Traveler's Notebook

The city of my story is a divided city. The country where it is located has many divided cities but there is where I felt the most intense emotions. Somehow its characteristics makes it more special than any other city, I have ever visited. I felt that words like effort, fair and unfair, fight, smile, bitterness, and tears have a special meaning there.

As hundreds of others cities in the past it was named differently; it was known as Mamre, Kiryat Arba and Arboa which means –four- possibly derived from its position on four hills. Today it’s called Hebron and it is located in the West Bank of Jerusalem.

I visited it in May 2014 as member of a NGO. But I could have been there as an ordinary tourist. That’s why I write this story; to convince as many people as possible to travel to Hebron. There is nothing to be afraid of. It is safe for everybody except maybe its own inhabitants. It is lively and peaceful at the same time. What is certain is that it is beautiful. Even its ruined pieces are charming.

Hebron is home to one of the most important monuments of the world. The “Ibrahimi Mosque” is also divided in parts like the city that hosts it. It hides centuries of history and it is the fourth largest mosque in the world.

Right next to it there is the local market. When the traveler passes through its gate he gets a feeling about East. The dresses’ colors, the spices’ perfumes, the street vendors’ voices, homemade potteries and the different types of tea which are sold there complete the Eastern picture.
Everything described so far applies only to the one half of the city. The other part, the quiet one, the desert one, also known as the ghost, is called Al-Shuhada street. It used to be a market full of people and life. Today is closed by the Israeli authorities. The travelers and the Israeli people are free to cross it though; the Palestinians are not.

The whole area is full of old houses with iron barred windows. The Palestinians who stay in these houses can only enter through the houses’ back side as they are not allowed to walk on the street. At the end of the road there is an Israeli settlement with 500 residents. Within that, Israelis live their own life, away but not far away from the Palestinians.

Hebron has become, probably unwillingly, a magnificent city with a unique mixture of people, religions and customs. Two different peoples who have agreed on what separates them, they must now find the right balance in order to live together in peace