MER Article Russian Jewish Immigration and the Future of the Israeli-Palestinian Conflict Russian Jewish migration to Israel, like other international streams of the late 1980s and early 1990s, is a mass phenomenon that can be explained primarily by traditional factors. Migration occurs when people are pulled to a new country where conditions appear better, or are pushed to escape from difficult circumstances. Bernard Sabella • 11 min read
MER Article Rabin's Gaza "Goodwill Gesture" Gazans stand in the wreckage of their home, destroyed by Israeli anti-tank missiles and dynamite. Some 20 families in the al-Amal quarter of Khan Yunis were made homeless on February 11 when more than 200 Israeli soldiers and border police carried out a 13-hour military assault in search of “terrori (Author not identified) • 1 min read
MER Article Improvisation and Continuity Sabreen is considered the premier Palestinian musical group performing today. Influenced by Western rock and jazz, their distinctive style blends traditional Arab rhythms and instruments with subtly political lyrics reflecting the current active resistance to Israeli occupation. Two members of Sabre Kamal Boullata, Joost Hiltermann • 7 min read
MER Article Jerusalem Voices Editor’s Note: In preparing this special issue, we asked a number of Jerusalem residents to share their thoughts about the significance of the city to them and about ways of thinking about Jerusalem’s future. AZMI BISHARA Azmi Bishara teaches philosophy at Birzeit University in the West Bank. (Author not identified) • 7 min read
MER Article Teddy Kollek and the Native Question On Saturday night, June 10, 1967, Israeli authorities informed more than 100 families living in the Moroccan Quarter of Jerusalem’s Old City that they had three hours to evacuate their homes, where some had lived for generations. As Teddy Kollek, mayor of the western half of the city since 1965, rec Joost Hiltermann • 11 min read
MER Article Representing Jerusalem Suad Amiry is coordinator of the Palestinian team for the Jerusalem program at the Smithsonian Institution’s 1993 Folklife Festival in Washington. An architect, Amiry is also a member of the Palestinian delegation to the peace talks with Israel. As Middle East Report was going to press, the Jerusale Penny Johnson • 3 min read
MER Article Yehezkel Kedmi Being served a soda or some fresh nuts by an unassuming man in the small, crowded kiosk across from Jerusalem’s central bus station, it would be hard to know that you were in the presence of one of the most powerful and original Hebrew poetic voices alive. The story of this poet, Yehezkel Kedmi, is Ammiel Alcalay • 2 min read
MER Article Jerusalem, The Islamic City Fulfilling almost every imaginable cliche of the city as palimpsest, one embedded layer of Jerusalem has been further and further marginalized in a discourse within which gratuitous tourism has replaced the ritual of pilgrimage. Despite the short shrift given to Muslims by the Hachette Blue Guide, during the 1,310-year Ammiel Alcalay • 8 min read
MER Article Growing Up In Jerusalem: A Conversation with Majda Batsh Majda Batsh is a 34-year-old journalist who studied cinematography in the Soviet Union. She grew up a hasan sabi [tomboy], “in the streets,” her mother says, of the Muslim Quarter of the Old City, playing football on rooftops or in front of the Church of the Holy Sepulcher, and hopscotch Anita Vitullo Khoury • 5 min read
MER Article Growing Up In Jerusalem Jamila Freij (Umm Sam‘an) was born in 1930 in “new” Jerusalem, what is now called West Jerusalem. Her family had lived in Jerusalem’s Old City for 15 generations until 1925 when her father and his brother built houses in Bak‘a (which means “beautiful area”), then an unpopulated land outside the Old Anita Vitullo Khoury • 6 min read
MER Article Growing Up In Jerusalem: City of Mirrors A portrait of Albert Aghazarian hangs behind him as he sits in his living room in a century-old house nestled in the Armenian Covenant in the Old City. It captures his strong profile, but tames his coiffure, which typically has a twisted piece of hair shooting sideways. In a somewhat Penny Johnson • 8 min read
MER Article Jerusalem: A Primer It is possible to talk of Jerusalem in many ways: as a city where history lives, as a city where history lives, as a city holy to Christians, Jews and Muslims, as a place where people live and work, as a place of pilgrimage. This primer talks of Jerusalem the modern city, the city claimed by both Pa Martha Wenger • 9 min read
