Sheikh Jarrah

Sheikh Jarrah, a neighborhood in East Jerusalem, has been a source of contention between Israelis and Palestinians for decades. In the 1950s the Jordanian government relocated Palestinian refugees to the area. However, Sheikh Jarrah was seized by the state of Israel in the 1967 war. Since then the legal ownership of the homes has been highly disputed: Palestinians were allowed to live as tenants if they paid rent, but a group of Sephardic Jews claimed ownership of the land, but Palestinians produced legal documents from the Ottoman Empire proving their claim to the land, but then parts of Sheikh Jarrah were occupied by Sephardic settlers. In 2001 a Sephardic family forcibly occupied a Palestinian home in Sheikh Jarrah, and in 2009 the Israeli courts granted this family legal residency. The home (below) has been decorated with a giant menorah replica, as well as Israeli flags. It is literally across the street from another (disputed) Palestinian home. It is difficult to find objective articles about Sheikh Jarrah, so I have included links to a few different sites:


sheikhjarrah.com
International Solidarity Movement
Haaretz News on Sheikh Jarrah, David Grossman (also, searching for 'Sheikh Jarrah' at Haaretz.com will give you access to many more articles)
Ir Amim
Israel National News, Op-Ed




Every Friday people gather in East Jerusalem's neighborhood of Sheikh Jarrah to protest the [illegal] Jewish settlements in the area. On May 28, the last Friday of my trip, I was a participatory observer (observant participator? Badass anthropologist?) on the small march from Damascus Gate to the large protest at Sheikh Jarrah....






...the people marching were a small, but very enthusiastic and charismatic, group of mostly young Israeli adults. During the march people were drumming, chanting and singing. These youtube videos will give you a good idea of the protest:

Weekly Protest, 1/01/10
Weekly Protest 12/18/09


The march and the protest at the square had a completely different feel from the protest I attended at Bil'in. I was told that the 5/28 protest was unusually drama-free, so perhaps my view is innacurate, but the whole thing felt much more peaceful, and perhaps more inspired. I can't escape my Quaker roots, and so the pacifism of Sheikh Jarrah- the lack of tear gas and stone-throwing- really appealed to me. However, Israeli soldiers were (of course) present at the protest.









...my political sympathies aside, Sheikh Jarrah was also a great place to see graffiti. There is a sort of graffiti war happening between the residents and supporters of Sheikh Jarrah, and the Jewish settlers in the area. The graffiti below is about three blocks from the occupied homes, across the street from the square where the protest takes place.




...there is also a lot of graffiti on and around the contested homes in Sheikh Jarrah.




















...and the Tent