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Aramean Maronite Christian homes
Some considerably newer ruins across the lawn from the ancient
synagogue we went to visit in Bar Am, 3 km (2 mi) from the Lebanese
border. Until 1948, this was the home of Aramean Maronite
Christians, friends and allies of the Jews. During fighting with
Arab armies here in the War of Independence, the Israeli commander
asked them to evacuate, promising that they would be allowed to
return in 2 weeks.
They’re still waiting. And this even though the Israeli Supreme
Court finally ruled in their favor. That was 6 years ago.
We learned the story from a man who left his family picnic on the
park lawn and came over to talk when he saw our interest in the
unmarked ruins. Now, my husband loves to schmooze. One of his great
joys in traveling is striking up conversations with the locals and
learning a little about their lives. So here was a golden
opportunity: a local who struck up a conversation with him.
Our new friend, Shadi Khalloul, told us this used to be his family’s
village. He identified himself as a Semitic Aramean Maronite
Christian, and explained each of those terms in turn. His people
aren’t Arabs, he told us. They’re a Semitic people who have lived
since antiquity in the area that is now northern Israel and southern
Lebanon. They have defended their land and kept their faith for
1,500 years. They held out against the Arabs -- newcomers to the
Levant, who invaded from the Arabian Peninsula in the 7th century
CE, converting everyone in their path to Islam at the point of a
scimitar and extending hegemony across the entire Middle East and
North Africa. They held out against the the Ottomans from Turkey;
and so on.
The Aramaic alphabet was the ancestor of the present Hebrew one, and
independently of Arabic script (see
en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Aramaic_alphabet
). Arameans still worship in Aramaic, the language spoken here at
the time their religion began, and have kept that language alive,
just as Jews have kept Hebrew alive. In daily life, however, most of
them use the local language of the country in which they live --
which means, for those remaining in this part of the Middle East,
Arabic (indeed, they are often called Christian Arabs -- mistakenly,
says Shadi). However, there is a recent movement to revive the use
of Aramaic in daily life, which Shadi has been active in. He pointed
us at his organization’s website,
aramaic-center.com/aramaic.html
.
I wasn’t clear on why the villagers were not allowed to return after
evacuating. I get the impression it was basically a case of ‘the fog
of war’. And I can well imagine the villagers’ claim being unfairly
lumped (both legally and in the popular perception) with the right
of return for Palestinians, many of whom deserted their land with
every expectation that after the Jews were “driven into the sea” by
the overwhelming might of the surrounding Arab armies, they would
get to return and reclaim not only their own land but the Jews’ too.
We ran this story by various Israeli friends and family during the
rest of our trip. Invariably they not only were familiar with the
case (not surprisingly; see more of the saga at
en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Kafr_Bir'im
) but agreed that it was a terrible injustice. The website of
present-day Kibbutz Bar-Am also mentions the situation (
www.baram.org.il/public/htmls/articleeng.aspx?C2047=12329...
).
When we toured the Israeli Supreme Court building (which included an
excellent briefing on the Israeli legal system, as well as on the
striking architecture), I asked our tour guide about the case. “How
is it possible that the Supreme Court has ruled and yet the ruling
hasn’t been carried out?” The idea that law enforcement personnel
would -- or could -- simply choose to ignore an order of the Supreme
Court was downright bewildering to us Americans. In the US, judges,
although in many respects more limited in their scope and power than
judges in the British legal system, have ample teeth to enforce
their decisions -- up to and including jailing people for contempt
of court. Her candid answer was that this is indeed a weakness of
the Israeli system: the court just doesn’t have the muscle it needs.
We stood and talked with our new Aramean Maronite friend at Bar Am
until park closing time. His people will wait as long as it takes,
he assured us. Meanwhile, I guess they come here to picnic, and
visit the ruins of their homes, and tell their story to anyone
who’ll listen. |
