Sprouts of waving grain bristle back and forth in the wind. Their rhythm accelerates, swaying one way and then the other. In what seems to be a matter of minutes they gradually thin out, thrashed into piles. The landscape once heightened by the tips of the wheat crop cascades into flatness. The field once overflowing with wheat is now trimmed.
Simha Halperin learned farming from his father-in-law. He learned tolerance, too, from a man who survived the Holocaust and escaped to Israel from Poland.
“He said, ‘A man, he has hands, two legs, and a head,’ ” Simha says. “It does not matter what kind of idea is in his head. If he is Christian, Muslim, or Jew, they are all made of one bone.’ ”
Imagine Thanksgiving in the heat of the sun, surrounded by family, taking time off from work, gathering fruits and olives for days at a time.
For most Americans this would be a horror, but for the Palestinian this yearly tradition is something of a holiday
Side by side, three men smoke shisha, eat figs and drink coffee — one a Muslim, one a Christian, and the other a Jew.
They’re friends, gathered at a souvenir ship in Sebastiya in the heart of the West Bank. Muhammad Kayed runs the shop and his Christian friend, Sami Dababneh, tends the tomb of John the Baptist in the ruins nearby that date back 10,000 years to Alexander the Great, first to rule and wreck it.
As you depart the city center of Nablus you stumble into signs directing you to Tel Aviv, Jerusalem and the Dead Sea. Tour busses along with the main flows of traffic head in this direction, aligned with arrows. Perpendicular to the main road are unmarked streets, appearing to lead uninhabited lands.
But hidden within the mountainous regions are small Palestinian communities. Intermittently dispersed along this desert landscape are towns like Yanoon.
Jala Yaseen meticulously tracks his flock of more than 1,000 sheep: Their health, their output, how they’ve been bred.
Navigating a Palestinian farm combines adventure and challenge. Plants emerge from the rocky ground like Legos strewn in a toddler’s playroom, and branches constantly affront the face, at times softening and then fully exposing the unwavering sun.