors put up a fence to protect their own little children, as even that had not been done by the very wealthy. They also went to court to stop further development for the time being.

The neighbors are willing to find a creative solution, but what amazesme is the ease with which these wealthy people work, the sheer violence of their activities.

How can they possible expect to live their in neighborly peace, if this is how the rich behave towards their poor neighbors?

But perhaps that is exactly it: they do not expect at all to live next door to the poor. They are probably planning for some way of getting rid of them.

Oh and no, this is not an April Fool's Day joke. The sad truth of life in Jaffa, April 1, 2009

Is the april joke on us?

Today officially the "Tel Aviv 100 years" party starts.

I like parties, in fact, i like parties a lot, but the one hundred years anniversary of Tel Aviv must be some sort of joke.
The first neighbourhoods of what was to become Tel Aviv, were founded as a part of Jaffa during the late 19th century. They were established by Jaffa's Jews, mostly by Mizrachi Jews who were tired of living in Jaffa's cramped old city.
"Ahouzat Bayit" (according to some historians established in 1909 by a shell lottery in the sands) was NOT the first Jewish neighbourhood established outside of Jaffa. But the founders of Ahouzat Bayit were mostly Ashkenazi Jews and perhaps that has something to do with the particular view Tel Aviv' likes to have and to present on its own history, the myth of "the White City, born in the sands".

And if Tel Aviv is the "White City", then it needs to be asked: where is the black city? Jaffa? "Arous ElBahar", the bride of the sea, "Arous Falestin", the "Bride of Palestine" as Jaffa is historically known in Arabic?
The municipality is filling Jaffa with flags of the "hundred year anniversary of Tel Aviv - Jaffa.

Well, our Black City goes back several thousands of years. We don't need your festivals and parties. Even the life guard stattions on our beach have been decorated with the "100 Tel Aviv" flag. It wqould not at all surprise me if someone form Jaffa will carry out certain "corrections" to these flags. After all, this is Jaffa, and we exist a little longer than Tel Aviv's one hundred years.

The municipality is spending some 41 million NIS on the party. That same municipality doesn't have 8 million for the education of Jaffa's children.

Save me your April jokes, Ron Huldai!

Blocking the bridge, stupidity or maliciousness?

You can build a wall and make it obvious who's wanted and who is the outsider. You can also build a 4 lane road used by no almost no one in order to detach one part of the area to another part, to "keep them out".
The latter technique is extensively used in Jaffa in order to create a clear dividing line between the poor housing estates and one of the wealthier parts of Jabaliyeh (or Givat Aliyah, if you like to use that name).
A 4-lane wide, deeply laid road devides two city parts. On the southern side the Jabaliyah mosque stands and a foot bridge connects the two parts of the city.
The bridge is used mainly by the kids from the nearby housing estate when they walk to school, by Ajami's residents for going to the mosque and by the guys from the yeshiva, the "Torah Seed" as they like to call themselves.
The bridge (an atrocious Orientalist affair by the way) is accessible to bikes and those on foot only. It's the only easy access for Ajamis elderly and infirm Muslims who want to pray or attend classes in the mosque, unless they have a car. And as many of them are poor and do not have cars, using the bridge is the ONLY way they can reach the mosque. Going around is quite a distance not easily walked by the elderly and infirm nor by those fasting during the month of Ramadan.

Until yesterday.
The bridge has been effectively blocked by the newest construction of the Jaffa development team of the Mishlama.
They have created side walks and a tiny road where no one really needs them, at the same time raising the pavement in such a way the bridge is no longer easily reachable by those with difficulties. In the past people could park their cars next to the bridge and cross on foot. Elderly devout could drive over the bridge in their "kalnoit", their little "golf car" type vehicles and reach the mosque. No longer so, as of yesterday, when easy access to the bridge serving the mosque was simply blocked to those with walking problems.
No brain or bad intentions?
The community is trying to organize against the latest development.

The municipality was called in order to stop the works. The municipality claimed they had shown the plan to the neighbours who had said nothing.
There is just one slight problem with the municipality's claim; the plan they showed the neighbours was exactly the other way around. The bridge was to be kept open and another road was to be blocked in order to safeguard those walking to the mosque from being hit by speeding cars who could not easily notice them due to a corner that allowed for little leeway.
The road that was supposed to be block off on one side will have only two houses in it, therefore becoming a dead end road wouldn't really cause any problems. Instead the municipal geniuses (or are they evil planners?) blocked of the mosque bridge. Brilliant.

Looking for a new "governor" for Jaffa

The "Mishlama leYafo, or the Jaffa Governance as it is called by the Jaffa Tel Aviv municipality, was supposed to be a kind of mini municipality for Jaffa. According to the original plans the governance was to have authority and full control over its own budget in the various municipal fields. But that was the original plan and reality is rather far away.
The mishlama tuned out to be a sort of Jaffa based executing branch of the municipality (where the real decisions were being made and the money was and is controlled), in essence creating a further barrier between Jaffa's people and the municipality instead of bringing them closer. Moreover, the mishlama has no responsibility in the fields of formal education and welfare and very little (close to nothing) in the field of informal education and culture.
The mishlama is run by bureaucrats and none of its top-people are from Jaffa, except ofcourse the "muhtar", aka Ahmad Balahe, (in)famous mostly for making sure no real change will be made, unless it is wanted and required by and serving the municipality, never mind Jaffa's people.
Gilad Peled, the resigning mishlama director, attempted to make a real change.
Initially Peled was conceived by the public as yet another ex-pilot, another one of mayor Huldai's ex-airforce buddies, serving the system, rather than the polulation who the system is supposed to serve.
Yet over time, it appears Peled started to see the other side of things. Not that he became a member of the various action gourps in Jaffa, but i think he srtaed to see the other side of the coin and wanted to do something real about it. He recognized the failure of Jaffa's educational system and dared to place the blame (and responsibility) where it should go: the municipality.

So he convened a multi-disciplinary team (from within the municipality) to work on a holistic program aimed at solving some of Jaffa's most awful problems: the way a large group from among Jaffa's young Palestinian population looses out, drops out of school, has no employment and gets dragged into the violent world of drugs and crime.

The program put the problem and the responsibility for solving it straight in the municipal center.
I have read the program's white paper (although i was not shown the budget) and i do have quite a lot of criticism, but that's looking at the "half empty bottle" rather than at the half full part: the Jaffa governance recognizes the problem (Jaffa's educational system starts failing at a very early stage, and dropping out of schools is caused by the system's failures), puts it straight at the center and points an accusing finger, putting the blame at the municipality and demanding it takes responsibility for solving the problems.
The white paper goes further and suggests holistic, dynamic and ongoing multi facetted solution based on cooperation between the various departments, age groups etc. The rpgram starts its intervantion at a very young age and aims at involving the parents. However, the program does not look at the various NGO's in Jaffa, which provide successful models and have the public's trust. The ngo's were not involved in wiriting the papar and their various extra curriocular activities and educational programs are not mentioned. I believe they could play a crucial role, ad they been involved in the planning. This is where lots of my criticism goes, but that is not the point of this article.
The program was rejected by the municipality as they see the mishlama as an executing body for the physical restoration of Jaffa (road repair, lighting, planting trees, garbage disposal and repairing the failing sewage system etc.) rather than undertaking work in the human sphere: education, culture, welfare etc.
The program is not mentioned at all in the municipal budget for 2009 that was authorised by the municial council this week.
Gilad Peled dicided to resign two weeks ago, frustrated by the municipality's rejection of his program.
Yesterday's papers carried ads looking for candidates to replace Gilad Peled. The local rags also carried articles stating the ex-labor knesset member Nadia Hilu intends to submit her candidacy.
Ouch...
Yes, it is important the Mishlama should be managed by a local professional who has a deep understanding of the local community and its problems (as well as strenghts), who is able to speak Arabic fluently, who knows his or her way around inside Jaffa, inside the municipality as well as the various relevant ministries and yes, it would be great if that professional would be a Palestinian as well as a woman...., someone we can actually trust, who sees Jaffa first and is not blinded by the ultra wealthy newcomers whose needs are very different from the needs of the local population, especially from the needs of the more weakened people.

What we need, is, first of all, a creative professional as well as a deeply caring human being, able to think "beyond the box" and understand long term aims rather than short term fancy sidewalks. Someone who can see through the nice-looking plans of the various enterpreneurs and understand how the local population will be affected. Someone whjo can actually take the mishlama into the direction it was supposed to take: become a mini municipality serving Jaffa's population. ALL of its population

Jerusalem in Jaffa - the patriarch and the mufti

Yesterday the Jaffa based "AlRabita" organization hosted a panel of people who don't often sit together: the patriarch of the orthodox church and the mufti of Jerusalem's Al Aqsa.
The panel met to discuss the religious, cultural and political context of Jerusalem.

Barricade successful, (for the time being)

From the early morning hours Manar Haj and her three young children (13, 9 and 3 years old) as well as many of the neighbours and local activists prevented the police from carrying out another eviction in Jaffa.
After several hours of being barricaded inside the small home, a lawyer managed to get a weeks time, in order to try and find a solution.

Manar is the divorced mum of three young children. When she married, some 14 years ago, she moved into the house of her husband's parents, as is common in Jaffa. His parents were public housing residents (Halamish), after they had been made to give up their large home in Ajami, years earlier, by the Israel land authority.
Over time the parents moved out and their son, his wife and the children stayed in the house. By law, as second generation they were entitled to.
Manar and her husband divorced and she stayed in the house with the kids. That's when trouble started. the housing company decided to move her out, insisting she was a squatter. Manar took a lawyer, not knowing this lawyer had been disbarred. she gave him all the money she had and would call him every few weeks to get an update as to how her case was coming along. He promised her all was going to be fine and no one would move her out of her home. Until the day she got the court order with the eviction notice - for the next day. Only then did she learn her lawyer had been disbarred, but she had no money left for a legal defence.
She called the housng company who told her to come over.
There she was made a "grand offer". She was to choose between either being moved out forcefully the next day or stay another 2 months for 3500 NIS a month (her total income stands at about 3000 NIS monthly) and then mve out on her own. Feeling she had no choice, she "agreed". It was eioher the street or some more time in her home.
Although she tried, she was not able to find a home she could afford.

So this morning the goonteam (police, including special forces- yasam) came over. Manar and her children as well as the neighbours and activists barricaded inside the home and gathered in the street, while a lawyer went to court.
We gained another week....

Another eviction?

A mother and three children may be evicted today from their flat in Pahad Yitzhak street in Jaffa today. We have very few details nd aren't certain about it.
However, those of you close by, please stay in touch, we may have to barricade.

The municipal budget for 2009, a Jaffa perspective

Today the Tel Aviv municipality will vote on its budget proposal for 2009. The municipality is making serious cuts in its educational budget, especially in the centre of Jaffa, where they will stop funding informal educational activities all together. Although the municipality is spending huge amounts (2 million!) on the Gordon pool in north Tel Aviv, the Jaffa "Neve Golan pool (our only one) get only 150.000 NIS. (Last year they got liottle less than one million) The Cherner center faces a huge cut, so they will not be able to take in the Jaffa kids, youth and adults who will no longer have a place in Neve Goland and the Lev Yafo center (which gets exactly 0 - zero- budget).
Some of this money is transferred to predominantly Jewish neighborhoods. I have no problem with these neighborhoods getting more money. I do have a problem when it happens at our expense.
The Mishlama submitted a holistic intervention program, aimed at dealing with many of the educational problems in Jaffa. the municipality refused the program, a first of its kind. Although i do have criticism on the programs approach and concept, at least they put the problem clearly up front and tried to get funding and do something.
Gilad Peled, the manager of the Mishlama, is quitting his job, in answer to the municipality's refusal to fund the program.

I'm sure the mayor's coalition will vote in favor of the budget, that bunch of sold out yes-men and yes women...

Just back from the meeting, it's most embarrassing to see the coalition members of the green party and of Meretz vote against their respective parties' ideologies the green vote for widening roads, adding cars and less use of public transport as well as in favor of adding parking lots and against using cleaner fuel.
Meretz vote against education, social aid, adding more social wrkers 9ni weakened neighborhoods against social housing etc. So much for ideology

"just a police exercise", so they say

Yediot carries an article explaining yesterday's police activity in Jaffa and Bat Yam "was just an exercise". Yeah right, that is why they did it in Jaffa.
If it was just an exercise they could have done it anywhere.
By selecting the spot, they were sending a message, loudly and clearly. Some might say, a threat
We got it....

What's the police doing here?

Over the last few weeks we have witnessed various instances of violent police behavior in Jaffa.
Right now Gan HaShanyim (the Gazan's park) is full of police officers (some of them fairly high brass) as well as special "Yasam" forces, horses, arrestees trucks, you name it. A police helicopter hovers above our heads.

I just hope this isn't going to be another home demolition nor eviction.

Anybody knows what they are up to?

Police violence against children and women in Jaffa

Yousef (12 years old) and Ahmed (14 years old) were playing with a toy gun next to their home in Gorki street, a dead end alley in the center of Jaffa, this afternoon.
In Jaffa, close to the Jewish holiday of Purim, all toy-stores sell these guns, wildly popular with young boys who use them to shoot small colourful pellets and have fun.
Fourteen year old Ahmed broke his leg a while ago and walks with difficulty due to the heavy cast enveloping it.
Their little brothers stood around, in the hope of be allowed to join the game. A police car came by and the policeman shouted something at the boys who ran off, into their home.
Yousef's pregnant mum was playing with her youngest child, his grandmother taking care of things in the home, as was his 13 year old sister, Dunya. A few seconds after the boys had entered the home, the police burst in and started beating both 12 year old Yousef and 14 year old Ahmed, who fell due to his plaster cast. One of the policemen jumped on the plaster cast.
The mother intervened and got hit, falling on her pregnant belly.
Thirteen year old Dunya stared screaming and was hit as well, she fell, scratching her face.
Yousef was taken into the hospital, his head bloody and painful. Ahmed was taken into arrest. We just learned Ahmed has a bad asthma attack but is still under arrest, it is unclear if he will be taken to the hospital, as he is still under arrest.
Yousef and his mum have been released from hospital in the mean time, with concussion and wounds to the face, the pregnancy is OK.

Yousef's little 8 year old brother, who witnessed it all, has not stopped crying since the attack and is very upset.

Miriam & her 6 kids have been evicted

The good news, another apartment has been found and the contract has been signed. It's a nice place, but the rent costs 3000 NIS a month. Miriam's over all income (inlcuding 1200 NIS rent subsidy) stands at about 3400 NIS.
That will leave her not enough money for food, electricity, water, the very basics. She has 6 children, all school kids except for the youngest 2 year old girl. She has no one to take care of her, so Miriam cannot easily go out to work.

We started gathering at about 7.45 this morning, the usual activists as well as a few new faces. The police contacted us a few times and we told them we are working on a solution, please give us more time. One deal almost came through, then failed. The police came by a few times as did the Halamish representative, at that time there were some 30 activists around and cars had been parked very close to the entrance making forceful entry problematic. They left.
The youngest kids played in the streets, the teenage girls kept mainly to themselves, nervous, scared, not knowing if they will have home in another few hours.
During the day we contacted the press as well as the mayor's office. The mayor has not come back until now.
Time passed by and the feeling was that that will probably do it tomorrow. Miriam had gone off to see another flat and the activists played with her young children. However, the activists were leaving quickly one after the other.
Around 17.30 the room suddenly filled up with police men and moving company people, who were pushed into action. We pointed out Miriam, the mother isn't in, only her minor children.
It didn't help. In the mean time Rasha, the lawyer left to assist Miriam in making a contract for her new flat. There is no way she can afford this flat, but she had no choice. It's this flat or the street, which means loosing her children her her children loosing their mum.
We called her and asked the police to wait at least until she's back, pointing out that she is right now signing a contract. The police refused point blank and instructed the moving company to start working.
We felt helpless.
We knew Miriam was getting another flat, although there is no way she can afford it. They could at least have given her some time to get ready. But nothing helped. The movers worked quickly but not at all carefully. We were unable to prevent nor to intervene.

Miriam's new flat is not hooked up to the electricity system as a previous inhabitant left debts.
Reconnecting costs a lot of money, which Miriam doesn't have.

Alert for miriam's home - barricading NOW

Hi,

All of those in Jaffa, please go to Miriam's home at the corner of Jerusalem Boulevard 37, NOW
She has not been able to find a flat and they will evict her and her 6 children out into the streets TODAY.
We can and must prevent it.
We need you all over there

Miriam and her 6 children are threatened with eviction out into to streets

Miriam, strong and very bright, has had a tough life. But it taught her how to fight, how to be assertive and how to get what she needs. But now things have taken a worse turn.

Today the police arrived to evict her from the home she squatted about half a year ago, out into the rainy streets.

She has nowhere to go. Quick intervention gave her another two days, in which she must find another flat. Miriam's children all go to school or to a kindergarden except the 2 year old one.
They live on social security. Miriam has a tough time finding employment as her youngest daughter, two years old, has no kinder garden and private childcare is too expensive. The family lives on about 2.400 NIS monthly. But over the last two months Miriam didn't get any money due to a bureaucratic mess. In addition she is entitled to 1200 NIS a month rent subsidy, but given the fact that a small 1 room studio flat in Jaffa costs about 2000 NIS at least per months, the family's chances of finding a rental flat on the public market are close to zero. Of course they are eligible for public housing but the waiting list is taking years, as there are no flats available.
After all, the country has been selling of public housing flats and instead of investing the money obtained from the sales in constructing new public housing (as was the plan), not even one public house has been constructed over the last twenty years inside the green border line. Wages and social security payments have gone down drastically, rent has gone up and rent support has gone down. More and more people are becoming homeless. But no one really seems to care, free market is "great" after all.

If she will be kicked out, the welfare department will take her kids into foster care. Miriam is a good mother. It would make more sense if they would assist her pay the rent. After all putting 6 kids into care would not only be most tramatic for all, but is also very expensive..... Go figure.

And those in Jaffa, we may need you to defend Miriam's home, this week. Stay alert.